Posted on 02/07/2014 9:42:01 AM PST by The Looking Spoon
So an apparently epic creation/evolution debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham took place recently. I haven't seen it yet, but it's definitely on my to do list. As a Christian who believes in God I don't reject evolution outright, but I totally reject the evolutionists dismissal of the creation/intelligent design crowd. I believe the creationist views and arguments are just as valid (if not more so) than evolution in that at least the creationist side is honest about the bottom line being that their arguments and beliefs are rooted in faith. Both sides operate on faith, but to me it seems that the evolution side tries to pretend it's not.
So, at this event people were asked to write a message to those on their opposing side and there were some really good ones. I picked out the 5 most powerful arguments for creation and the 5 most ridiculous bits of snark from the evolution side.
Do I have my bias, sure, but it's clear that as a whole one side should definitely be taken more seriously than the other.
THOSE are supposed to be the most powerful arguments? You guys are in serious need of some intellectual rigor and honesty.
Yeah, I know the other side looks for highly technical talk from a phD in a lab coat (because that’s where “rigor” comes from, right?)
But to ask how believing in the Big Bang isn’t an act of faith (for instance) not unlike a belief that God’s hand created everything IS powerful. Because for all the high-minded talk and the superiority complex coming evolutionists and those who bow at the altar of science such a simple statement/question crumbles their attempt to assert a sort of infallible (they think) authority over their opponents.
And then they’re reduced to “psssh...psssh...uhhhhhh....psssh” responses like yours.
I seriously need some evolutionist to explain in a credible manner how sexual reproduction could possibly have ever developed... two distinctly different, yet fully compatible evolutionary paths in which two genders exist such that when they come together, a new creature can be formed, thus perpetuating the species.
Never mind all of the intricate molecular and biological processes that have to take place to make all that work.
Agreed. Why don't you give us the most powerful arguments for first living cell arising randomly with the 6 feet of DNA structures necessary to codify not only the organization of the cell, but its replication system, the repair system, the communication system, the fabrication system and its integration system with soon to be surrounding cells. I think we missed that part in the other 5 cards.
Its a faith thing... one need have faith in the super..ludicrous to support the not quite a theory...theory of evolution!
“THOSE are supposed to be the most powerful arguments? You guys are in serious need of some intellectual rigor and honesty.”
Yes. And spelling as well.
Yet I think there is no reason to challenge their honesty and that unnecessary insult says a lot about where you are coming from.
The five from the other side were quite idiotic as well, except for the first one, which seemed sincere despite it’s limitations in intellectual rigor.
Thanks for all your replies.
Yes, let’s reduce science to soundbites. That’ll help.
Also, where did the information come from that is in the DNA?
It has been calculated that the odds against abiogenesis are 1 in 10 to the 100,000th power against.
Scientists generally agree that anything that is 1 in 10 to the 80th power against is impossible.
Sounds like you’ve been reading Stephen Meyer...
Good stuff, incidentally.
Don’t act like I posted these images in a vacuum (THAT is intellectual dishonesty).
Furthermore, I didn’t reduce anything, I’m sharing the “sound bytes” OTHER PEOPLE created at a 2 hour debate, which is not a “sound byte.”
Why did you choose the share the sound bites instead something more substantial?
yes the ALIENS......musta done it
the Space Brothers...
GAIA... yes thats it.... Gaia
if theres a BANG....it CAME from somewhere..
before creation there was no somewhere...
“Why don’t you give us the most powerful arguments for first living cell arising randomly with the 6 feet of DNA structures necessary to codify not only the organization of the cell, but its replication system, the repair system, the communication system, the fabrication system and its integration system with soon to be surrounding cells.”
Well, we could always preform an experiment. It would take a long time, so instead, let’s perform a thought experiment, but instead of shooting for what you describe above, let’s go for something simpler, say a nano-sized CF-53 Panasonic i7 laptop with Windows 7 Professional x64 with integrated nano-solar cells for power.
First, we fill a billion (or so) beakers full of the elemental powders from which the above were formed, put some sea water in, and then bombarded the laptop soup in the beakers with lightening for a few hundred million years (or so).
What are the chance of getting our nano-laptop and OS. Pretty good, right? After all, that’s a WAY simpler setup than a self-replicating cell.
Do you think that we would eventually obtain a single integrated circuit chip forming in the beaker? And then the chip should eventually EVOLVE all by itself into the laptop (with operating system) after being bombarded by cosmic rays for a long time after that? After all, bombarding an integrated circuit (or cell) with cosmic rays would be like bombarding an Intel i7 fabrication plant with 20mm depleted uranimum shells from an A-10 Warthog, and expecting to get an i9 processor coming out afterwards.
If organic life formed by accident in a similar scenario, then certainly there should be no problem with obtaining the laptop and operating system in a like fashion, because after all, the laptop and OS are a few thousand trillion times simpler than, say, the Homo Sapiens species. In fact, we should obtain the laptop and OS much faster because they are so much simpler.
I wonder how long we’ll have to shake our beakers?
You can believe in an omnipotent Creator, and also believe it's impossible for Him to have created live that can evolve?
Sounds like a rap song...Shake your beakers, shake your beakers.
However, you have aptly described the problem. The possibilities are non-existent. As Stephen Meyer writes, it would be like marking a single atom in the entire universe, putting all of the mass in a barrel, then picking it out of the barrel. Fairly small. No matter how much we shake our beakers.
I took the time this morning to watch all two hours and forty-five minutes of this alleged "debate".
First of all, what everybody needs to understand is that such "debate" only exists at all because virtually nobody understands the definitions/meanings of its most important terms.
As a result, people like Ham & Nye can talk for hours right past each other, sometimes using the same words, but meaning different things by them, and often distorting their real meanings.
Second, for a debate allegedly over "Creationism versus Evolution", there was virtually no discussion of actual evolution, and no serious defense of it by Nye.
Ham made numerous unanswered claims against evolution, while Nye wandered off into other subjects.
Third, it was abundantly obvious that Ham clearly understood both his audience and his subject, while Nye grasped neither.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, the subtexts of the debate were more important than the subject matter itself.
In the case of Ham that was: Christian fundamentalists can and should be scientists -- simply remember the distinction between "observational science" and "historical science".
In the case of Nye it was: science is more interesting than anything you might read in some ancient text.
Now, to begin resolving the problem of "Creationism versus Evolution", you must first understand that science itself, literally, can't debate "creationism".
It's a point that Ham tried his best to deny, but the fact is, by definition, science can't deal with anything supernatural.
Since at least the Renaissance in western civilization, the word "science" has been short for "natural-science" which means: natural explanations for natural processes, period.
As soon as you bring anything supernatural into a discussion, then it's no longer "science".
That's one reason why people like Nye can't answer the question: where did the "Big Bang" come from?
As soon as you say, "God made it", then you've left science and entered theology.
Ham made clear that he was there to defend his religious beliefs, and that no scientific evidence would ever change his mind about that.
Nye made clear that no biblical text would ever influence his scientific conclusions.
So, bottom line: the debate question was,
*Thanks to Eugenie Scott.
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