Posted on 12/20/2010 7:19:04 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Please tell us exactly where evolution conclusively shows creation to be wrong.
Only one of the two has a track-record marked with fraudulent evidence while down-playing and ignoring any facts & evidential conclusions that go against the popular mainstream thought-processes.
Which btw is how we almost got global warming and carbon-credits legislated upon us.
Darwin said that the discovery of fossil evidence (or lack thereof) over the 150 years following his life would either prove or disprove his theory. Well, the clock is quickly running out, and we have yet to discover any 'missing links' on the evolutionary tree from the original species.
As to your response, you address the creation - something that evolutionism avoids. So again, was there an intelligent designer or not? Evolutionism dictates that there was not.
Natural Law: quoting - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI): "The Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such.
"It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it.
One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it.
"Anything else is an image and a way of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings.
One must distinguish between the form of portrayal and the content that is portrayed.
The form would have been chosen from what was understandable at the time -- from the images which surrounded the people who lived then, which they used in speaking and in thinking, and thanks to which they were able to understand the greater realities.
And only the reality that shines through these images would be what was intended and what was truly enduring.
"Thus Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established.
"Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world."
Well worth repeating. ;-)
the Left's favorite canard about Christians view of how man began
-Sir Arthur Stanly Eddington-
There’s plenty of ‘Science in the Bible’
http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtml
Also at least the Genesis account (In the beginning, God) defines who the author or first cause. I failed to see where the big bang theory or any other scientific theory defines the first cause.
At least the smarter ones have determined that there had to be a first cause w/ much higher intelligence than that found on Earth.
There’s plenty of ‘Science in the Bible’
http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/science.shtml
Also at least the Genesis account (In the beginning, God) defines who the author or first cause. I failed to see where the big bang theory or any other scientific theory defines the first cause.
At least the more intelligent theories have determined that there had to be a first cause w/ much higher intelligence than that found on Earth.
Just one sided? I intend to argue the side of Truth.
Do you expect me to "fair and balanced" argue the other side too? ;-)
Here's your first example:
"1.DNA in “ancient” fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years."
This only proves that under the right conditions, DNA can survive indefinitely.
It proves nothing about the age of the earth.
There is no proof that DNA can last that long - just another hopeful ‘monster’ or philosophical pandering.
In fact no evos even made a claim like that until presented w/ 65 million year old t-rex soft tissues.
No serious scientist does those things.
I'll say again, there are dozens of scientific methods, radiometric and otherwise, for dating ancient materials.
Sure, each method has its limitations, and pitfalls which must be carefully watched for.
But when multiple methods point toward the same conclusions, that is considered strong scientific evidence.
Problems in dating do not necessarily mean dating is impossible, or that all dates before 10,000 BC are in error.
Your statement that "creation science" is not scientific is certainly true.
But your criticism of evolution is not, for multiple reasons:
"Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world."An older meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained "
So, originally science needed to be "reliable," "logical" and "rational."
Today science needs also to be "testable."
Additionally, the scientific method requires explanations be "reproducible":
"A scientific method seeks to explain the events of nature in a reproducible way, and to use these findings to make useful predictions."This is done partly through observation of natural phenomena, but also through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions.
"Taken in its entirety, a scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving whilst minimizing any effects of subjective bias on the part of its users (namely the confirmation bias)."
Both elements of basic evolution are observed and reproducible facts.
In the end all that is ‘proven’ is micro-evolution which creation science does not dispute - change within a kind.
What you need are missing links - not just one though - but millions upon millions. Without these evolution is just wishful thinking.
BJK - So, originally science needed to be “reliable,” “logical” and “rational.” I agree in which case creation science and thousands not millions nor billions of years passes this test. And Occam’s razor applies here as well.
Again you have not even scratched the surface of the counter-arguments of creation science. Rather than finding the problems with the 101 age-dating techniques on my list why don’t you simply list the problems with the age-dating clocks evolution employs. What you will find is there is no 100% reliable method in science nor in any naturally occurring clocks and the vast majority support logic and reason to match the somewhat less than 10,000 years existance w/ physical proofs & man-made artifacts.
Uniformitarianism simply does not apply to either the modern day observations nor any historical passage of time.
Oh and let’s not forget the big black hole of evolution - the 3rd rail which pc types will tell you is not to be discussed. How did 3 billion coded protein sequences form the first single-celled organism? Primordial soup, panspermia, aliens, or just some other hopeful monsters?
To a totally lost unbeliever, with zero grasp of reality, I suppose.
The “late pope” was just as lost as you are.
Unbelievers are simply lost.
“There is no proof that DNA can last that long - just another hopeful ‘monster’ or philosophical pandering.
In fact no evos even made a claim like that until presented w/ 65 million year old t-rex soft tissues.”
—There’s also no reason to believe that DNA *can’t* last that long. When it comes to the preservation of such molecules, conditions are everything.
If we can dig up mammoth carcasses that are tens of thousands of years old (at least thousands even by most YEC’s timing) that look like they literally just died the day before, than finding microscopic bits of soft tissue (if a few protein molecules can really be called that) protected deep inside large bones that are tens of millions of years old hardly seem outlandish IMO.
It’s also untrue that such findings of soft tissue was wholly unexpected. I recall throughout the 80’s scientists saying that with the latest technology that we should soon be able recover dino dna (which has yet to happen yet btw). I’ve heard Crichton say that that’s what inspired him to write Jurassic Park in 1990.
You mean, "creation" defined scientifically as... what?
Continuing the discussion on the definition of "science," at its core is a philosophical outlook called:
"Methodological naturalism (or scientific naturalism):... is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge, irrespective of one's metaphysical or religious views.It requires that hypotheses be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events.[3]
Explanations of observable effects are considered to be practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles).
Methodological naturalism is the principle underlying all of modern science."
So, the first requirement for science is that: it must be a natural explanation for natural events.
In other words, as soon as you introduce the supernatural or religious explanation, it's not, by definition "science."
That does not, of course, mean such explanations are necessarily wrong, it only means they are not "science."
My own opinion is that God created the Universe with His purposes in Mind, and therefore no natural physical event is ever truly "random" or "purposeless," regardless of how much they may seem so to us.
God has a reason for everything, even if we don't understand it.
So evolution like everything else God does, is not some random walk in the park.
It's simply how God chose to do things -- or more precisely, it's how God chose to reveal his processes to us in terms of scientific naturalism.
BrandtMichaels: "Only one of the two has a track-record marked with fraudulent evidence while down-playing and ignoring any facts & evidential conclusions that go against the popular mainstream thought-processes."
You totally misunderstand what science is, if you imagine that science expects to get everything right the first time.
True science is all about finding and explaining those "outlier" data results -- the ones that don't fit the old theories.
It's what scientists live for -- it's how they make their reputations.
Any scientist who comes up with a new and better explanation for an old anomaly will at least create a stir, if not immediate acceptance.
But it's simply no explanation at all to say: "God did it," and no scientist will say that.
Instead they say: we don't know how that happened.
And there's a lot that science doesn't know.
How much of that will eventually prove to be "the Hand of God," is anyone's guess.
My own view (along with most Christian Churches) is that all of Nature is ruled by "the Hand of God," including evolution.
In other posts on this thread I've mentioned the term "theistic evolutionism". It is the view taught by the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations.
It means, in short: evolution is God's handy-work.
The evidence from DNA and fossils points back toward common ancestors for nearly all of life on earth.
I say "nearly all" because at its most primitive, "life" can be a bit hard to define.
The best known examples of that are viruses -- are they truly "alive" or just some exotic combination of chemicals?
Another such entity is the "whatever" that causes Mad Cow Disease.
Again, borderline if it's considered "life" or not.
And there are many other examples in nature, which because they are so primitive (yes, some would say that "primitive" should be in quotes), there's no way to correlate their DNA with that of all other life forms.
All that said, nearly all of life as we know it shares common DNA elements, and therefore is considered likely to have risen from common ancestors.
Hoodat: "The point I was trying to make was that evolution does not account for the original creation of life.
It does not account for the Cambrian explosion."
Understand: basic evolution theory has two simple elements: 1) descent with modification and 2) natural selection.
The existence of those elements are observed and confirmed scientific facts.
From these facts, science looks backwards in time at the fossil records and DNA analyses (among other techniques) and tries to explain how life as we see it today came from life as recorded in geological stacks.
So, in what sense could "descent with modifications" and "natural selection" -- basic evolution -- not explain the events you listed: the origin of life, Cambrian explosion, etc.?
Seems to me that such processes operating over billions of years could produce the fossil records, the DNA correlations and the various life forms we see today.
Why would you disagree?
Hoodat: "...And evolution cannot explain the ascent of man."
But the ascent of man is recorded in fossils of nearly two dozen pre-human species dating back millions of years.
The earliest of these are far more chimpanzee like than human, while the most recent (Neanderthals) arguably are human.
Hoodat: "we have yet to discover any 'missing links' on the evolutionary tree from the original species."
What are you talking about?
Every fossil is a "missing link" to something.
All of life is a "transitional" form -- transitioning from something old and potentially to something new.
There are no fossils which are not "missing links."
Hoodat: "As to your response, you address the creation - something that evolutionism avoids.
So again, was there an intelligent designer or not? Evolutionism dictates that there was not."
I've spent a lot of time on these threads trying to explain to folks who hate science what science is all about, and how it properly relates to their religious beliefs.
To summarize: rightly or wrongly, science by definition is natural explanations for natural occurrences.
If you say that science is inadequate to explain something, you may well be right, and your alternative explanation may not be wrong -- but it is not, by definition, "science."
It may be your religion, or theology, or philosophy, or artistry, and as such it may even be superior to science, but it is not science, and that's the point I've tried to make here.
Most Christian denominations and churches teach something called "theistic evolutionism," meaning: God creates through natural processes, such as evolution.
So of course, God is the Intelligent Designer of the Universe, and everything in it, and nothing natural & physical happens except according to God's original intent.
In short, what just appears to scientists to be mere random processes (i.e., mutations, natural selection), are in fact the unfolding of God's Great Plan.
To me that makes perfectly good sense, and is no doubt the reason why it's what most Christian churches teach.
I don't understand why people like you keep throwing out entropy as somehow being the enemy of evolution.
It's not, and that's been explained by other posters over and over again.
But you seem determined to twist and distort it, no matter how carefully explained.
Put simply: the earth is not a "closed system" because there are constant inflows and outflows of engery, from the sun and elsewhere.
The result is that, from all geological records, the earth for billions of years has been a good place for life to do what life does: grow, develop and exploit its natural environments.
Sure, entropy is a natural part of life.
You might even say, it's why we die.
But as long as there is new energy coming to the earth (from the sun):
Imho, that's God's Plan.
I'll repeat: most Christian churches and denominations teach "theistic evolutionism" meaning: God creates through natural processes such as evolution.
Science, by definition can only look for natural causes of natural occurrences.
Literally, science cannot say: "God caused the Big Bang," because that is not a scientific explanation.
But you and I can certainly say it, and that is exactly what most Christian churches and denominations teach.
They also teach, and I believe, that evolution is God's handiwork -- the unfolding of God's Great Plan.
The proof is right there, for anyone willing to look at it: DNA surviving in "suspended animation" for hundreds of millions of years.
Add a little water, and the critters start swimming around again, having a jolly old time, reproducing, just as if they had never been "dead".
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....
"In fact no evos even made a claim like that until presented w/ 65 million year old t-rex soft tissues."
You truly don't understand how science works, do you?
Science cannot claim what it has no evidence to support.
When it has confirmed evidence, then a "claim" becomes a scientific fact -- such as basic evolution.
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