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To: colorado tanker
If the Big Bang theory is proven accurate, and the evidence is piling up, doesn't it prove a moment of creation? And doesn't creation imply the existence of a creator? So why do Darwinist scientists so strongly reject the implications of a created universe?

Just addressing this superficially, the common definition of concepts such as "moment of creation" break down when talking about something like the Big Bang hypothesis. It is very hard for the human mind to conceive of things where normal concepts of "time" and "space" don't apply. Physics frequently uses metaphors from the common language to describe things that have mathematical properties that can differ substantially from common usage.

I don't think Darwinists strongly reject the concept of a creator so much as the people who posit a creator for the universe do so using naive assumptions and necessities that aren't actually correct in the context of the theory. In other words, the metaphors by which many people understand physics break long before you actually get to the point of the creation of the universe, and therefore so do many of the ideas based on those metaphors. To have really meaningful discussions of such things, you kind of have to get into the descriptive mathematics.

On the other hand, positing a creator for the universe also seems to create necessary consequences that people approaching this from a strictly religious standpoint aren't comfortable with. So while I think many "Darwinists" would be willing to entertain the idea of a creator (as it is not excluded by the theory of evolutionary speciation), it would likely be a creator that doesn't fit neatly into the religious doctrine of some individuals. I've seen as much heat between religious fundamentalists and what you could call rational creator theory as you do between the religious fundamentalists and the atheists on the same topic. All of which tends to indicate to me that these discussions are just a proxy argument for other issues the religious fundamentalists have in my opinion.

154 posted on 02/05/2002 2:11:15 PM PST by tortoise
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To: tortoise
Well of course the creation of the universe was complex. But it is increasingly certain that it happened. I'm not a scientist, but I've read The Elegant Universe, Hawking's books, and a bunch of others. The fact that the universe is at once complex and elegantly simple is fascinating and wondrous.

Astrophysicists and indeed almost all scientists I know cheerfully concede how much they have yet to learn about the universe. But not Darwinists. I believe your post reveals why - you're terrified that any concession that any part of Darwin's theories may have been wrong will give a victory to the "fundamentalists." All I can say is "be not afraid." Go where the evidence takes you, not where fear, prejudice and peer pressure dictate. The very best that can be said for Darwin's theory that some species evolved into others by natural selection is "not proven." And after 150 years of fruitless searching for the fossil record of the innumerable mutations necessary to support the theory, I don't think natural selection will ever be proven.

Calling me a fundy or creationist won't prove the theory of natural selection, either. It does reveal, however, that this debate has much more to do with the culture wars than with science.

177 posted on 02/05/2002 2:52:29 PM PST by colorado tanker
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