Creation vs. Evolution

[Danoff]

This is the beauty of science. It makes observations, but it doesn't claim to know what happened without proof. So scientists have observed that something caused the dinosaurs to go extinct... but since they don't know exactly why, they don't claim they know. Science doesn't have to have all of the answers right now (and I think that makes a lot of sense), but religious folks can't seem to stand not having all of the answers right away - which is why religious people attack science by saying that it doesn't have all of the answers while religion does.

Yea, I can make up answers too. That doesn't make them right. Scientists have made up answers - but they don't claim them to be true. They're left as possibilities... theories.

The "it doesn't have all the answers therefore it is wrong, and we do have all the answers therefore we're right" argument doesn't sit well with me.

 

[a6m5]

The "it doesn't have all the answers therefore it is wrong, and we do have all the answers therefore we're right" argument doesn't sit well with me.

Yeah, I look at science as studies, but many religious types see it as a threat to their religion. You have to keep on asking questions, way I look at it.

 

[Keef]

Basically religion is a remnant of times when science was an unknown subject. People didn't think of taking time to look for the answers, so, as was said, they resorted to the Bible and whatnot for quick answers. They also didn't wonder if they made sense or not, they just accepted them, no questions asked. It's too bad this aspect of religion is still around, though more rare than it once was.
I view religion as a way to have a friend, in imaginary friend, to talk to when you can't get help from other humans. That's fine with me, everyone needs help every now and then. But don't take it too far as to discount real evidence or fact. I wonder what a creationist would say if asked why God made gravity? "So we couldn't fly away, find Him, and kill Him for making sex illegal."
HA!

Okay, not too funny, but it was a 10 second job. You try one.

 

[Firebird]

Scientists have made up answers - but they don't claim them to be true. They're left as possibilities... theories.

Hypotheses, not theories. Theories are accepted as true, while hypotheses haven't been tested.

Hypotheses that are tested and verified become theories, and accepted as truth. Hypotheses that are tested and disproven are still hypotheses, and not considered to be true.




Sorry, but I've seen the "evolution is just a 'theory'" argument bandied about so many times that I feel the irrepressible urge to clear the matter up no matter the discussion or the point being made.

 

[Kylehnat]

^Agreed. I think the meaning of "theory" confuses many people. In life, we tend to think of "theory" as "guess", whereas in science "theory" basically means "widely accepted as fact". And in math, "theory" means something else. Let's not even get into corollaries, axioms, and lemma

 

[Touring Mars]

A key point about my last post is this... why should the credibility of Science be called into question at every possible opportunity, when the credibility of the claims of Creationists are accepted without question?

To argue a point of potential factual merit is to be encouraged, but, by the same token, to merely accept a point of dubious merit without question is quite wrong... unfortunately, it is this very point that people like Ken Ham rely on... that people are not willing to question him, even when his claims are ridiculous...

 

[Danoff]

Hypotheses, not theories. Theories are accepted as true, while hypotheses haven't been tested.

Hypotheses that are tested and verified become theories, and accepted as truth. Hypotheses that are tested and disproven are still hypotheses, and not considered to be true.

Thanks for the correction, I should have said hypotheses. However, your definition of theory is too strict. Theories are not accepted as truth, but rather, as a hypothesis with evidence to support it (if i understand it correctly). If it were certainly true, proven beyond doubt, it would be a law. There is still some doubt in a theory.

You're right though, I should have used hypothesis.

 

[Kylehnat]

If it were certainly true, proven beyond doubt, it would be a law. There is still some doubt in a theory.

My interpretation is that a scientific theory is true, but cannot be proven explicitly. When I say "true", I mean that it has been extensively tested, been generally accepted, and not disproven. In the case of evolution (as a means for creating life), this has been done. However, it cannot be proven explicitly, because there is no way of going back in time billions of years to see if the theory is correct. This is where creationists wrongly state that the theory must therefore be false. Many things in science are this way; true without the possibly of definate proof. Gravity, for example. What causes gravity? There is no reasonable way to definatively prove what gravity is, yet we have Laws of Gravitation. I don't hear Bible-thumpers complaining about that...

 

[Famine]

Laws describe why things happen and frequently don't bother with the hows.

You can use Newton's Law of Gravity to describe nearly any model where gravity is a factor - and Einstein's to describe ANY such model (where Newton's just isn't quite accurate enough. x and y behave like this because they have a gravitational field of X and Y on each other, blah, blah, blah. There is no requirement to know what a Graviton is or how it behaves in order to understand how gravity works, or to form a Law of Gravity.

 

[Danoff]

My interpretation is that a scientific theory is true, but cannot be proven explicitly. When I say "true", I mean that it has been extensively tested, been generally accepted, and not disproven.

That is what I mean by "There is still some doubt in a theory". It is not absolutely certain, but perhaps as certain as we can be.

Many things in science are this way; true without the possibly of definate proof. Gravity, for example. What causes gravity? There is no reasonable way to definatively prove what gravity is, yet we have Laws of Gravitation. I don't hear Bible-thumpers complaining about that...

I wouldn't necessarily say without possibility. For all we know, we'll figure out how to go back in time to see evolution occur. Perhaps if we can travel faster than the speed of light we can go a billion light years from here and look back at our planet to see evolution occur. Who knows? And perhaps one day we'll have a better handle on gravity.

But you're right, that a theory is distinguished from a hypothesis by evidence and validation. Law, I suppose, is called that because it is perfectly testable and observable. It is self-evident.

Edit: Ah, I see Famine has a better handle on what makes scientific law.

 

[Small_Fryz]

He is also saying that when God made the earth he made every single animal that has ever existed at once!, and from then animals have been getting extinct.

That picture of the dinosaurs TM provided shows all the dinosaurs we know about? Im sure their are more that we havnt found yet.

At a good guess how many different species of animals would that ark have to hold? which would make it how big?

 

[kennythebomb]

Why is Ken Ham the only man you are citing? He may be just one nutcase in a high position. Ken Ham does not speak for the entire Christian community.

I believe dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, obviously those bones came from somewhere. If, as scientists say, 65 million years ago, they mostly or all died, then I don't see how that relates at all to them being on the ark. I don't see how dinosaurs and Noah were around at the same time, seeing as this was just a few thousand years ago. Ken Ham's position on this isn't relevant.

Someone brought up a good point about all the animals being out there in meager resources. I never thought about that before. How did they not resort to killing all of each other? I could never give a scientific answer to that, all I could say is that the Lord provided in one way or another, apparently he did some mighty fine miracles that he didn't bother to specify.

 

[Keef]

Well, Small Fryz, let's calculate. 1*10/(35*46,000,023^6)e23/4.2+5=...err....
You get the idea. I bet there have been so many types of singlecell bacteria living on this planet since its birth that if you took two of each you could fill up the Georgia Dome. Maybe not, but since bacteria evolve almost as quickly as rats reproduce, there have been a lot of 'em. I think scientists classify viruses as species, too, even though they aren't alive, don't they? Viruses, mainly Flu viruses, are notoriously pathetic at copying their DNA without screwing up, and this causes so many mutations that they evolve by the day. Probably 99% of these mutations don't work too well, so they die off or mutate again and again, until a combination comes up that works. Like Avian Flu. Or that Spanish Flu from back in the day. Killed millions!
So how exactly did Noah transport hundreds of millions of types of bacterias and viruses without getting any of the other animals sick? A miracle.....of science, perhaps?

 

[Kylehnat]

Duh! Noah made a giant petri dish to drag behind the ark!

 

[Touring Mars]

Why is Ken Ham the only man you are citing? He may be just one nutcase in a high position. Ken Ham does not speak for the entire Christian community.

You make a very good point there, Kenny - indeed, Ken Ham and the entirety of his 'Answers In Genesis' enterprise (which includes the world's first Creation Museum) do not represent the views of the vast majority of Christians - however, it is relevant to this thread because this thread is not Religion v Evolution, it's Creation v Evolution - and Ken Ham is Creationist numero uno. The fact that Creationism is merely a small subsection of an extremely diverse and culturally rich Christian community is something that Ken Ham himself seems to forget. By adamantly sticking to the misguided notion that what he says is absolutely right, when in reality it is absolutely wrong, in my view does the whole Christian community a severe disservice.

I believe dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, obviously those bones came from somewhere. If, as scientists say, 65 million years ago, they mostly or all died, then I don't see how that relates at all to them being on the ark. I don't see how dinosaurs and Noah were around at the same time, seeing as this was just a few thousand years ago. Ken Ham's position on this isn't relevant.

Once again, it is only the hardcore Creationist who would argue that dinosaurs were on the Ark, but that is precisely what they are doing - to the rest of us, it's not realistic to envisage that the story of the Ark is literally true word for word. Whether or not there was a 'biblical flood', which occured a few thousand years ago, the dinosaurs were long gone before it ever happened. However, since Creationists believe that dinosaurs were created at the same time as Man (and not millions of years before hand), they are left with no option but to insist that they must have been on the Ark - indeed, a Creationists only explanation for fossils is that they are the remains of animals (including dinosaurs) killed by the Flood of Noah's day - hence, if dinosaurs were around to be killed by the flood, Noah was around to save a couple of each on his Ark...

Someone brought up a good point about all the animals being out there in meager resources. I never thought about that before. How did they not resort to killing all of each other? I could never give a scientific answer to that, all I could say is that the Lord provided in one way or another, apparently he did some mighty fine miracles that he didn't bother to specify.

Again, you hit the nail on the head - how did they not resort to killing each other? The answer is that they would have, and it would have been a right bloody mess. The story of the Ark, if taken literally, doesn't stand up to rational scrutiny. Taken metaphorically, however, it does indeed bear some similarity to known pre-historical facts - indeed, all living creatures on Earth today are only here as a result of the remarkable survival of some ancestor in the dim and distant past. The story of the Ark describes a mass extinction event.... it is remarkable just how accurate that actually is, considering that it was written over 2000 years ago. There have been atleast five mass extinctions, the last being ~65 million years ago, and only a handful of creatures survived to tell the tale each time. During these events, resources would indeed have been hard to come by, but the Earth is a resilient place, and even after an extinction level event, resources like food and clean drinking water would not be in short supply for very long...

Viruses, mainly Flu viruses, are notoriously pathetic at copying their DNA without screwing up, and this causes so many mutations that they evolve by the day. Probably 99% of these mutations don't work too well, so they die off or mutate again and again, until a combination comes up that works. Like Avian Flu. Or that Spanish Flu from back in the day. Killed millions!
So how exactly did Noah transport hundreds of millions of types of bacterias and viruses without getting any of the other animals sick? A miracle.....of science, perhaps?

This goes for more than just viruses - it's the essence of natural selection itself - if it works, it gets reproduced, if it doesn't work, it doesn't get reproduced... viruses are a great example though.

I think the point about Noah's Ark just goes to further illustrate that a literal interpretation of the story is a logical dead end. The fact that certain species do survive mass extinction events could arguably be described as miraculous - but it could also be described as sheer luck.

edit: For anybody in any doubt over Ken Ham's influence regarding this subject, take a look at this article (free registration required) from the front page of the LA Times, 11 Feb 2006... despite hardly being supportive of Ham's position, the article is mentioned on Ham's own website, Answers in Genesis (on the premise that any publicity is good publicity...)
Transcript available upon request..., here's a little taster of the sort of high-level debate that you'll be letting yourself in for

"A is for Adam, God made him from dust / He wasn't a monkey, he looked just like us."

 

[ledhed]

I wonder wich " US " he looked like ?

 

[Touring Mars]

That picture of the dinosaurs TM provided shows all the dinosaurs we know about? Im sure their are more that we havnt found yet.

​

That figure was, ahem, adapted from a brilliant review in Science: "The Evolution of Dinosaurs", Paul C. Sereno, Science, 284: 2137-2147 (1999). Each branch of that tree (a phylogenetic tree) represents a 'clade' (a group of distinct species). Also, the nodes (where the branches meet) represent the common ancestor clade of each branch (names are not shown for clarity, but there are 59 nodes in total) - so that diagram actually shows around 140 different clades, each one with different species within (for example, the clade HETERODONTOSAURIDAE contains the genera Heterodontosaurus and Abrictosaurus)... in other words, that's one hell of alot of different dinosaurs already! - of course, they didn't all exist at the same time, so Noah would have an even bigger problem getting them all on his boat.

Once again, by sheer coincidence, a friend and colleague who is a paleobiologist/evolutionary biologist emailed me about a talk by one of Sereno's collaborators, and general all-round fossil/dinosaur/extinction event expert Prof. Michael Benton (Bristol University) tomorrow evening in London - I just hope I can go along... his website has loads of his publications free to read (you need Adobe Acrobat Reader)..., which anybody interested in the C v E debate should find interesting/helpful... edit: check this one out - a genus-level phylogenetic 'super-tree', showing the relationship of some 277 different genera of dinosaurs! Note that genus-level is above species-level

 

[kennythebomb]

You make a very good point there, Kenny - indeed, Ken Ham and the entirety of his 'Answers In Genesis' enterprise (which includes the world's first Creation Museum) do not represent the views of the vast majority of Christians - however, it is relevant to this thread because this thread is not Religion v Evolution, it's Creation v Evolution - and Ken Ham is Creationist numero uno. The fact that Creationism is merely a small subsection of an extremely diverse and culturally rich Christian community is something that Ken Ham himself seems to forget. By adamantly sticking to the misguided notion that what he says is absolutely right, when in reality it is absolutely wrong, in my view does the whole Christian community a severe disservice.

Okay, I understand more clearly what exactly you are saying. I agree with you that it does a disservice.

Once again, it is only the hardcore Creationist who would argue that dinosaurs were on the Ark, but that is precisely what they are doing - to the rest of us, it's not realistic to envisage that the story of the Ark is literally true word for word. Whether or not there was a 'biblical flood', which occured a few thousand years ago, the dinosaurs were long gone before it ever happened. However, since Creationists believe that dinosaurs were created at the same time as Man (and not millions of years before hand), they are left with no option but to insist that they must have been on the Ark - indeed, a Creationists only explanation for fossils is that they are the remains of animals (including dinosaurs) killed by the Flood of Noah's day - hence, if dinosaurs were around to be killed by the flood, Noah was around to save a couple of each on his Ark...

However, I must say that if the Bible says every kind of animal alive at the time was present, then I would believe that all the species would somehow make it there. I don't know how the Lord would transport species from other areas of the globe, but hey, he is God (and if we are going to assume that the Lord exists for the sake of my point) than surely he could accomplish that.

Again, you hit the nail on the head - how did they not resort to killing each other? The answer is that they would have, and it would have been a right bloody mess. The story of the Ark, if taken literally, doesn't stand up to rational scrutiny.

Hardly any popular story involving miracles stands up to rational scrutiny. However, this thread isn't about the existence of God or the veritability of the Bible so I won't dive into that deeply, all I'll say is I'll echo my above sentiment, that if there is a God, then surely he could control the animals and provide for them with some kind of manna or something, haha.

This goes for more than just viruses - it's the essence of natural selection itself - if it works, it gets reproduced, if it doesn't work, it doesn't get reproduced... viruses are a great example though.

I read about "of every living thing, of all flesh" and then "of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according ot its kind" etc. Is bacteria covered in that? Well, bacteria is a living thing, but it is not of flesh. And those three words I bolded may be serving as a further definition of what living things. So, I really don't know what to make of it.

 

[Keef]

That sounds like a quote out of the Bible, I wouldn't know. So, did God not create bacteria? We sure can see them in a micrscope. If Noah didn't take bacteria on the Ark ,why are they still around today? If they all died, how did they get here again? Did they, err...evolve? I thought everything died in the Flood besides what was on the Ark. This means they would have died, right?
Here's another fun question, you've probably heard something like it: Can God create a boulder so large He cannot pick it up?

 

[kennythebomb]

That sounds like a quote out of the Bible, I wouldn't know. So, did God not create bacteria? We sure can see them in a micrscope. If Noah didn't take bacteria on the Ark ,why are they still around today? If they all died, how did they get here again? Did they, err...evolve? I thought everything died in the Flood besides what was on the Ark. This means they would have died, right?
Here's another fun question, you've probably heard something like it: Can God create a boulder so large He cannot pick it up?

Honestly, I don't know anything about whether bacteria would have been on the ark or not. Although, I think it is reasonable to assume that they just about cover everything anyway, so Bessie might have had a bad itch for 40 days, lol

I would say no.... he is a spiritual being and isn't restrained by physical limits of human exhaustion.

 

[Keef]

Let's think like a creationalist. God isn't just an idea, he's real. So can He defy physics? How? Why? How come we can't? Why is he such a control freak?

This site is awesome and I agree with it 100%: http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/questions_for_god.html

I feel like complaining about #46's answer. If God is omniscient, why did he need to "find out" what these humans would do? He is all-knowing, which means he already knew what they would do. So why didn't he skip the experimentation step and go straight to, err, whatever he went to after that. He doesn't believe in the scientific method, anyway.

 

[kennythebomb]

Let's think like a creationalist. God isn't just an idea, he's real. So can He defy physics? How? Why? How come we can't? Why is he such a control freak?

This site is awesome and I agree with it 100%: http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/questions_for_god.html

I feel like complaining about #46's answer. If God is omniscient, why did he need to "find out" what these humans would do? He is all-knowing, which means he already knew what they would do. So why didn't he skip the experimentation step and go straight to, err, whatever he went to after that. He doesn't believe in the scientific method, anyway.

Why can God defy physics? Are you seriously asking that if there is a God who is all-powerful, why can't he do whatever he wants to bend space and time according to his will? The reason we can't is because we aren't God. We are defined by human limitations. Why is he such a control freak? I don't know, nor can I offer any possible explanation. I feel safer with God in control than just random chance, though.

As for the answer to #46, I would say God already knew it would happen and thus allowed it to. If I were God, I would allow that to happen so that things would fall into place that I could develop a system for determining which humans are good and which aren't. And, perhaps he chooses to ignore parts of his knowledge? Who knows. I sure don't.

 

[Keef]

Why can't he defy physics? It's impossible to create something infinite, though I think the universe is. It's crazy.
A rock can only get so big before it crumbles under it's own gravity..oh!, I just thought of something. If Jupiter were only 12 times its size, it would become a star. It would burst into fusion because its immense gravity puts the planet under tremendous pressure, making it so dense that it nuclear fusion occurs. Bam! a new star. Stars aren't rocks. So he can't make a rock too awful big, physics would take over and it'd become a star because of it's mass. He'd have to defy physics to make a rock bigger than it can possibly be. So why didn't he do it, just cause he can? Is he just rtrying to piss us off?

 

[kennythebomb]

Why can't he defy physics? It's impossible to create something infinite, though I think the universe is. It's crazy.
A rock can only get so big before it crumbles under it's own gravity..oh!, I just thought of something. If Jupiter were only 12 times its size, it would become a star. It would burst into fusion because its immense gravity puts the planet under tremendous pressure, making it so dense that it nuclear fusion occurs. Bam! a new star. Stars aren't rocks. So he can't make a rock too awful big, physics would take over and it'd become a star because of it's mass. He'd have to defy physics to make a rock bigger than it can possibly be. So why didn't he do it, just cause he can? Is he just rtrying to piss us off?

When you tell a child, "God can defy physics" the child can use his/her imagination to fill in the blanks.

When you tell an adult, "God can defy physics" the adult will ceaselessly try to disprove the possibility of a miracle and the power of an all-powerful being to do whatever it pleases.

Whether or not you have faith is not the issue. The issue, to me, is that I find it incredulous that you absolutely cannot believe an all-powerful being could overcome something so petty as physics that pertains to physical objects. Is science and the laws of physics so strong even the God who created them cannot defeat them?

 

[Kylehnat]

When you tell a child, "God can defy physics" the child can use his/her imagination to fill in the blanks.

That's because the child doesn't know any better, nor does he have anyway of understanding the implications of such a statement.

Why do we tell children that rainbows are made of magic fireflies? Because if you explain it to them in terms of light rays, diffraction, and the refractive properties of water, they'd start crying.

 

[Touring Mars]

Whether or not you have faith is not the issue. The issue, to me, is that I find it incredulous that you absolutely cannot believe an all-powerful being could overcome something so petty as physics that pertains to physical objects. Is science and the laws of physics so strong even the God who created them cannot defeat them?

I don't think 'absolutely cannot' is right - I'd say 'refuse to' was a more appropriate term, given that we are quite capable of believing in an all-powerful being scenario, but refuse to on the grounds that rational science provides a better (a far better) explanation for natural/physical phenomena, and that there is no evidence to support the 'Supreme Being' hypothesis (Intelligent Design/Creation Theory). In order to 'prove' the fallibility of science (and presumably Mankind too), Creationists need to resort to science to do it! The fact that their science is horribly wrong doesn't stop them... but even Creationists do not attempt to challenge other 'laws' and concepts of science, like gravity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics etc. So why do they do it with evolution? Because, simply put, it challenges the view that Mankind is something special. The fact that Creationists get so upset is because they cannot accept (despite the evidence) that their ancestors were apes (or even that we are apes, even now)... So whether or not God is capable of changing the laws of physics on a whim (or any other physical properties of the universe for that matter) is largely irrelevant - indeed, he no doubt probably could, but he doesn't... moreover, he doesn't need to to facilitate the biochemical and biophysical processes collectively known as 'Evolution'....

News update:
Another challenge to evolution in the classroom - once again, if teachers are required to state that evolution is a flawed theory, then they should also be required to clearly state that the alternatives (like Intelligent Design theory) are so flawed as to hardly warrant a mention... this is another crack at inserting the thin end of the wedge...

 

[kennythebomb]

That's because the child doesn't know any better, nor does he have anyway of understanding the implications of such a statement.

Why do we tell children that rainbows are made of magic fireflies? Because if you explain it to them in terms of light rays, diffraction, and the refractive properties of water, they'd start crying.

I'm not talking about a tiny kid. I'm saying a child that is old enough to understand basics of the world around them.

Now of course many kids will just accept what you tell them, but I'm not talking about accepting something as blind truth. I'm saying, you tell a kid something amazing, out of this world, and they can use their imagination to fill in the holes. However, most adults will just simply realize that it is impossible in our state of knowledge, and since it is impossible for *us* to achieve or understand, then surely the Lord didn't do it.

By the way, when I was little I wasn't told the fireflies thing, haha

 

[Kylehnat]

I'm not talking about a tiny kid. I'm saying a child that is old enough to understand basics of the world around them.

But they aren't old or learned enough to understand the complex inner workings of the world. That is why when we tell them to accept something as true, something that they are incapable of really understanding, they do it without question; they're assuming that we are trustworthy.

By the way, when I was little I wasn't told the fireflies thing, haha

I just made that up. I don't know what parents are telling their kids these days. They're probably still chasing after that pot of gold

 

[TheCracker]

Just a thought, whilst the conversation is on the subject of Noah's Ark.

If the Ark had two of every species on it, it must have been huge! - a ship that big can only have taken a massive amount of trees to construct. This must have caused deforestation on a catastrofic scale - Maybe this was the cause of the great flood? What the flood didn't kill, the removal of so much natural habit would have finished them off.

 

[Swift]

Well, actually we're BACK to the subject of Noah's ark.

And just so nobody is confused, it had not rained(people hadn't seen rain) before the flood. Hence when Noah was building the Ark, everyone thought he was nuts.

The flood itself came from the rain and the fountains of the deep.

As far as the Ark itself, you can't tell me it took more trees then America cut down in five years. It took Noah over 100 years to complete the Ark, so a lot of trees would've grown from the time he cut the first one down.