Creation vs. Evolution

[Zardoz]

Im not sure what zardoz was getting at, was it sarcastic?

...Fantastic, isn't it?

To clarify: "Fantastic" as in amazing that so many can believe it to be literally true.

 

[Danoff]

I've mostly read in this thread what seem like blinkered "Science is Holy and God is Bunk" statements and I've been gently trying to get people to think about how similar scientific theory and religious belief actually are.

Here's where you start to go off course. Scientific theory and religious beliefs are quite fundmanetally different.

Once you get into post-graduate research, then the scales are lifted and you're suddenly informed that actually, that nice, sussed out, orderly, scientific view is largely conjecture with a dollop of common sense (Newtonian rules of thumb that generaly work out).

I don't know what post-graduate school YOU went to, but the one I went to wasn't like that at all. Engineering has very little conjecture... if it did, your building would probably fall down - or your plane would fall out of the sky. Is it conjecture that allows us to have rockin' computers? Was it conjecture that allowed us to send a spacecraft to a comet? Perhaps it was conjecture in the earliest stages, but it isn't conjecture any more when it has been thoroughly tested and shown to work - it's the closest thing science has to fact.

Scientists strive for internal consistency with existing theory and try to avoid publicising experimental results that don't support those theories

I'm going to call BS here. Scientists strive for what works. If that means tossing out some poorly conceived notions then so be it - out the window those notions go. In fact, scientists LOVE doing that because it gets them lots of attention.

(in fact ask me as an Engineer how often the maths doesn't match what we see.

Maybe you're just not taking everything into account. Ask me as an Engineer how often the math predicts to within increadible accuracy what we observe.

Religion is the same. It strives for internal consistency and it's proselytisers try to avoid making interpretations of whatever the holy scriptures of the faith state that contradict what has been said before.

...because what has been said before MUST have been right.

The difference is that scientists do it by theorising - observing - experimenting and clerics by reference to scripture and how it relates to temporal knowledge at the time.

Two TOTALLY different things.

Both approaches to understanding the world (and that's how religion really got going) are built upon the way the human mind seeks for foreknowledge and stability in what can appear a very cruel and arbitrary world.

Yes, one seeks to know all of the answers right now, and the other is patient to wait for them.

Both approaches are also about social control by manipulating the perceptions and expectations of the population at large ... but that's a whole other area.

How exactly is science about social control?

The only true answer to most of the 'Big' questions that science and religion attempt to tackle is that we don't really know but here's our best guess.

Religion is not our best guess. It's based on a book written by MEN thousands of years ago. We have thousands of books written by MEN today - what makes those any less valid?

 

[Grand Prix]

Maybe we should re-write the Bible. It's getting kinda old, it needs an update.

 

[code_kev]

Give it ninjas, mechs, and robots. If i claim that God spoke to me, then all the hard liners will just believe anything I say.

"And neo jesus did do battle with mech satan. Neo tokyo was in ruins. Amen"

 

[Duke]

I never even thought about God making light inbetween us and the stars millions of light years away to make it look like it's really old, but why would God do that? To trick us?

For the same reason he planted all those layers of primitive oceanic fossils that grow gradually more complex as they get closer to the surface, leading to the dinosaurs, which suddenly disappear from the fossil layers above, and turn into primitive mammal fossils, that grow gradually more complex as they get closer to the surface...

 

[sukerkin]

Play nicely Dan

I've seen that you can be a little combative in your posts and have put it down to the fact that you perhaps don't have English as your first language and thus come across as ruder than you intend.

However, the above was a bit too 'absolute' for my tastes. Maybe you're just too much of a 'scientist' to care about who you offend as long as you have your say. By all means, disagree with me if you must but do it in a civilised way and actually have a point rather than just being disagreable - no, that's unfair of me, you did have a point, just expressed in a blunt terms, phrased in such a way as to discredit any notion that I might have anything valid to say.

I actually sit on your side of the fence, in that I feel that there is a rational, mechanisitic, explaination for the universe and that we will, one day, figure it out. It's simply that, at the moment, science has become the 'new' religion, with an equal amount of taking things 'on faith' as any church and that is an inherently dangerous state of affairs. Look at the problems Hawking had getting his notions acknowledged by the orthodox scientific community.

:firmly places debating hat on the floor before I drag out the soapbox: :

Anyhow, social graces and taking umbridge aside, I'm astounded that someone of a deeply science based profession could have such a rock-solid faith in engineering mathematics. Orbital mechanics is your field is it not? I would suppose it's Newtonian physics at it's base and thus, as I said, works out generally in a good enough kind of way. I've no argument with that and hopefully didn't imply that I did as the margins of error involved can be quite small.

In civil and electro-mechanical engineering there are a large number of 'safety margins' and 'fudge factors' because mathematics and theory fail to accurately describe what's going on. The same is evident in a great many scientific endeavours.

This isn't just something I made-up because I thought it'd generate a good argument, for God's sake .

Maybe when we finally pin down unified field theory that won't be necessary and computers will be designed to act more like they should rather than exhibiting the principles of chaos rather eloquently . Until that time, or at least until a simple chemical reaction in a flask in a lab can be predicted with reasonable enough accuracy so that results that don't fit don't have to be ignored, I try to shy away from making too many assertions about how we can explain everything.

You have a pure science background as far as I can tell and hence, understandably, react badly when someone compares scientific method to theological debate. My aplogies if that ruffled your intellectual feathers, so to speak.

By way of 'justification', I have walked through the social sciences (economics and history), as well as mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering and don't have any problem finding equivalences between the scientists of today and the doctor/savant/priests of ages gone by. In fact, the more I learnt, the more I realised just how much we don't know.

That's partially what I meant about science being used a social control, by the way - just like religion, scientists are put forward as the Keepers of the Hidden Knowledge and populations are swayed by their statements into believing things are a given way.

In the end though, everyone will think what they will based on their background and education.

That's all very far away from the point of the thread tho', so I'll shut up before I inspire an argument that'll rage the topic off course.

 

[Earth]

OK

First, I would like respect from evolutionists etc. Science is about having an open mind and being open to any possibility, right? Then why is the possibility of a creator x'd out? Nevermind the God of any religion, but a creator in general. Those who claim to be scientific and also claim to want to know the truth and nothing but the truth have no choice but to leave a creator as a possibile option for the creation of the universe and/or man. Not doing so shows that you are not truly interested in absolute truth but are dogmatic.

Comments such as 'only the ignorant believe otherwise' are evidence of those who lack faith in their own theory but believe trashing opponents of their theory will dismiss their beliefs.

Now

The Genesis account allows for much more time than 6 days for the creation of the universe, that has already been discussed so moving on

The order the Genesis creation account has creation appearing is correct, is it not? But some say why did God create stars last? The creation account was written by an earthly observer. Remember that

On the first ‘day’ the expression ‘light came to be’ was used. The Hebrew word used their for light was ‘ohr, meaning light in a general sense, but on the fourth ‘day’ the word changes to ma*’ohr, which means the source of light.

On the first day light penetrated the waddling bands, but the sources couldn’t be seen by an earthly observer because of the cloud layers around the entire earth.

Moses didn’t see the source of light until the 4th day, where he saw them for the first time.

So if the stars and the sun was created 'in the beginning, or before everything, then the steps of life appearing in Genesis, plants, fish, land animals, then man is correct acording to scientific fact.

Nevermind that evolution states that man came from a species of ape, but in reality the theory states man came from fish, too. So it can seriously be said that fish are your long ago ancestors. Are you ready to accept that as scientificly plausible?

Where did the fish evovle from?

To our knowledge, no 'link' connected this new beast to any previous form of life. The fish just appeared." - Marvels and Mysteries from our Animal World

Fish jump into the fossil record seemingly from nowhere: mysteriously, suddenly, fully formed." -Evolutionist Francis Hitching

Lets fast forward to the apes, evolution-wise. Why did a species of ape evolve above his counterparts? If his counterparts were smart enough to survive, why did this special species evolve to higher status? In fact why did this species evolve to domination over anything and everything on the Earth? Was that needed to survive? No. And if primitive man spent all his time cave dwelling and being stupid, why did he improve? Why is the most powerful object in the universe in the skull of a stupid caveman? In fact some have come to know so called neandertahl had bigger brains than modern man, yet they reason he was stupid. Contradiction

Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record." - Science Digest

"The missing link between man and the apes... is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule." -Newsweek

If you stumbled upon this, where would you say it came from?
http://dinosaursetc.com/products/photos/Arrowhead.jpg

If you found this, where would you say it came from?
http://duke.usask.ca/~paa151/mdna.jpg

Did both have a creator, or did one or both come into existance on their own? Do they both look like they are used for something? Was there intention behind both of them? Or did the much more primitive object require intelligence but the far grander object require nothing?

Several reasons that I can think of for outright denying the existance, or even the possibility of a creator is that some say they only believe in what they can measure or see. Well, lets say you went on a stroll in a barren desert. In the desert you come across a computer that is fully functioning. Would you believe that this computer arose on its own? No, you know someone had to make it. Yet this reasoning is abandoned when it comes to the creation of life and the universe. Some state that, if there is a God, he hasnt been found yet. I will wait until they find him. There is no need to look for God, all you need to know about him can be found in the bible. Some then say I believe there may be a creator, but he cold and far away. Is there any reason to believe that an intelligent creator created humans with emotions etc but He himself is devoid of these?

As for the 'miracles' and the 'unscientific' happenings in the Bible, consider this. A computer designer creates a virtual world for his subjects. He gives these subjects immense A.I. , Enough to notice their surroundings and learn about it. But since they are restricted to a virtual world they cannot see their creator. Their designer isnt even made up of the same things as them. If the computer designer changed the color of the sky to red instantly the virtual subjects would instantly scream 'Miracle!'. Cannot the creator of the virtual world change the composition of anything if he wanted by merely altering computer code? In doing so the much lower life might see this as impossible, as they have no way of doing it and it never happens due to precise laws the computer designer put into effect. They know they are made of polygons, and that things change due to computer code, which they see as unchangeable. Yet when the computer code is altered by the grand designer they say 'miracle' when in indeed it isnt. Think of this. If you were a cockroach could you understand a human? If you were A.I. Inside a computer code could you understand your far superior creator's power or how he uses it? No

I have more to say but later.

 

[code_kev]

I have more to say but later.

God help us.

Earth, no matter you way, as Duke pointed out, there a Millions of fossils out there that prove you wrong. It's your faith versus physical evidence.

 

[sukerkin]

Very nice post Earth 👍

That's the sort of thing I have to try and find a rational counter to when I'm arguing with my dad about the non-existence of God - like I said above, thirty years of debate and no 'winner' .

 

[(G)]

To our knowledge, no 'link' connected this new beast to any previous form of life. The fish just appeared." - Marvels and Mysteries from our Animal World

Fish jump into the fossil record seemingly from nowhere: mysteriously, suddenly, fully formed." -Evolutionist Francis Hitching

Lets fast forward to the apes, evolution-wise. Why did a species of ape evolve above his counterparts? If his counterparts were smart enough to survive, why did this special species evolve to higher status? In fact why did this species evolve to domination over anything and everything on the Earth? Was that needed to survive? No. And if primitive man spent all his time cave dwelling and being stupid, why did he improve? Why is the most powerful object in the universe in the skull of a stupid caveman? In fact some have come to know so called neandertahl had bigger brains than modern man, yet they reason he was stupid. Contradiction

Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record." - Science Digest

"The missing link between man and the apes... is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule." -Newsweek

Well... Punctuated Equiblibrium, adaptation to specific needs called upon by current conditions, DNA are smaller molecules that have a natural tendency to form chains (In contrasts, rocks don't usually form blades on their own.). Post is too long.

 

[Earth]

Well... Punctuated Equiblibrium, adaptation to specific needs called upon by current conditions, DNA are smaller molecules that have a natural tendency to form chains (In contrasts, rocks don't usually form blades on their own.). Post is too long.

Thank you (G) and Sukerkin for intelligent replys

Now,

I see that you say DNA has a tendency to have chains, but its beauty isnt the only thing about it. It holds a ton of information and is basically a 'blueprint'. A 'blueprint' used by God, at least thats the way I think. We use drawings to design things, He uses DNA. Thats the way I believe.

Sorry about the long post. I have a ton to say and I would like to put it in a few posts instead of dragging it out forever.

I dont know how to get around long posts

 

[sukerkin]

Thank you (G) and Sukerkin for intelligent replys

No problem, sir 👍.

Sorry about the long post. I have a ton to say and I would like to put it in a few posts instead of dragging it out forever.

I dont know how to get around long posts

No need to apologise. If it's interesting then it's worth saying and it's worth reading.

Snide one-liners are easy, building an argument that's cohesive with a medium like the Net is hard. Such debates are much simpler face-to-face (especially when you have a sword in your hand ).

 

[code_kev]

I dont know how to get around long posts

Be concise.

 

[PS]

Creationists keep saying "Oh, well you're all so open-minded, because that's science, why aren't you open minded to God?!"

Well, being open-minded is not science. Science is knowledge, and you accept what we currently understand to be correct. Science is not "well I haven't heard that one before, maybe it's right". And we're no longer open minded to God because he has been ruled out with 100 years of investigation and evidence gathering, which has to be confirmed and authorized with hundreds of other scientists before it can even begin to evolve into a theory.

And why aren't creationists open minded to Science? You talk about our "holes" and flaws, but yours are just overwhelming.

And sukerkin, I'm reading what you're saying but I'm not acknowledging it because I know where you're coming from, I'm just making a different point.

 

[Danoff]

Play nicely Dan

I've seen that you can be a little combative in your posts and have put it down to the fact that you perhaps don't have English as your first language and thus come across as ruder than you intend.

English is my first and only language - I'm usually very blunt and don't often (though it happens on occasion) intend to be taken as rude, and I didn't really mean to offend you with my last post.

However, the above was a bit too 'absolute' for my tastes. Maybe you're just too much of a 'scientist' to care about who you offend as long as you have your say.

I don't care about offending anyone - but it isn't about me having my say. It's about what's right and wrong.

By all means, disagree with me if you must but do it in a civilised way and actually have a point rather than just being disagreable - no, that's unfair of me, you did have a point, just expressed in a blunt terms, phrased in such a way as to discredit any notion that I might have anything valid to say.

I certainly didn't mean to discredit any notion that you might have anything valid to say. But I did intentionally discredit some of what you said. I don't disagree for the sake of disagreement.

I actually sit on your side of the fence, in that I feel that there is a rational, mechanisitic, explaination for the universe and that we will, one day, figure it out. It's simply that, at the moment, science has become the 'new' religion, with an equal amount of taking things 'on faith' as any church and that is an inherently dangerous state of affairs. Look at the problems Hawking had getting his notions acknowledged by the orthodox scientific community.

I disagree. I don't think science has become a new religion. If it has for some then its their loss.

Anyhow, social graces and taking umbridge aside, I'm astounded that someone of a deeply science based profession could have such a rock-solid faith in engineering mathematics.

I don't have faith in anything but that I exist. I've seen engineering mathematics predict outcomes very accurately so I know it can work if it's done right.

Orbital mechanics is your field is it not? I would suppose it's Newtonian physics at it's base and thus, as I said, works out generally in a good enough kind of way.

...better than necessary kind of way.

In civil and electro-mechanical engineering there are a large number of 'safety margins' and 'fudge factors' because mathematics and theory fail to accurately describe what's going on. The same is evident in a great many scientific endeavours.

Some areas invovle chaos or environments that are difficult to predict. Hell we can't even figure out what the weather is going to be tomorrow because we don't understand fluid flow well enough. That doesn't mean there is any faith invovled or that it's a bunch of conjecture.

Maybe when we finally pin down unified field theory that won't be necessary and computers will be designed to act more like they should rather than exhibiting the principles of chaos rather eloquently . Until that time, or at least until a simple chemical reaction in a flask in a lab can be predicted with reasonable enough accuracy so that results that don't fit don't have to be ignored, I try to shy away from making too many assertions about how we can explain everything.

I do too. But that doesn't mean that science is a religion or that God exists or anything like that. It just means that science doesn't have all the answers (yet). I don't have a problem with that.

You have a pure science background as far as I can tell and hence, understandably, react badly when someone compares scientific method to theological debate. My aplogies if that ruffled your intellectual feathers, so to speak.

Apology accepted. I don't see how they're even remotely similar.

By way of 'justification', I have walked through the social sciences (economics and history), as well as mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering and don't have any problem finding equivalences between the scientists of today and the doctor/savant/priests of ages gone by. In fact, the more I learnt, the more I realised just how much we don't know.

The more I have learned the more I have also realized we don't know. That doesn't mean that the scientists today are the modern equivalent of witch doctors or priests.

That's partially what I meant about science being used a social control, by the way - just like religion, scientists are put forward as the Keepers of the Hidden Knowledge and populations are swayed by their statements into believing things are a given way.

Who is putting them forward as the keepers of the hidden knowledge? Scientists? Most scientists will be the first to tell you about the uncertainties or assumptions in their work. It is the ignorant, who do not understand what scientists are say that hold them up as the keepers of hidden knowledge. Science is our current best-guess at the nature of our world. That doesn't mean it's right, that certainly doesn't means it's wrong - it just means that it's the best we've got.

In the end though, everyone will think what they will based on their background and education.

Pessimistic.

 

[code_kev]

And why aren't creationists open minded to Science? You talk about our "holes" and flaws, but yours are just overwhelming.

clap clap clap.

I'm usually very blunt and don't often (though it happens on occasion) intend to be taken as rude.

Be blunt, I hate it when people dance about other peoples ridiculous ideas for fear of offending them (which I kinda did at the start of the thread doh). For example, I hate creationists, and wish to hit them all in the face, one at a time with the baseball bat of common sense. Bill Hicks had the right idea, "Ever noticed that people who believe in Creationism look really unevolved"? I mean that in the most respectful way possible ofc.

 

[sukerkin]

@PS

No problem, my friend. I'll still be looking in on this one because it is a stimulating topic but I shant be contributing any more (unless directly asked). It's too convoluted to have a proper discourse via the Web and too easy to misinterpret what people mean.

I'm off; back to cars and racing .

EDIT: One last word for Danoff.

I think we, largely speaking, agree, Dan. Where we differ seems to be down to definition of terms and a certain long-view perspective on the historical role of 'priesthoods'.

When I speak of 'religion' and it's 'priests' I'm looking further back in time and broader in scope than the closed-minds of the Dark Age 'christian' (small 'c') church of Europe (which did indeed do much to impede scientific knowledge). With such a (sociological) view, the scientists of the current era are fulfilling much the same role as the Clergy of older times. I wasn't attempted to equate, for example, a quantum physicist with a Pagan drilling a hole in someones head to let the evil spirits out (not a great example but I'm a little too deep in my cups to come up with anything better ).

I can bow out of the thread knowing that, psycho-social aspects aside, the limitations of what we know (as yet) are understood and that there is a lot left to explain (how different that is to the view held at the turn of the century when it was announced that we knew pretty much all there was to know ).

 

[Grand Prix]

Earth, the size of an animal's brain has very little to do with an animal's intelligence. Are Giant Squid smarter than humans because they have a bigger brain?

 

[PS]

Maybe the problem here is just knowledge?

What you're taught about atoms changes from grade 9-10-11-12, each step involving more and becomming more complex.

With most of the people here debating, our range of knowledge of science comes from 4 main sources:

1. Famine
2. School
3. TV
4. Internet

But most of what Famine says, is a lot of the time, not even taught in high-school and is a result of years of experience, and thus encompasses much more than what we normally understand. Given his certainty, one can only begin to wonder how much he actually knows, as half of high-school science isn't even factually correct (atoms are limited to 4 electron shells in the configuration of 2-8-8? Pfft, yah, right ). Most of it is "Well this is good enough, and they don't get too confused, so let's just keep it here as long as they know the most primitive basics of it."

The problem with this is that Famine has little way of proving all the stuff he says without giving a 20 minute lesson just to catch us up.

 

[PS]

Thank you (G) and Sukerkin for intelligent replys

Now,

I see that you say DNA has a tendency to have chains, but its beauty isnt the only thing about it. It holds a ton of information and is basically a 'blueprint'. A 'blueprint' used by God, at least thats the way I think. We use drawings to design things, He uses DNA. Thats the way I believe.

Sorry about the long post. I have a ton to say and I would like to put it in a few posts instead of dragging it out forever.

I dont know how to get around long posts

You mean god has a fetish with acids?

 

[PS]

Maybe you're just not taking everything into account. Ask me as an Engineer how often the math predicts to within increadible accuracy what we observe.

I'll second that. If it was conjecture, how could the physics engine of the spacecraft flight simulator over at NASA get pilots on to the ground when they're traveling 10mps?

 

[(G)]

PS.... hold up with the sarcasm for a bit. It's mighty hard to detect on the internet for some.

And Famine.... Give us a lecture on Quantum Physics, please. I'm always curious.

 

[PS]

PS.... hold up with the sarcasm for a bit. It's mighty hard to detect on the internet for some.

And Famine.... Give us a lecture on Quantum Physics, please. I'm always curious.

Only 1 of those 4 posts had sarcasm in it.

 

[code_kev]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Physics

 

[Zardoz]

...if you believe that everything must be "created" by a "Creator", and that random chance can not be responsible for anything, then how do you explain the existence of your Creator?

Where did your Supreme Being come from? Who created Him?

Did I miss the response to this simple question that was posted over 24 hours ago?

If everything must be the result of creation, who created the Creator?

 

[Famine]

Several reasons that I can think of for outright denying the existance, or even the possibility of a creator is that some say they only believe in what they can measure or see. Well, lets say you went on a stroll in a barren desert. In the desert you come across a computer that is fully functioning. Would you believe that this computer arose on its own? No, you know someone had to make it. Yet this reasoning is abandoned when it comes to the creation of life and the universe. Some state that, if there is a God, he hasnt been found yet. I will wait until they find him. There is no need to look for God, all you need to know about him can be found in the bible. Some then say I believe there may be a creator, but he cold and far away. Is there any reason to believe that an intelligent creator created humans with emotions etc but He himself is devoid of these?

Oh please. Not the "Watch paradox" again.

 

[PS]

"The predictions of quantum mechanics have never been disproven after a century's worth of experiments." - Wikipedia

"Relativistic quantum mechanics (quantum field theory) provides the framework for some of the most accurate physical theories known. . ."

"Most physicists believe that quantum mechanics provides a correct description for the physical world under almost all circumstances."



The foundations of quantum mechanics were established during the first half of the 20th century by Max Planck, Albert Einstein*, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Born, John von Neumann, Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli and others. Some fundamental aspects of the theory are still actively studied.

Bohr-Rutherford diagrams, anyone?


[edit]


*Disclaimer: Albert Einstein was a mathemtician, not a scientist, and thus his beliefs on the origins of the Universe are hereby irrelevant.

 

[PS]

Did I miss the response to this simple question that was posted over 24 hours ago?

If everything must be the result of creation, who created the Creator?

Heh, that's nothing. You should have seen me 2 months ago trying to get XVII/17 to answer me. It took weeks!

 

[Danoff]

Oh please. Not the "Watch paradox" again.

Yes. The same old argument all over again . Earth seems to be very very convinced by his computer analogy (which falls apart under scrutiny).


Earth, this part is valid.

As for the 'miracles' and the 'unscientific' happenings in the Bible, consider this. A computer designer creates a virtual world for his subjects. He gives these subjects immense A.I. , Enough to notice their surroundings and learn about it. But since they are restricted to a virtual world they cannot see their creator. Their designer isnt even made up of the same things as them. If the computer designer changed the color of the sky to red instantly the virtual subjects would instantly scream 'Miracle!'. Cannot the creator of the virtual world change the composition of anything if he wanted by merely altering computer code? In doing so the much lower life might see this as impossible, as they have no way of doing it and it never happens due to precise laws the computer designer put into effect. They know they are made of polygons, and that things change due to computer code, which they see as unchangeable. Yet when the computer code is altered by the grand designer they say 'miracle' when in indeed it isnt. Think of this. If you were a cockroach could you understand a human? If you were A.I. Inside a computer code could you understand your far superior creator's power or how he uses it? No

In fact, it's SO valid, it actually defeats your own argument. How can you believe in God if we could all be in a computer program controlled by some aliens who stuck us here for their amusment? If that's a possibility, then how can you KNOW that God exists?

 

[code_kev]

PS, come on man, it takes time to search answeringgenesis!