Creation science

that is precisely what this thread is discussing, DA: if it is a belief or if it is a scientific theory

Before I begin bare in mind that I believe in God and therefore the Genesis account of creation, and this does have an effect on my scientific views. However, I hope you will be able to listen to what I have to say without this fact getting in the way. I have learned a lot of what I know about this topic from Fr. John Damascene, who is an Orthodox monk. He has a book out right now, Genesis, Creation, and Early Man. I have not gotten around to reading it yet, but I hear it is very good and I have been to a couple of talks he did on the book, one while he was still writing it.
As has been mentioned before evolution is logically impossible. When faced with this fact those who believe in evolution usually change the subject, trying to find small, and usually unimportant, things in the argument of creation scientists to pick apart. Evolution has become a religion, since those who believe it have to go on Faith very often. Faith, though important, is not the main argument used by creation scientists, who, knowing they are often up against atheists or those who do not take the bible literally, use logic instead, which is something no one can deny.
So, let's begin at the beginning. No, not the big bang. The probability of the big bang happening is so low that it's almost ridiculous to believe it. However, juntel has told us that probability is not a good basis for belief. Despite the fact that his argument doesn't work I will try to keep away from probability. For the big bang to have happened something had to be there already, something had to have been created. The smallest molecule can not create itself, so logically there must be a supreme creator.
Fred Oyles, a leading astronomer of his time, said that it is just as likely that a wind would blow through a junkyard and create a 747 as that we are the product of evolution. The fact is, there is no concrete proof. There have been many skulls found that have been said to be the missing link, but they have all been proven to either be careless mistakes (suck as skull 147, which belonged to a member of an African tribe which lived not far from where the skull was found) or hoaxes, such as the instance where scientists used a pigs' skull and tried to prove (I don't remember, but I think they manipulated the skull somewhat) that it was the missing link. Basically, there is no proof for evolution.
Though I do not believe in evolution there is such a thing as change within species. This is what Darwin recorded proof of, if you remember, he never found a missing link or anything that even pointed towards it. The human race spread across the globe and has changed slightly in different areas, adapting to its environment. Different species of animals have done this as well. One cannot deny change within species because there is too much proof.
Now lets talk about the fossil record. This is used to show in what periods of time different species lived, as well as to estimate the age of the world. However, it's not true. Up in Alaska there is a small camping resort where people can watch bears roam in the woods. Out the back window here can be seen a cliff, in which you can see the different layers of the "fossil record." Growing up through all these layers is the fossil of a single tree! This is not the only example of this, things like this are found the world over. Besides that, the fossil record is no longer growing.
So, if the fossil record was not built up over millions of years, how did it show up? Well, it was caused by a great catastrophe, the flood. Creation scientists believe that in the early days of the earth it was surrounded by a thicker layer of atmosphere which made the planet into a greenhouse, and created a tropical environment across the globe. The flood was a combination of this layer falling as rain, as well as underwater reservoirs springing up. This explains the separation of the tectonic plates, for water could have easily split the top crust of the earth in two, causing the great rift. This flood would have caused the almost immediate build up that is required to create a fossil, and is the best argument I can find to explain the fossil record.
Now, don't disagree with this opinion because the flood is a part of Judeo-Christian beliefs. All society's have a flood myth, even tribes of American Indians. There are two many stories about the flood from all different cultures to deny that it happened.
"Pagan demonic pantheism"? How closed minded do you think we are? Please try to refrain from flamming, and here's another good book by father Damascene: "Christ the Eternal Tao". The title says it all.
Well, that's all for now. Maybe if more questions come up I'll talk about more stuff, carbon dating and the like. But now I need to stop writing

"As has been mentioned before evolution is logically impossible"

Mentionned, but not supported. What exactly are the LOGICAL fallacies
within evolution and theories of evolution? (or am I just trying to
find small unimportant things in your argument?)


"Faith, though important, is not the main argument used by
creation scientists"

Faith is the main ingredient for creation scientists, for their model
is there to introduce the all-important concept of a creator.
Everything else is brought forth to support their holy scriptures,
rather than support what nature tells us about her.


"[juntel's] argument doesn't work..."

...and how so? I was merely pointing out that probablities and
statistics are often misunderstood and misused, and I showed how
in this specific subject (especially Morris' faulty probabilistic
argument). If you disagree, explain yourself, don't just say you
don't agree.

"For the big bang to have happened something had to be there
already, something had to have been created. The smallest molecule
can not create itself, so logically there must be a supreme creator."

Hummm... the good old argument of the first motor; St-Augustine would
be proud of you!
So, if something exists, there must be a supreme creator... but if that
creator EXISTS, what created It? It wasn't created, you tell me?
Well, if you allow the possibility of making an exception, then why
can't this exception be nature itself? Why should it be your human
god that is the non-created motor of all things? Why can't it be
Nature, the Universe itself that is the uncreated motor of itself?
(Do you really think St-Augustine's, St-Anselm's and other's arguments
for a creator have not been answered? Have you ever gone searching if
there was a rebutal to that age-old argument? I have. So should you.)


"Fred Oyles, a leading astronomer of his time, said ..."

Yup. And it was another leading astronomer/engineer of his time
that said that no device denser than air could ever fly. A few
months later, the Wright brothers proved him wrong...
Again, Mr Oyles didn't take ANY account of the process of evolution,
eg Darwin's natural selection; Oyles' argument is solely founded
on a world where ONLY random events take place. This is a flaw in his
(and your) argument.


"Basically, there is no proof for evolution"

You say that after mentionning two archeological mistakes... as if
archeology was only a packetfull of mistakenly identified bones.
Archeology is much more than that, and deserves more respect than
that. Take a good book on the evolution of man, and try to read
their discoveries and arguments.
As for the proof-lessness of evolution, well, I believe nothing could
prove to you anything that would go against your scriptures.
Observation of nature, particularly the past of human beings, of life
in general, and the universe, gives us a vast tapestry of wonderfull
things to try to explain, to try to put in a coherent model of what
everything is.
And what evolutionists and most scientists believe is that evolution
and the present cosmological theories are the "best suited" to explain
all there is around us.
Is there an air-tight proof of evolution? No. Nobody denies that.
Is there an alternate explanation which merits equal treatment?
Hell no! As the great late Dobzhanski said himself (and I paraphrase):
"Nothing in Nature makes sense except in the light of evolution"
(and btw, Dobzhanski was a religious jew, and him being an evolutionist
didn't prevent him from believing in his god...)


At this point I want to mention that the most important element of
Creation Science's model is the Creator itself. So if creation "scientists"
ask so much that evolution be proved, what about them? Shouldn't their
model be proved? And being their most important (even central!) element
in their model, shouldn't there be a PROOF that their creator exists?!
And by that, I mean a proof of equal importance than the one they demand
of evolutionists.


"All society's have a flood myth"

Yes, and most civilisations grew on the banks of great rivers (the Nile/Egyptians,
the Tigris and Euphrates/Sumerians, the Yang-Tse/Chinese, the Indus/early Indian
civilisation, the Mississippi/Am.Indians, etc, etc...), and those great
rivers often overflowed, as they still do today.


Something I find interesting: when you enumerate (or quote) some fossil records
abnormalities and skull findings, it makes me remember what you said earlier:
"trying to find small, and usually unimportant, things in the argument of
creation scientists to pick apart" Well, it seems that you are the one
doing just that.
How can some people try to prove that their theory is right mostly by trying
to put down a competing theory? Evolutionists do not try to prove their theory
by disproving "Special Creation"; they look at nature, and try to understand
why she is the way she is. Creation "scientists", you will all notice, mostly
try to disprove the idea of evolution, thinking that if evolution is put down,
only their "special creation" is there to replace it.
No Mister! This is not the way science is done! A theory must stand by itself
facing Nature, it must not depend on the competing theory's demise!!!!!!
And this, my friends, is another argument in thinking that Creation Science is
no science at all...


"Pagan demonic pantheism" (a quote of me)

Tater, this is an actual expression that i've heard so many times by typical
preachers. Perhaps the Mormons (Later-Day Saints) do not use such expressions,
and if so then it wasn't directed at you. But Morris et al. are of the
kind (literalist/revivalist/ultra-orthodox protestant) to use such expressions
about other religions, especially polytheistic ones (this is often referred as
demon-worshiping by tv preachers and the like).
And so was Catholicism for a long period.
I don't know personally what the Mormons think about these religions but again
my comment was about the specific organism called Creation Scientists.



Be assured that I'm not the most knowledgeable in evolution and the theories
of evolution. What I care most is the reasoning behind the arguments,
and unfortunately (of fortunately?) Creation "scientists" typically have poor
arguments.

Is evolution and its theories flawless? Probably not.
You won't find in me the strongest defender of evolution.
But when I see a flawed argument, then I do express myself.
I did read some books about these subjects. I repeat here that the Creation
"scientists" argument were feeble, but I did also find sometimes feeble
argument from the evolutionists.
Nobody's perfect.

In the end, what does one want?

Well, for me it's sleep right now... (but I guess i'll stay up awhile...)

if i may, juntel, the first motor argument shouldn't be related to St. Augustine. it was first elaborated by the demonic pagan ( ) Aristotle then passed to the muslim medieval philosophers and finally to St. Thomas. it certainly has its limits, but i'd like to see a good refutation: it's a good intellectual exercise.

one of the main problem of the first argument argument is its dependency of time. it cannot (like physics )overreach the barrier of time.

understanding time is certainly the main point to be resolved before trying to explain creation or evolution. and in that point is where St. Augustine proves a master (as well as the omnipresent Aris).

Ah, the old Greeks... what didn't they think of!
(well, CheeseWheez for one thing... Anyway... let's keep serious!)

Yup, August just tried to make it his own way. I just couldn't remember how long before him the argument existed...

As for time and physics... weird things are being described at the Big Singularity! What about four-dimensional time?! They get to a point where the best description they (Hawkins et al) can make is where time has no begining, and the singularity is just some region of some kind of hyperspace bla bla bla... hey! I have my limits here!

I don't pretend having an air-thight argument about the first motor, but the "exception" counter-argument I proposed above cannot be avoided I think. What would still be left would be the necessity (or lack thereof) of a motor with volition, ie a sentient entity as creator, contrary to a non-sentient entiry as self-creating.

Hawkins et al. describing four-dimensional time as "where time has no begining" is the closest point they have to the creation scientists: just when they began to forget rigor and begin to be "divulgers" and "to try to force their point" (because they also have a preconceived point) "to credulous and/or misguided people". (rings a bell? )



BTW: i've just found this quote within one of your looong posts:

abortion debate, canada/us/a-bomb debate, then this... quite a rock-n-roll board this is!!!!!

i'll suggest to Ben to include that in the briefing of Entmoot

LOL FM.
before I begin again, juntel I am not a Mormon, certainly not. I'm Orthodox Christian. You don't here a lot about us in the good old (sarcasm) US but it's actually the original form of Christianity and the leading form in the world outside of this country.
juntel, I'm 15, I ain't an expert in this field so quite frankly you're gonna make a fool out of me. However, I can recommend yet another book, Orthodox Apologetic Theology. It's got the best LOGICAL arguments for the existance of God I've ever found, though it's not very spiritual. You'd be particularly interested in the bee argument in one of the appendices, it's by a simple man from old Russia but it's incredible.
I'll shut up before I make a bigger fool of myself, but please try to find "Genesis, Creation, and Early Man" and "Orthodox Apologetic Theology." I think you'd be fascinated by them.

And there was a book I remember about a Jewish Scientist from Israel. His book was titled "Genesis, Science and the BigBang"... or something like that. His approach wasn't at all "tainted" by christian doctrine, and he was tapping a bit into hebrew gematria. You should try to find that book, it may help support your end of the argument, since in his way he's also a Creationist (creation by one and only one creator).
Not being a christian literalist, he argues in the symbolical meaning of the Torah (or Pentateuch), and for him "one day" may mean "millions of years" (as bmilder pointed out somewhere).

Tater, in the end, you and I are at the "mercy" of those who made the researches.
You cannot be a fool, unless you forget the above sentence; at one point, we have to trust in this or that piece of information from someone else, be it science and religion. And so all information that is not gathered first hand by you or me comes down to some kind of faith in someone else's research and publications.

We are fools only if we don't doubt.
Be it doubt in the science we learn, or religion we inherit from our parents and community.

To doubt is to be free.
To blindly accept is to fool ourselves.

BTW FatM, I don't understand your post. What is "divulgers" (english ain't my first language either!).

Amen.
One thing, why is God a necessary part of creation science? You said yourself that we could stop before saying who created God and even who created the molecule. So, let the molecule represent God for you.

Well, as I replied to FM, the difference is in the sentient aspect of that "first being".
Your first being is sentient, with volition.
The molecule isn't.

Therefore your universe is moral, whereas mine is amoral (not immoral!!!).

A nice collection of proof of the existence of god in the western world can be found in the little book "The Existence of God", edited by a certain Hicks (this guy is well know in the milieu for discussions on the subject).
You might be one day interested in "The Human Phenomenon" by Pierre Theillard-deChardin.
To balance that, have a go at those nice books (any) by SJ Gould, just to get the gist of the arguments from the guy himself (rather than quotes). And don't forget anduin's suggestion of D. Morris' NakedApe series, just to put humans in the context of their animal nature.
And I can't forget this one: "Mankind Evolving" by Theodosius Dobzhansky. A bit aged for a book on the subject, but inescapable...

"divulgers", i thought it was english

i mean people who try to make those deep and dark scientific theories understandable to mean people. that is certainly a difficult task, because making theories understandable force you to make simplifications, reductions and parallels that may end misguiding people.

one example of what i meant with "divulger" is Carl Sagan (hey, i'm not saying that he and Hawkins are at the same level. Hawkins only sometimes become a "divulger"). Carl Sagan's documentaries were cool, of course. they have very good points and all, but often he led things a bit too far in his conclusions. he was more a journalist than a scientist.

OK, a few more answers to some of Juntel's points.

I think at this point it would be appropriate to say a bit about 'science', as it relates to Creation and evolution.
First of all, 'science' comes from the Latin 'scientia', which means KNOWLEDGE. Although evolutionists have tried to redefine the word to mean 'naturalism', that violates the true meaning of the word. In the broad sense, the determining factor of whether something is scientific should not be whether it is naturalistic, but whether it is POTENTIALLY TRUE. Until either creation or evolution can be definitively proven (with the other simultaneously being disproven), both are equally scientific in the broad sense.
In a more narrow sense, 'science' deals with the 'scientific method', which can only be applied in the present real world or in the laboratory. Things that cannot be directly observed in one of these two venues are not subject to the scientific method, and therefore not 'scientific' in the stricter sense. Since the origin of the universe and formation of life occurred in the unobservable past, they are not subject to the scientific method, so theories about these events are inherently unprovable. Therefore, in the strict sense, neither Creation nor evolution is even a true scientific theory, because one of the qualifications for that is 'falsifiability'; that is, the theory must be able to be disproven somehow. Creation and evolution are diametrically opposed theories; only one can be true. So since neither one can be proven, it follows that neither one can be disproven. So the acceptance of either Creation or evolution will always involve faith, because both are ultimately religions (unprovable beliefs about unobservable things). Creation and evolution are equally scientific in the loose sense, and equally religious in the stricter sense.
This is where the concept of the 'model' comes into play. When dealing with unprovable matters, the best method is to establish a framework for interpreting the evidence. Belief is inevitably the starting point for this (don't think for a minute that most evolutionists don't WANT to believe in evolution just as much as most Creationists WANT to believe in God), and you set up a basic outline of the belief system. From this outline, you formulate 'predictions', that is, things that should be observable if the larger non-observable assumption is true.
The major predictions of the Creation model include: that the Creation is complete (confirmed by 1st Law of TD); that changes will be in a downward direction (2nd Law); that since all life was created in completed and distinct varieties, there would be no trace of any intermediate life forms (lack of transitional fossils). The predictions of the diametrically opposed evolution model are the opposites of these, so the evolution model has to include an endless procession of secondary assumptions to try to explain why the world we see isn't the world the basic evolution model predicts.
So the bottom line here is that we each have to choose which model of origins we are going to accept. Both are equally scientific, and equally religious. So I choose to go with the one that is by far more compatible with the observable world.
There are many Creationists (although admittedly a minority) who do not believe in the God of the Bible (there are other deities that people believe in, after all), just as there are many Christians who try to accommodate God-directed evolution into their interpretation of the Bible. Others simply don't care much about the issue one way or another, believing that 'it all makes sense somehow, even if I don't understand how'. For a long time I was one of those. I was a Christian LONG before I was a Creationist. About 10 years ago I happened to hear a radio program about Creationism, and that whetted my interest. I decided I wanted to know more, so I started studying the issues. I went in fully prepared to continue believing what I had always believed if that's where the evidence led me: I had been secure in my basic faith in God for many years, without believing that every word of the Bible is literally true. I had no 'need' to validate anything; I just wanted to know what the facts were. I was surprised to discover that what the Creationists were saying made a whole lot more sense all the way down the line than what the evolutionists teach. The more I studied, the more apparent it became that Creation was the better model of origins by far.
I've said all this just to try to get us past the religious aspects and back to the scientific. I can only observe that I have never been able to participate in this kind of discussion without experiencing these kind of attacks on Creation as religion masquerading as science. It allows the other side to divert attention from the intellectual insufficiency of their scientific arguments. LET'S DEBATE THE FACTS, AND LEAVE RELIGION OUT OF IT, OK? I hope that's not too much to ask in this case, although past experience would indicate that it well might be.
So, back to the facts under consideration.
Your arguments about virtual particles and about natural selection relating to the origin of life are both inapplicable for the same reason. Virtual particles being spontaneously created in a vacuum require the space-time-matter continuum to already exist. It is the origin of this whole continuum that naturalism cannot explain, and it is THAT violation of the First Law that we're talking about. In a similar way, natural selection can only choose BETWEEN EXISTING LIFE FORMS. In the alleged original formation of the first living cell, there was nothing for natural selection to act on. That ORIGINAL cell had to form by pure chance for organic evolution to get underway. So the probabilities apply as-is to that situation.
Your argument about a larger sandbox also misses the point. Each possible arrangement of the grains of sand in ANY size sample has 1 chance in however many combinations there are. For the formation of life, however, we're talking about 1 chance in far, far, FAR MORE combinations than could ever have occurred in all of time, even allowing very generous conditions. It's apples and oranges.
As to your point about other possible ways life could have formed, I'll try not be too gleeful as I point out how you shot yourself in the foot on that one. What we are talking about here is which model of origins best fits the REAL WORLD that we all see around us. We do NOT see any other different kinds of life with different kinds of nucleic acids here on earth or anywhere else. As far as we KNOW, life can only exist ONE way. Speculation to the contrary is just that: PURE SPECULATION, as completely without direct evidence as the existence of God. Such speculations by evolutionists, and there are MANY of them, are as much a part of the evolutionary religion as the Bible is to the Christian religion, and just as unscientific. So again, the probability arguments must stand as they are.
Then there's the matter of the open system argument against the Second Law. Yes, the Second Law strictly applies to closed systems, but it also describes a basic trend easily observable in all of nature and non-nature (everything DOES break down eventually; no one can argue against that concept). For the Second Law to be overcome in a local environment of any size, what we SEE in the world and universe tells us that three specific conditions must be met: 1) there must be a preexisting plan to overcome the effects of entropy (the blueprint for a house; the DNA in living organisms); 2) there must be one or more energy conversion mechanisms available to precisely carry out the plan (the manpower, and usually the tools and power sources to build the house; photosynthesis in plants and the respiratory and digestive systems in animals); and 3) the availability of materials to be processed in order to physically enable the plan to be carried out (the building materials for the house; sunlight and water for plants, oxygen and food for animals). With all these in place, a house can be built, a plant can grow from a seed, an animal can go from embryo to adult. But even these victories over the Second Law are only temporary: the house eventually crumbles, the plant and animal eventually die. The Second Law ALWAYS wins in the end. And one other point: each local decrease in entropy MUST be accompanied by an even greater GAIN in entropy in the wider system.
Raw energy from the sun is therefore NOT able to overcome the effects of the Second Law at any stage of evolution. There was nothing in any 'primordial soup' to direct or facilitate the conversion of anything there into a living cell. There is nothing in living cells to direct or facilitate improvements in the organism. In fact, Mendelian genetics proves precisely the opposite: all living organisms are programmed to reproduce the same kind of organism, within a limited capacity for variation that already exists in the cells. We can and have produced many different breeds of dogs, for example, but we cannot breed dogs into something else. The variations have unpassable limits.
So that brings us to the proposed mechanism for evolution: random mutation and natural selection. I might point out first that natural selection is a part of BOTH models of origins. Creationists believe what we can clearly see in nature: that the Creator gave the life forms he created the capacity to adapt to different conditions, and those conditions determine which varieties of an organism will be predominant in each specific environment. Evolution, however, goes beyond this, and proposes that organisms can undergo random mutations that result in improvements in the ability of an organism to survive in its current environment, and that the accumulation of enough of these mutations results in a new, higher level of life form. This may sound credible on the surface, but let's again compare this idea to what we ACTUALLY SEE in the real world.
First, what is a mutation? For a living organism to grow and survive, it must constantly be counteracting the effects of the Second Law. Cells within the organism die constantly, and must constantly be replaced by new cells in order for the organism to continue to live. These new cells are formed according to vast libraries of information contained in the cell (genes) and mechanisms within the cell that direct and facilitate the dividing of the cell into two cells. When this process happens correctly, the information in the genes is copied exactly into the new cell. However, due to the effects of the Second Law (either directly or indirectly), occasionally there will be a mistake in the copying of the information. This results in a slightly different cell being formed than the original, and if the altered cell is capable of dividing, it can then pass this new information on to other new cells. When an error occurs early enough in the development of the organism, it can affect the development of the entire organism, causing one or more noticeable changes from how the organism should have developed.
Now, the truth is that when you make any kind of random change in an extremely complex system like the gene structure in a cell, those changes are virtually guaranteed to be bad. This, again, is what we actually observe in nature, apart from evolutionary speculations. Most mutated cells never survive to reproduce. Those that do can be the start of things like cancer. In the case of an altered organism, the mutations usually prove fatal. Those that live almost always have a reduced capacity to survive and reproduce. The best a mutated organism can hope for is that the mutation will be neutral, with no adverse effect. That is what we observe in the real world. No evolutionist can point to ONE SINGLE REAL WORLD EXAMPLE of a truly beneficial mutation. It is unheard of, for a simple reason: mutations are functions of the Second Law, and the Second Law NEVER has a positive effect on a living organism. So the concept of beneficial mutations is just one more example of evolutionary religion: speculation utterly without supporting evidence.
Finally, as to the origin of the Supreme being responsible for Creation, and the known laws. Evolution tries to explain everything in the context of a self-contained universe that has always operated by purely naturalistic means. Physical laws are merely part of the random organization of the universe. In the Creation scenario, the Creator did everything with a purpose. The physical laws are PART of the Creation, to govern the processes in the universe that had been made. The laws didn't exist before the creation of the physical universe. The Creator is therefore, quite obviously, outside the control of the created processes. The Creation is, by definition, a one-time event that cannot be understood in naturalistic terms. That's what makes Creation different from evolution. Speaking of laughable (as you did in the paragraph about this), your suggestion that 'In real science, we do not take as a hypothesis what we want to prove." is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Do you really not think that evolutionists want to prove evolution? They spend their lives and careers attempting to find evidence for a theory for which there is not ONE PARTICLE of definitive supporting evidence, precisely BECAUSE they have decided that that's what they want to believe and prove. That's why there are so many instances of misinterpretation of evidence, because evolutionists tend to see what they WANT to see, regardless of whether it is actually there. Why not, they are human too, after all!
So in the final analysis, the primary difference between Creationists and evolutionists is simply what things each group is willing to accept purely on faith.
That's all for tonight. If I missed anything I'll try to address it tomorrow.

First of all, you can believe in God and the Bible without being a Creationist, by interpreting Genesis as symbolism and not as a literal story.

(1) Big Bang probability. Tell me why the Big Bang should not have happened. Tell me why something else should have happened.

My point is that the probability of you existing exactly as you are, Darth Tater, is virtually nil. Yet you exist. The probability of the world being exactly as it is now is virtually nil, yet it is.

Do you see what I'm saying? Furthermore, Big Bang theory is completely different to evolution theory. It is a strawman attack to attack Big Bang theory in an attempt to discredit evolution theory.

(2) "Evolution has become a religion, since those who believe it have to go on Faith very often. Faith, though important, is not the main argument used by creation scientists, who, knowing they are often up against atheists or those who do not take the bible literally, use logic instead, which is something no one can deny."

This is untrue. Creationism goes simply by the Bible, while evolution theory comes from scientific evidence. Evolutionists use fossil evidence etc, not "faith".

Apart from the fact that the Bible says so, what "logic" drives you to believe that the Creation happened in the way it is described in the Bible?

(3) "There is no proof for evolution". True, but proof does not exist in science. Nothing is ever proved, only accepted because of the overwhelming evidence for it. No theory is ever proved, but the evidence is remarkably in favour of evolution. There are gaps in everything, but the least gaps are found in evolution theory.

I am not trying to tell you that your beliefs are wrong - no-one can. I am not saying that there was no Creation. I am merely saying that if you analyse things scientifically, evolution wins overwhelmingly.

I will give the link now. I do not endorse the site, but read through it before going any further if you will:

Mike Wong's Page

You people have really done your homework.
Really, I'm quite impressed.

Looks like I'm gonna be reading scientific books for the rest of my life

Again, I'm no expert, I just graduated 9th grad, but Darth ATAT, you seem to have made the classic argument of the evolutionist: Picking apart the unimportant instead of facing the matter at hand. Juntel, you said that the model of the tree growing through the fossil record is unimportant. How can that be? I'd say that's pretty good proof the fossil record is not what evolutionists think it is. Sure, it's a small thing, but that's really what matters. I'm not saying evolutionists or creationists using small things is bad, I'm saying picking apart the argument the other side gives to correct small errors that usually show up because your'e talking to a fifteen year old kid ( ) is bad.

Tater, back up your statements please. How am I picking apart the unimportant? If you would rather I didn't do this, I will happily stop doing it, but I can only accomplish that if you tell me what you don't like in the first place. (ie please don't make unsubstantiated statements ).

i cannot speak by Tater, but perhaps he was referring to paragraphs like this:

This is untrue. Creationism goes simply by the Bible, while evolution theory comes from scientific evidence. Evolutionists use fossil evidence etc, not "faith".

after the last QB's post you can easily see that your's is an unsubstantiated statement

Just please calm down everyone... soon we'll be name-calling!

Just remember that human right includes the right to have his own opinions.

Some here are stubborn creationnists, some are stubborn evolutionnist and some are still seeking the truth!

BTW, I didn't read all the long posts, cause I don't want to get involve (ie, they're TOO long!)

Have a nice day everybody!

Hmmmm.... Quite a few things to answer here...

Firstly one brief comment to Tater, and I'll get back to
thim later with other comments.

Tater, it's the second time you bring up your age.
Ok, your 15. We all know that. But don't hide behind
it. I KNOW you're mostly picking up those ideas from
books. And so is Quickbeam. And so am I at times.
The arguments that all of you have brougth forth are
the same old ones I've seen over and over again, without
an iota of change, in those books about creation "science"
I've seen in the past. But I think I shouldn't be
surprised to see that no new arguments/challenge have
been found by the Gish/Morris et al group (their
ideas are not evolving! Sorry... couldn't resist).
I'll go back to you later Tater...

Now, Quickbeam...

"Since the origin of the universe and formation of life
occurred in the unobservable past, they are not subject to
the scientific method"

The past leaves traces. Those traces are observed, analysed,
etc. Some make conjectures about what those traces tell us
about the past, and make falsifiable predictions about them,
which in turn can be tested to be false or not; if false, the
conjectures are inapropriate; if true, they are acceptable for
now. That way, we gain knowledge of the past without
reasonable limits, although it is (and ever will be) an
imperfect knowledge of it.

Basically Creation "Science" says:
"Let's tell (as our Scriptures say) that an (unobservable,
unprovable) Creator created this universe mostly as we see it
now, and that then it mostly stayed that way, according to the
present laws of physics" So, basically they say just what
their religions have been saying for ages, not much more.
They don't try to explain, they just try to SAY, to POSE, to
IMPOSE an admitedly unprovable, unobservable, unfalsifiable
element in their story, which is their creator, their god,
basically their reason for living. To do otherwise would be
an afront to this god.
No QB, we can't take out the religious element from this
discussion since it is at the BASIS of Creation "Science".


"Creation and evolution are equally scientific in the loose
sense, and equally religious in the stricter sense"

Evolutionist may well criticise their own work, if they can't
sustain their belief by concrete examples they KNOW that
their belief is unfounded in the community, and if they are
true scientists they know they must change their belief, and
will. In that important sense, belief in evolution is in
no way a religion.
Whereas a Creation "scientist" will continue to believe in
their creator, whatever happens; that's his dogma. And THAT's
religion.
CS is merely, if at all, scientific in the loose sense, for it
posits as true what they want to prove in the end: the existence
of a created world. Evolution is scientific in a strict sense
since it lets itself be vulnerable to the test of nature.

Sciences (like evolution) are fragile by nature because they
are forever in the quest of the truth.
Religions, however, think they have the truth, and when they
are in power they impose their truth to the people.
Science is democratic; regligions are not. Hence separation
of Church and State (your "Founding Fathers" rule!)

And, QB, evolution doesn't go against the first or second laws
of TD in any way... Why do you try to say (or rather quote)
these things over and over again?!!!
In a universe that has evolutionary changes, 2nd law still is
there (and even necessary!). 2nd law doesn't forbid in any way
the conitinual of more complex forms of life in any way!
Geez! Just because entropy decreases somewhere doesn't imply
that the 2nd law is broken!


"Virtual particles being spontaneously created in a vacuum
require the space-time-matter continuum to already exist. It is
the origin of this whole continuum that naturalism cannot explain,
and it is THAT violation of the First Law that we're talking about"

Wait, wait! Hehe... First law: conservation of energy.
Not conservation of space-time continuum. The firt law was
written at the pre-quantum age, and before we had the tools to test
the quantum implications. Now we know that the vacuum is constantly
in effervescence with creation/anihilation of particle/antiparticle
pairs, that violates (in spirit, if not in fact) the law of energy
conservation. And that's the point: creation from nothingness
occurs constantly! And god (or Vishnu) knows what about could have
happened 15 billions years ago at that Big Singularity (BigBang?)
the scientist talk about! The Quantum world teaches us things
that go beyond what we see in everyday life, things that one can
observe if you have the proper measuring equipement (and I can say
I am glad I have seen a part of that world in my youth).



"natural selection can only choose BETWEEN EXISTING LIFE FORMS.
In the alleged original formation of the first living cell, there
was nothing for natural selection to act on"

I disagree. Natural selection can act on ANY SELF-REPLICATING
ENTITIES, including self-replicating inert molecules.


Here is the time that would be good to separate three distinct
issues that appear in this thread:

1) ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
2) ORIGIN OF THE FIRST FORM OF LIFE (e.g. first cell)
3) EVOLUTION FROM PRIMITIVE FORMS OF LIFE TO MORE COMPLEX ONES
(eg from simple cell to primate over billions of years)

Darwin and later evolutionists are not concerned really with (1)
and (2). (1) is the problem of cosmologists (astrophysicits and
astrologers... heuh, astronomers... thanks anduin!).
(2) is the concern mainly of biologists in general, and also
archeologists. (3) is the problem of evolutionists, which includes
biologists, archeologists, paleonthologists, and also anthropologists
when primates and man are concerned.


"Your argument about a larger sandbox also misses the point..."

Hmmm... My estimate is one over the FACTORIAL of 1 Billion.
Do you know how much is the FACTORIAL of 1 Billion?
Incredibly much more than 10 to the power of 160...
Incredibly much more even than 10 to the power of 1000...
Incredibly much more even than 10 to the power of 1000000...

Be carefull how you manipulate probabilities, or they will
manipulate you...

(btw, I didn't take that example in a book; I made it myself.
I have other examples that are less dramatic, and more easily
calculable. Tell me if you want another one.)



"As to your point about other possible ways life could have
formed, I'll try not be too gleeful as I point out how you shot
yourself in the foot on that one..."

Too gleeful.
For you, the life that we see around is the only possible form
that could have arisen, and you seem to be categoric about that.
You seem to KNOW that no other form of life could have come out,
you seem to KNOW that no other shuffling of matter could express
eventually living beings.
How do you know that?
I do not know if other forms of life are possible, with something
else than DNA, and that's why I say that it's impossible to know
what the probability of appearance of life is.
I'm not saying this probability is close to one or anything; I say
we can't calculate it!
(In fact, I'm almost tempted to ask you if your god had a choice
in the material of life to created his humans, or was he forced(!)
to chose dna...)
That there is only one form of life on earth is a fact; true.
That life may have arisen completely differently is speculation; true.
That life cannot have arisen completely differently... is ALSO
pure speculation; true...
This is why I say that the probability of calculating emergence of
life in the universe is not possible now, because we don't know what
kind of other life is possible or not.
WE. DON'T. KNOW.


"For the Second Law to be overcome..."

In that "paragraph" (please make paragraphs!) you seem to think only
living systems can decrease entropy. Think again. Go look in
some physics manuals. Decrease of entropy can happen in non-living
systems, and that's no mystery.


"There is nothing in living cells to direct or facilitate improvements
in the organism"

*Sigh*
Again, forgetting the environment...
I'll repeat again. Because again you (and Morris, and Gish, etc...)
make the same mistakes over and over again, thinking that evolutionists
think that only mutations in a cell produce it's evolution...
Natural selection! THIS is what evolutionists (most) talk about
when "improvement in the organisms" is to be explained (and by
"improvement" they mean "adaptation to their present environment").
The random mutations (by irradiation, toxins, bad replications or other
events) AND the increased population are, in a way, sifted by the
local environment (which itself can have changes at times), and those
among a population that are better adapted can survive longer, and
have more descendents... etc...


"Evolution, however, goes beyond this, and proposes that organisms
can undergo random mutations that result in improvements in the
ability of an organism to survive in its current environment, and
that the accumulation of enough of these mutations results in a new,
higher level of life form"


Misconception again. Or misreading.
Evolutionists and biologists know very well that mutations are most
of the time lethal to a complex organism. They NEVER forget that.
They even study it. They even know that mutations... are not always
lethal to simpler organisms, like bacterias (unicellular).
Did they observe a mutation on a human being that transformed it
into a super-human? No. And I don't think they ever will.
What biologists are talking about in the evolutionary process is a
variation of the gene pool in a species over centuries, thousand of
years, millions of years, within which BILLIONS of individual entities
of the species will have lived. For a mutation, biologists talk
about rate of mutation, and lethality of the mutation. In complex
organisms, the rate is very small; in less complex one, it is still
small. In the first case lethality is high; in the later less high.
But within many many generations, over thousands of years, there IS
a possibility that non-lethal mutations will have entered the genetic
pool as "regular" traits.
"Possibility"... Is it a certainty? No. An impossibility? Neither.
A theory is often a construct of many pieces, and some are conjectures
that are later confirmed, and others still pending.
Science is about questions, and sometimes the few answers that we
are able to give.
Religion is about ready made answers, dogmas that can't be doubted
by the believer, and a Creator that is only attainable by faith,
and not science.


"mutations are functions of the Second Law, and the Second Law
NEVER has a positive effect on a living organism"

A LIVING ORGANISM IS NOT AN CLOSED SYSTEM!
SECOND LAW IS ONLY ABOUT CLOSED SYSTEMS!
An organism needs energy from outside itself, and needs to reject
trash outside of itself!
The only way in this example to apply the Second Law is to consider
a closed system, and to do this you must at least consider the
living organism AND it's environment
For it's environment, you can choose the earth... but there is the
Sun that gives energy that nourished the plants that nourished the
animals. So choose the solar system... (but then again, energy is
constantly getting out of the solar system... So even here STRICTLY
it's not a closed system).
*SIGH*


"The Creation is, by definition, a one-time event that cannot be
understood in naturalistic terms. That's what makes Creation
different from evolution."

Yes. And that's what makes Creation "Science" a part of your religion,
not part of science.


"Do you really not think that evolutionists want to prove
evolution?"

They see a beautifull pattern in the nature they observe, but not all
of it is clear, so they go out and seek new evidence to support their
conjectures. If something they or other find is REALLY in contradiction
with their conjecture, then they must change their conjecture.
Belief is no religion, dogma is. As scientists, evolutionist leave
themselves vulnerable to the research/discovey process. They must present
their findings to their colleagues all over the world to be scrutinized,
analysed, dissected, criticized.
In Creation "Science", the CENTRAL element of your model, the Creator,
cannot be pointed at, analyzed, verified. It is an unverifiable
element that ONLY has a real prediction: Last Judgement, Apocalypse, etc...


"That's why there are so many instances of misinterpretation
of evidence, because evolutionists tend to see what they WANT
to see, regardless of whether it is actually there"

That may be true. But in the end, the scientific process is there
to guard for that. As I said above, the results are published NOT
the reveal truths, but to give colleagues all over the world the
opportunity to trace the steps themselves to see if they arrive at
the same results.
But in Creation "Science", the central element, the Creator-That-Is-
Outside-Of-The-Creation, is also the central part of the Creationist's
emotional and spiritual life; it defines his life.
Who then has an ethical dilema between the creationist and the evolutionist?



Now back to Tater.
And the tree.
Before I go on, let me say I haven't read all the books in the world
on the subject(!) and have not reviewed all the fossil evidence there
is. Give me back the title of the book, and I can get back to you
eventually on this.
But creationist have used often faulty reasoning or incomplete details
in the past to sustain their antipathy for fossil record interpretations.
Like some strata being in one direction here, and anothere being upside
down at another place, forgetting to talk about the often seen phenomenon
of geological foldings.
So until now I must reserve my "judgement" for later on this tree thing.
Until then, let me ask you this question: Have you gone looking for
an explanation by geologists and evolutionists on this tree matter?
When you give me the reference, if I can find that particular one, I
will make my research. In return, I ask you to please do the same
(by looking for the "establishment" explanation).
Deal?