[quote]AlphaDragon wrote:
I appreciate your desire to continue this conversation civilly. I’ll try to address your points in order.
Creationism and evolutionary theory do NOT begin from the same basis. Creationism begins with: “step 1: assume a creator,” while evolutionary theory begins with DATA–originally, Darwin’s data acquired from his studies of speciation in the Galapagos. Creationism seeks to fit the data to the theory, while evolutionary theory is constantly changing in order to better fit the observed data. One is science, and one is not.
If you acknowledge that “creation science” cannot provide any testable, observable predictions about the development of life on earth, then you do not have a scientific theory. What you have is a dogma. From here we could get into all sorts of debates over why God would have designed organisms in certain ways, but that really goes nowhere.
Your argument that “creation-scientists” are prepared to accept the scientific method in some circumstances and not others is not really reasonable. There are literally hundreds of thousands of pages of scientific evidence supporting evolution–you can’t claim that there is “no evidence” upon which to base evolutionary theory. I’ll quote Orthodox Christian evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” It is intellectual laziness to assume that because our current understanding of evolutionary theory does not completely explain every biological phenomenon on the planet, that it is false, and furthermore, that God did everything. If you are prepared to contend that God is responsible for evolution, then you must also be prepared to contend that God is responsible for every other element of a scientific theory that we do not currently understand. Do you see how absurd that is?
In the 17th century, everyone “knew” that light propagated through an ether. But as that theory became increasingly difficult to square with the accumulating evidence, ‘ether’ was discarded in favor of new theories. If you allow God to intervene at any step of that scientific process, then it all stops–“light surely does propagate through an ether, because God must have made it that way, and we don’t have another answer yet.” Do you see how that completely undermines the basis upon which ALL science operates?
I really do appreciate your desire to discuss this, but the mere fact that some individuals with degrees support “creation science” has no bearing on whether or not it has any truth to it. It is not a matter of how many people agree or disagree with a theory; it is a matter of how well that theory explains the phenomena that we observe around us.
I really, really really have limited time, but wanted to take a little of it to come back to this topic, as you (again) are interested in a good discussion (again, appreciated).
First, let me say that I have not had the time to browse the rest of the replies after the last one I answered, and chances are great that I’ll only continue with the discussions I’m already involved in.
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Let’s see what we can do, as this topic is getting quite long.
First, of course they both opposing sciences don’t begin from the same base. Evolutionary science begins from a “There is no Intellignet Design” basis while Creation Science begins from a “There is an Intelligent Designer” basis.
The methods each on employs in order to demonstrate it’s point of view must be different as they are coming from opposite sides of a spiritual spectrum.
I also disagree that it’s dogma. Why? Simply because the data is applied differently, from what I understand. Creation Scientists want to delve as deeply into the human genome (so to speak) as much as Evolutionary scientists…the difference is that their approach is to understand the creation more…and that is kind of in the same vein as trying to understand the way mankind formed.
Even though evolution science is deemed a science and creation science is not deemed so, BOTH have a platform with which they frame their findings. If creation science is “dogma,” then so is evolution science in that it’s (to use a poorly-chosen word) goal is to basically prove that God did not form mankind.
If one is to assume dogma, then both are guilty, according to your description.
(For the record, anyone who does not believe in macroevolution truly needs to open their eyes to different types of dogs, cats, humans, etc).
Moving onward:
True Creation Scientists never say that God created (used) evolution. This totally negates the purpose of Intelligent Design" and such thoughts are indeed foolish. that quote from
Theodosius Dobzhansky is utter crap because, as you said, you can’t combine the two sciences.
The fact is that both sciences have completely opposite bases from which they frame their research…one is with God creating everything from nothing, and the other one is that God did nothing. From there, both groups launch their individual research.
As you have stated, I also appreciate the discussion and your level of temperment, but for you to say that Creation science is wrong because it does not fit into the outline of what science should be (as defined by evolutionary science, in this case) is totally biased for evolutionary science and against Creation Science (kind of like saying “Basketball isn’t true because the rules are not like Football” (again, I’m not at my best right now…long day for me in China). They are both sports and the goals are the same, to win the game, but the “rules of engagement” are wrong.
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No, you misunderstood my first point. Evolutionary theory does not begin by assuming there is no creator. At all. Evolutionary theory begins with the observation that organisms inhabiting environments with different selection pressures feature different adaptations to those pressures (see Darwin’s Galapagos finches).
Do you see the difference between starting with your theory’s conclusion and trying to fit the evidence to the conclusion, and starting with data and generating a theory to explain it? Even today, biologists do not attempt to solve every problem they encounter via an appeal to evolution. The data is what counts, and “creation science” either ignores or misinterprets the data.
When your research is determined by the conclusions you want to find, and you are unprepared to come to any other conclusions, then you have a dogma–you are not willing to accept any other conclusion than your preferred answer, and you will bend over backwards trying to justify how the data fit your conclusions, even when it makes no sense.
Your contention that evolution’s goal is to prove that God did not create mankind indicates that you really need to read some serious evolutionary biology before you ascribe “motives” to a scientific theory. Evolutionary theory has NO GOAL other than explaining the means by which organisms are shaped and altered via natural selection. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of science on your part.
Einstein did not sit down and say “I think I’m going to prove that the fabric of space and time is curved.” He (and others) noted that Newtonian physics failed to EXPLAIN certain phenomena, and he sought out a more complete explanation. I don’t really know how to make it more clear.
This appeal that scientists are somehow specifically excluding religious theories from being considered because they control the “rules” of science is absurd. You already agreed that it would be absurd to allow God as an explanatory framework in engineering.
How about physics? Since we don’t know exactly how gravity works, we can go back to assuming h/she holds the planets in orbit. Or neurology? The cause of Multiple Sclerosis is unknown–let’s say it’s God’s punishment for adultery. You cannot reasonably argue that God is okay as an explanation in one instance and not all of them.
If your theory offers specific, testable, and observable hypotheses about the world around us, then I will accept it as science. Otherwise it is not. This is not a matter of how many people agree with you or I. The scientific method is not biased, any more than Newtonian mechanics are biased–it is a fact of the world we live in that hypothesis and experimentation, and objective conclusions based thereupon, are reliable.