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I don't believe in the Creation story from Genesis or Creationism as an explanation for how we came to be.
I do not believe that science PRECLUDES a belief in God. Essentially, God made the world; therefore, God made science. God also made humans and gifted us with the ability to observe, deduce, learn, adapt, innovate, solve, explain, etc.
I am also aware of the "experiment" involving combining chemicals and electrical impulses under very specific circumstances to create what some consider to be the precursors to life (not life itself). The problem, of course, is that they still haven't managed to replicate abiogenesis.
Based on what's been accomplished in research so far, creationism has as much or more validity as abiogenesis.
Just because we have not been able recreate something in a laboratory that took milenia in real life doesn't mean we should fall back on fairy tales for explinations, espeically when those myths come from a source readily disproven as accurate or infallable.
The very building blocks of life, amino acids, are among some of the most abundant materials in the Universe.
Life a miracle? No, only a matter of time since the conditions were right.
Then we are stuck with infinite regression. What caused the cause of the universe?
The answer is to wave a magic wand. If science can't explain it, it must be God. The cause of the universe is the biggest and pretty much the only good 'gap for god'.
It's a good one, and none of the possibiities seem very convincing. To the believers, the existence of an eternal, intelligent, incorporal being is the only explanation that doesn't need to be explained. It's very convenient and persuasive, too.
But the best you have there is the 'god of Einstein'. An intelligent nature or an invisible computer that made and runs the universe. It was that concept that prevented Einsten from being able to accept quantum mechanics, so that's a point against 'the watchmaker'. The watchmaker argument for signs of designs are not very good, pretty much misunderstanding, misrepresentation and downright deception, such as DNA codes, animal intelligence, the fibonacci series and so on.
Funny thing is, 'causality' is trotted out as an immutible scientific law by the God-bods who won't accept any other science, no matter how well -proven if it doesn't support their faith. Here, it is human -made 'law' that suits them as it 'proves' that the universe could not have come about other than by Goddunnit.
God, of course, being God, is exempt from causality. The thing is, we don't know enough abou the universe to even know what mechanism might work and what might not. Argument from ignorance is a fallacy. Gaps for god is a fallacy.
Over the centuries, all sorts of unexplained phenomena have been explained as 'goddunnit'. When we do come to understand it, it turns out that naturedunnit. Since the universe way out beyond what we know is an unknown, isn't it time to give goddunnit a rest and give 'naturedunnit' a bit of credit?
And even if we do postulate an Intelligent nature, what my mate Tiggie called the Intelligent transcendental (1) being, we have a long way to go before we get to religion, let alone a particular religion. But that's a whole other discussion.
(1) by that, he meant creative and, therefore, 'higher' than us)
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-21-2009 at 03:09 AM..
Reason: Oh, my typing (weeps)
Well, then as usual, NIKK, you demonstrate your classic lack of scientific understanding. Evolution is simply a set of conclusions resulting from the application of a structured methodology that, in general, prevents false conclusions.
Over time, it assembles similar data and findings on a particular subject, (including man on the moon, microwave ovens and Evolution) retests the less well understood parts, and subjects existing findings to ever more rigorous tests, and over time comes to irrefutible conclusions.
Evolution's basics have arisen from just such a process.
You refute it without any basis other than that you don't like it. And that Christianity doesn't like it.
Whaaaaaahhhh you say.
There's less evidence supporting microwave ovens than there is for Evolution, which has been proven in it's methodologies within DNA (that part is simple, and is, frankly, all it takes for Evolution to operate) and then the consequences of that proven part simply take over in the natural world.
When we look now at the DNA of various species, and as that of the frozen prehistoric and more recent animals, as well as Lenski's fabulously conclusive 2008 proof where he records a new species evolving out of an older one, it all falls into place. Irrefutibly, except for the mythologist crowd who can't stand it.
Sorry, NIKK; you can't refute it that easily, try as you might like to. So what if it''s only a story or myth in your mind. The rational world knows better. But then, if that's how you think science operates, you probably don't believe we landed on the moon either.
Microwaves are testable in the present and repeatably tested. Evolution is a one time event hypothesized about the untestable past. Microwaves do not need tonnes of data to support it because they exist and are part of Gods creation. The truth is the truth and all know the truth when the face it. But evolution, a hypothesis supported by conjecture need tonnes of paper work to validate it because it does not exist. We need to give a reality to it in the papers we write and the reports and the tests we can twist to convince ourselves that it really happened.
Man went on the moon rifleman. This is applied science, not story telling like your beloved evolution.
When you say Creationism, do you mean the belief that something created the universe? If you do, I'd say the vast majority of people in the world are creationists. Most people believe in a higher power in one way or another.
A fairly large percentage of scientists believe in some sort of creation or other. I guess saying "Creation is not science" isn't the same as saying "Creation isn't true".
Microwaves are testable in the present and repeatably tested. Evolution is a one time event hypothesized about the untestable past. Microwaves do not need tonnes of data to support it because they exist and are part of Gods creation. The truth is the truth and all know the truth when the face it. But evolution, a hypothesis supported by conjecture need tonnes of paper work to validate it because it does not exist. We need to give a reality to it in the papers we write and the reports and the tests we can twist to convince ourselves that it really happened.
Man went on the moon rifleman. This is applied science, not story telling like your beloved evolution.
Evolution has mountains of fossil, RNA/DNA, and carbon dating to substantiate Evolution as a proiven scientific theory. The proof os there for anyone who doesn't have to delude themselves to support their religious views.
Evolution stands up well to peer review, even among scientists who are Christian as well.
Creationism is based solely on ancient manuscripts that have been proven wrong more than enough times to eliminate them as self-supporting evidences.
No "Adam and Eve", no great flood, no flat earth, no universe revolving around the earth, et cetera ad nausium.
For the benefit of our newer readers, and to refresh NIKK's mind:
In August of 2008, Richard Lenski, Michigan St U, a well known, honored and respected scientist, published the results of his 22 year long experiment. 22 years long! That in itself is astounding, but wait, there's more.
In briefest summary, Dr. Lenski, with the latest DNA mapping systems now available to him, and that weren't available even 5 years ago, set to carefully mapping all the genetic codes of the species he was working with, the ubiquitous E. coli, which has, as one of it's species-specific defining characteristics the absolute inability to digest a certain nutrient (citrate).
Sorta like asking a giraffe to digest a slab of antelope steak. Can't do it; wrong SPECIES.
Then, as a result of chance mutations in the DNA of our little test species, it suddenly became able to digest something it previously couldn't. This newfound ability then promoted the ability of this new type of bacterium to do other thingsas a result of other previously pointless and useless mutations it had acquired but which just kinda idled along unused in it's genome.
We humans, likewise, have many unused "junk" DNA sequences in our own DNA, but which were used in previous species for digestion or other biochemical rationale. Some of thesec species are also the remnants of ancient viral attacks, as they are nearly identical to the latest, but evolved, dangerous new viruses that worm their way into an organism's DNA.
Since we can now precisely compare across various organism's genomes with these spectacular new genome mapping techniques, we can determine just when they "invaded", and what routes they have taken since then. A sort of irrefutible perfect evolutionary road map, so to speak. And when we do, huzzah... there we were, with our identical DNA, it being identical back when we were all just chimps!
These sequences are in exactly the same location in us, on the same chromosomes, as they appear in earlier ancestors of ours, but we no longer need nor use them. For now. They are just currently unused butunmistakable genetic markers.
Now why would an Intelligent Designeer drop in useless, outdated viral information, identical long ago, but not the same as the newest (evolved, BTW) types? Answer: He didn't. No ID was involved or required.
Now, imagine a new niche opening up, where we suddenly developed the need to climb into trees and resume eating some uncooked, hard-to-digest cellulose vegetation. Like our ancestors used to and still do. We're only a blink away from re-activating those same enzymes that chimps still have, (and that we also carry, but unused, via that currently unused DNA sequence), and could thus do so if the need arose.
Was the Intelligent Designer anticipating our return to a forest tree-dwelling life amongst our ancestral chimp bretheren? According to Christian dogma, I hardly think so, they being so much "lesser" than us and all. And with the End Times (hopefully, plead the Christians...) coming soon to a theatre near us, who's got time to back-evolve anyhow, huh?
Of course, being humans, we now modify our world, rather than responding to it's demands, and we mostly make our own niches, rather than being forced to adapt to external changes as our predecessors were.
But back to Lenski. He had the common sense to save each one of all of the generations that his study produced, and he was able to, and can now, duplicate for NIKK's curiosity if asked, the moment in time and generation (I think it was about gen. 33,500 as I recall) when this chance mutation occurred, and the new species was then able to take hold in it's new environment. This profound change also facilitated several other previously unused sequnces into functionality, just as we'd have predicted. Ain't science literally amazing, accurately predicting and all?
And voila, a new species. Who said it couldn't be done? Anyone? Anyone?
This only took 22 years. In the course of evolution, there have been over 200 million of such 22-year timeframes since the first life began, time enough for quite a few changes, esp. since they come in groups. Early stomatolite formations were sheets of bacteria laid down on lake and ocean floors, then later covered by annual depositions of silt, then converted to rock by pressure, heat, time and more and more layers. So, life started with a simple pre-bacterium, and went from there. Can't discount Lenski's work by saying "It was only a bacteria!" That's what you came from, NIKK! Be proud of your heritage, m'boy!
Counting those irrefutible annual layers (unless you want to come up with nonsense explanations that somehow magically stop when history starts recording things, like a high speed clock suddenly slowing but only when you look at it... silliness as usual), the Russians have, so far, counted over 2.5 million years in Lake Baikal, a bit different than the YEC count of 6035 years, huh?
Also, since Evolution occurs in all the different branches simultaneously, the vast diversity of life only required a scant few, say, 20 or so, originating species types, and the rest is history, as they say. Exponential branching, we call it. Look it up.
Lenski proved categorically to the unbelievers how it works (he and we already knew for years, but someone had to show the relentless naysayer crowd who prefer insta-poofery, also known as insta-crack-pottery). The fossil record shows a vast array of organisms that the ancient scientifically illiterate biblical authors could not have begun to imagine, so of course, they left it all out of the bible.
Yes, they concocted some drama about ancient fire-breathing dragons, but there were no fire-breathing dinosaurs, just ancient myths concocted around the old cave fire, and carried down, like the story of the coyoye making the moon in Apache lore. I don't think that's where the moon came from, baying coyotes..... Perhaps, though, you buy into such stuff. Your choice. We have other, better evidence on the moon, and way more on evolution's products.
By comparision, your line of anti-evolutionary reasoning and rhetoric is akin to claiming the moon's made of cheese. Go ahead; make that claim.
Evolution's proven, proven and proven. Evidence up the whazzoo. Saying NO won't cut it, folks. Sorry.
Last edited by rifleman; 07-21-2009 at 04:26 PM..
Reason: typoz, clarity
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QED. Proven. Fini.
