Tom,
Seeings I am the only Christian lately that is posting here, I'm sure you can understand that I have been inundated with contradicting posts and forgive my sarcasm, with "confused" posters who can't understand what I am saying. And I have tried to answer as many and as much as I could. So you will understand when I say I've "been there done that" over and over again!
I have nothing to hide and I am not intimidated or impressed, fearful or prideful, confused or ignorant (I said all that so you won't have to infer or suggest or come right out and say to the contrary).
For the zillioneth time (of course exaggerated) I will once again, for YOUR benefit state that I am not disagreeing with the science of evolution but I am disagreeing with the the conclusions that are drawn that these so called "evidences" totally show we evolved from "whatever", and therefore, we MUST discard the creation of Genesis AND in turn we MUST conclude the there is no GOD. And please don't belabor this by giving me all the same arguments that your fellow atheists have given. If you care to go back and read mine and their posts and have something NEW to offer fine but I don't want to hear about chromoson 2, nested hierarchy, alleles etc. Because as far as I am concerned I cannot understand (well, I really do) HOW so many intellectual (and I mean that) people can make the conclustion that we come from apes by the evidence that their is. Putting aside faith and God and creation, it still can only be a "guess" at best. Nothing that I have seen proves anything (and PLEASE don't give me the line about science and proof BTDT)
Why should I not give the same evidence? The real problem I see here is that evolution does explain these observations while a literal reading of Genesis does not. What is more, if a literal reading of Genesis was true, we observe things that we
should not be observing.
Next to this, I find the above again confusing. When you write that you are "not disagreeing with the science of evolution but I am disagreeing with the the conclusions that are drawn that these so called "evidences" totally show we evolved from "whatever", this is internally contradictory. Because the science is the conclusions we draw based upon the evidence. The only valid scientific conclusion we can draw based on the evidence is that we did evolve from "whatever" and we did evolve from other apes. When you say you disagree with that, you
do disagree with the "science of evolution".
It is a little refreshing to have someone at least attempt to write with out an attacking attitude but please forgive me if I am somewhat suspicious. Time will prove it out.
We'll see. I always try, but I do expect that my arguments are thought through instead of just dismissed. I get snappy when I think to spot the latter.
Correct with emphasis on idea
In this case I should have been more exact, the observation. That allele frequencies in a population change over time is an observation.
Correct, with emphasis on idea
Correct, with emphasis on idea
I am wondering what you think this emphasis adds. It's like you think this is some kind of drawback on the science. If an idea is supported by large amounts of evidence, it is very likely to be correct. We can never say that 'this is 100% correct' in science, but we can categorize things in how likely they are. Given the evidence, evolution from a single common ancestor is extremely likely. A literal interpretation of the Genesis account is extremely unlikely. You can emphasize words that indicate the fact that all scientific theories can be wrong, but that doesn't suddenly make evolution less and a literal interpretation of genesis more likely. It can only give you a false sense of security in the ideas that you have.
Please....give me some respect....you're not confused. Then IF you HAVE read ALL my posts you have your answer.
But I am confused. If I say I am confused of your position, I have no reason to lie to you about that. I am confused because from my perspective, you are using words in a manner that is not very rigorous and often internally contradictory. Your usage of the term 'evolutionism' is one example, your statement above another.
Evolutionism, from the accusative of the Latin evolutio, "unrolling" + the Greek -ισμός, "suffix of action or state", is generally used by creationists as a pejorative label for the scientific theory of evolution.
Yes. And:
wiki said:
Creationists tend to use the term evolutionism in a misleading sense in order to suggest that
evolution and
creationism are equal in a philosophical debate.
I think the part you quoted as well as this above sums up nicely why I think the word is a complete misnomer. It singles out evolution when the creationists mentioned not only attack evolution, but the whole scientific method. But they couldn't just state that they are attacking methodological naturalism, because if they would do that people would start to make the connection with other branches of science. It would make it easier for people to see through their arguments, to see that the arguments they are using, if correct, would apply to the whole of science and not just evolution. Hence, they need a pejorative term, instead of a neutral one. The term 'evolutionism' to me embodies the professional creationists emotional stake in the issue as well as the verbal sleight of hand they almost invariably play. If you are talking about methodological or philosophical naturalism, just say it. For me, it is an indication that the creationists using it often are not really interested in an accurate portrayal of the matter at hand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionism
And while I don't agree with the full discription given here. I do agree with this part, with emphasis on "assumption."
"Evolutionism", is defined by the OED as "[t]he theory of evolution, evolutionary assumptions or principles".
And what assumptions do you think they are? Because in the theory of evolution I only see two, the same ones that always play a part in science. Reality is really real and reality is testable. The second just derives from the first.
It's not a bogus word and it was correct for this particular thread but thank you, I don' t want to limit this to evolution only. I agree that Naturalism is a better description.
I would hold that it is a bogus word. Just because certain groups use it does not mean it suddenly becomes a word that really adds any meaning to the discussion. Evolutionism as a word doesn't, it is nothing more than a perjorative term designed to try to lure away the attention from the fact that the whole of science is under attack by creationists, instead of only the theory of evolution, it is a word that creationists try to confuse with atheism and it is a word that creationists themselves do not even use consistently. Furthermore, as you acknoweldged, there is a very good and commonly accepted word in use already for what you are describing, philsophical naturalism.
The answer to the first two questions is no and no and I believe those two answers make the last three questions non applicable.
Why does that make the last three questions non-applicable? If you want to include God in science, how are you going to do that? Since the way you talk about 'evolutionism' ie naturalism, perhaps unintentionally, signifies that you think there is something wrong with it, the logical question to ask then is how to come towards a good understanding of our surrounding then that is testable and can be checked by everybody.
I was kinda scared about that. 
