Just to clarify, I'm referring to the material that groups like AiG, ICR, etc, specifically publish through their own media. This includes their so-called 'journals' such as AiG's Answer Research Journal for which they will reject papers that do not agree with their faith statement:
The editor-in-chief will not be afraid to reject a paper if it does not properly satisfy the above criteria or it conflicts with the best interests of AiG as judged by its biblical stand and goals outlined in its statement of faith.
And AiG's faith statement states that they flat-out reject anything that contradicts their religious beliefs.
That's not science.
Thanks for clarifying, and this is a one-up over secular science because within secular science, expressing views towards a particular faith is almost always rejected and will abruptly shorten one's career potential within mainstream science, it's just not formally expressed. Having religious beliefs does not prevent one from doing [good] science... The scientific method is indifferent to religious affiliation and results are interpretive by nature... so whether you believe in God, or Allah (which is just Arabic for "the God"), or no supreme being at all, this will influence your interpretation of results... so to ascribe [good] science as being only to those of a particular set of beliefs is prejudiced and will only produce interpretations specific to beliefs of that group. Approx. 2/3 of scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science do not believe in the God of the Bible, so guess how the majority of results are interpreted.
Source used for religious beliefs by scientists:
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
To clarify my own position the best answer I can give for the origin of everything is that I simply don't know. It's not a position of incredulity; rather it's a position based on lack of compelling evidence to adopt a particular viewpoint. Hence, why I consider myself agnostic when it comes to questions of a divine creator.
I can appreciate the position of not knowing 100% for sure, but will tell you that you will never be 100% sure... so you're here on CF because...? You realize, belief in God requires faith, yes? Faith being the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Conversely arguing that the universe must be a result of a divine creator because the alternative (no creator) is simply too unimaginable is an argument from incredulity. Which appears to be the argument you are making.
We'll try again. Let's talk a little about information theory. Information theorists have defined information as: "an encoded, symbolic message, with a language convention, and which contains an expected action upon the part of the recipient, and an intended purpose." So there are 4 components:
1) Encoded symbols
2) A language convention
3) An expected action
4) An intended purpose
An example often given is that a cookbook contains information. To test this, it must meet the 4 criteria for information: 1) there are symbols used > words... the word "sugar" is not actually sugar, it is a series of symbols that represents the substance sugar; 2) there is a language convention, you and I would for example recognize written English; 3) There is an expected action, that we would follow the directions, combining the ingredients in the way and timing prescribed, and 4) There is an intended purpose in that if we follow the directions, we will be able to make enjoyable food as intended by the author(s) of the cookbook.
This test can be done on anything, including DNA - there are symbols geneticists use (G, C, A, and T)... and G, C, A, and
U if talking about RNA. Geneticists recognize groupings they call codons, which represents an amino acid with the instructions to start or stop the production of a protein (a chain of amino acids)... codons are the language convention. The expected action is that the RNA will take the instructions in the DNA and copy to RNA strands using ribosomes, producing proteins. Lastly, the intended purpose is
life. Conclusion: DNA does in fact contain information.
Where's the info come from? The obvious is that the info is from Mom & Dad... but this can only go back so far... again, we've established that the universe has a finite beginning. Now unfortunately for those who wish to believe otherwise, all research in the field of information reveals that all information originates from a mind (human or otherwise). Gravely, there is not a single identified source of information that did not originate from someone's mind. So, whether you believe in evolution or not, the only viable conclusion is that life came into being as of the result of some other being with the mind to instill the information. No humans existed before humans, and God has made the claim, so for Christians, the source is the mind of God.
Personally, I don't think this bodes well for evolution for random mutations mostly result in the
loss of genetic information and function, whereas Darwinian evolution heavily relies upon the addition of new (de novo) and beneficial information (which research shows information does not arise from nothing, it originates from a mind). But, that's just me interjecting my views on that matter... so moving on.
My own view that has been shaped by the past couple decades of discussing religious beliefs and studying different religions is that they appear to be cultural in nature. For example, you list your location as being the U.S. Mid-West for which the dominant religious faith is Protestant Christianity. And here you are proselytizing Protestant Christianity as the One True Faith™.
I suppose you should consider yourself lucky you are part of a culture for which that is the dominant belief. Had you been born in a different place or time you might have missed out.
I might not have missed out as it was God's predetermined will that He would desire all to be saved. That aside, Christianity is also growing the fastest in Asia and Africa so if I lived there then my beliefs might still be in alignment with the culture
Of course. This also coincides with helioseismology deriving a solar age of 4.6 billion years.
Helioseismology is the study of the interior of the sun. The age of the sun; however, (according to Cornell University) is determined by radiometric dating of objects within the solar system that are believed to have been formed at the same time as the sun.
Then let me ask: If it were shown definitively that the Earth appeared to be 4.6 billion years and that modern species appeared to be the result of billions of years of evolution how would that impact your beliefs? Would you still subscribe to young Earth creationist beliefs? Would you remain a Christian?
I can say I would remain a Christian, but this is an unrealistic scenario as nobody (except God) can definitively show the exact, true age of the earth. Building on unrealistic scenarios, if the sky tore open and in a brilliant light unlike anything you've ever seen, Jesus emerges through and comes down to you, addresses you by name, places his hand upon your shoulder and in the most loving way says, "It is me, Jesus. Why do you doubt? Have faith, believe, and have everlasting life through me.", would you then believe? Answer: Well, of course - wouldn't everyone... but that's not faith, we are called to live by
faith and we are saved by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ.
Which is based on conventional "old Earth" geology. That's the point: nobody uses the young-Earth creationist models of geology for anything. Everything is based on conventional geology which involved processes having shaped modern geology over millions/billions of years.
If the creationist model of a 6000 year old Earth were actually correct, the first place you'd be hearing about this would be from industry. They have a vested financial interest in the best understanding of geology possible. So why aren't they subscribing to young-Earth creation models if conventional geology is incorrect?
The tools and instruments used to find resources are indifferent to beliefs of how long it took for those resources to get there. Also, "the industry" is not the source of truth, so it's a fallacy to assume that if 6,000 were true that it would be coming from the industry - I just established above that the 2/3 majority of scientists don't even believe in God, and previously have established that the age of the earth is based upon uniformitarian geological assumptions (many thanks to Charles and his
Principles of Geology). I'm not sure you are able to delineate between YEC models and otherwise - the only real difference is that YEC proponents believe there was a global flood (a one-time event) some 4,000+ years ago... most major principles of geology are relevant to the YEC view. Being that creationist geologists do have published work in both creationist and secular journals, I can only conclude that their work, their research, and their models are in fact relevant, and the difference in age is interpretive in nature.
I'm not sure you understand the scope of phylogenetics. It's the study of evolutionary relationships regardless of whether it's studying the evolution of the flu virus or the evolutionary relationships of species that evolved over millions of years.
The study of mammalian genomes tend to involve the latter, for example studying livestock genomes for agriculture or human genome for medical purposes. There are uses of phylogenetics that include evolutionary relationships that creationists typically reject such as primate evolutionary history.
And there are even companies that
patent techniques based on this.
The science you reject is being used today in real-world applications.
Odd that you keep dwelling on phylogenetics as this has only added to tearing apart ToE by creating a lot of difficulty when trying to reconcile molecular vs morphological evolutionary trees. Evolutionist Micahel Benton has been cited as stating, "Lungfishes show significantly higher rates of evolution of the 28S rRNA gene sequences than coelacanths, other fishes and tetrapods, and this makes it hard to discriminate their correct position in the tree," then he adds, "There is, however, a major discrepancy between this result and current molecular phylogenies." Evolutionary biologists Andrea Feller and S. Blair Hedges have also stated, "Molecular analyses of chondrichthyan phylogeny so far do not support the morphological tree." Tamí Mott and David Vieites have also indicated, "we revise the taxonomy of this group," tossing out the old morphology-based phylogeny in favor of their new molecular-based ideas," and, "Only rarely have phylogenetic studies of morphology and DNA data agreed in plant studies, even in well-studied groups." - so the issue isn't exclusive to the Animal kingdom. In comparing the Darwinian model, DNA segments revealed that the gene sequence data was 99% in discordance. An article in
New Scientist stated the [tree of life] "lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence…. [D]ifferent genes told contradictory evolutionary stories."
Source referenced for the above quotes:
http://www.icr.org/article/darwins-withering-tree/
Any of us can get lost in the mire of endless debates around scientific beliefs, which have historically shown to continually change and even contradict themselves. I think a better use of your time is to seek after the truth, and clearly science is not the answer. If you continue to lean on science you will have spent you entire life looking and be no better off than when you started.
