Creationism/Creation Science... approved by Arkansas house

[HARK!]

Scientific theories make testable predictions.

Abiogenesis makes testable predictions like: "There are conditions where self replicating chemicals will form life" Which we are currently testing.

How long have these tests been going on; and how many life forms have been created under ideal laboratory conditions?

 

[variant]

How long have these tests been going on; and how many life forms have been created under ideal laboratory conditions?

"Ideal" isn't the trick, it's finding what the right conditions actually are (since that's not what we would already know).

It's similar to any attempt to make a possibility that the world hints at like trying to fly airplanes. We didn't know how until we understood things a bit better and then eventually made demonstration models.

I'm not an expert in abiogenesis, I just have a degree in biology. So, if you are interested you should look into the current work on the subject. I am just here telling you why we teach it in schools.

It's a pursuit for the information that we don't have, but could understand that makes it science. So, we teach kids about stuff like that in case they are interested.

Now if a God created life...

Gods creating things doesn't have that kind of research associated with it. The problem with God as an explanation is that there are never any observations that could show a God didn't do something. It's a kind of idea that would explain ALL possible sets of future observations.

An explanation that explains literally every possible future set of observations isn't really all that useful.

 

[HARK!]

"Ideal" isn't the trick, it's finding what the right conditions actually are (since that's not what we would already know).

It's similar to any attempt to make a possibility that the world hints at like trying to fly airplanes. We didn't know how until we understood things a bit better and then eventually made demonstration models.

I'm not an expert in abiogenesis, I just have a degree in biology. So, if you are interested you should look into the current work on the subject. I am just here telling you why we teach it in schools.

It's a pursuit for the information that we don't have, but could understand that makes it science. So, we teach kids about stuff like that in case they are interested.

Now if a God created life...

Gods creating things doesn't have that kind of research associated with it. The problem with God as an explanation is that there are never any observations that could show a God didn't do something. It's a kind of idea that would explain ALL possible sets of future observations.

An explanation that explains literally every possible future set of observations isn't really all that useful.

Good science is reproducible science

Reproducibility is a core principle of scientific progress (1–6). Scientific claims should not gain credence because of the status or authority of their originator but by the replicability of their supporting evidence. Scientists attempt to transparently describe the methodology and resulting evidence used to support their claims. Other scientists agree or disagree whether the evidence supports the claims, citing theoretical or methodological reasons or by collecting new evidence. Such debates are meaningless, however, if the evidence being debated is not reproducible.

Good science is reproducible science

 

[variant]

Good science is reproducible science

Reproducibility is a core principle of scientific progress (1–6). Scientific claims should not gain credence because of the status or authority of their originator but by the replicability of their supporting evidence. Scientists attempt to transparently describe the methodology and resulting evidence used to support their claims. Other scientists agree or disagree whether the evidence supports the claims, citing theoretical or methodological reasons or by collecting new evidence. Such debates are meaningless, however, if the evidence being debated is not reproducible.

Good science is reproducible science

What's your point? The people doing work in abiogenesis are in fact producing reproducible work.

Think we could get the same level of research with creationism? I certainly don't.

 

[stevil]

Good point. And in the "long term evolution experiment" they discovered that after 75,000 generations of "evolution" - observed in real time... bacteria remained .... wait for it... "bacteria".

According to the theory of evolution one would expect the offspring of bacteria to be bacteria.
Just as the offspring of animals will always be animals. e.g. a horse will never give birth to a cabbage.
Just as the offspring of a mammal will always be a mammal e.g. a bat will never give birth to a bird.
Just as the offspring of an ape will always be an ape e.g. a gorilla will never give birth to a cat.


As humans evolve, our descendants even given million upon millions of years will always be animals, mammals, apes, we will never evolve into fish or birds or reptiles or plants or bacteria. That is just the way evolution works.

 

[HARK!]

What's your point? The people doing work in abiogenesis are in fact producing reproducible work.

Think we could get the same level of research with creationism? I certainly don't.

I haven't seen any results to prove Abiogenisis. It looks more like a failed hypothesis to me.

 

[variant]

I haven't seen any results to prove Abiogenisis. It looks more like a failed hypothesis to me.

Prove wouldn't be the correct word for a hypothesis. Supported or unsupported.

Abiogenesis as a theory is better understood after the years of research.

But, what we don't know via science isn't a negative, it's something to explore.

 

[BobRyan]

Is Abiogenesis testable? If so where are the test results? I haven't seen any. What practical application does it serve to spend valuable education resources, by promoting this "theory" to our children?

The idea is that just-plain-chemicals become bio-molecules and then bio molecules become single-celled organisms via a lot of story telling. So they "attempted" to get all the basic biomolecules (amino acids) in the right chiral configuration that supposedly "imaginatively" someday maybe find away to assemble themselves into RNA or DNA or "something" that might contribute to a single celled organism. Well... that failed. See the Urey Miller experiment where they get chemicals to form "some" of the biomolecules that would be need to get to "square zero" - but even the ones they got in that attempt did not all have the required chiral orientation of the carboxyl group to make them viable for a living cell. It was a bust -

But this is really amazing because "in theory" it is all supposed to be "just chemistry" -- so why the decades of failure?

 

[BobRyan]

I haven't seen any results to prove Abiogenisis. It looks more like a failed hypothesis to me.

Indeed. It is like saying "you should be able to rub sticks together and get fire" as the story goes -- but for some reason we can't do that". The devil-in-the-details turns out to be closer to "rub sticks together and get the easter bunny".

How "odd" that even the simplest step -- something that is just a bit of chemistry - is beyond them. But "belief" persists in spite of it.

 

[Pommer]

Early life on Earth was fueled not by burning oxygen (as a “fuel”) but deadly hydrogen sulfide.

 

[BobRyan]

According to the theory of evolution one would expect the offspring of bacteria to be bacteria.

Creationists insist that bacteria will only produce bacteria - no matter how long you observe them. This is the part that everyone on both sides agrees with when it comes to "what the creationist model would predict".

There is no "long running creation experiment where we watch bacteria only give rise to more bacteria".

As humans evolve, our descendants even given million upon millions of years will always be animals,

And a "bacteria" - vs a Eukaryote like an Amoeba are both "just single-celled organisms". But prokaryotes such as bacteria do not turn into something higher up the ladder of taxonomy from prokaryote to eukaryote. Both prokaryotes and eukaryotes are are still single celled organisms but such a transition would be evolution along that ladder of taxonomy - much imagined in the belief system of evolutionism -- never observed.

No evolution text argues for no movement at all from simple life forms to more complex ones going up that ladder of taxonomy

 

[HARK!]

Early life on Earth was fueled not by burning oxygen (as a “fuel”)

Oxygen doesn't burn.

but deadly hydrogen sulfide.

Well when a scientist can demonstrate that he can create life; we'll have something to talk about, no matter what kind of fuel he uses.

In the mean time, I see no point in teaching our children decades of failed tests, for a questionable hypothesis, as evidence of a purported truth.

 

[BobRyan]

Oxygen doesn't burn.

That's true strictly speaking - burning is "oxidation" and oxygen does not oxidize. But it will oxidize other things

 

[Tanj]

I don't think that's true.

75,000 generations for bacteria is a little over 40 years. (5 hrs per generation)

Uh, no. In lab conditions, the generation for E coli is 20 minutes.
Organization of sister origins and replisomes during multifork DNA replication in Escherichia coli.

Considerably less than 40 years. My calculator says 115 days. One of us is doing it wrong, but even with your math it's less than 3 years.

 

[stevil]

Creationists insist that bacteria will only produce bacteria - no matter how long you observe them.

OK, cool.
Evolution also claims that bacteria will produce bacteria no matter how long you observe them.

To get a basic understanding of evolution you would benefit from taking a look at the tree of life

Here is a very simplistic version of it.

Bacteria on the left in the diagramme above.
Us humans we fit into the Eukaryota section on the right
There was a common ancestor, but then we all branched off and evolved down different paths.

These branches don't typically merge back into each other. (species can merge if they haven't evolved to far apart, they merge by cross breeding)
For example a bacteria of the Planctomyces will not evolve to become an animal nor will they ever evolve to become a Fungi. A bacteria cannot cross breed with a human or a fungi.

Animals will not evolve to become slime molds, nor will animals evolve to become plants. Our offspring will always be animals. (or so says the evolution model)

We did have mammals that learned how to swim and live in the water at all times. But they did not evolve into fish. They look somewhat fishlike, but whales and dolphins are actually mammals, they will never evolve to be fish (according to evolution)
We had some mammals evolve to fly. They look somewhat birdlike, but bats are actually mammals and not birds, they will never evolve to become birds (or so evolution says)

The argument you are making about a bacteria evolving into something other than bacteria is not an argument that evolution supports and not an argument that supporters of Evolution theory would support either.
It is a strawman, based on a poor understanding of evolution theory.

 

[MIDutch]

Now, when they can change a fruit fly into a giraffe---or even a cicada, let me know.

Why do creationists always trot out this silly comic book version of evolution?

A fruit fly changing into a giraffe would be something you might find in a religious text described as a miracle (right next to giants having offspring with human women maybe), but it occurring would invalidate our understanding of evolution.

Until then, evolution is merely a 170 year-old story that's quite frankly beginning to show its age.

Sure it is.

That's why universities, hospitals, museums, research laboratories, excavation sites, etc. around the world are throwing it out in favor of a 6000 year old Cosmos, dinos living with humans, and exorcisms and/or sacrifices to cure disease.

.
.
.

[/major sarcasm, just in case someone couldn't tell]

 

[MIDutch]

There is a difference between a theory and a scientific theory.

Scientific theories are testable.

Is Abiogenesis testable? Where is the evidence?

Actually, there is lots. Self replicating proteins. Self folding lipids. Complex organic molecules everywhere science looks in the universe. Lots of research papers demonstrating many, if not most, of the steps it would take to go from non-living molecules to self organizing, self-replicating organic cells. It's very conceivable that science will demonstrate abiogenesis within our lifetimes.

Of course, the expected creationist response will be:

"See, abiogenesis is impossible."
Science demonstrates abiogenesis.
"See, abiogenesis needs a 'creator' to do it."

No matter how much scientific evidence is presented, it will never be enough for creationists.

No matter how utterly and completely lacking in evidence, none will ever be required for creationists to believe in creationism.

 

[HARK!]

No matter how much scientific evidence is presented, it will never be enough for creationists.

Evidence of life created in ideal lab conditions would be scientific evidence enough for me of creation.

That evidence doesn't exist.

 

[MIDutch]

HB1701 House Vote - Arkansas State Legislature


Creationism bill passed in Arkansas House, headed to Senate

==== the result
Creationism bill narrowly defeated in Arkansas | National Center for Science Education

"Arkansas's House Bill 1701 (PDF), sponsored by Mary Bentley (R-District 73), was narrowly defeated, on a 3-3 vote, in the Senate Education Committee on April 21, 2021. If enacted, the bill would have allowed teachers in the state's public and open-enrollment charter schools to "teach creationism as a theory of how the earth came to exist."

"House Bill 1701 passed the House of Representatives on a 72-21 vote on April 7, 2021, after passing the House Education Committee on a voice vote on April 6, 2021"

====================== My POV as a creationist ============
Given that:

1. Creation has a particular doctrine on "origins" that explains how all life we see today got on Earth at all major levels from plants to humans.

Creation Science relates to "observations in nature" that evaluate intelligent design as well as studying short-term geochronometers found in nature.

2. Creationists know that Evolution (at the level of evolutionism) has its own competing doctrine on "origins" that includes a story about how all life we see today got on Earth at all major levels from plants to humans.

Evolution vs Evolutionism example from wikipedia


Evolution - Wikipedia

>> I call this "Evolution": -- as observed science fact

quote from wikipedia:

“Evolution: Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.[1][2] These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation.[3] Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a population”​

>> I call this part "Evolutionism" – the doctrine on origins believed by atheists – in direct opposition to Creationism. A story that explains how all the diverse life on earth seen today - came about.

quote from wikipedia:

“It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organization, including the levels of species, individual organisms and molecules."​

======================

My suggestion is that both of these religious views be left out of the science classroom - and just the actual science part should be taught.

As a person who accepts the fact of evolution and understands the Theory of Evolution as the best scientific explanation for the diversity of life we see on planet Earth, past and present, I actually applaud this effort.

I'm all for the great state of Arkansas lowering their educational standards and making their citizens less employable in the high tech, science heavy world we now live in. It just gives the students coming out of our high schools and universities here in Michigan another advantage when competing with those kids from Arkansas (good thing we more or less kicked Betsy DeVos to the curb with her involvement in education here in Michigan).

I can't even imagine how the kids from Arkansas will fare against the kids from other countries who are so much more advanced in science, tech, engineering and math.

 

[MIDutch]

Evidence of life created in ideal lab conditions would be scientific evidence enough for me of creation.

As I pointed out, your response is not unexpected.

That evidence doesn't exist.

Yet.