I find it very odd that some creationists hold a remarkable double-standard when it comes to the explanatory power of evolution versus creationism. They'll say stuff like "I think it takes more faith to believe in evolution than God!" Yet they ignore the fact that science, including evolution, actually seeks explanations. And not just "evolution did blah", but trying to come up with probable ways and mechanisms in which evolution can do things. Hence, you have everything from observing evolution directly[sup]1,2,3[/sup] to constructing probable scenarios of evolutionary pathways[sup]4,5,6[/sup] to computer modeling[sup]7[/sup].
In comparison, what do the creationists do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They'll just go on and on about how utterly amazing everything is like some starry-eyed teeny-bopper at a Clay Aiken concert and invoke God at every turn. But it's meaningless. Invoking the supernatural willy-nilly just hides everything in a giant black box. There's no explanations. Just a vacuous answer involving some untestable omnipotent being that happened to do something at some point that resulted in stuff. There's no knowledge to be gained and no applications to derive. Just an endless string of gushing for how awesome the Creator is.
Of course, the creationists might argue that they're really trying to save your immortal soul from terrible damnation. That's nice and all, but why debate evolution over it? Couldn't we just separate the religion from all this science stuff? If scientists have hit upon certain theories and explanations in the bio-sciences that happen to bear fruit[sup]8[/sup], why rock the boat? Just let 'em do what they do and try to impart your offering of eternal bliss in a way that doesn't needlessly tangle it up with a bunch of science. Don't create controversy where there needn't be one.
In the end, creationism is a black box. A black box that tantalizes with promises of mystical revelations about the greatest secrets of the universe. But it's still just a black box. No real explanations at all.
1 Genomic evolution during a 10,000-generation experiment with bacteria
2 Identification of mutations conferring insecticide insensitive AChE in the cotton-melon aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover
3 The number of mutations selected during adaptation in a laboratory population of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
4 Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum
5 A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve.
6 Evolution of the heart from bacteria to man.
7 The evolutionary origin of complex features
8 Evolutionary Biology: Technology for the 21st Century
In comparison, what do the creationists do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They'll just go on and on about how utterly amazing everything is like some starry-eyed teeny-bopper at a Clay Aiken concert and invoke God at every turn. But it's meaningless. Invoking the supernatural willy-nilly just hides everything in a giant black box. There's no explanations. Just a vacuous answer involving some untestable omnipotent being that happened to do something at some point that resulted in stuff. There's no knowledge to be gained and no applications to derive. Just an endless string of gushing for how awesome the Creator is.
Of course, the creationists might argue that they're really trying to save your immortal soul from terrible damnation. That's nice and all, but why debate evolution over it? Couldn't we just separate the religion from all this science stuff? If scientists have hit upon certain theories and explanations in the bio-sciences that happen to bear fruit[sup]8[/sup], why rock the boat? Just let 'em do what they do and try to impart your offering of eternal bliss in a way that doesn't needlessly tangle it up with a bunch of science. Don't create controversy where there needn't be one.
In the end, creationism is a black box. A black box that tantalizes with promises of mystical revelations about the greatest secrets of the universe. But it's still just a black box. No real explanations at all.
1 Genomic evolution during a 10,000-generation experiment with bacteria
2 Identification of mutations conferring insecticide insensitive AChE in the cotton-melon aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover
3 The number of mutations selected during adaptation in a laboratory population of Saccharomyces cerevisiae
4 Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum
5 A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve.
6 Evolution of the heart from bacteria to man.
7 The evolutionary origin of complex features
8 Evolutionary Biology: Technology for the 21st Century
