Creationism will only destroy science

[Pats]

But it seems that Science only seeks the truth if it is repeatable and testable. Other explanations are excluded by design. Since God is alive and we do not control His actions, he is beyond the realm of what Science can be involved in.

I would view science as more in search of knowledge rather than “truth.” Science can only verify the physical. The verifiability of God and His actions is not a possibility, that’s why Christianity requires an element of faith.

Unfortunately, this means that Science has severe limits when it comes to evaluating history.

How so? I would say that science does not have the capability to verify miracles, but to say it is limited in evaluating historical events that occurred in the physical world because of its inability to gauge the spiritual does not make sense to me.

Certainly some events like a world wide flood would have left behind more physical evidence. Why would science need to take the supernatural into account in order to verify this very physical event?

Unless one accepts that God could not possibly have acted in the past, one is not investigating in a scientific manner.

In my mind, this is comparing apples to oranges. God exists outside of our physical realm and outside of time as we know it. Science is the study of our natural universe. How can science be contorted into the investigation of the spiritual or philosophical? That wouldn’t seem to make sense.

For the YEC, like me, this translates into an ongoing dilemma. As much as possible, I'd like to understand and appreciate God's creation and the forces and ways it works. But anytime we step into the supernatural -- for example God gathering the animals into the ark, or God having Noah build an ark to save all life - others will cry foul, that I'm not being scientific.

OK…well, if we want to wonder how literal the story of Noah is, I would consider a few elements. First, why is there no scriptural reference to instructions from God for packing up all the plant life that would not have survived the flood? I mean, if the animals couldn’t be supernaturally protected then it would follow that neither would the plants. The ancient author who wrote Genesis did not realize that some plants would have drown and been wiped out by the flood, but we do know it would have happened. What do we do with that?

I won’t repeat the other concerns that were already raised.

How about refracted light? Did light not refract before the flood?

Of course I'd rather be right than be scientific, if I have to exclude God acting in history in order to be seen as scientific.

I am beginning to wonder more and more why certain Christian leaders who hold to YEC want this twisted blend of science and spirituality.

Who is excluding God’s actions in history? If the story of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and the Noah weren’t literally meant the way Biblical literalists are interpreting them, this would exclude the possibility of God acting in history? I don’t think that leap in logic makes sense. God acted in history much the way He acts now, as far as I can tell.

Evolution does not discount God as creator.

 

[Mallon]

If God created the universe as we contend, you are not seeking to find out how it came about because you have excluded it as a possibility.

You may be surprised to learn that science is not the only means of discovering truth! (If you believe otherwise, that would mean you subscribe to scientism.) In fact, as has already been pointed out here, science is not interested in uncovering truth -- only in approximating it. Excluding God from scientific explanation does not rule out the hand of God in the past, present, or future -- it only means that the good Lord cannot be boxed into such a constrained practice as science. I wish creationists would one day realize this instead of trying to cram God into science.

If the evidence points to design as he suggests, how is it good for science to excluded it as a possiblity? Science should seek the truth, even if it points to design, (or away from it)

Problem here is, the evidence does not point to design. Behe's argument for design rests in the notion of Irreducible Complexity -- that is to say, because there are some molecular structures that cannot be easily explained in an evolutionary framework, God must have done it (this is the sort of "negative evidence" random_guy was talking about). But every example of irreducibly complex structures provided by Behe in his book Darwin's Black Box has been scientifically refuted (for example, read Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God), so Behe doesn't have a leg to stand on.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

As much as possible, I'd like to understand and appreciate God's creation and the forces and ways it works. But anytime we step into the supernatural -- for example God gathering the animals into the ark, or God having Noah build an ark to save all life - others will cry foul, that I'm not being scientific. Of course I'd rather be right than be scientific, if I have to exclude God acting in history in order to be seen as scientific.



This points out several important things about YECism.

First, it is a modern movement, from the Scottish common sense realism of T.Reid via the Princeton theology. It is not continuous with those Christians early who believed in a young earth despite the similiarities.

Second, it is deeply infected with the problem of scientism, that is, in it's weak form, the idea that science provides the most authoritative or justified knowledge. Not just about the physical realm but about anything.

Third, that YECists are going to have this love-hate relationship with science. They will love to "prove" what they can about Scripture with science but fundamentally say they distrust it because it can't prove God. Since God is the highest value, a science that can't "prove" God is not very valuable.

It appears that the only true YECists are the most irrational, like "dad" or "AV1611" or "JohnR7" here for example, where they offer outlandish impossible scenarios for scientific explanations. In doing so they get their priorities right, God first, science a distant and incomprehensible second. Trying to explain it scientifically is an element of our science saturated and trusting culture*. You can't "prove" anything unless it is scientific, but with these type of YECists it only has to have the outward, to the common sense appearance as scientific, it doesn't actually have to be so. In fact if it is very scientific it defeats the proposition that they ought to just trust God despite the evidence of their eyes. The "science" is just culturally required window dressing.

The solution appears to understand that science is not the only form of knowledge, nor may it be the only valid or justifiable form. That it has no way to look directly at the "hand of God" in action, but can see the swirling of the waters, but is unable and unwilling to attribute the motion to the finger of God. To a religionist, so what? Why should you expect to link the action and the finger in a physical force sort of way? The proposition that the finger makes the swirling is a religious proposition, why should you look to science to support it?


*the obvious example here is movies. We have to have outwardly logically and consistent explanations for most of the actors actions. Even a movie like "V is for Vendetta" has to have this appearance of science, even though it is a comic book. People are seemingly less willing to disbelieve science even in the context of a movie.

 

[theFijian]

verifiability of God and His actions is not a possibility, that’s why Christianity requires an element of faith.

I would clarify that by saying that God is not verifiable by scientific/empirical means, we use other means to verify God's existance/actions etc.

 

[wtopneuma]

I will try to partially answer these questions. No one has all the answers but God. All the laws of therma-dynamics indicate all creation is in a state of decline. This goes with God's curse of His creation after Adam's sin and the prophecy that God will one day destroy the universe as well as earth after the great tribulation. Read Matthew 24.
The electron Microscope showed comlexities to cells not known before which sides with Darwin's black box.
Even Hawkins, though not a Christian, says that scientific evidence supports creation by intelligent design. His own theory, he claims, has some flaws.
The Bible's Creation account of creation after each creation category says the evening and the morning was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th, day. Why specify evening and morning?
The confessed hoaxes by the scientist of 6 skeletons perported to be ancestors of humanity plus the creator of one recent scientific theory with false data, plus a skeletal proof that had the son existing before the father makes people wonder. These all occurred since 1960.
Scientist keep coming up with more theories to back their claims rather then proofs. The sudden appearance of full life forms during the Cambrian explosion did not have the precursor forms of evolutionary development according to scientists own theories of evolutionary development or time frame for such development.
The recent discoveries that even when combining severals tests for determining age, the processes is still flawed by unknown factior.
I will end with the statement that both the creationist and evolutionists theories cannot be scientifically proven. What one person believes, another will disbelieve. All are responsible to Study God's Word and listen to the Holy Spirit rather then man. What you call junk by your beliefs does not mean it is junk. Have more respect for those who disagree with you. You could be believing a lie, because your beliefs are of man's origin rather then God. Creationists beliefs are based on what they believe God says in the Bible rather then what some man says. Evolutionists have no like connection.

 

[random_guy]

I will try to partially answer these questions. No one has all the answers but God. All the laws of therma-dynamics indicate all creation is in a state of decline. This goes with God's curse of His creation after Adam's sin and the prophecy that God will one day destroy the universe as well as earth after the great tribulation. Read Matthew 24.
The electron Microscope showed comlexities to cells not known before which sides with Darwin's black box.
Even Hawkins, though not a Christian, says that scientific evidence supports creation by intelligent design. His own theory, he claims, has some flaws.
The Bible's Creation account of creation after each creation category says the evening and the morning was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th, day. Why specify evening and morning?
The confessed hoaxes by the scientist of 6 skeletons perported to be ancestors of humanity plus the creator of one recent scientific theory with false data, plus a skeletal proof that had the son existing before the father makes people wonder. These all occurred since 1960.
Scientist keep coming up with more theories to back their claims rather then proofs. The sudden appearance of full life forms during the Cambrian explosion did not have the precursor forms of evolutionary development according to scientists own theories of evolutionary development or time frame for such development.
The recent discoveries that even when combining severals tests for determining age, the processes is still flawed by unknown factior.
I will end with the statement that both the creationist and evolutionists theories cannot be scientifically proven. What one person believes, another will disbelieve. All are responsible to Study God's Word and listen to the Holy Spirit rather then man. What you call junk by your beliefs does not mean it is junk. Have more respect for those who disagree with you. You could be believing a lie, because your beliefs are of man's origin rather then God. Creationists beliefs are based on what they believe God says in the Bible rather then what some man says. Evolutionists have no like connection.

Or you could read the entire thread to see most of your claims have been refuted. All you did was take a shotgun approach and hoped something hit. Why don't you pick one point from your entire post and start a thread on it. If not, will you accept that if we show that one of your claims is wrong or flawed, you'll retract all of your claims? Otherwise, it's pointless to waste our time seeing how this is just a repeat of every Creationist argument put into one post.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

All the laws of therma-dynamics indicate all creation is in a state of decline. This goes with God's curse of His creation after Adam's sin and the prophecy that God will one day destroy the universe as well as earth after the great tribulation.


the naturalist's fallacy is to confuse what is with what ought to be, to confuse the descriptiveness of science for the prescriptiveness of morality.

thermodynamics is talking about heat, about entropy, not about the decline and fall of the roman empire, nor about the morality of sin. you are making that great catagory error, that massive mistaken opinion that science is metaphysics, that confusion of levels that has thermodynamics=fall....

a common error for YECism that seems to never end.

just when one YECist slaps his forehead and says:
i get it, social darwinianism is politics not science, is metaphysics claiming to be science, another newbie YECist arrives, fails to read the past threads and parades his ignorance of the naturalist's fallacy...again.

 

[wtopneuma]

The evidence that I am aware of is massively in favor of evolution, and every month brings yet more evidence in the same direction. From creationists I sometimes hear that there is lots of evidence on the other side, but it has always turned out to be junk when I have examined it. If it can even be found -- often the story is that somebody's brother's friend knows a guy who has evidence against evolution. Not very persuasive.

What you are calling evidence is theory not yet proven as truth or fact. It is not evidence until it is proven to be fact. If the information you are calling fact was ran through a computer reliability test like many students working on their thesis do, I doubt these so called facts would even measure over 50%. Another thing often done is the wrong application of facts making the premise look like it is supported by facts when in reality it is not.

 

[wtopneuma]

What you are calling evidence is theory not yet proven as truth or fact. It is not evidence until it is proven to be fact. If the information you are calling fact was ran through a computer reliability test like many students working on their thesis do, I doubt these so called facts would even measure over 50%. Another thing often done is the wrong application of facts making the premise look like it is supported by facts when in reality it is not.

Try putting some opf these so called facts in your posts. Why should I take your word for anything including whether you know junk from truth?

 

[random_guy]

Try putting some opf these so called facts in your posts. Why should I take your word for anything including whether you know junk from truth?

Well, your facts are completely wrong. Theories do not get promoted to facts or truth. Theories are explain a body of facts and make predictions based on the observations. Second, theories aren't proven since proofs are for math and alcohol. I suggest you read about science and the scientific method and how it works before you call someone's scientific knowledge junk seeing how you seem to confuse the most basic of scientific information.

 

[Markus6]

What you are calling evidence is theory not yet proven as truth or fact. It is not evidence until it is proven to be fact. If the information you are calling fact was ran through a computer reliability test like many students working on their thesis do, I doubt these so called facts would even measure over 50%. Another thing often done is the wrong application of facts making the premise look like it is supported by facts when in reality it is not.

Evidence is not a theory. Theories are made to explain the evidence. Evidence doesn't have to be proved, it just is. We don't have enough evidence to prove the theory, but in science we never do, especially when we are studying the origin of the life. However, at the moment all the evidence suggests the theory is right (1 piece of contradictory evidence would falsify the theory).

 

[sfs]

Try putting some opf these so called facts in your posts. Why should I take your word for anything including whether you know junk from truth?

I just posted some of the facts in the Quiet Thread. Have fun.

 

[notto]

You could be believing a lie, because your beliefs are of man's origin rather then God. Creationists beliefs are based on what they believe God says in the Bible rather then what some man says. Evolutionists have no like connection.

'Evolutionists' and scientists in general study the actual creation and handiwork of God to see what it tells us.

It was Christian men who first went out to study the creation that realized that the creation story in the Bible doesn't match with the creation itself.

Now, what's more 'manmade'? The creation itself or man's translation of the Bible in your hands?

 

[wtopneuma]

There are two many people giving the impression that all scientist support evolution. This is a lie as the following verifiable quote from pages 31-32 of Lee Strobel's "The Case for a Creator," verifies. I encourage all readers to investigate all claims on the subject of evolution and to call on those making false claims to account for their information sources including this one.
"There were 100 of them---biologists, chemists, zoologists, physicists, anthropologists, molecular and cell biologists, bioengineers, organic chemists, geologists, astrophysicists, and other scientist. Their doctorates came from such prestigious universities as Cambridge, Stanford, Corness, Yale, Rutgers, Chicago, Princeton, Purdue, Duke, Michigan, Syracusem Temple, and Berkeley. They included professors from Yale graduate School, M.I.T., Tulane, Rice, Emory, George Mason. Lehigh, Universities of California, washington, Texas, Florida, N. C. Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado, nebrask, Missouria, Iowa, Georgia, New Mexico, utah, Pennslyvania, and elsewhere.
Among them was the director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry and scientists at the Plasma Physics Lab at Princeton, the National Musuem of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institute, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. And they wanted the world to know one thing: They are skeptical.
After spokespersons for the Public Broadcasting System's seven part series Evolution asserted that "all known scientific evidence supports {Darwinian} evolution" as does "virtually every reputable scientist in the world, " these professors, laboratory researchers, and other scientists published a two-page advertisement in a national magazine under the banner: "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism."
Their statement was direct and defiant. "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life," they said. "Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
These were not narrow-minded fundamentalist, backwoods west Virginia protestors, or rabid religious fanatics---just respected, world class scientist like Nobel nominee henry F. Schaefer, the third most cited chemist in the world; James Tour of Rice University's center for Nanoscale Science and Technology; and Fred Figworth, Professor of cellular and molecular psysiology at Yale Graduate School.

 

[random_guy]

...
stuff
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Of course not every scientist supports evolution. I'm sure you'll find the same of every field. Heck, we even have people say scientists support geocentrism. However, for your 100 scientists that disagree with evolution, we have 300 scientists named Steve that support evolution. Of your 100 scientists, how many are actively researching in the field of evolution or biology? Finally, the correctness of a science is not based on the number of scientists that support it (although it is a good sign, as 99% of biologists support evolution), but rather on the evidence for the theory. Creationists have yet to produce any evidence that disproves evolution.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Finally, the correctness of a science is not based on the number of scientists that support it (although it is a good sign, as 99% of biologists support evolution), but rather on the evidence for the theory.

this is why counting noses is not a valid way of judging evidence, however numbers are in themselves a form of evidence, specially as the gap between knowledgable and not form such a clear difference as in popular ideas of evolution vs creation.

 

[gluadys]

After spokespersons for the Public Broadcasting System's seven part series Evolution asserted that "all known scientific evidence supports {Darwinian} evolution" as does "virtually every reputable scientist in the world, " these professors, laboratory researchers, and other scientists published a two-page advertisement in a national magazine under the banner: "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism."[/SIZE][/FONT]
Their statement was direct and defiant. "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life," they said. "Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

A few facts one should know about this "Dissent".

First: it was not a spontaneous reaction as suggested here. The "Dissent" was composed by the Discovery Institute which promotes Intelligent Design. It was circulated to scientists and their signatures were solicited. It was subsequently published by the Discovery Institute (not by the scientists themselves). The main purpose of the "Dissent" was to provide an appearance of scientific legitimacy to the Discovery Institute.

Second: nowhere does the "Dissent" refer to evolution or common ancestry. It specifically uses the term "Darwinism" rather than "evolution". Of course, in the popular mind "Darwinism" is evolution and vice versa. But the DI people are much more savvy than that; their use of "Darwinism" in their materials is very deliberate and sophisticated and usually does not imply simply "evolution" but rather a particular approach to evolution.

Third: look at precisely what the point of dissension is. "...the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."

Two mechanisms of evolution are cited. And any evolutionist can tell you that there are more than two mechanisms of evolution, even though these two are the most important. So right from the get-go almost any evolutionist could agree with the dissent.

And the dissent again is not to evolution, but to these two mechanisms being able to account for "the complexity of life".

And that is the actual claim of Intelligent Design: not that evolution doesn't happen, but that some features of organisms are too complex to be explained by the operation of certain mechanisms of evolution.

To that claim, Darwin's original answer on the matter of the evolution of complex organs is still valid.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. ​

And to date, neither has anyone else.

 

[The Lady Kate]

To that claim, Darwin's original answer on the matter of the evolution of complex organs is still valid.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. ​

And to date, neither has anyone else.

Not honestly, anyway.

 

[wtopneuma]

Of course not every scientist supports evolution. I'm sure you'll find the same of every field. Heck, we even have people say scientists support geocentrism. However, for your 100 scientists that disagree with evolution, we have 300 scientists named Steve that support evolution. Of your 100 scientists, how many are actively researching in the field of evolution or biology? Finally, the correctness of a science is not based on the number of scientists that support it (although it is a good sign, as 99% of biologists support evolution), but rather on the evidence for the theory. Creationists have yet to produce any evidence that disproves evolution.

Creation is there and so it does not have to disprove evolution. Evolution has to prove it is the source of creation which it has not done. According to the Bible, Jesus was there and it occurred within the six days of creation, for it says the evening and the morning were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd day, etc. Evolution has to disprove the Bible and this it has not done. Evolution has often been wrong in its assumptions while though the Bible is not a scientific treatise, 100% of the time science has uncovered scientific proof on something that was in the Bible, the Bible has been right.

 

[random_guy]

Creation is there and so it does not have to disprove evolution. Evolution has to prove it is the source of creation which it has not done. According to the Bible, Jesus was there and it occurred within the six days of creation, for it says the evening and the morning were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd day, etc. Evolution has to disprove the Bible and this it has not done. Evolution has often been wrong in its assumptions while though the Bible is not a scientific treatise, 100% of the time science has uncovered scientific proof on something that was in the Bible, the Bible has been right.

All I see are claims. Where is the evidence to back up any claims? As for evidence of evolution, this thread contains many examples. Why don't you pick one and try to disprove it. Good luck. So far, I've seen nothing but handwaving and misusing evidence.