Do you accept evolution as a valid scientific theory?

[gluadys]

Of course truth can be falsified. That is why we have words like deceive and lie in our dictionaries.

No, truth cannot be falsified. If something is true, there is no evidence available that can falsify it.

Of course, people can misrepresent the truth by telling lies, but that is not a falsification of the truth, because they are using lies not evidence.

Do I take that to mean you do not believe the Bible to be the infallible or inspired words of God but simply a book of myths written by men in the distant past?

The bible is not simply a book of anything. It contains many different genres of literature, including both history and myth as well as law, moral teaching, prophecy, proverbs, songs, drama, apocalypse, etc. etc. etc.

I believe the myths which form a small part of the bible are just as inspired as everything else in the bible.

Other than the flat earth dealy I think you've got a good idea where I'm coming from.

And why do you make that exception? The biblical references to the earth are much more consistent with a flat than with a spherical earth.

I will also admit that until a month ago, I believed in an old earth with previous creations.

So most of your life you did not believe the literal statements of Genesis 1 about the universe being created in six days. You were not committed then to a literal interpretation.

That belief was radically altered when I ... saw a lot of deceptive interpretations of data coming from the Darwin camp.

Deceptive? You have some examples of this? And what do you mean by "Darwin camp"? Is this intended to be a reference to biologists? Where were these deceptive interpretations published? The scientific community would be very appreciative if you can uncover deception.

So you believe that the story of creation was "snatched out of thin air"? The definition for hypothesis in my dictionary is a good description for what the bible contains in regards to creation so I have to conclude you are stating your opinion in this as opposed to the facts.

No. What I said was that hypotheses are not snatched out of thin air. The biblical story of creation is not a hypothesis.

In reality many predictions have been wrong and yet the theory was simply expanded to accomodate the different result.

That is always one of the options when the predictions drawn from a hypothesis are wrong. Especially as most hypotheses do not deal with the foundational base of a theory, but with specific details. In that situation, it is more economic to revise the hypothesis than throw out the theory and start again from scratch. That is how theories are refined to reflect reality more accurately.

If the theory is fundamentally wrong, there is a limit to this procedure. Eventually one will not be able to keep refining the theory. This is what happened in the case of the Ptolemaic cosmos. Many refinements were made for over a thousand years, and the model became more and more complex and unweildy, until Copernicus showed that a completely new model worked better. Same with Newtonian physics vis-a-vis Einstein's relativity model.

This may be the eventual fate of the theory of evolution, but we are not there yet.

Another thing to note. Both the Copernican theory and Einsteinien theory incorporated all the data from the previous theories. Every observed fact explained by the previous theory was also explained by the new one--and, furthermore, the new one explained data that could not be incorporated into the old theory.

It may be that one day we will consider evolution in the same light we presently consider Newtonian physics. But that does not mean science will adopt creationism. It will adopt a completely new theory which explains everything that evolution explains, plus some additional data evolution fails to explain. Since creationism has signally failed to explain the observations which evolution successfully explains, it is not in the running to ever replace it.

Then in turn the result was used as proof of the theory.

So when the hypothesis was revised, the result matched the reality of nature. And the result was incorporated into the theory. Now just what is wrong with that? Do we not want theories that correctly model reality?

You can start with Darwin's Principle if Divergence. Look around and you will find more but not unfortunately on the sites that are attempting to prove Evolution.

In what sense is this a "special explanation"? It is pretty fundamental to the theory of evolution.

You're a smart lady who is well versed in this field. I have no doubt you can rhyme off more examples than i can from both sides.

I take this as an admission that the number you can rhyme off is "none". I don't know of any hoaxes foisted by evolutionists on creationists either.

The only hoaxes I can think of (e.g. Piltdown Man) were intended to fool evolutionists, not creationists.

 

[david_x]

Again, why can't a myth be true?

A myth is a story so it's not true, it may contain truths but that is not the same at all.

The biblical story of creation is not a hypothesis.

No, it's a truth.

Deceptive? You have some examples of this? And what do you mean by "Darwin camp"? Is this intended to be a reference to biologists? Where were these deceptive interpretations published? The scientific community would be very appreciative if you can uncover deception.

You have to be jokin'!

1. Ever seen one of those charts that show how alike vertibraes ar at their "early" stages? Well it's wrong, modern science know it's biased but countinue to use it because of it's availability. It shows these vertibraes at latter stages of development when they become more alike.

Darn, let me get back to you on the rest i seem to have forgotten.

 

[gluadys]

A myth is a story so it's not true, it may contain truths but that is not the same at all.

A myth is not fact. But it can be true. And contain truths. And is not the purpose of scripture to teach us truths which go beyond mere fact?

No, it's a truth.

Exactly. But not one based on physical evidence.

You have to be jokin'!

1. Ever seen one of those charts that show how alike vertibraes ar at their "early" stages? Well it's wrong, modern science know it's biased but countinue to use it because of it's availability. It shows these vertibraes at latter stages of development when they become more alike.

Darn, let me get back to you on the rest i seem to have forgotten.

Never mind the charts. Check out actual photos of vertebrate embryos in the early stage of development. Like these

This is a good discussion of what 19th century embryologists got right and wrong and how the ideas on embryology have changed since then.

 

[shernren]

What is a myth?

Do Jesus' parables qualify as myths?

 

[gluadys]

What is a myth?

Do Jesus' parables qualify as myths?

From the perspective of literary analysis, no. But for those who are no more expert in literary analysis than geology, various terms referring to anything other than literal tend to be used as synonyms.

One significant difference between myth and parable is that a myth, by definition, speaks of a deity or deities. But a parable does not. A character in a parable may be an allegory of God, but in the parable, the character is human--a king, a farmer, a father, a shepherd, a woman mixing bread or looking for a lost coin.

Another feature of a myth is that it helps define a community. A social structure, for example, may be considered divinely ordained on the basis of a myth showing its origin the will of the deity. (Consider the mythical roots of Hinduism's caste system.)

In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, marriage as a social institution is based on the creation myth of Genesis 2.

The most important use of a myth is to teach us who God is and how we relate to God.

A parable, on the other hand, is generally a short story with a single well-defined point. And it often uses allegory (like Jesus' parable of the Sower), while myth seldom does.

 

[john crawford]

well there's this...

and this

and http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html for fun. but whatever, you can continue to ignore the evidence.

This
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

and this
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/ances_start.html
is not evidence of human evolution.

Rather is it evidence of neo-Darwinist racial theorists attempting to confuse the public by associating australopithicine apes like this
http://www.jay-matternes.com/Ho08.html
and this
http://www.jay-matternes.com/Ho12.html
with so-called early 'species' of African people like this.
http://www.jay-matternes.com/Ho30.html

Deceitful neo-Darwinist race theorists humanize the apes and dehumanize the first African tribesmen and women.

 

[john crawford]

Should? I'm not seeing a reason to do so.Geographically speaking, every search for evidence regarding human origins leads to the same location... Africa. And reason not to follow the fossils?

If you follow in the steps of the fossilized Laetoli Footprints, you'll find modern human footprints in Africa 3.6 million years ago. Of course, neo-Darwinist race theorists assign these human footprints to australopithicine apes because modern humans couldn't have possibly been around 3.6 MYA.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/laetoli.htm

Here's a better picture of them.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/07/1/l_071_03.html

And here's a better explanation of them than the biased Smithsonian viewpoint.
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man_11.html

Don't you mean "all" people? Why single out Africans?

Asian and Caucasian people weren't even around when neo-Darwinist race theorists say that the first African 'species' of humans originated from ape-like ancestors in Africa. Early African people are the lynchpin of human evolution. That's why neo-Darwinist Out of Africa race theorists are desparate to relate and link all Asians and Caucasians to origins from African people because according to their own racial theories, early Homo sapiens only evolved from more "primitive" ape-like ancestors IN AFRICA.

 

[john crawford]

Because that omission is the only way he can get his ludicrous racist tag to stick.

Neo-Darwinist race theorists themselves proclaim that the first so-called 'species' of humans to evolve from australopithicine African apes was Homo habilis in Africa. Don't you know anything about neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution in Africa?

Here. Maybe a picture of them will revive some of your memory cells since no one else in Asia or Europe was around to witness this incredible event.
http://www.jay-matternes.com/Ho30.html

 

[invisible trousers]

Are you actually going to tell us about these "neo-darwinst race theorists"? I mean, you mention them in like every post, but haven't actually shown a single piece of evidence which shows that people who believe in evolution are somehow racist.

Come on, show us something or stop with your absurd claims.

Pre-emptive talkorigins.org page about racism and evolution:

Claim CA005:
Evolution promotes racism.
Source:
Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, p. 179.
Response:

1. When properly understood, evolution refutes racism. Before Darwin, people used typological thinking for living things, considering different plants and animals to be their distinct "kinds." This gave rise to a misleading conception of human races, in which different races are thought of as separate and distinct. Darwinism helps eliminate typological thinking and with it the basis for racism.

2. Genetic studies show that humans are remarkably homogeneous genetically, so all humans are only one biological race. Evolution does not teach racism; it teaches the very opposite.

3. Racism is thousands of years older than the theory of evolution, and its prevalence has probably decreased since Darwin's day; certainly slavery is much less now. That is the opposite of what we would expect if evolution promotes racism.

4. Darwin himself was far less racist than most of his contemporaries.

5. Although creationism is not inherently racist, it is based upon and inseparable from religious bigotry, and religious bigotry is no less hateful and harmful than racism.

6. Racism historically has been closely associated with creationism (Moore 2004), as is evident in the following examples:

* George McCready Price, who is to young-earth creationism what Darwin is to evolution, was much more racist than Darwin. He wrote,

The poor little fellow who went to the south
Got lost in the forests dank;
His skin grew black, as the fierce sun beat
And scorched his hair with its tropic heat,
And his mind became a blank.

In The Phantom of Organic Evolution, he referred to ne groes and Mongolians as degenerate humans (Numbers 1992, 85).

* During much of the long history of apartheid in South Africa, evolution was not allowed to be taught. The Christian National Education system, formalized in 1948 and accepted as national policy from 1967 to 1993, stated, among other things,

that white children should 'receive a separate education from black children to prepare them for their respective superior and inferior positions in South African social and economic life, and all education should be based on Christian National principles' (Esterhuysen and Smith 1998).

The policy excluded the concept of evolution, taught a version of history that negatively characterized non-whites, and made Bible education, including the teaching of creationism, and religious assemblies compulsory (Esterhuysen and Smith 1998).

* The Bible Belt in the southern United States fought hardest to maintain slavery.

* Henry Morris, of the Institute for Creation Research, has in the past read racism into his interpretation of the Bible:

Sometimes the Hamites, especially the ne groes, have even become actual slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane, practical matters, they have often eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites (Morris 1976, 241).

Links:
Trott, Richard and Jim Lippard, 2003. Creationism implies racism? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/racism.html
References:

1. Esterhuysen, Amanda and Jeannette Smith, 1998. Evolution: 'the forbidden word'? South African Archaeological Bulletin 53: 135-137. Quoted from Stear, J., 2004. It's official! Racism is an integral part of creationist dogma. http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/aig_and_racism_response.htm
2. Moore, R., 2004. (see below)
3. Morris, Henry M., 1976. The Genesis Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers.
4. Numbers, Ronald L., 1992, The Creationists, New York: Knopf.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005.html

To be honest, I'm predicting that your answer to this will be nothing more than some hand-waving and exclamations of "this is totally wrong and doesn't show anything!" (ie post #226) without a single piece of evidence which supports your beliefs.

Prove me wrong ok?

 

[gluadys]

Asian and Caucasian people weren't even around when neo-Darwinist race theorists say that the first African 'species' of humans originated from ape-like ancestors in Africa. Early African people are the lynchpin of human evolution. That's why neo-Darwinist Out of Africa race theorists are desparate to relate and link all Asians and Caucasians to origins from African people because according to their own racial theories, early Homo sapiens only evolved from more "primitive" ape-like ancestors IN AFRICA.

Of course, if you define African people as people who live or once lived IN AFRICA, then Caucasians are African people. Caucasians, of course, are also Asian people as that is where many of them live.

 

[john crawford]

Are you actually going to tell us about these "neo-darwinst race theorists"? I mean, you mention them in like every post, but haven't actually shown a single piece of evidence which shows that people who believe in evolution are somehow racist.

There is no evidence that any posters on Christian Forums are racist. If there were, I'm sure the mods would have banned them long ago.

I'm only claiming that neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution are inherently racist because at every step of human evolution as proposed by neo-Darwinists, some parts of the historic human race are equally involved and others aren't. If you know anything about the Out of Africa Replacement Model and the Multiregional Continuity Model of human evolution, you should know for a fact that both models proclaim that African people were the first 'species' of humans (Homo habilis) to originate from hairy ape-like non-human ancestors, and if the first African people did not originate from ape ancestors, no other human racial groups can be shown to have.

Pre-emptive talkorigins.org page about racism and evolution:

To be honest, I'm predicting that your answer to this will be nothing more than some hand-waving and exclamations of "this is totally wrong and doesn't show anything!" (ie post #226) without a single piece of evidence which supports your beliefs.

Prove me wrong ok?

Ok. You shouldn't telegraph your expected responses to other posters in advance. Since you did, I'll just ignore what talkorigins says since I'm not debating with them anyway.

Besides, who on talkorigins is any greater authority than you and I?

 

[john crawford]

Of course, if you define African people as people who live or once lived IN AFRICA, then Caucasians are African people. Caucasians, of course, are also Asian people as that is where many of them live.

Yes, but no Caucasians or Asians ever lived in Africa except those who migrated or visited there.

 

[invisible trousers]

Besides, who on talkorigins is any greater authority than you and I?

I don't know, maybe the people who study these things for a living?

 

[gluadys]

Yes, but no Caucasians or Asians ever lived in Africa except those who migrated or visited there.

Prove it. Prove the Caucasian and Asian Africans migrated into Africa rather than from Africa into Europe and Asia.

 

[david_x]

A myth is not fact. But it can be true. And contain truths. And is not the purpose of scripture to teach us truths which go beyond mere fact?

I thought we went over that already? There is a whole list of definitions for the word and they all imply falsehood, story, or made-up.

 

[gluadys]

I thought we went over that already? There is a whole list of definitions for the word and they all imply falsehood, story, or made-up.

Yes, but no one is suggesting that the myths in the bible are false. So that leaves story, and whether the story is made-up or about actual events. A story may be fact or fiction (made-up) or a bit of both and whichever it is, it can be true.

 

[john crawford]

I don't know, maybe the people who study these things for a living?

Being professionals, they are rather heavily invested both emotionally and career wise, so they are naturally biased and prejudiced in their point of view.

 

[john crawford]

Prove it. Prove the Caucasian and Asian Africans migrated into Africa rather than from Africa into Europe and Asia.

Many Asians and Caucasians have migrated to Africa and taken up residence there during the past 4-500 years. Abraham visited North Africa but prior to the the Babylonian diaspora, I can't think of any Asians who visited or migrated to Africa.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Many Asians and Caucasians have migrated to Africa and taken up residence there during the past 4-500 years. Abraham visited North Africa but prior to the the Babylonian diaspora, I can't think of any Asians who visited or migrated to Africa.

What's your hypothesis based on?

 

[Dannager]

I accept evolution as both scientific theory (it has a working theory model that meets all requirements of being a scientific theory that has not been falsified) and proven fact (change in the frequency of alleles within a population from one generation to the next has been observed countless times in controlled conditions). There is currently no reason to reject evolution on a scientific basis, as no evidence to the contrary has yet arisen.

One can reject evolution on a theological basis, but to do so simply because it does not agree with one's preconceptions strikes me as premature.