I think I sort of understand what you're trying to tell me, but is the Theory of Evolution (The belief in common ancestry of all living things) really a practical belief? Talk.Origins says yes.
A practical belief, scientifically speaking, is one in which the
factors that explain the outcomes are reasonable and verifiable to all observers.
For evolution scientists start off with the question:
Why does life seem to change over time?
The answer can only include those factors we can test for. That's when we realized:
1. Life can change due to genetic mutations, genetic drift
2. Life can only surivive in those conditions in which it can surivive. (Therefore we have a "filter" where life can be eliminated by the very natural force of "nature")
That's all we need. Everything can be explained.
So we have the
factors. And further we have millions and billions of years of
historical record as shown in the rocks.
Indeed God
may have been involved in life's change over time, but the key is if you propose God as a
factor you've just added an
unnecessary factor. It adds nothing and doesn't explain anything that can't be explained by all the known factors. (Again, as I've said
ad nauseam; this says nothing about God's existence or lack of existence).
I want to tell you now (but you probably already knew this) that I will believe in any process which can be empirically demonstrated in the present. So any of the supposed practical applications of the ToE would also be practical to Creationists, since Creationists believe in anything that is empirically demonstrated.
Clearly for most creationists this is not the case. Obviously evolution's applicabilities are so thoroughly ingrained in the field of biology and that underlies medicine, and is therefore already important to them. They still choose to disbelieve it.
Since I am not a biologist I'll leave it to them to explain how biology's utility suffers when you axe evolution.
So, our "debate" really comes down to one question, whether or not presuming naturalism in the unobserved past will add more to human knowledge than presuming any of the Creation theories.
Do you believe a
police detective can solve a crime he or she didn't observe? Do you believe that they must
re-commit the crime (ie kill someone) to solve the crime? How can they do that? The person who would need to be killed is already dead!
You see, deductive science has utility already. You want all science to be funnelled into some "experiment then proof" model. Sure those experiments have been run that let us know how blood splatters and even how bodies break down. The same can be said for evolution. We
know about genetic mutation and drift and we KNOW about how animals die.
What we don't know is anything meaningful about God.
I would like to state that as long as both frameworks use potentially falsifiable hypotheses, they can both add to human knowledge depending on which framework one uses. It is also possible for one framework to be superior to the other, in that there are more working theories in one framework than in the other.
And of course creationism relies on one
gigantic unfalsifiable hypothesis: GOD.
If there are working theories in one framework, it doesn't mean that it is not possible for equal or better theories in another.
But you see what you are arguing is exactly what Creationism does time and again. The creationists have
never produced their own valid conclusions or science, they simply want to poke holes in evolution and hope that they will become the de facto winner. That, too, isn't science and it isn't logic.
If creationists want to be taken seriously it is NOT up to evolutionists to help them, but rather for them, the creationists, to provide actual proof of the one key difference between the camps: The Neccessity of the God Hypothesis.
That's all. They have a really really simple SINGLE job to do and despite
millenia to have done it they have failed at every turn.
At some point you have to say: "YOU didn't do your job, you didn't do your homework, your side currently is at a loss."
