Is Creationism a Fairy Tale?

[JWGU]

Quasi-religious? How do you figure that? And why is science in scare quotes?

It is quasi-religious because it is accepted on faith. While theoretically we could make falsifying observations of string theory models, we have absolutely no way of replicating the energies required to observe any of them (or let's say almost any, as a hedge). Not now, and not in the foreseeable future either. "Science" is in scare-quotes because I don't consider what they are doing science (though it can reportedly be quite beautiful mathematics).

 

[Aman777]

Aman:>>Can you explain WHY you follow an incomplete Theory which does NOT take into account the Fact that the first Human was made on another world? Or is it just because you reject anthing but man's changable Theories, which cannot explain How or When we magically evolved our Human intelligence from mindless Nature?

Please try writing a response to me on a different theme from what appears to be virtually every post you make. I already know your theory, and I already know why it is falsified--and so do you, because you've been told it time and time again.

Dear JWGU, Please give me an answer before you begin your attack. Also, you are totally misguided about me being told what is wrong with my view. NO Godless Evol nor Godhater has been able to refute a single jot nor tittle of God's Truth, which supports my view. Either post evidence of where someone has refuted my view or everyone will see your deceit.

It's like having a discussion with a pamphlet. No matter how what you say to it, it will always espouse the same thing. Try something new or don't expect people to care what you have to say.

Is this a Creation/Evolution board? Is this where we can come and discuss creation and evolution? Where else should I go to discuss evolution and creation? Genesis 1 is the entire HISTORY of the creation, and YOU have the gall to try to get me to stop talking about creation and evolution? Come on, get real.

Now, How about an answer to my question? Do YOU think that you know more than God does about the Creation? I tire of trying to get people to support the False ToE, and I know why. It's because you know that God's Truth will destroy the Lies of the ToE, and you are ashamed to discuss them. Right?

In Love,
Aman

 

[Aman777]

JWGU:>>
You either come up with an alternate theory or we are back to God which Science can not accept.

Dear JWGU, Thanks for explaining the Willful ignorance of Today's backward thinking scientists. God told us we live in a Multiverse thousands of years ago, but all knowing, all seeing, mortal scientists have decided to ignore God for some 3k years now.

Do you think that today's ignorant scientists will ever read Genesis in order to learn something? Or do they wish to waste another thousand years in their rejection of God's Truth? in favor of their own ignorance?

In Love,
Aman

 

[TLK Valentine]

Dear JWGU, Thanks for explaining the Willful ignorance of Today's backward thinking scientists.

Thank you for latching yourself to JWGU's fallacy after the rest of us pointed out why it's a fallacy.

God told us we live in a Multiverse thousands of years ago, but all knowing, all seeing, mortal scientists have decided to ignore God for some 3k years now.

Actually, other Gods said it first -- you just chose to listen to one voice in the chorus.

Do you think that today's ignorant scientists will ever read Genesis in order to learn something? Or do they wish to waste another thousand years in their rejection of God's Truth? in favor of their own ignorance?

You didn't learn it from Genesis -- you learned it from a scientist, and then applied it to Genesis.

Did you even know what a multiverse was before a scientist explained it?

Do you know now?

 

[JWGU]

Thank you for latching yourself to JWGU's fallacy after the rest of us pointed out why it's a fallacy.

What was my fallacy, again?

 

[TLK Valentine]

What was my fallacy, again?

False dichotomy. QV lasthero's post.

 

[JWGU]

False dichotomy. QV lasthero's post.

I don't think I am guilty of that... can you point specifically to where I said that if the multiverse variant were incorrect (and in any case I don't really care whether it is), God was the logical conclusion? My belief in God is entirely faith-based, but I do not pretend that it is the only possible faith-based belief, or that a God (or Gods, or whatever unfalsifiable theory you care for) must be posited for things to make sense. That being my actual stance, and not some hypothetical put-upon stance assumed to win an argument, I'd be fairly shocked if I said something that contradicted that, but if I have I'm prepared to own up to it.

 

[TLK Valentine]

I don't think I am guilty of that... can you point specifically to where I said that if the multiverse variant were incorrect (and in any case I don't really care whether it is), God was the logical conclusion? My belief in God is entirely faith-based, but I do not pretend that it is the only possible faith-based belief, or that a God (or Gods, or whatever unfalsifiable theory you care for) must be posited for things to make sense. That being my actual stance, and not some hypothetical put-upon stance assumed to win an argument, I'd be fairly shocked if I said something that contradicted that, but if I have I'm prepared to own up to it.

I stand corrected. Apologies.

 

[JWGU]

I stand corrected. Apologies.

No worries

 

[nuttypiglet]

That's a false dichotomy. Even if ideas about the multiverse are shown to be complete bunk, god - and certainly not any particular version of god - does not win by default. If we have two competing ideas and one is shown to be false, we don't automatically assume the other idea is correct. You still have to build support for the other idea. If we have two suspects we think murdered someone, and we show that one of the suspects could not have committed the crime, we do not automatically throw the other suspect in prison simply because we can't imagine anyone else that could have done it. We still have to build a case against the other suspect. Such is the case, here.


What scientist ever said such a thing? Even if God does exist, the natural world is still a real thing that can be studied, so science has a place. On top of that, there are many, many religious scientists in all manner of fields, probably more so than there are atheistic ones.

Well, Science is quite happy to believe that little grey aliens seeded life on this planet, but finds it ridiculous that a being could exist outside this universe and create it. I find that hard to understand. Why do you insist on building a case against the most plausible explanation?

 

[lasthero]

Well, Science is quite happy to believe that little grey aliens seeded life on this planet

I suspect you're referring to Dawkins. I believe we've been over this before, but just in case I'm thinking about someone else who made this mentally masticated argument, I'll refresh.

1-Dawkins did not say that. He's on record saying he didn't say that. You can hear it from the man himself.

Richard Dawkins explains his involvement in Expelled - YouTube

Ben Stein's film misled audiences.

2-Even if Dawkin's did say that in the context it was shown, Dawkin's is A scientist. He is not 'science'. He does not speak for 'science' as a whole. 'Science' is not quite happy to believe life on Earth came from little grey men or green men or whatever. If you believe it does, please produce an actual, peer-reviewed scientific paper that shows a scientist proposing such a thing and backing up his assertions scientifically. I know that you won't do this, however, because making stuff up is much easier than actually learning about the thing you're opposing.

 

[JWGU]

Well, Science is quite happy to believe that little grey aliens seeded life on this planet, but finds it ridiculous that a being could exist outside this universe and create it. I find that hard to understand. Why do you insist on building a case against the most plausible explanation?

This is a rather extraordinary claim. I can't speak for all scientists, but based on our prior observations of the universe, I find it thoroughly ridiculous that the "little grey aliens seeded life on this planet." It makes two assumptions whose correctness is (at least to me) nonobvious.

The first is that the "little grey aliens" hypothesis is scientific at all. What falsifiable predictions does it make that would distinguish it from earthly abiogenesis? What about nonearthly abiogenesis that didn't involve "little grey aliens"? Never mind probabilities, is it even theoretically possible for such aliens to have visited without us having already detected said visit? If we have already detected this visit and interpreted it as something else, how can we distinguish the "visit" variant from the current theory?

The second relates to probabilities. What is the theoretical probability of whatever events would have to occur for the above theory to be viable, actually occurring? Compared to other potential theories of the origin of life? My strong suspicion is that it is one of the least likely ways life could have originated.

A theory being scientific (we haven't even established that it is, by the way), is the minimal requirement for it to be a part of the scientific method. That does not mean that all scientific theories are equally valid, even of those that have yet to be falsified. If we have good prior probabilities for events that would have to occur for the event to be true, and we do the math and find that the theory falls far short of other theories, it will get bumped back in the queue. The difference between a really unlikely scientific theory and an unscientific theory is that with a really unlikely scientific theory, we can actually make quantitative judgements about its relative likelihood to other scientific theories, whereas we cannot perform such a comparison either between a scientific and unscientific theory, or between two unscientific theories.

 

[lasthero]

Why do you insist on building a case against the most plausible explanation?

Oh, and no one's 'building a case against' your explanation, the problem is that you utterly fail at building a case for it. Even if a god did create this universe, science can't make any comment on such a being - by the very definition of what he is, he can't be tested. The Bible even explicitly tells you not to put God to the test (even though he was perfectly fine with it at least twice, to my knowledge, but whatever)

He can't be tested, so science can't make any comment on him. If the Lord Almighty Himself descended from the Heavens and played basketball with the Moon where everyone could see, science could STILL say absolutely nothing about him.

 

[JWGU]

Actually, let me be even clearer. When people say "abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution" they do not mean "abiogenesis did not happen" or "abiogenesis probably didn't happen" or "aliens did it." They simply mean exactly what they are saying--that abiogenesis is not a fundamental tenet of the theory of evolution. When pressed, they would probably also admit that any number of other things are not fundamental tenets of the theory of evolution. The theory of gravity? Not a tenet of evolution, not required for bifurcated hierarchies. Brownian motion? Ditto. Conservation of angular momentum? Again, nope. That doesn't mean these things have no impact on evolution, it just means they aren't part of the theory.

In reality, abiogenesis happening here on Earth--by which I mean, life here on Earth not being descended from life that formed outside of Earth--is excessively more likely than any of the alternatives. Scientists have many, many falsifiable theories left to rule out before they will ever have to posit anything but Earthly abiogenesis. Not because the alternate theories are unfalsifiable--necessarily--just because as low as the odds are for many of those theories, they are orders of magnitude more likely than any theory of alien abiogenesis for life on earth, or at least any I have heard thus far that is falsifiable, distinguishable from non-alien theories of abiogenesis, and fits the available data. If you believe you have found one, please let me know.

Until then, or until some earthshattering discovery alters the laws of physics in hitherto unforeseen ways, I will remain comfortable with my assertion that with very high probability, assuming life on Earth originated here on Earth will accurately model reality. I can say that even though I am not strongly confident in any one explanatory theory.

 

[nuttypiglet]

Actually, let me be even clearer. When people say "abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution" they do not mean "abiogenesis did not happen" or "abiogenesis probably didn't happen" or "aliens did it." They simply mean exactly what they are saying--that abiogenesis is not a fundamental tenet of the theory of evolution. When pressed, they would probably also admit that any number of other things are not fundamental tenets of the theory of evolution. The theory of gravity? Not a tenet of evolution, not required for bifurcated hierarchies. Brownian motion? Ditto. Conservation of angular momentum? Again, nope. That doesn't mean these things have no impact on evolution, it just means they aren't part of the theory.

In reality, abiogenesis happening here on Earth--by which I mean, life here on Earth not being descended from life that formed outside of Earth--is excessively more likely than any of the alternatives. Scientists have many, many falsifiable theories left to rule out before they will ever have to posit anything but Earthly abiogenesis. Not because the alternate theories are unfalsifiable--necessarily--just because as low as the odds are for many of those theories, they are orders of magnitude more likely than any theory of alien abiogenesis for life on earth, or at least any I have heard thus far that is falsifiable, distinguishable from non-alien theories of abiogenesis, and fits the available data. If you believe you have found one, please let me know.

Until then, or until some earthshattering discovery alters the laws of physics in hitherto unforeseen ways, I will remain comfortable with my assertion that with very high probability, assuming life on Earth originated here on Earth will accurately model reality. I can say that even though I am not strongly confident in any one explanatory theory.

But until you resolve Abiogenesis, surely the theory of evolution is at a high possibility of being flawed?

 

[AV1611VET]

But until you resolve Abiogenesis, surely the theory of evolution is at a high possibility of being flawed?

I believe it is going to be resolved, unfortunately, by the Antichrist.

Resolved, that is, to the satisfaction of evolutionists.

 

[OllieFranz]

But until you resolve Abiogenesis, surely the theory of evolution is at a high possibility of being flawed?

How do yo figure that? Do we need to understand photosynthesis (how sugar is created) to understand how candy is made from sugar? Knowing where sugar comes from is useful, but we could still make candy from sugar if it were mined like salt. The chemistry is important, the origin is not

 

[bhsmte]

If creationism is a fairy tale, what other fairy tale has generated so much debate and gotten so much attention in the academic world?

Any specific answers?

This one (evolution) doesn't count ...

[youtube]FZFG5PKw504[/youtube]

The bible is full of them, take your pick.

 

[AV1611VET]

The bible is full of them, take your pick.

Nope, not even close.

 

[JWGU]

But until you resolve Abiogenesis, surely the theory of evolution is at a high possibility of being flawed?

Nope. The theory of evolutionary common descent is independent of the theory of earthly abiogenesis (I assume you mean earthly, since that's what I meant, but given how much less likely extraterrestrial biogenesis for earthly life is it doesn't meaningfully affect the argument anyway). Life need not have had genesis at all (that is, it could have existed for an infinitely long time) for the theory of common descent to accurately model the observed evidence. Similarly, earthly abiogenesis need not have resulted in the hierarchical pattern we observe, since it could have happened multiple times, creating more than one nested hierarchy, or perhaps even a "fused" hierarchy. However, without conflating the two concepts, I see no reason to pretend that there are other similarly plausible falsifiable alternative models that would explain the origin of life on Earth. Based on our current knowledge of physics, biochemistry, and the Earth's geological history, there aren't.

Edit: Actually they are not quite "independent" due to their behavior in the case where there has never been life on Earth. I will leave it up to the individual to decide whether this case is worthy of his or her attention.