Is creationism pseudo science?

[sfs]

I Darwin was a great scientist whos observations led him to hypothesise his philosophy which he himself stated was beyond the realm of science.

Citation, please, to where Darwin stated that evolution was beyond the realm of science?

I have watched several documntaries and read books (pro as well as anti) and have come to the conclusion that much of the evidence used to support evolution can be interpreted to fit other theories.

Documentaries are fluff, with little real content. What pro-evolution books have you read?

Essentially your philosophy is going to dictate how you interpet the evidence.

In practice, this is simply not true. Biologists with all sorts of philosophies and religious outlooks agree that evolution is a sound theory, explains the existing data, and is the only available theory to do so.

Both evolution and creationism are outside science. It would be better in my mind to drop both theories, examine all the proven evidence, examining all the possible interpretations and allow people to choose which theory they find more convincing

The amount of evidence is vast. Those whose life-work it is to study that evidence are in nearly unanimous agreement that evolution is the better explanation.

 

[sfs]

All evidence of ancient humans have shown them to be remarkably similar to modern humans with a level of sophistication.

All anatomically modern humans are remarkably similar to modern humans. Late archaic Homo species, e.g. Neandertals, show substantial physical differences and much less developed cultural behavior than modern humans. The earliest Homo species show even larger differences.

 

[troodon]

There have been no irrefutable missing links found between species.

There are only two groups of people who claim the "missing links" between dinosaurs and birds haven't been found: those who haven't bothered to look at the fossils and those who think Velociraptors were birds. Take your pick.

 

[Smidlee]

Thanks for the info. I shall be sure to look it up

You said "irrefutable missing links" and someone gave you Tiktaalik as an example. They often don't say too much about the problems with a fossil until they found a new one.
Evolution News & Views: The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit "Quality" of Evolutionary Icon is "Poor" in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance (Updated)
Since fossils are interpreted by men who never saw the real creature then pretty much any fossil could be refuted. Just look how often interpretation of fossils changed during the decades. That's because they are based more on opinions than facts.

Kenneth Miller has used the fused Human chromosomes 2 as evidence of common descent with chimps which he stated just as the ToE predicted. Yet on the other hand the fact there are larger differences between human and chimps Y chromosome than in other parts of DNA is not something evolutionists expected. They have used the Y chromosome before to prove a tribe in Africa was part Jewish just as they had claimed.

 

[Cabal]

You said "irrefutable missing links" and someone gave you Tiktaalik as an example. They often don't say too much about the problems with a fossil until they found a new one.
Evolution News & Views: The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit "Quality" of Evolutionary Icon is "Poor" in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance (Updated)

Let me get this right...

We're being given a hard time for stating the quality of a fossil that was better than the previously found specimens? And for publishing news about related fossils that are of better quality?

Gee, sure sounds like we're trying to make sure we use the best knowledge available! *conspiracy music* You do realise Tiktaalik was a good fossil for that particular branch of evolution than those previously found, right? If a better example has been found, more power to whoever found it.

Since fossils are interpreted by men who never saw the real creature then pretty much any fossil could be refuted. Just look how often interpretation of fossils changed during the decades. That's because they are based more on opinions than facts.

Spoken like someone who has never analysed a fossil before.

Good job we have all the evidence from other disciplines as well - the genetic evidence is even more damning for Creationism.

Kenneth Miller has used the fused Human chromosomes 2 as evidence of common descent with chimps which he stated just as the ToE predicted. Yet on the other hand the fact there are larger differences between human and chimps Y chromosome than in other parts of DNA is not something evolutionists expected. They have used the Y chromosome before to prove a tribe in Africa was part Jewish just as they had claimed.

You're talking about two different chromosomes here - why is this a problem, exactly?

The similarities are what counts, and common descent can be seen through multiple chromosomes.

 

[sfs]

Kenneth Miller has used the fused Human chromosomes 2 as evidence of common descent with chimps which he stated just as the ToE predicted.

Right. Because common descent predicts exactly what was observed. Creationism made no such prediction. Why do you suppose that is?

Yet on the other hand the fact there are larger differences between human and chimps Y chromosome than in other parts of DNA is not something evolutionists expected.

Why wouldn't we expect divergence on the Y chromosome to be larger? Mutation rates are well known to be higher in males, and Y chromosomes spend 100% of their time in males, while autosomes only spend 50% of their time in males.

They have used the Y chromosome before to prove a tribe in Africa was part Jewish just as they had claimed.

True. Relevance?

 

[Mallon]

You said "irrefutable missing links" and someone gave you Tiktaalik as an example. They often don't say too much about the problems with a fossil until they found a new one.
Evolution News & Views: The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit "Quality" of Evolutionary Icon is "Poor" in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance (Updated)
Since fossils are interpreted by men who never saw the real creature then pretty much any fossil could be refuted. Just look how often interpretation of fossils changed during the decades. That's because they are based more on opinions than facts.

For what it's worth, the term "missing link" is an outdated term that reflects an outdated way of thinking about evolution. We no longer think in terms of links or chains, but of branches and trees. So to say that a "missing link" was found is erroneous (as is the idea that something is "irrefutable" in science). Tiktaalik is, however, an excellent example of a fossil that displays a transitional morphology between fish and tetrapods, and there's no denying that. Is has arms, for goodness sake! Evolution accounts for those arms; creationism doesn't.

 

[troodon]

You said "irrefutable missing links" and someone gave you Tiktaalik as an example. They often don't say too much about the problems with a fossil until they found a new one.
Evolution News & Views: The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit "Quality" of Evolutionary Icon is "Poor" in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance (Updated)

Uh, dude... your article claims

[They] are retroactively confessing weaknesses in their precious Tiktaalik, which is now admitted to be a fossil with a "quality" that was "poor."

It is referencing this article which states:

Previous data from another ancient fish called Tiktaalik showed distal radials as well -- although the quality of that specimen was poor.

So it's obvious that the "poor quality" has to do with the distal elements of the fin, the alleged precursors to tetrapod digits.​

This picture is from one of the original Tiktaalik articles in Nature:​

Do you see those dashed, missing pieces? Yeah, there's no cover-up going on here, no hiding the fact that the specimen is less than perfect - just total and complete scientific transparency. Those of us who read the actual article knew from day 1 that the distal elements of Tiktaalik's fins weren't well-preserved.​

Does it bother you when your Creationist sources lie to you so flagrantly? This is why you should go to the trouble of actually reading the article, rather than blindly believing what a website tells you it says.​

Edit: By the way, in case anyone is wondering the dashed elements of the protolimb are not made up out of thin air - they were found in another specimen and filled in on the type specimen.​

 

[Smidlee]

A few month before they found Tiktaalik they used Acanthostea for their fairytale. I like the prediction Jones made:

Now the experts are telling us that Tiktaalik lived in shallow fresh water and had fins strong enough to push its head out of water. It was just last December when scientists were telling us that Acanthostega was the missing link between fish and tetrapods. At that time we said,
"A few years from now, evolutionists will no doubt replace this fairytale with a new one."
We admit it. We were wrong. It was just four months, not a few years.

http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v10i8n.htm
Yes it was known this fossil had problems from day one as noted.

 

[laconicstudent]

Just because this "Jones" thinks advances in scientific knowledge is a bad thing, doesn't mean the rest of us do.

 

[troodon]

A few month before they found Tiktaalik they used Acanthostea for their fairytale. I like the prediction Jones made: A Fishy Ancestor
Yes it was known this fossil had problems from day one as noted.

Something tells me that if I were to refute that article step-by-step your only response would be to post a link to yet another article.

 

[Mallon]

A few month before they found Tiktaalik they used Acanthostea for their fairytale.

So we found even more transitional fossils. How is that a bad thing for evolution?

 

[lucaspa]

Discussing evolution/creation has led me to wonder is creation pseudo science?

Creationism, in all its forms, is a falsified scientific theory. That is a clearer statement than whether creationism is a pseudo-science.

Creation is a theological statement: God created. That statement is outside of science.

Let's say that the charge of "pseudo science" comes mostly because creationists behave like bad scientists. IOW, they don't behave like scientists. In that regard they do what could be called "pseudo" science. IOW, the behavior superficially like what scientists do, but is not.

 

[lucaspa]

A few month before they found Tiktaalik they used Acanthostea for their fairytale.

Nothing about Acanthostega is wrong. The transition from fish to amphibian involved hundreds/thousands of speciation events. You don't go thru all the differences between fish and amphibians in one speciation.

Tiktaalik is earlier the the transition than Acanthostega. That's all. It's not a replacement, it's an addition to the evolutionary transition.

Just like Ardipithecus is an addition to the transition from common ancestor to apes to H. sapiens.