Just the Facts please!

[Stormy]

I do not think that the evolution/creation debate would be so intense if both sides would stay within the know facts.

Many people, both religious and not, accept all of evolution because they have been led to believe that it is proven.

Many religious people refuse to accept any of evolution because they feel its basis is in fiction and goes against the words of their Bibles.

I am not contending that I have the answer. That would also be false.

But I do believe the truth is creative-evolution.

Since timing seems to be everything, when discussing the Universe. Help me understand what we really KNOW. I would like to point out that science has already made a concession to the Bible. At one time the words, "In the beginning", had no meaning to men of science. The Universe was thought to have always been in existence. Thus for the Bible to speak of a beginning was thought to be totally wrong. But the facts have won out and this truth is now understood by all man.

OK.. So how old is the Universe???

I refuse to accept that man can tell age by the light of distant stars. This speed of the acceleration of the universe as a constant has been in recent times shown by science to be false. The acceleration of the Universe has been increasing. We do not know what force is causing this increase. How then can we know that this is the first increase? Therefore we have no foundation here to build an accurate conclusion pertaining to time.

Geology? There are questions if our methods of dating are accurate. Also, if we were to take the Flood into consideration, it would throw off our best estimates.

I am left to believe there is truly not any accurate way that science can label the exact age of the Universe.

I do believe though, that it is safe to say that it is considerably older than the 6000 years some religious people claim. They are wrong to think that they can find an answer to this question of age from the word of God.

So is the Bible wrong??? No. The Bible does not set an age upon the Earth. The only age that we could possibly derive from the Bible is the years that have past since God made man in his image. The succeeding generation have resulted in the 6000 years.

We must understand that the days of creation were not man's days. We can not put our sense of a 24 hour day upon God. The Torah reads : evening and morning, the first day.

The definition of the word that was interpreted to be evening is chaos.

The definition of the word interpreted to be morning is order.

IMO then what God is saying has nothing to do with hours of time. But instead day is used as a culmination of a particular task.

There was chaos and there was order -- the first day.

Also please be aware... The Bible in its first two sentences, lets go of any idea of giving man the opportunity of calculating the age of creation from its words.

Genesis 1: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

There is a gap of time that is impossible to ascertain from the words that God has given to us. How much time has past between "In the beginning" and "Now"? Could it not have been billions of years? Maybe... maybe not.

So there you have my understanding of the age of the Universe.

Frankly... By facts of science and the truth of religion.... We do not know.

Now...This is where I find fault with the wisdom of MAN. For they will insist from both camps of the creation/evolution debate they KNOW the age of the Universe.

Please let us in all things be truthful.

For only in truth will we gain knowledge.

-------------------------------------------

Now on to the subject of evolution of life.

Science tells us that all life derived from a single cell. But it can offer no proof of this belief. It is however, this premise, that evolution is built upon.

I contend that it is wrong to build upon this shaky ground.

I will not allow unsubstantiated ideas into my search for truth.

Instead I want only the facts please.

We can see within nature that animals have evolved over time. Species have changed and many have been lost.

This is a fact and it does not disagree with the words of our Bible.

But we can not, within the facts offered by science, show any accurate proof that primary classifications have changed.

And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."

Give me facts that support the idea that these creature have blurred the line of their creation. I have looked and here is one of the areas that man has used nothing other than his imagination to form this conclusion.

The creative-evolution of the bird and the fish were, by all known facts and Biblical understanding, seperate from the evolution of man?

Genesis 1 :24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

"Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds

This speaks to me of evolution. The land producing and refining creation into the individual species of animals that dwell upon the land. Then and now there is abundant proof to back this truth.

So Now if I agree to this...

Then must I not also include man within this evolution of animals?

IMO... Yes. Man did evolve along with the other animals that made their life upon the land.

But ... and this is an important b-u-t

If God had finalized his creation at that point we would not even be having this debate now. We would all still be merely animals without the special qualities that has make man so different.

Genesis 1 : 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Science can not deny that there is a quality to man that is not capable of being gained by the facts of evolution.Just think if God had chosen the ape instead of man to bless with his likeness.

Then we would see the reality of apes complaining..

What!!!!!! You think I came from M-A-N????

Science can not deny the possibility that the proof that it has found to support evolution was not evidence left by God of the means that he used to create. But science also can not acknowledge it, at least not within the realm that Science has set for itself. Science only can take into account things that are within the realm of the natural not the Supernatural. I have no problem with this. I have no problem understanding why science can not allow God into their equation.

My problem with Science begins when they try to fill the gap that is left with the logic of man. They then wrap these thoughts in scientific jargon and thus confuse the lay person into not seeing where fact ends and theory is all that is left.

I conclude with my own premise... that The truth in Evolution and Creation are not at odds. There would be no line drawn between them if we would stick to the facts. It would then not be the evolution/ creation debate. But instead the creative-evolution discussion.

May God Bless us all!

 

[lithium.]

Hey Stormy, Well there is ways to tell the distant stars nasa has methods of figuring out the distant stars.

You can't include the flood from the bible cause there is no evidence of a flood and when you use something from the bible or religion it's no longer science.

The age of the universe is around 10-20 billion years old and everytime somone trys to get the age of the universe they always get 10-20 billion years. The earth is 4.5 billion or so.

And you can't put god anywhere into science then it's no longer science. Science can only use what is in the natural.

Well the theory of evolution is accepted cause there is good evidence for evolution.

There is no PROOF for anything in science. Science is theories and theories are ways of explaining how stuff work, and a theory can only be a real theory if there is evidence some kind of evidence to back it up that is accepted by all the science community. And all the science community accepts evolution from a single cell.
_____

But I love your post it is great.

David.

 

[lithium.]

It's kind of hard to show you the evidence of evolution on the internet. But if you goto museums and you can see the evidence you can see the evolution of man from cave men-today's man. And it's awesome. I might be able to find a museum that shows its stuff on the internet I will check.

 

[Stormy]

Hey Stormy, Well there is ways to tell the distant stars nasa has methods of figuring out the distant stars.

The physical interpretation of the Hubble time is that it gives the time for the Universe to run backwards to the Big Bang if the expansion rate (the Hubble "constant") were constant.

In this case "if" is a very big word. The expansion has been discovered by Science to not be a constant.

Hubble has estimated individual stars to be older than their entire Galaxy. That is like saying that you are older than your mother.

 

[lithium.]

I don't think I have heard that before. I know that the big bang created all matter, the galaxies formed, then the stars, then the planets, and so. Thats what I am learning in my physics/science classes.

 

[Stormy]

But if you goto museums and you can see the evidence you can see the evolution of man from cave men-today's man.

Seesaw: Yes I know this to be true. Did you read my post?

 

[lithium.]

Yeah I read most of it, well pieces of it, HOLD ON I will reread it.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

I think the crux of the issue is this:

People will believe what they want to believe, and if they're firmly set in their beliefs, probably no amount of arguing will convince them otherwise.

Likewise, people will flock to those who confirm their beliefs. Evolutionists will find solace in people like Dawkins or Gould, and YEC's will find solace in Hovind or Morris.

Of course, if it could come down to a simple "live and let live" attitude, then we'd really have to problem. But some people would rather take it a step further, such as having the teaching of the theory of evolution tossed out of schools or "creation science" tossed in. And in doing so, it becomes an issue, debate ensues, and the average layman gets lost in a cacophany of facts, quotes, statistics, etc.

And then we wind up here, battling back and forth, each trying to convince the other side that there's only one right answer, everything else be d*mned.

Fun, huh?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

On the subject of scientific theory:

If science stayed within "known facts" and didn't formulate theories around those facts, we wouldn't even be having this debate right now.

 

[Humanista]

Isn't this the argument from incredulity?

I don't understand it/can't believe it could be true, therefore it isn't true?

 

[DNAunion]

Stormy: Hubble has estimated individual stars to be older than their entire Galaxy. That is like saying that you are older than your mother.

DNAunion: Stormy, I am not sure you have that exactly right.

You may be talking about the "age crisis" in cosmology, in which the oldest known stars - those in globular clusters - were determined to be older than the Universe.

Since that time, the estimates for the age of the Universe have increased and the estimates of the age of the oldest stars has decreased. Now the two are no longer disjoint sets of ages - they now have overlap. There is no longer an "age crisis" in cosmology.

 

[DNAunion]

stormy: Science tells us that all life derived from a single cell. But it can offer no proof of this belief.

DNAunion: I think someone already pointed out that science is not in the business of proving things.

However, there are many lines of evidence that suggest all extant life is descended from a common ancestor (known as the cenancestor, or the universal common ancestor, or the most-recent common ancestor, or several other terms). For instance…

First of all, a couple hundred years ago, different life forms were considered to be completely different at all levels – trees were absolutely nothing like humans. But then discoveries showed that both trees and humans and even bacteria do have great commonality at the most fundamental level: they are all cellular. Since then it has been found that all life uses DNA to store its genetic information. All life uses the bases A, C, G, and T in DNA, and A, C, G, and U in RNA. All life uses ribosomes to synthesize proteins. All life uses rRNA to make ribosomes. All life uses tRNA to bring amino acids to the ribosome during protein synthesis. All life uses mRNA as the information used by the ribosome to produce proteins. All life uses proteins as enzymes. All life uses the same genetic code – the same mapping of mRNA codons to amino acids (a few organisms have a slightly modified genetic code, but even then, theirs differs for only one or two of the twenty).

The core functionality of all cellular life forms – which includes everything from bacteria to trees to humans -- is conserved. The best scientific explanation for this is common descent (though lateral gene transfer may have played some role also - but even then, all life would still be related to a type of cell in existence many billions of years ago).

stormy: Instead I want only the facts please.

DNAunion: The scientific fact IS that all life has descended from a common ancestor.

Scientific facts are not rock solid – they are tentative – open to change as new information becomes available. On the other hand, the facts of science are not mere personal opinions: they have to be supported by evidence. At this point in time, the information/evidence we have shows that all life has descended from a common ancestor.

stormy: [creative-evolution…]

DNAunion: I will agree that no one – no scientist, no layperson, … no one -- can clearly demonstrate that all of evolution that has ever occurred did so completely unaided - that no God (or other intelligence) was involved somehow in the course of evolution. However, one can show good reason to believe that a God was not REQUIRED for all of evolution to have occurred.

Science cannot disprove the existence of a God. It can only show that such a God is not required.

Actually, science can disprove the existence of a given God IF that God makes claims that can be tested scientifically and are shown to be false. For example, if God actually said that he created the Universe 6,000 years ago, then science could disprove the existence of that God (or show that that God is a deceiver or stupid – but who would worship such a God?).

 

[Stormy]

If science stayed within "known facts" and didn't formulate theories around those facts, we wouldn't even be having this debate right now.

You do understand. And I am sure that you will also agree with me that it is the duty of science to form theories and to explore and refine those theories as the facts are ascertained. But I also hold science accountable to not claim as a truth that which is not supported by fact. The lay person needs to understand where science and knowledge fuss into suspicions and theory.

You may be talking about the "age crisis" in cosmology, in which the oldest known stars - those in globular clusters - were determined to be older than the Universe.

Since that time, the estimates for the age of the Universe have increased and the estimates of the age of the oldest stars has decreased. Now the two are no longer disjoint sets of ages - they now have overlap. There is no longer an "age crisis" in cosmology.

Of course this is true. Science is not stupid. It would have to change the miscalculation.

DNAunion: The scientific fact IS that all life has descended from a common ancestor.

Scientific facts are not rock solid – they are tentative – open to change as new information becomes available.

This is the crux of the problem.

Please change your understanding.

Your sentence should read. The scientific THEORY is that all life has descended from a common ancestor. It is not a FACT.

Science cannot disprove the existence of a God. It can only show that such a God is not required.

Science has shown no such thing... unless you are willing to accept man's imagination as a filler for the gaps that are caused by the lack of factual evidence.



I do thank all of you. For helping me prove my point. You are perfect examples of the problem that I address.

We have fussed the line between truth and desire. Both sides of the evolution/creation debate are to blame for the confusion.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Stormy
You do understand. And I am sure that you will also agree with me that it is the duty of science to form theories and to explore and refine those theories as the facts are ascertained. But I also hold science accountable to not claim as a truth that which is not supported by fact. The lay person needs to understand where science and knowledge fuss into suspicions and theory.

Indeed. However, my point had two meanings attached to it. Maybe I should re-word it a little better:

If science stayed within "known facts" and didn't formulate theories around those facts, we wouldn't even be able to have this debate right now.

That said, why is no one protesting the teaching of quantum mechanics or relativity in schools yet?

 

[OneLargeToe]

Your sentence should read. The scientific <B>THEORY</B> is that all life has descended from a common ancestor. It is not a <B>FACT.</B>

You are incorrect, sir.&nbsp; Common ancestry is indeed a fact.&nbsp; There is just too much overwhelming evidence to say the contrary.&nbsp; You can keep repeating to yourself that it is just a theory in order to make your particular interpretation of the bible fit, but that doesn't change reality.

 

[Stormy]

That said, why is no one protesting the teaching of quantum mechanics or relativity in schools yet?

Do you really need an answer?

 

[DNAunion]

DNAunion: Scientific facts are not rock solid – they are tentative – open to change as new information becomes available. On the other hand, the facts of science are not mere personal opinions: they have to be supported by evidence. At this point in time, the information/evidence we have shows that all life has descended from a common ancestor.

stormy: This is the crux of the problem.

Please change your understanding.

Your sentence should read. The scientific THEORY is that all life has descended from a common ancestor. It is not a FACT.

DNAunion: No, common descent is also a scientific fact.

Again, it must be noted that a scientific fact (such as “the rate of universal expansion is decelerating”) is actually less secure than an everyday fact (such as “I was born in 1975” or “my name is Clarence” or “Phyllis graduated from Harvard” or, well, you get the idea). The facts of science are tentative, and as such, are free to be discarded as soon as enough evidence against them is uncovered. For example…

(1) It was once a scientific fact that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Of course, this view is no longer held (for more information, research either the Copernican Principle or the Principle of Mediocrity).

(2) It was once a scientific fact that atoms are indivisible (in fact, the word “atom” means indivisible). The discovery of protons and neutrons (which comprise the nucleus) and electrons proved this to be wrong, but even so, it was then a scientific “fact” that these three subatomic particles were indivisible. This too has been proven to be wrong (neutrons and protons are composed of smaller subatomic particles called quarks).

(3) It was once a scientific fact that the smallest unit of charge was that of one electron or one proton. Again, with the discovery of quarks, this fact had to be revised (quarks have charges that are positive or negative multiples of one third the charge of an electron: +1/3, +2/3, -1/3, or –2/3).

(4) It was once a scientific fact that mature neurons –such as those found in the brain - could not divide. However, it was just recently discovered (1998) that mature humans can produce new neurons in their brains.

(5) It has long been held as scientific fact that the Universe continues to expand at an every decreasing rate, as gravitational attraction between all of its matter overpowers the diminishing kinetic energy left over from the Big Bang. However, several recent observations (such as those by Alex Filippenko of Type IA supernovae) indicate that the Universe is probably expanding faster now than in the past.

(6) It has long been held as scientific fact that mitochondria are inherited only from the mother (which was a primary assumption is the calculations for the so-called “Mitochondrial Eve” hypothesis). However, in 1999 this was shown to be erroneous. The father can sometimes also contribute mitochondria to a zygote.

This is but a mere sampling: a complete list of recently-invalidated scientific facts would be too large to present. The point is, scientific “fact” is not “fact”, at least not in the everyday use of the word.

In simple terms, if a scientific position has ample scientific evidence supporting it – enough that a group of objective scientists would be convinced of the position by the accumulated evidence - then it is a scientific fact.

Finally, note that the fact of common descent does not necessarily mean that the entire process – from step 1 to step 1,000,000,000,000,000,…,000,001 – was undirected. Science can show that direction is not REQUIRED, but not that it was absent.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Stormy
Do you really need an answer?

Since I already know the answer, the question is therefore rhetorical in nature. So, no, I don't need an answer.

But let me ask you a different question.

Which would bother you more?

a) The inclusion of the 'Lucy' skeleton as part of human ancestory in biology class.

b) The teaching of the Bohr model of the atom in chemistry class.

 

[Humanista]

Originally posted by DNAunion
DNAunion: I think someone already pointed out that science is not in the business of proving things.

However, there are many lines of evidence that suggest all extant life is descended from a common ancestor (known as the cenancestor, or the universal common ancestor, or the most-recent common ancestor, or several other terms). For instance…

First of all, a couple hundred years ago, different life forms were considered to be completely different at all levels – trees were absolutely nothing like humans. But then discoveries showed that both trees and humans and even bacteria do have great commonality at the most fundamental level: they are all cellular. Since then it has been found that all life uses DNA to store its genetic information. All life uses the bases A, C, G, and T in DNA, and A, C, G, and U in RNA. All life uses ribosomes to synthesize proteins. All life uses rRNA to make ribosomes. All life uses tRNA to bring amino acids to the ribosome during protein synthesis. All life uses mRNA as the information used by the ribosome to produce proteins. All life uses proteins as enzymes. All life uses the same genetic code – the same mapping of mRNA codons to amino acids (a few organisms have a slightly modified genetic code, but even then, theirs differs for only one or two of the twenty).

The core functionality of all cellular life forms – which includes everything from bacteria to trees to humans -- is conserved. The best scientific explanation for this is common descent (though lateral gene transfer may have played some role also - but even then, all life would still be related to a type of cell in existence many billions of years ago).



DNAunion: The scientific fact IS that all life has descended from a common ancestor.

Scientific facts are not rock solid – they are tentative – open to change as new information becomes available. On the other hand, the facts of science are not mere personal opinions: they have to be supported by evidence. At this point in time, the information/evidence we have shows that all life has descended from a common ancestor.



DNAunion: I will agree that no one – no scientist, no layperson, … no one -- can clearly demonstrate that all of evolution that has ever occurred did so completely unaided - that no God (or other intelligence) was involved somehow in the course of evolution. However, one can show good reason to believe that a God was not REQUIRED for all of evolution to have occurred.

Science cannot disprove the existence of a God. It can only show that such a God is not required.

Actually, science can disprove the existence of a given God IF that God makes claims that can be tested scientifically and are shown to be false. For example, if God actually said that he created the Universe 6,000 years ago, then science could disprove the existence of that God (or show that that God is a deceiver or stupid – but who would worship such a God?).

I have read that humans share 20% common DNA with yeast! And of course it's over 98% with other primates.

 

[Stormy]

Again, it must be noted that a scientific fact (such as “the rate of universal expansion is decelerating”) is actually less secure than an everyday fact (such as “I was born in 1975” or “my name is Clarence” or “Phyllis graduated from Harvard” or, well, you get the idea). The facts of science are tentative, and as such, are free to be discarded as soon as enough evidence against them is uncovered.

But people do not understand the loose way in which the term FACT is used by science.

You speak of the scientific fact that the rate of universal expansion is decelerating. If you knew of which you were speaking that would not have been your example. It is a fact that science now says the Universal expansion is accelerating. We are becoming more and more distant and at a faster pace then before. Why? How? We just don't know. That is the truth and Science has admitted its limitations of knowledge in this area.