Why creationism isn't scientific

AV1611VET said:

How non-denominational of you.

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Thank you

AV1611VET said:

If you think there's any science at all behind what happened in Genesis 1

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What? That's like asking whether there's any science behind the oxidation of 2,2,4-trimethylpentane. Science isn't some "thing" that causes things to happen, it's our understanding of how things happen (and happened.)
So no, there's no science behind Genesis 1, because the writers didn't know any science.

Molal said:

It appears that creationism is a recent phenomena based upon the worry that accompanies trying to interpret bibilical text; therefore, literality enables one to completely ignore interpretation.

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Except it doesn't! When Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Light," is he literally an actual, shining lantern? No, of course not! Literalism doesn't work because the Bible obviously uses metaphor.
So anyone with any interpretation of the Bible that even just touches being sensible with a long stick cannot be completely literal. Which means they're using their own (fallible) powers of interpretation and reasoning, and nonetheless trying to argue that what they think the Bible says is absolute and certain!

I asked AV a couple of times to show how he can be 100% certain of every piece of reasoning he uses to come to the conclusion of some piece of his beliefs that are informed by the Bible. He couldn't do it - because it's impossible. AV can never justify himself 100%, so he cannot (honestly) claim to be 100% certain about conclusions drawn from the Bible.

FishFace said:

So no, there's no science behind Genesis 1, because the writers didn't know any science.

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"Writers" ???

AV1611VET said:

"Writers" ???

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AV, why do you continually address insignificant points when there are much more pertinent ones, such as the fact that it makes no difference whether or not there was any science behind Genesis 1, since that has no bearing on the accuracy of the story, nor on any modern theories.

AV1611VET said:

Show me a fossil record (or even a fossil) in Genesis 1, Naraoia. Let's not mix two doctrines here - (Creation 101 and Thanatology 101). Using death to explain the Creation is like using a junkyard to explain the first car ever built.

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A dead thing must have been alive once (unless God is a deceiver, blah-blah, you know that song). And it must have been created before it lived and died. Therefore the appearance of a creature in the fossil record sets a latest possible date for its creation.

Even though Genesis doesn't mention fossils, it makes certain claims or can be interpreted in certain ways that allow comparison with the fossil record.

I will attempt to break down the issue into possible scenarios. I won't always restrict myself to Genesis 1, as that in itself tells us little about what we should see in the fossil record, but rest assured, I will specifically explore two different interpretations of the six-day creation story.

Assumptions I know of: fossils are the remains of once-lived organisms, and the law of superposition (common sense, really) applies to the arrangement of fossil-bearing strata. Furthermore, I assume that strata from different sites can be correlated. I hope you can accept these.

Scenarios:

(1) There was no death before the Fall (which, I think, is pure rubbish and stated nowhere in your pet Genesis). If that is the case we can safely assume that by the time any creature could die all creatures had been created. The logical conclusion would be that we do not find any segregation of different kinds of creatures in the fossil record - for example, a fossil-bearing layer from a shallow tropical sea would contain every kind of animal that ever lived in a shallow tropical sea. Under the no-death assumption you would not be surprised to find trilobites together with dolphins.

However, what you find is that some groups (kinds, if you like), such as the above mentioned trilobites and dolphins, very consistently never occur in the same sediment, even though some of them prefer the same kind of habitat.

We must conclude that the no-death assumption is inconsistent with the fossil record.

(2) There was death before the Fall but the six-day creation story still holds. This is basically the same as the previous case, the only modification being that death kicks in earlier. If all creatures were created in only a week, the corpses should still start appearing roughly simultaneously, or sorted by lifespan at best. This does not happen. (Just one example, tuataras, crocodiles and other long-lived reptiles appear earlier than mice).

In any case, the fossil record is inconsistent with a six-day creation.

(3) The six days of creation in fact spanned a much longer time (I know you don't like this but it's one possible interpretation). In such a scenario, we can make predictions about the first appearance of creatures in the fossil record based on the order they were created (between each creation event there was plenty of time for the already existing creatures to die and fossilise). Under a gap-theory assumption we expect the appearance of creatures in the fossil record in roughly the following order (from oldest to youngest, that is, moving upwards through a series of strata): seed plants, marine animals and birds, land animals (including livestock, which, I assume, means cattle & other domestic animals), humans.

The order we see in the fossil (and archaeological) record is, however (using the same broad categories as above): marine animals, land animals, seed plants, birds, humans, livestock. This observation is completely inconsistent with Genesis 1 as interpreted above.

(4) You may also say that most or all fossils were produced by the Flood. However, this scenario is very much like (1) and (2) in its implications. Some sorting may occur (for example, a dead horse will swell up with gases and float while corals and the like are already buried at the bottom), but it definitely won't occur according to taxonomic groups. Since fossils are sorted according to taxonomy, the Flood cannot explain it (a dinosaur would swell up just the same as a horse, yet we never find dinosaurs and horses together).

Now I'm not saying that the first appearance of something in the fossil record 100% accurately marks its first appearance in the living world (especially in the case of soft-bodied organisms who don't fossilise well), but the fact remains that the taxonomic (and not lifespan- or density- or other-based) sorting of fossils is a very well-documented and highly consistent phenomenon, and therefore it is unlikely to be just an artefact of chance. Assuming that the sorting we see in the fossil record is real, our observations are entirely inconsistent with Genesis under all scenarios sketched above.

So, you see, fossils are more than relevant to Genesis. There are certain things we'd expect to see if Genesis were an accurate account of creation, and we see none of those. If reality means anything to you then you cannot ignore its implications when assessing the biblical creation story.

Of course if reality doesn't count then you are right and Genesis has nothing to do with fossils. Or any observation for that matter.

By the way, the junkyard is a good place to learn about cars that once were (if only for relatively recent ones - cars aren't preserved as long as petrified trees). You can find parts and partial cars and you can more or less work out what they looked like when "alive", even how they worked based on comparison with existing cars. Thanks for the excellent analogy

AV1611VET said:

"Writers" ???

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Yes, writers. Plural. Most theologians will agree that the Bible was written by numerous authors over several centuries. It can be argued that God directly inspired these authors but I really doubt that He is the one who put the pen to the parchment.

TheOutsider said:

Yes, writers.

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I was referring to Adam, the human author of Genesis 1.

AV1611VET said:

I was referring to Adam, the human author of Genesis 1.

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your going to have to go outside genesis 1 to prove that. Nowhere does it say Adam knew how to write.

AV1611VET said:

I was referring to Adam, the human author of Genesis 1.

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You are honestly the only person I have ever heard make that claim. I've heard of the traditional claim that Moses wrote it along with the rest of the Torah but that doesn't make sense since there are section that supposedly occur after his death. Genesis probably had multiple authors over hundreds of years through the ancient art of oral history. It likely wasn't transcribed until around the 5th century BC.

I'm going to make the bold claim that Adam was illiterate and unable to write anything. And there is no way you can prove me wrong.

AV1611VET said:

What do fossil records have to do with the Creation - (Genesis 1)?

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The same that logic has to do with Creation.

Take this challenge, and see for yourself why it is so hard to falsify.

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That's the point. The Omphalos Hypothesis is unfalsifiable, therefore unscientific. Would you agree that creationism is not science?

The "problem" with "creation scientists" is that they go outside of Genesis 1 in explaining the Creation.

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The Problem is that "creation scientist" is an oxymoron.

Loudmouth said:

The Problem is that "creation scientist" is an oxymoron.

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You don't get around this thread too much, do you?

AV1611VET said:

I guarantee you, Gamspotter, you're preaching to the choir here. I have always contended that Creation Science is a contradiction in terms; and my Apple Challenge proves it.

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Loudmouth said:

The same that logic has to do with Creation.



That's the point. The Omphalos Hypothesis is unfalsifiable, therefore unscientific. Would you agree that creationism is not science?



The Problem is that "creation scientist" is an oxymoron.

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Is a Jewish scientist and oxymoron? How about a danish scientist or a german scientist? Is a moron scientist an oxymoron?

LittleNipper said:

Is a Jewish scientist and oxymoron? How about a danish scientist or a german scientist? Is a moron scientist an oxymoron?

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A scientist who purposely ignores evidence is an oxymoron, regardless of his race, nationality or religion.

TheOutsider said:

A scientist who purposely ignores evidence is an oxymoron, regardless of his race, nationality or religion.

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How about if the scientist questions evidence because he is privy to a revelation?

LittleNipper said:

Is a Jewish scientist and oxymoron? How about a danish scientist or a german scientist?

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No more than "left handed scientist" as an oxymoron. Being jewish, danish, or german does not indicate a belief or active promulgation of a pseudoscience. Creationism is a pseudoscience. A creationist scientist is a pseudoscientific scientist, an oxymoron.

Is a moron scientist an oxymoron?

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A moron scientist is one who puts belief ahead of evidence.

LittleNipper said:

How about if the scientist questions evidence because he is privy to a revelation?

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Everyone is free to question the evidence. The wrong thing to do is REJECT evidence because it conflicts with revelation. There are many people who are told things by little voices that are contradictory to what we see in the real world. We call them cult leaders. Want some Kool-Aid?

LittleNipper said:

How about if the scientist questions evidence because he is privy to a revelation?

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Question away. But 'questioning evidence' is not what creationists do. What creationists do is 'reject ad hoc' evidence which contradicts their religious teachings and political views, as established by their movement's owners.

LittleNipper said:

How about if the scientist questions evidence because he is privy to a revelation?

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maybe he would be a scientist if he wasn't going around pushing an idea based solely on religion, and creation "scientists" not only push religion and call it science, they blatantly reject overwhelming scientific evidence for common descent between apes and humans, and universal common descent