Falsifying Creation

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Originally posted by John Paul:
If purely natural processes are shown to be enough to account for everything, the Creation account would fall just as sure as a house of cards would fall when struck by the wind of a fan. IOW, it would be falsified.

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Let me try to make this crystal clear to you, since others have tried and failed. If purely natural processes are shown to be enough to account for everything, the creation account would NOT fall. Showing natural processes to have possibly created everything there is would NOT prove that they did so - only that they COULD do so. I can easily demonstrate that the train service in the area in which I live can easily account for my getting to work in a half an hour or so every morning. However, this does NOT prove that this is how I do it. Actually, I drive my car. In the same way, whether natural process can account for all that there is is irrelevant to creationism. Creationism, by its nature, is not falsifiable. It is not, therefore, science.

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Originally posted by toff:

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Originally posted by John Paul:
If purely natural processes are shown to be enough to account for everything, the Creation account would fall just as sure as a house of cards would fall when struck by the wind of a fan. IOW, it would be falsified.

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Let me try to make this crystal clear to you, since others have tried and failed. If purely natural processes are shown to be enough to account for everything, the creation account would NOT fall. Showing natural processes to have possibly created everything there is would NOT prove that they did so - only that they COULD do so. I can easily demonstrate that the train service in the area in which I live can easily account for my getting to work in a half an hour or so every morning. However, this does NOT prove that this is how I do it. Actually, I drive my car. In the same way, whether natural process can account for all that there is is irrelevant to creationism. Creationism, by its nature, is not falsifiable. It is not, therefore, science.

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While I am clearly on the same side of the debat, and would agree that
creationsim is NOT science, I contend that it IS falsifiably to a
degree.Creationism is, fundamentally, based on the literal interpretation
of the Bible. It is for this reason that creationists argue
against evolution and other natural explanations for life, the
universie and everything.IF a literal interpretation of the Bible can be shown to not fit
the evidence of the real-world the doubt must be cast on the
creationsist contention.Then maybe the creationist community will begin a proper invesitgation
into the origins of life ... rather than simply stating that the
Bible says this, so its true.I have rarely seen arguments from creationists which support the
creation story ... they seem to prefer to attempt to under-mine
belief in a natural explanation.

Falsifying creation?
That would be based on which creation model. There are three
1. Young Earth Creationism
2. Old Earth Creationism, with no evolution
3. Evolutionary creationism, or theistic evolution.
YEC has been IMO completely falsified. There is not scientific evidence in its favor and HUGE evidence against it. For example, the fossil record absolutely proves that life did not appear all at once within the last 10,000 years, but arose gradually over time.
OECWNE at least respects the scientific evidence of an old earth. It can be falsefied only by showing that life on earth could not have arisen by any other method but evolution. While I beleive that there is strong evidence for evolution, Idont think that scientists can show that the Good Lord could not have just created these different species over time. All you could do is argue that it is strange that He would have done so in a pattern so suggestive of evolution!
EC/TE could be falsifield only if the ToE was disproven. HTH...

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[This message has been edited by stonetool, 02-12-2002]

if they require burial most of the time, then would humans be able to affect that? for instance a human feels that he should bury the animal as they are also going into exctinction. would that affect anything? would it make a young earth more feasable?------------------
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness" -"Major" Motoko Kusanagi

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Originally posted by stonetool:
Falsifying creation?
That would be based on which creation model. There are three
1. Young Earth Creationism
2. Old Earth Creationism, with no evolution
3. Evolutionary creationism, or theistic evolution.
YEC has been IMO completely falsified. There is not scientific evidence in its favor and HUGE evidence against it. For example, the fossil record absolutely proves that life did not appear all at once within the last 10,000 years, but arose gradually over time.
OECWNE at least respects the scientific evidence of an old earth. It can be falsefied only by showing that life on earth could not have arisen by any other method but evolution. While I beleive that there is strong evidence for evolution, Idont think that scientists can show that the Good Lord could not have just created these different species over time. All you could do is argue that it is strange that He would have done so in a pattern so suggestive of evolution!
EC/TE could be falsifield only if the ToE was disproven. HTH...

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[This message has been edited by stonetool, 02-12-2002]

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The debate I have been involved in here is concerned with
the ACCOUNT of creation. That is taking Genesis Ch1 literally.Falsifying creation itself is next to impossible. The only
way to do that would be to categorically show that there
is no God. I doubt that that is possible.

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
if they require burial most of the time, then would humans be able to affect that? for instance a human feels that he should bury the animal as they are also going into exctinction. would that affect anything? would it make a young earth more feasable?

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No.Another aspect of the fossil record which refutes a young earth
is that there ate NO fossilised 'modern' animal.In another post TrueCreation mentioned non-fossil Dinosaur
remains as evidence of a young earth. A more straight forward
explanation of that is that Dinos didn't become extinct when we
thought they did (it's not unheard of to discover living
specimens of species thought extinct for millions of years).The converse of TC's argument IS compelling evidence for an
old earth, however. If all animals were made at the same time,
why did some fossilize (fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs,
pterosaurs) and others not (birds, mammals, hominids) ?Human burial of remains would tend to INCREASE the variety of
individuals fossilised, and so we would expect to see MORE
diversity in fossilised remains.

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Originally posted by Peter:
No.

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Another aspect of the fossil record which refutes a young earth
is that there ate NO fossilised 'modern' animal.

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In another post TrueCreation mentioned non-fossil Dinosaur
remains as evidence of a young earth. A more straight forward
explanation of that is that Dinos didn't become extinct when we
thought they did (it's not unheard of to discover living
specimens of species thought extinct for millions of years).

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The converse of TC's argument IS compelling evidence for an
old earth, however. If all animals were made at the same time,
why did some fossilize (fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs,
pterosaurs) and others not (birds, mammals, hominids) ?

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Human burial of remains would tend to INCREASE the variety of
individuals fossilised, and so we would expect to see MORE
diversity in fossilised remains.

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the bible was never meant to be a scientific journal, and thats all i have left to say.------------------
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness" -"Major" Motoko Kusanagi

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
the bible was never meant to be a scientific journal, and thats all i have left to say.

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A very familiar cop-out. Creationists often cite the bible as scientific 'evidence' for something: it is only when their arguments are demolished that they fall back on "Anyway, the bible wasn't meant to be a science text." If they remotely intellectually honest, after saying such a thing, they would never again bring up anything in the bible in an attempt to demonstrate something scientific. Invariably, they do anyway.

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
the bible was never meant to be a scientific journal, and thats all i have left to say.

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So you are admitting that the ACCOUNT of creation in the
Bible is NOT accurate, or at least NOT to be taken literally ?

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Originally posted by toff:

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
the bible was never meant to be a scientific journal, and thats all i have left to say.

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A very familiar cop-out. Creationists often cite the bible as scientific 'evidence' for something: it is only when their arguments are demolished that they fall back on "Anyway, the bible wasn't meant to be a science text." If they remotely intellectually honest, after saying such a thing, they would never again bring up anything in the bible in an attempt to demonstrate something scientific. Invariably, they do anyway.

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i dont use it that way and know enough that it shouldnt be.------------------
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness" -"Major" Motoko Kusanagi

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
i dont use it that way and know enough that it shouldnt be.

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Hope you don't take this the wrong way, but, the above being the
case ... what DO you base your belief in creationsim on?

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Originally posted by Peter:
Hope you don't take this the wrong way, but, the above being the
case ... what DO you base your belief in creationsim on?

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im not a creationist and im definetely not an evolutionist. all that matters is that i have faith in christ, and i do.------------------
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness" -"Major" Motoko Kusanagi

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
im not a creationist and im definetely not an evolutionist. all that matters is that i have faith in christ, and i do.

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So, KP, what does your faith in christ tell you about the age of the universe and its formative process, the age of the earth and its formative process, the age of life on earth and its development?I'm afraid that, for most of us, it is not self-evident what your declaration of faith implies on the above issues. On the face of it, such a declararion appears to be consistent with young earth creationist beliefs, old earth creationist beliefs, god of the gaps belief, theistic evolutionary beliefs, to name a few.

"I'll skip to the bits that we disagree on "
--Um..Ok."The fossil record, regardless of how old the different
layers in which fossils are found may be, indicates a sequence
of demise within the animals that live and have ever lived."
--It shows that the animal under it was burried sometime before the one on top."There are layers which contain nothing but fish and (in
evolutionary terminology(sorry about that ) lesser lifeforms,
and higher lifeforms are NEVER found in layers equivalent or lower
than these."
--Yes, but there also fish found above these layers, (obviously) indicating that the other life form, by whatever mechenism, was not able to be burried till then."(I realise that the mammal thing was a little off
since early mammals emerged while dinos were still about)."
--Thats allright, everyone makes little mistakes here and there, such as 'moon rocks were dated for carbon14 radioisotopes', hehe, its a quick chuckle, but you know how it goes. "The point I was making was that the fossil record shows a sequence
of existence."
--Sequence of 'burrial' to be precise."It is consistent."
--As I explained in my last post, it depends on what you qualify for existance. For instance, if Evolution theory were to say that birds were not found untill the Jurrassic, and one was found in Triassic, it means that your label on what shows consistancy is flawed, but the true sequence of burrial is still the same."It has been observed by independent
witnesses world-wide (and in the early fossil hunting error with
no mass-communications media they came to similar conculsions
about what this sequence meant)."
--Yes, and it acclaimed minor and major refinement over the years to cooperate with what is found."To test an hypothesis or assertion, we make a prediction based
upon that assertion and see if we can find evidence that refutes
it. This is (edited highlights of) scientific method."
--Ok."The creation ACCOUNT (and I stress ACCOUNT) states that all life
was created with a very short period (i.e 6 days of creation, animals
made toward the end of that)."
--Sure was."Animals die according to their lifespans (no argument
here I think), then ANY of the animals in creation could have
died at the same time as each other, or 'lower' forms after 'higher'."
--No, the fossil record indicates order of burrial, nothing to do with their life-span or when it was created, or when it was alive."The conditions for fossilisation are particular. If burrial is required in 99.9999% of cases, then fossilisation can only occur
when an creature has been burried close to its time of death (otherwise carrion eaters or such would have taken it away)."
--Dending on your mechenism or reason for burrial. If you have a massive flood, your chances of getting burried are probably more along the lines of 5% rather than .00009%. This again, has nothing to do with the time of death, but the time of burrial, a 20 year old person could get burried and be perfectly healthy and therefor be fossilized."This LEADS directly to a prediction of NO sequence in the fossil
record. A lion could have died and been fossilised just as easily
as an early fish or T.Rex or ... whatever, and at the same time or earlier than any other animal because they all co-existed."
--Not if you have a worldwide flood, fish are allready down there, a lion isn't stupid enough to head straight for the bottom."This is contrary to the ACCOUNT of creation in the Bible, and so
this account MUST be inaccurate or (more likely) non-literal."
--Or more likely, we need to take a step back and see what we are arguing."I don't usually respond to personal comments, but I will point out
that in arguing against Creationism we ARE arguing against the Bible
accounts. There is no theory of creationism, except that the bible
is the literal truth of creation."
--You've seen the hierarchy of classification in Creationism havent you?"I also AM aware of the context and content of this debate. Don't
confuse recent arrival on the forum with recent arrival to the
debate itself"
--Ok, we do need to look at what we are arguing here though.------------------

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Originally posted by wj:
So, KP, what does your faith in christ tell you about the age of the universe and its formative process, the age of the earth and its formative process, the age of life on earth and its development?

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I'm afraid that, for most of us, it is not self-evident what your declaration of faith implies on the above issues. On the face of it, such a declararion appears to be consistent with young earth creationist beliefs, old earth creationist beliefs, god of the gaps belief, theistic evolutionary beliefs, to name a few.

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what would that knowledge grant me? more knowledge? i dont need to know it and thats why i dont and i dont claim to.------------------
"Overspecialize and you breed in weakness" -"Major" Motoko Kusanagi