Forever Faithful: A Question for Creationists

Verona Italy exists - I've been there - and there's even a statue of Juliet Capulet. (You rub her left breast for luck in love.)That doesn't mean that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a true story.

No, there's some scientists who follow the scientific method - the application of which to the question of life on earth leads to evolution - and the rest aren't scientists at all.When you start with the assumption that the Bible is true and then cherry-pick the evidence, you're no scientist, you're a charlatan. Scientists start with the assumption that observation is true and then come up with conclusions. There's plenty of evidence for evolution - as much as there is for gravity or the germ theory of disease - and it's certainly not a religion. (I've never heard of a religion that stood ready to discard everything they thought was true in the face of new, contradictory data.)The problem you have is that you're not yet ready for it. Like most people you don't know what it means to support a statement with evidence, so there's just no way that you could be expected to assemble the evidence into a proper picture of evolution. The only way you know how to check if something is true is to see if it says so in the Bible.Scientific evidence is on a totally different level than that. How do you expect to cope with it if you don't even know how to tell truth from fiction?

Good question.The reason that scientists come up with explanations (we call them "models" or "theories") for natural observations is because when you have a good explanation, you can make predictions.Predictions, being a sort of knowledge about the future, are obviously of great value to everyone.It's the models and theories developed by scientists that form the basis of technology.

I can give you the names of 300 scientists working in biology, geology, and paleontology (and a few other fields) who all agree that evolution is an acceptably accurate description of the history of life on Earth. And those 300 are just the ones named "Steve."If you tried you could maybe find 20-30 biologists who are creationists, of any name.Like baseball fans, the details are often a matter of dispute. But while any two baseball fans may not agree on which team had the best year, they certainly agree that baseball exists. Evolution is the same way. The details are discussed but no serious scientist questions the general effecacy of the model - anyone who claims otherwise does so not via the scientific method but by substituting rationality with dogma.

Oh? You have names?I imagine that if you scroll through the membership of AiG or the ICR, you'll see a lot of theologians, a lot of people with education degrees, a lot of engineers, a lot of computer programmers, and a whole lot of people with degrees they made themselves at a Kinko's.What you won't find a lot of are actual scientists with advanced degrees in fields relevant to evolution, like biology, geology, and paleontology.The number one employer of geologists is the oil industry. Why don't you come back and tell me how many creationist geologists they currently employ?

I only need one reason - whether or not they're degreed scientists working in relevant fields. You don't go to a doctor to get help with your taxes; evolution is a biological theory so you have to assess it with biological expertise. As a geologist? Is he employed to find oil deposits?Working at a gas station doesn't count as being "employed by the oil industry." Asgara's got the link. She knows the poll I'm talking about. 300+ scientists in relevant fields support evolution and are named Steve. You misunderstood. I'm not asking for you to give me names of evolutionist creationists (obviously.) But since the theory of evolution is a theory of biology, you have to be a biologist to expertly assess the data and judge the theory, one way or another. Without a degree in biology they don't have the access or the expertise to judge the evidence.That, and you have to study the things that you reject to know why you reject them. I'll wager dollars to donuts that us evolutionists are more familiar with creationist literature, organizations, and arguments than the creationists here usually are. Creationists on the other hand, not only know nothing about evolution, generally, but they don't know anything about creationism, either.Oh, and try not to reply to messages more than once... if you need to add something, use the "edit" button on your original post. Multiple replies is a headache for the person you're talking to.

Orderly crystals form from mixed-up, disorderly liquids, spontaneously. It happens every winter, for instance. (Oh, wait. Not where you live. )Ponder for a moment how that might be and you'll see that evolution doesn't contradict the second law.

Because of a prior commitment to believe that Genesis 1 is literally true. If you start with the assumption that Genesis 1 has to be the literal truth, then your only recourse is creationism and closing your eyes to the facts.