Debate - Ongoing controversy, the EvC question

Examples, please?

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1. Creation is very falsifiable.

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In that case you won't have any problem offering an observation that would falsify the creation hypothesis. Offer a prospective piece of evidence that would falsify the theory of special creation.I started this thread in order to demonstrate that creationists could not offer potentially disconfirming evidence of 'divine design.' The theory of evolution by natural selection could be falsified in many ways, as I discussed in the linked thread. Creationism, in contrast, is not scientific because (among other things) there is no conceivable evidence that couldn't be answered by saying "God wanted it that way."regards,
Esteban Hambre

Almeyda,Could you please list two pieces of evidence that evolutionists have rejected because they do not fit the evolutionary framework.Please be specific and site your sources.Tell us how they do NOT fit the evolutionary framework and how they DO fit the creationist frameworkPlease give us two things that if found to be true would falsify your religion's creation story. Please make make them testable by anyone. Please list some of the tests that you might perform.

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"

Nope, they're the universal rules of doing science, and it's how we separate good science from junk science: UFOlogy, Holocaust denial, paranormalism. and creationism. No, they don't, Almeyda. Not everybody's like you. I realize that you think rejecting evidence that doesn't fit your conclusion is standard operating procedure, but it isn't. You only think it is because that's all you've ever seen creationists do, and because they style themselves as "scientists", you assume that's what scientists do.In a lot of ways what you've gone through is like abuse - like when a child-molesting father tells his daughter that "that's how fathers love their little girls." It takes a long time for a woman to trust men after that - just like it's going to take you a while to trust scientists again.Scientists don't reject data just because it's contrary to their conclusions, because tearing down conclusions is how you win the Nobel Prize. With that on the line, don't you think there's a pretty good incentive to follow the evidence wherever it goes?Now that you know that scientists don't just reject data because it conflicts with an "evolutionary worldview," don't you think it's time to find out exactly what it is that leads otherwise Christian scientists to reject creationism?

You want some evidence that can be used to prove evolutionists throw away evidence that doesn't fit? How about the 'evidence' that the rocks from Mt. St. Helens are 2 million years old? Someone on another forum brought this up and someone replied that the test doesn't work for young dates (something similar to this anyway). If the test is useless for yound dates, what grounds can we have any certainty that it works for longer periods of time? It seems like the younger the rock, the more accurate, not the other way around.How about the fradulent data Ernst Haeckel decided to make up (with 'proof') about how fetal organisms all go through prior stages in evolution before being born? What he thought was the human fetal gill turned out to be our ear. Do you think this is ever mentioned in a Biology class talking about how we evolved from some other organism? Trust me, it is not. How about another one.Another example is the peppered moth experiments in England. People try to say that this proves evolution. All it does is show that the moths have alleles for a light body and a dark body. Both alleles were present before the pollution. Both alleles were present after the pollution. Evolutionists start out by describing evolution in this experiment as a change in what alleles are expressed, and then mid-argument switch the meaning of evolution to speciation. The two moths were still one species. Neither moth became a dragonfly. Seems to me changing the definition of a word in the middle of a discussion is the same thing as throwing evidence away.

This particular topic needs to be in (and has been addressed in) the Dates and dating forum, but let me answer briefly:
1) Austin and his pals were dating pieces of old rock that had not been completely "reset" by melting in the surrounding fresh magma.
2) Potassium-argon dating is, indeed, better suited for dates in the many millions of years than dates of just a couple of million. This is analogous to why a machinist doesn't use a yardstick to measure a piston to the nearest thousandth of an inch: it's not the proper tool for that job. Yardsticks work fine for telling how long the whole car is, but don't have the resolution for boring cylinders.This message has been edited by Coragyps, 05-13-2004 09:20 PM

Here is another one. How about Pasteur's experiment in which he demonstrated that life does not arise from non-life? He took a couple of different swan neck test tubes, boiled them to sterilize them, broke the top off of one of them and then let them sit. Both test tubes still had an oxygen atmosphere because the gas could freely circulate, but the un-broken test tube would not permit bacteria to enter the medium. In the broken test tube, bacteria began to grow. In the un-broken test tube, nothing happened. His conclusion was that life only arises from life. What do evolutionists say about this? That in today's environment it doesn't happen but it did way back then. Seems like a large assumption. This does fit creationism however because we never claim life must arise from non-life. God is the source of all life. Seems like both of us believe in a miracle happening in the past. The difference is creationist have a miracle worker.

I guess this is a bit of a catch all topic. But that's no excuse for letting it wander everywhere. For that reason I suggest you propose this as a topic in Dates and Dating.I'm afraid you will find:
1)This is a reasonable consequence of the nature of the process. To ask this indicates you are critising something you know very little about.
2)This is an example of creationist dishonesty. There is a whole topic on this. You may add to it if you want.
Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?As for your last you will need to quote the details before it can be discussed.There is a thread for evolutionist dishonesty but we haven't had much in there. Please add to it. Evolutionist Frauds

Yes I do know this in the wrong forum, but someone wanted evidence. You can't compare a yardstick measuring piston clearance because we can prove other tools work better. We know for a fact how old the rocks from Mt. St. Helens are. It is not possible to prove rocks are millions of years old because none of us were around then to winess it, and all of the systems used for dating are based on assumptions. The dates are assumed to be old, so the fossils are assumed to be old, so the dating methods are assumed to be inaccurate for short dates. Why is it just assumed that this method works for long dates when it is incredibly obvious it doesn't work for short dates?

The fact that the results for a valid test are corraborated by other dating methods.If the tests weren't valid, they would return radically divergent dates. Instead, for objects within the valid time frame, dates from unrelated dating methods tend to converge. It's like being weighed on a spring scale, a doctor's balance, and by submersion in water. If you get the same weight each time, you can be pretty sure those methods were valid.So no, that's not evolutions rejecting evidence - that's the realization that measurements have practical limits, and when you exceed them, you get information that doesn't match other measurements. This isn't even a true story.The human jaw does form from an embryonic structure that, in some other organisms, becomes a gill. So Hackel wasn't a liar, but either you are, or whoever told you that story was. Seems to me that presenting half-remembered or outright inaccurate stories as evidence is the same thing as lying, but that's just me.Again, you've presented a story that's just plain wrong. Evolution simply is a change in allele frequencies, which causes speciation under specific circumstances. So it's not changing the definition - evolution means both of those things, because they're the same thing.

That it proves that, over short timeframes, broth does not give rise to bacteria.So what? It hardly proves that life can never come from non-life, because Pasteur hardly tested every concievable situation of non-life, now did he?

Cora, Ned and Frog addressed the Mt St Helen's rocks. http://EvC Forum: Debate - Ongoing controversy, the EvC question
If volcanic action doesn't fully melt the rock that is mixed with the lava, and dating is done on the rocks you are going to get the original age of the rock, not the reset lava.Like Ned said, we have an entire thread devoted to Ernst http://EvC Forum: Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?
The same structures that give rise to the jaw in humans gives rise to gills in other organisms. This is hardly a lie that is being covered up in biology classrooms.The argument concerning Pastuer's experiments doesn't involve abiogenesis. It involves fully formed, modern organisms coming from non-life. His argument was against things like maggots forming FROM rotten meat not coming from fly eggs ON rotten meat.The peppered moth example is a perfect example of frequency of alleles changing in a population over time. Guess what, this is evolution. The change in allele frequency, over time can become speciation. Guess what, this is still evolution.

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"

Welcome to EvC Coledude. I was wondering how it is life on this planet came about from non life if not by some mechanism yet to be explained. Life IS on this planet and it had to start somehow. Just because it is not known yet the "how" does not mean science can take a short cut theory and say God did it nuff said. With that attitude why even bother with scientific discovery at all. There is a great deal that has been discovered that was not known in the past and I venture to say the more we/mankind learns the less we/mankind needs to attribute it all to mythology. IMO. **edit to include word mankindThis message has been edited by 1.61803, 05-13-2004 10:53 PM

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

What does this have to do with Evolution.

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How about the 'evidence' that the rocks from Mt. St. Helens are 2 million years old?

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As others pointed out, there is no evidence that the rocks from Mt. St. Helens are 2 million years old. The dating test was totally inappropriate. For one thing, the error bars on that particular test are on the order of a few million years. In other words saying the dating method gives an age of 2 million years plus or minus 3 million years is the same as saying the rocks are brand new.-

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What he thought was the human fetal gill turned out to be our ear.

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This is exactly what happend. In all vertebrate embryos there is a structure that arises called the pharyngeal pouches, and sometimes called "gill slits". In jawless fish these pharyngeal pouches form the gills. In fish with jaws part of the pharyngeal pouches form the gills and part form the jaws. In mammals part of the pharyngeal pouches form the jaws, and part form two of the bones of the inner ear. The prediction was that part of the jaw of the reptile ancestor, specifically the jaw joint, detached from the rest of the jaw and became the inner ear bones. This has been confirmed. Fossils of reptile-mammals have been found showing that correct bones of the reptile jaw has detached, and are in stages that are in between jaw joint and inner ear bones.-

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People try to say that this proves evolution.

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The point of the observation is that the environment can have a direct influence on the relative frequencies of alleles. No one claims otherwise. This is a necessary part of evolution, and it has been confirmed. The other necessary points of evolution have also been confirmed in other observations and experiments.