Not even most Christian Churches hold that as a literal interpretation and it is certainly not part of many Christian's Dogma.
That is an appeal to authority.
You do make a hypothesis. You do test the hypothesis. But proving or disproving the hypothesis are equally valid outcomes. The conclusion can never come first.
I am quite sure that creation occured. I am quite sure evolution did'nt. I believe that way because of the evidence I have seen, not because I need to believe it for my religion. It would be a lot easier to say that the first couple verses are metaphorical, or an early myth that made it into the Bible somehow. However, because of the evidence I have seen, I cannot believe that. I the general consensus is, I believe, very wrong, and I want to do my part to fix that.
Loudmouth says:
The editor's are biased, and there bias is towards hypotheses that are supported by solid evidence and well structured experiments.
That isn't bias, that is being reasonable.
Guess what creation scientists do when they are rejected by journals? They whine about bias. Give me a break.
For the record, I wasn't whining about bias. I fully admit(ed) that in many instances, rejection is fully the fault of the creationist attempting to get published. However, if an editor thinks that evolution is a "fact" (which many evolutionists do), they would reject a paper which goes against the "facts" and supported creation.
Option three: The pantheon of greek and roman gods did it.
If evolution is disproven, or at least heavily discredited, this would be a valid option to put in the set of possibilities to be examined. I'll come back to this.
Option four: Time traveling humans went started the first life on earth.
This is a logical contradiction. Something cannot be its own cause.
Option five: Space aliens started life on earth.
How did the life of the space aliens come to be?
Option six: The Genesis Project, as seen in The Wrath of Khan, is real.
I am completely unfamiliar with this.
The Invisible Flatulent Pink Unicorn swished her tail and the earth was created.
This, with the Greek gods, would be an option to consider.
The creation story in Genesis is just one of many possibilities. Falsifying evolution will not make that story correct and more than it will make the options above correct.
No, but it shows that a non-naturalistic explanation is needed.
Just for an example, can you show me the experiments I can run or the evidence I can use so that I can tell if Zeus, Odin, or the Christian God created the earth?
Since these are non-naturalistic explanations, they are outside the range of science. Creation science, as I defined it, does not deal with these questions. After you have decided that there must have been a creation event, you must evaluate the different religions that have creation events. I have done so and believe christianity, as set forth by the Bible, is the true religion. However, that is not in the scope of creation science.
BS.
In the most extreme, someone could say that God creatd the world 6,000 years ago to appear as if it was billions of years old. That is not falsifiable.
Anyway, what changes in the earth and DNA would we be able to see? I am open to the idea that creation is falsifiable, it just never occured to me that that would be possible.
What you should say is that you don't want it to be tested due to the poor track record of science derived from religious beliefs
I would love to be able to test it. I want to know the truth, even if, heaven forbid, it would cause me to have to change my mind about something. Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I am close-minded and hiding from the truth.
How about the evidence that supports evolution? Are you ignoring that as well?
You'll just have to take my word that I
have looked at the evidence from both sides.
Did you come to your conclusions in the absence of christianity? Or did you believe in a literal creation due to your religious beliefs?
I grew/(am growing up) in a fundamentalist, YEC christian home, so no, I didn't come to my conslusions in the absence of christianity, and yes, when I was a little kid, I
did believe creationism because of my religious beliefs. However, I have examined the evidence...
You can't prove that there isn't an Invisible Flatulent Pink Unicorn. Does that mean that the IFPU exists?
You misunderstood me. You asked why scientists don't try to prove evolution by disproving creation, and I answered that that is because you cannot disprove creationism. I was not claiming that creationism must be true because it cannot be proven false.
The other problem is that there is no evidence that a literal, six day creation even happened, just as the evidence for my lovely IFPU doesn't exist. So really, you must also believe that the IFPU exists given your own criteria.
If evolution is disproven/discredited, then some form of creation is required. It is then necessary to evaluate the different creation stories. There are other threads about this, but I believe, for various reasons, that the Bible is reliable, and so the Bible's story is the one I believe.
Creation science is what creation scientists do. Therefore, the way in which creation scientists practice their inquiry is exactly what creation science is.
Science is a method. You do not "do" science, you study nature using science. A field of science is not defined by what the scientists do, but what they are studying. If reseach pertaining to medicine science was dominated by charlatans (I'm not saying creationism is, but some creationists do cross the line), would that make the field of medicine not a valid field of science?
They start from the conclusion and cram in evidence where it doesn't belong. They are trying to put the square peg in the round hole...
You keep talking about "they," but we are not talking about people. I acknowledge that some creationists are unscientific and uninteligent, and put out really bad arguments. Those people, I think, drive me nuts worse than they do you, because not only are they being stupid, they give me a bad name. Anyway, we are not talking about "they," but creationism.
I have never,
ever intentionally done that, and I try hard not to. You are assuming that because someone is trying to disprove something, they must be practicing deciet, or just plain stupidity. That is not the case.
In fact, I know that any argument I put forth will be attacked from all angles, and it is in my best interest to make the argument as accurate as possible; if I don't, the argument won't last half a second.
And just so you know, scientists are trying to disprove evolution as well.
Extremely few, if any, evolutionists are trying to disprove evolution. They may be doing something that might uncover evidence contradictory to evolution, but that does not mean that is what they are trying to do.
If creation scientists really wanted to falsify evolution they wouldn't be doing this. Instead, they would be...
So if creationists went about it the right way, it would be ok? That is exactly what I am trying to say.
I think I listed quite a few up above. Here are some more.
My question was: "What sort of opposition to the theory of evolution which you would accept as scientific? Is there any possible scenario where a supernatural power would be accepted as, although not scientifically investigatable, not ridiculous?"
I you misunderstood my question, I am wondering what structure the opposition could take, not about the actual evidence. What I meant was this: Is there a way for a group of people to propose that evolution is false and try do prove that without earning the disrespect of the general scientific community? Or does the very act of purposely trying to disprove a hypothesis make one's conclusions irrelevant?
pink sasaquatch says:
Creationism is a view on origins, evolution is a theory about how life proceeds after origins. Therefore, they cannot be rival theories.
I am talking about a creation which not only created life, but created it essentially as we see it today. This type of creation addresses how life came to be how it is today, and that is what TOE does, also.
I'd be interested to hear your "evidence" against evolution, that confirms your faith in creationism.
I'll be happy to talk about this in other threads; the evidence for/against evolution is basically the point of this entire forum, and is too big a topic to be covered in one thread; especially one which already has a topic.
Exactly, creation scientists are biased, so they do not practice true scientific method.
You are talking about creation scientists, not creation science. Also, everyone in the world has biases. When doing scientific research, the point is to not let your biases interfere.
Thus there is an "intrinsic difference"
M-W online defines intrinsic as: "belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing." How scientists in a field behave
has nothing to do with the intrinsic qualities of a field.
Again, what evidence?
I seems like you guys are itching to start some debate on the issue, instead of debating about debating about the issue. Once we are done meta-debating we can do some real debating (I can only handle one topic at a time). Something about genetics would be cool, I'll think about it.
Charles Knight says:
Why rely on common sense when we have science?
There are many things which are mostly or completely beyond the range of science. Historical events are a good example; yes, in my opinion, that includes creation.
If you are saying that creation can't be tested with science, you are basically giving up any claims that you were making towards Creation science.
I haven't made claims about being able to scientifically examine creation, and I agree that the name is somewhat of an oxymoron.
That still leaves you with about 3600 Gods who could have done it.
I think I dealt with this above in this post; if not, come back with something more specific.
Holmes says:
think what you have done is equivocated on is the words "possible" and "probable". What you really mean is between two PROBABLE theories, refutation of one leaves the other standing as a probability. Unfortunately to be probable, one must have advanced some evidence to support that theory.
Ah, you are right. I hadn't realized that I did that (otherwise, obviously, I wouldn't have). Thank you for pointing that out. If evolution is disproven, we then have to examine possible options to find those that are probable, then from those find the one which is most probable. I think that evolution couldn't have happened and that the christian creation is the most probable alternative.
A scientist cannot rest on his laurels once he has finished criticizing an opponent's theory. That is NOT science.
Very true. I have reasons to believe (mainly the veracity of the Bible) that xian creation happened. However, after proving evolution wrong, I am not aware of any more that pure science can do, and as that is the topic of this thread, I am not going any further.
The only thing necessary, and so the MOST IMPORTANT part of science is creating hypothesis for one's own theory and testing them as valid.
You do have a point, but in my discussions/lurkings here a recuring theme has been that if a hypothesis is unfalsifiable, it is unscientific. Thus not attempting to falsify a hypothesisis is unscientific, so without falsification you do not have science. So unless you both hypothesizeand falsify, you are not practicing science. They are equal in importance.
It's importance is in fact, nil. Oh it can sure be handy, but it is unnecessary and insufficient to have one's own theory become a leading theory.
Falsification's importance to making a theory a leading theory might be nill, merely having a popularity contest among different theories isn't science. Science includes, among observing and hypothesizing, falsifying. So anything without falsification is by definition not science.
I did not say UNscientific, I said PSEUDOscientific. That means it uses the trappings of science and may perhaps use scientific methods in parts, but as a whole does not adhere to them throughout.
M-W online defines pseudoscience as: "a system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific" For something to be erroneously regarded as science, it must not be science, so it must be unscientific. Calling something pseudoscience is calling it unscientific.
Once again, starting with a preconception not derived from any evidence,
I have not started out without evidence. It is because of the evidence that I believe like I do. Besides, it matters nothing what my preconceptions are if they don't get in the way, which, as much as I can help it, they don't.
and then trying to knock out a theory (derived from evidence) which may run counter to it
If I am scientifically trying to falsify a hypothesis, then I am being scientific.
But in science there should be NO MOTIVES... beyond an interest in fitting the pieces of a subject together.
Do people researching cancer medications have some interest beyond figuring out an interesting puzzle? Yes. Do those motives interfere with there research? No. Are they scientists and scientific? Yes.
This is not a hypothesis. Or certainly not a singular one. There should be more description of entities and mechanisms.
I was vague; this should be more clear:
I believe in the God described in the Bible; I believe he created the earth as described in the Bible; I believe that the way creation is described in the Bible was a seven day event.
Second, they most certainly did have scripture to back them up
I had no clue they actually had scripture to back it up. (I return after a brief googling) Ah, they did. Sort of. I (obviously) disagree with how they interpreted those verses. However, that is irrelevant to this debate. The subject is whether or not creation science is actually science, and as has been established, more than just christians are creationists/ creation scientists.
It is sort of loaded for me to say there is NO POSSIBLE SCENARIO.
I can see that it could have been easily interpreted that way, which was not my intent. Loudmouth misunderstood it, too, so I can see that I should have been more clear.
I am uncertain why if there is a God, or Gods, and they really made the universe and life, they are waiting outside of time and space
I don't believe God is that inactive, although why he isn't more active I don't know.
...and shaping the universe to look totally opposite from the way they said they created things in their mythology.
I think the world is shaped in such a way as to agree with Genesis; this is what makes me a creationist and you an evolutionist.
Schrafinator says:
What about the statement of faith that all of the major Creation science organizations require their scientists to sign and adhere to?
This isn't a debate about creationist organizations (or at least I don't understand it to be), it is a debate on whether or not creation science can be scientific or not. It is about the science, not the scientists.
What place do actual evidence or falsification have to someone who believes that the Bible trumps all evidence in nature anyway?
I don't believe the Bible trumps nature, I believe the Bible agrees with nature. Furthermore, I do not believe that because that is what the Bible claims, but because that is what I can observe.
Sorry for taking so long; there was a lot of stuff to think about. Also, I'm going on a mountain biking trip in a couple days and a vacation shortly after that, so it might be a week or two before I post again. Have a good weekend everybody!
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