[QUOTE]Originally posted by sonofasailor:
[B]Hey all. Thanks for answering my questions on the previous thread. I was presented this argument from a creationist and curious to your understandings of it.
Creationist Writes:
I'll be happy to defend my faith (in re: your initial post), if you promise you'll defend yours.
As to the evolution question, I think the others miss that it has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with a naturalist bias among most scientists.
Science mustn't neccessarily be based upon Naturalist assumptions and currently it is.[/QUOTE]
Science is not based upon the naturalist assumption that "Nature is all there is."
Science is based upon the assumptions that nature is knowable by means of evidence which can be detected by our five senses. Whether there is "something else" working out there which we can't detect with our five senses, science cannot address because it wasn't designed to address that.
On the other hand, Creationism is based not upon evidence, but upon revelation.
I would ask this person what benefit to scientific inquiry would be gained if we allowed supernatural explanations for naturalistic phenomena.
quote:
I'd ask you, what the proof is that the variety and complexity of life on Earth came to be by random natural forces?
Strawman.
Evolution is not an entirely random process. Mutations are random, but natural selection is the opposite of random (hence the word,
selection).
Also, where is the evidence that anything other than natural forces were involved?
Just because the idea that the variety and complxity of life on this planet arose by naturalistic means is difficult for some people to believe doesn't mean that it isn't true. This is the fallacious "Argument from Incredulity", or, "I can't imagine how this could happen, therefore it couldn't have happened."
quote:
I'm not closed to the idea, mind you, but I have to see the evidence to be convinced.
Good. Then you must also need positive evidence to be convinced of ID, special creation, or whatever flavor of Creationist you are.
quote:
For starters, take the various lab experiments which purport to prove basic amino acids form when electricity is applied to 'primordial soup'.
The ToE and Abiogenesis theories are not the same thing. The ToE applies as soon as the first life got here. How it got here is not part of the ToE.
quote:
Does it matter that a creator (the scientist) was involved in setting the conditions up for this to occur?
Yes, because it is the only way we can hope to approximate what we think the conditions were on Earth at the time.
quote:
Does it matter that these protien strings are too fragile to survive outside of the lab?
Faulting science for not having perfect knowledge all at once hardly seems fair, does it?
quote:
If we can make the leap that the creator-scientist isn't involved and that lightning struck the organic soup all those millions of years ago and randomly generated amino strings, how then did they evolve into DNA?
We don't know. MAking the leap from "We don't know", to "Godidit" is the God of the Gaps fallacy.
quote:
Moreover, since we know through backward engineering (the Human Genome project) that DNA is actually a complex code directing the growth and functioning of every living thing, how exactly did this code come into being?
Science is still figuring this out, but self-replicating molecules are thought to be precursors.
[QUOTE]Can you show through scientific explaination how all this happened?
Please keep your answer to what is known by experiment or logic and avoid Naturalist supposition![QUOTE/]
See above.
[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-03-2002]
[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-03-2002]
™ Version 4.2