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Author Topic:   People Don't Know What Creation Science Is
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 61 of 336 (501034)
03-03-2009 8:00 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-03-2009 7:26 PM


Re: This is exactly what I didn't want to do.
Anyway, I feel bombarded and I can see that I am all alone here. I can't possibly respond to everyone. I have decided to leave this forum.
There are several folks here who will most cheerfully have a one-on-one discussion with you - and our moderators will enforce the one-on-one. Just ask whoever you're most comfortable (or least uncomfortable) with. And we have several creationists here, not just you. Why they aren't on this thread, I don't know.
You don't want to look like Brave Sir Robin at this early time, do you?
Hang around.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-03-2009 7:26 PM Kelly has not replied

Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2930 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 62 of 336 (501038)
03-03-2009 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-03-2009 7:26 PM


Re: This is exactly what I didn't want to do.
Kelly,
I must second Coragyps and ask you to not run off so quickly. You are not as alone as these threads would suggest. If you are interested in a specific discussion of "What is Creationism?" I would be willing to (after I read it) engage in a one-on-one discussion where we could each take our time and reply as time allows. It is a good way to get familiar with EvC and express yourself without a pile-up.

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-03-2009 7:26 PM Kelly has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 63 of 336 (501040)
03-03-2009 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-03-2009 7:26 PM


But we do know what "creation science" is
In the wrong thread, Evolutionary Biology as a Science:
"Kelly;Msg 16" writes:
Unless you at least come to grips with the concept of "What is Creation Science?" I am not willing to do the work. It would be so much easier to start on equal footing.
Most of us do already know what "creation science" is. I've been following this since about 1981, have read quite a bit of creationist materials, and have also corresponded with both Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). We've come to grips with "creation science", but have you?
I assume that you have only been at this for a short time, especially given how impressed you obviously are with the lackluster book, "What is Creation Science?", which is rather typical creationist fare. Perhaps I should share with you something that I personally witnessed, since I feel that you are yourself in the same position as that young creationist:
quote:
About twenty years ago a creationist was hosting a series of amateur-night creation/evolution debates in which the members of the audience were invited to get up and make presentations. One young creationist (I would judge him to have been about 18 to 21 years old) got up and announced that he had some new hard science that would blow the evolutionists away: the speed of light has been slowing down! The pro-evolution half of the audience immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter. That claim of Setterfield's had already been known to them for a decade, it had been refuted many times, and they started to explain to the poor hapless creationist exactly why that claim was false. The poor kid didn't know what had hit him.
Also a propos is this quote by a former young-earth creationist, Steve Rauch (from The Effect of Scientific Error in Christian Apologetics at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/whocares.htm, circa 1998):
quote:
About a year and a half ago, I was a firm special creationist. I am now a believer in evolution; not even sure if God is required. In 1995, Glenn Morton wrote to Stephen Jones about Stephen's provisional acceptance of common descent (as quoted by SJ Sunday, January 11, 1998 5:16 PM), "I know exactly how difficult a paradigm shift like that is." Well, let me tell you, the shift is absolutely devastating. I'm still struggling with all this. I still hold some anger because I believe the evangelical Christian community did not properly prepare me for the creation/evolution debate. They gave me a gun loaded with blanks, and sent me out. I was creamed.
BTW, that is on Glenn Morton's site. Morton started out as a young-earth creationist, everything he knew about geology he learned from the ICR, and he had even written several flood-geology articles for a creationist journal. But then he went to work as a field geologist and hired several other creationists trained by the ICR. They all suffered severe crises of faith from the rock-hard evidence they had to work with every day which the ICR had taught them did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. Glenn and another of those geologists share their story, along with others, at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/person.htm.

So, here's what "creation science" is. It is a legalistic deception that the anti-evolution movement put together when they lost use of "monkey laws" after Epperson vs Arkansas (1968). Since the early 1920's, they had been able to bar the teaching of evolution in the public schools without hiding the religious basis of those laws, but that was struck down in 1968. Since they could not reveal their religious purpose, that is exactly what they did: hide the Bible. They took a body of writings that had been developing for the past decade or so (eg, Morris' "The Genesis Flood"), superficially scrubbed them of overt religious references, and named it "creation science" or "scientific creationism". Then they started campaigning to have this "creation science" included in the science classroom in order to counter the teaching of evolution. These attempts would be called "equal time" and "balanced treatment" and always with the same claims you have made here, that it's purely scientific and that there's nothing religious about it. BTW, the ICR was instrumental in creating this movement and was also the primary source for such "public school" materials.
Interestingly, when these "public school" materials were used in a fifth-grade class in Livermore, CA, it resulted in a number of the students becoming atheists. Because these "public school" materials from the ICR that were "completely scientific and non-religious" repeatedly urged the students to make a personal choice between its unnamed "Creator" and "God-less evolution". Those students could see how ridiculous the claims were, so they followed the ICR's instructions and became atheists. Interestingly, when I visited the ICR in Santee, CA, I'm sure I saw a stone quarry just down the road from them. I wonder if they supplied the ICR with millstones.
After a decade of their campaigning, a model "balanced treatment" state law was drafted circa 1980 and led to the passing of laws in Arkansas and Louisiana. The Arkansas law was struck down first, while the Lousiana case made it to the US Supreme Court. As a result, the courts now knew what "creation science" is and that it is purely religious. Having lost another tool, the anti-evolution movement then took another anti-evolution idea that was being developed, "intelligent design", and started employing it as their new legalistic smoke-screen. It was at that time that "Of Pandas and People" switched from being a "creation science" book to being an "intelligent design" book as it was superficially edited -- literally via a find-and-replace function in the word processor, which munged up one of the edits, leaving the smoking-gun for the courts to find that "intelligent design" is just another disguise for "creation science", just depriving the anti-evolution movement of its latest deception. Now we're waiting to see what subterfuge they come up with next.
The essential approach of "creation science" is its "Two-Model Approach" (TMA). Since the TMA is a classic example of deception through the False Dilemma (AKA "False Dichotomy"), I cannot recommend too strongly that you read up on that informal fallacy: the Wikipedia article is at False dilemma - Wikipedia and you will find many more pages on the topic if you Google on the term. Very basically, in a dichotomy you have a finite number -- usually 2 -- of choices -- usually mutually exclusive -- to choose from. By eliminating the wrong choices, you can prove the only remaining choice to be correct. This is often used correctly in mathematical proofs as "proof by contradiction" in which to prove something you assume the opposite and then show that opposite to be lead to a false result. The methodology suggested by a dichotomy is to discover or prove the true choice by eliminating all the other choices.
However, the dichotomy becomes false when you leave out choices or substitute the real choices with false ones. The only reasons for creating a false dichotomy are sloppy thinking or deception. In the case of the TMA, the primary reason is deception, though its propagation through the creationist community is largely through sloppy thinking.
In just about every Gish or H. Morris presentation, debate, radio/TV appearance that I've seen or heard or read the transcript of, plus most of their books, the very first thing they would do would be to try to establish the TMA, to insist that there are two and only two mutually exclusive models: the "creation model" and the "evolution model". Then they employ the methodology of a dichotomy by proving the "creation model" solely by attempting to eliminate the "evolution model", without ever presenting any evidence for the "creation model", or discussing it, or defending it, or even presenting it. One humorous but true description of the TMA is a book of two chapters: Chapter One is "Evolution" and Chapter Two is "Everything that's wrong with Chapter One." The TMA attempts to prove creation solely by attacking evolution. All the "evidence" of "creation science" is negative evidence against its "evolution model"; no creationist has ever presented any positive evidence for creation, not even Dr. Henry Morris. I know, because I asked him directly and he insisted that negative evidence against evolution constituted positive evidence for creation, as per the TMA.
The TMA is false because it leaves out several other "models", including actual evolution. Which brings us to the other reason why the TMA is false: because its two "models" are themselves false. At best, the "evolution model" is a grossly distorted caricature, a misleading misrepresentation. But Morris revealed that it is even worse, in that he directly stated that the "atheistic evolution model" also includes most of the world's religions, both ancient and modern. So basically, the TMA consists of a very specific "creation model" (even though they carefully make it sound very vague, even "non-religious", so as to sneak it past the courts) and an extremely broad "evolution model" that includes everything that's not in the "creation model". This makes it impossible for the TMA to prove the "creation model", because it has made it impossible to ever disprove the "evolution model".
Which doesn't matter to the framers of the TMA, since their goal was never to prove creation. The true goal of "creation science" was very succinctly expressed by Paul Ellwanger, the framer of the model bill that spawned the Arkansas and Louisiana "balanced treatment" laws:
quote:
... -- the idea of killing evolution instead of playing these debating games that we've been playing for nigh over a decade already.
It's only been later, as "creation science" has spread and infected the creationist community and integrated itself with their apologetics and proselytizing, that creationists themselves have started looking for it to provide evidence and proof of their faith, something that faith should never require.
One thing to note is that the claims of "creation science" were not suddenly created ex nihilo. Rather, there had been a long tradition of creationists trying to find scientific evidence supporting their beliefs. Plus, there had been a long tradition of anti-evolution writing. The first major anti-evolution effort came after WWI and reached a peak in the 1920's, mainly subsiding after the public embarassment and the loss of their leader after the Scopes Trial, though mollified by their success in keeping evolution out of the schools, a victory that lasted them for four decades. Many of the current claims that blame evolution for all social ills started in the post-WWI movement. The founders of the ICR had already been doing their work in the early 1960's, mainly in reaction to the ASA (an Christian association of scientists) not taking a strong enough stance for young-earth creationism. Remember that Henry Morris' "The Genesis Flood" was published in 1961 and was itself largely based (though without attribution) on the writings of George McCready Price in the 20's and 30's. It was that body of work that led to the new creationists' own writings which, like their predecessors, were overtly and overwhelmingly religious in tone and nature. And it was those new religious writings that were scrubbed of all overt religious references so that they could serve as "public school editions", though it was blatantly clear to anyone who read them that they were religious -- under testimony in the Arkansas trial, the teacher in charge of developing the new "balanced treatment" curriculum was at a loss for suitable creationist materials because everything the ICR offered her was too blatantly religious.
This actually raises some hope for "creation science", or rather for the claim of scientific evidence supporting your beliefs. Certainly, there must have been some scrupulous scientists conducting such research on their own. Scientists who maintained the proper rigor in their work, such that their results could be of value. Why don't we ever hear of them? I suspect it is because the creationist community does not value their work. Creationists don't want to learn the truth; they just want to convince people! They want to convince new converts, and they want to convince themselves. They don't even care whether a claim is true or false (as evidenced by creationists who continue to spread the same false claims even after those claims had been decisively proven to them to be false), but only that it sounds convincing. Let's face it, an honest result phrased in properly tentative fashion just won't sound convincing. Now, moon dust or sea salt or radiodating or the earth's slowing rotation or chicken proteins! Now those sound convincing, even though they are utterly false.

There, from nearly three decades of following this so-called "controversy" (ie, it's purely a creationist invention), in a very condensed package is what we have discovered "creation science" to be. If you disagree and truly believe that it is something entirely different, then you need to show us, to demonstrate conclusively, that it is different.
Please heed what Asgara told you in that other thread:
"Asgara; Topic: Evolutionary Biology as a Science, Msg 20" writes:
Kelly,
Everyone here would love to come to grips with "What is Creation Science." So why don't you tell us. Give us the science. Telling us we're wrong does not help us understand.
The biggest obstacle you will face is other creationists.
  • The ones that insist that it's their god that is the creator.
  • The ones from the Discovery Institute that wrote the Wedge Document.
  • The ones who rewrote the Christian apologetic "text book" Of Panda's and People to turn it into an ID book.
  • The creation scientists who admit that for science to encompass creationism it would have to be rewritten in such a way that astrology would be science also.
  • The ones who insist that Creation Science is really science yet can't supply any of that science when asked (hhmm sounds familiar)
  • The ones that when asked for the positive evidence for creation can only repeat supposed evidence against evolution.
Please don't be just another fly by night creationist that comes in here proclaiming "YOU'RE WRONG" and then disappears when they find we don't believe them.
Don't tell us we're wrong, SHOW us. And no giving us a reading assignment is not going to work. Many here could probably give you your own reading assignments that would contradict your book, and I'm not talking about evolution texts.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-03-2009 7:26 PM Kelly has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by lyx2no, posted 03-03-2009 8:36 PM dwise1 has replied
 Message 65 by Stagamancer, posted 03-03-2009 8:51 PM dwise1 has not replied

lyx2no
Member (Idle past 4716 days)
Posts: 1277
From: A vast, undifferentiated plane.
Joined: 02-28-2008


Message 64 of 336 (501042)
03-03-2009 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by dwise1
03-03-2009 8:25 PM


Re: But we do know what "creation science" is
Thank you, dwise1. I hoped something good would come out of this, but this is well beyond expectations.

Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by dwise1, posted 03-03-2009 8:25 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by dwise1, posted 03-03-2009 9:30 PM lyx2no has not replied

Stagamancer
Member (Idle past 4915 days)
Posts: 174
From: Oregon
Joined: 12-28-2008


Message 65 of 336 (501043)
03-03-2009 8:51 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by dwise1
03-03-2009 8:25 PM


Re: But we do know what "creation science" is
Hear, hear!
Thank you for this concise, and well written documentation of the evolution (teehee) of creation science through the last century.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by dwise1, posted 03-03-2009 8:25 PM dwise1 has not replied

Capt Stormfield
Member (Idle past 455 days)
Posts: 428
From: Vancouver Island
Joined: 01-17-2009


Message 66 of 336 (501044)
03-03-2009 8:52 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-03-2009 7:26 PM


Re: This is exactly what I didn't want to do.
I just want everyone to understand what creation science actually is.
So you keep saying. Have you come up with an example yet of the kind of hypothesis a creation scientist might make? Of the kind of evidence she would examine in an attempt to falsify that hypothesis? Since CS has been around for a long, long time, it seems like it ought to be easy to explain some of the ideas that have been examined and rejected or examined and found supportable.
The obvious conclusion in evolutionary theory-if there is no creator--is that life created itself.
Evolution says nothing about a creator either way. In fact some people believe that the God of the Bible created the first life and let it evolve as he knew it would (what with being omniscient and all that.) Could you please quit dissembling about evolution and get on with the task of giving some living examples of creation science in action.
I have decided to leave this forum.
Of course you have. You have been caught with your pants down and are unable to support your claims. You will now proceed to try and make it someone else's fault by accusing them of being dishonest and unfair.
I hope people will at least try and learn about what is Creation Science so that the next time a Creationist seeks debate here you will be able to deal with them honestly and fairly--and maybe they would even be interested in sticking around a bit.
See! I'm psychic! Actually I cheated and read ahead. But seriously, accusing the people here of being unfair and dishonest is a pretty weak shot when all that has been asked, over and over and over again, is that you provide some examples of creation science that are analogous to the hypothesis/prediction/test/publish format used in all the other sciences. It is you who have endlessly run off on tangents (and now have just plain run off) to avoid this seemingly simple task.
I sincerely hope that you will look inside yourself for some understanding of this situation. Take some responsibility for writing a cheque you couldn't cash instead of shooting the messenger (or teller, if you want an unmixed metaphor). As I pointed out in an earlier post, you are not breaking any new ground here. I and many others were once in your position and had to face the fact that we were unable to support our claims with real science. It then fell to us to learn the difference between doing science and having faith. You have the choice of following the path of people like Collins and Miller and a significant proportion of scientists in your country who do good science and have honest faith and are widely respected, or that of Dembski, Morris, Gish, et al, who only pretend to do science and are widely viewed as lying weasels.
EDIT: To add kudos to dwise for an excellent summation.
Capt.
Edited by Capt Stormfield, : No reason given.

Electronics must run on smoke, because when the smoke leaks out they stop working.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-03-2009 7:26 PM Kelly has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 67 of 336 (501048)
03-03-2009 9:30 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by lyx2no
03-03-2009 8:36 PM


Re: But we do know what "creation science" is
Actually, the good thing that we all hope will come out of this is for a creationist to finally, after all these decades, try to present some positive evidence for creation. IOW, for a creationist to finally make an honest attempt.
Personally, I don't think she's up to it. I do not doubt her sincerity. Rather, I believe that she is a relative new-comer to creation/evolution. All she knows is what she's read and heard from creationists. Like that kid I described, she thinks that she has some new really great stuff that will just blow those evolutionists away. What she does not yet know is that she's been fed a steady diet of PRATTs, tired old false claims that we are all both very familiar with and aware of the refutation of those claims. She does not yet have the sense of history of the claims that many of us have. Still, we would dearly love to see a creationist make an honest attempt for once.
I had to leave a number of things out. Like Glenn Morton, after having struggled with his experience for a decade which had started out with "creation science" having pushed him to the verge of atheism, contacting all the creationist geologist who had suffered similarly and asking each of them if there was even one thing the ICR had taught them, one "insurmountable problem for geology", that had turned out to be true and none of them could think of even one.
Or Thwaites and Awbrey, who had for years conducted a balanced-treatment class at their university in which professional creationists gave half the lectures; they finally had to stop the class because of the continuous protests by Christian campus clubs against the class. As I had written on my old site (host dropped out of the business):
quote:
In 1977, they pioneered the successful debating strategy of researching creation science claims beforehand and then presenting what the evidence really showed or what the misquoted source had actually said.
In 1993, they announced their retirement from the fray and described their very last debate on 1993 April 29. The description of the debate was preceeded by a summation of their experiences in those 15 years, of what they had hoped to learn, and of what they had learned. They had entered into debates with the hope and expectation that:
quote:
... a creationist would dig up a real biological paradox, one that would prove to be an interesting brain-teaser for the scientific community. We hoped that we could use the creationists to ferret out biological enigmas much as DEA agents use dogs to seek out contraband. ... While we had discovered that every creationist claim so far could easily be disproved, we still had hope that there was a genuine quandary in there somewhere. We just hadn't found it yet."
What did they discover after those 15 years? Complete disillusionment with the creationists. None of the creationists ever presented any real paradoxes or genuine quandaries. The creationists had no actual case to present.
(Thwaites, W., and F. Awbrey 1993. Our last debate; our very last.
Creation/Evolution 33:1-4.)
Or I met with a creationist friend from work at a debate in 1985 in which Thwaites and Awbrey matched up against Gish and Morris. First off, my friend was very uneasy about all the creationist books on the bombardier beetle. Our discussions at work had started with my asking him about the Christian teachings about lying. Gish claimed that the chemicals the beetle use will explode spontaneously when mixed, so at Thwaite and Awbrey's class, they mixed the chemicals together to prove Gish's claim wrong. Gish admitted publicly in the class that he was wrong, yet the ICR and even Gish continued to use the claim, even though slightly modified. But as we left the debate, my friend was nearly in shock. He just kept muttering something like: "We have mountains of evidence. Why didn't they present it? They could have blown those evolutionists away. Why didn't they? We have mountains of evidence. Where is it?" Shortly after that, the contract was cancelled and we went to different companies. Five years later, I bumped into him at the local community college (software types need constant reeducation). He was still a fundamentalist Christian, but he hated creationists!
Also at that debate I heard Morris make a claim about a "1976" NASA document that showed through direct measurements that there should be nearly 200 feet of meteoric dust on the moon's surface if it were really billions of years old. I wrote to them and Gish sent me a copy of a letter by Harold Slusher with his calculations on it. He cited the NASA document as "Volume II" in the series and written in "1976". When I found it in our university library, it was Volume 11 (eleven) in the series, was a collection of papers presented in 1965 and was printed in 1967. Furthermore, Slusher misrepresented the paper he had quoted in order to inflate his figures by a factor of 10,000; when corrected, his calculations actually predicted a third of an inch of dust accumulation.
The point is that if any of those creationists had ever looked at the document, then they would have immediately corrected that mistake. But when I wrote back to Gish and included xerox copies of the title pages, he denied the truth and continued to insist on the "1976" date. I wrote him again and again included the xerox copies and directed him to them explicitly. No reply. A few months later, their newsletter, which I was receiving, mentioned that Gish would give a talk at the local junior college, so I went and afterwards asked him about it. He denied knowing anything about any moondust claim, but offered to pass my question and address on to somebody at the ICR who would know. Never got any answer, but my newsletter suddenly stopped coming. When I mentioned that to Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE, even she was shocked at such behavior from Gish.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by lyx2no, posted 03-03-2009 8:36 PM lyx2no has not replied

Coyote
Member (Idle past 2106 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 68 of 336 (501049)
03-03-2009 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by lyx2no
03-03-2009 7:11 PM


Re: Where's the Beef?
You want to know what creation "science" really is?
It is creationism with the serial numbers filed off in hopes of fooling the school boards and the courts. It was "created" following the Epperson decision in the 1960s.
As you see from Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) creation "science" was banned from the scools as being creationism in disguise.
Subsequently, "intelligent design" was "designed" to sneak creationism in where creation "science" failed to go. ID was subsequently banned for the same reason.
Subsequent attempts have been "teach the controversy," "they're both theories," "critical thinking," "strengths and weaknesses," and "academic freedom."
Why can't creationists be honest about it? Their constant efforts to pass their religious beliefs off as science--which they diametrically oppose and to which creation "science" is the antithesis--are patently transparent. You're not fooling anyone.
And if any school board falls for it they can expect a court case and a pretty large legal bill.
Teaching a particular narrow brand of anti-science fundamentalist religion in science classes is a thing of the past, and its not coming back short of a theocracy. Is that what you're hoping for?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by lyx2no, posted 03-03-2009 7:11 PM lyx2no has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by lyx2no, posted 03-03-2009 10:37 PM Coyote has not replied

lyx2no
Member (Idle past 4716 days)
Posts: 1277
From: A vast, undifferentiated plane.
Joined: 02-28-2008


Message 69 of 336 (501056)
03-03-2009 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Coyote
03-03-2009 9:42 PM


Re: Where's the Beef?
Coyote writes:
This, that, and the other thing; or close enough to it.
That is pretty much the opinion I held and hold, and hoped Kelly would disabuse me of. It wasn't much of a hope, but think of how refreshing it would be is she could.
The thing is, think about how easy it would be if the claim were true.
Edited by lyx2no, : Correct tense.

Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Coyote, posted 03-03-2009 9:42 PM Coyote has not replied

Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 70 of 336 (501097)
03-04-2009 8:59 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Lithodid-Man
03-03-2009 7:28 PM


Re: Morris and Creation Science
Well, this will break me of sucking eggs (as my grandmother used to say). I skimmed through the entire Scientific Creationism book, and did not find where he said explicitly that elements evolved. It is either from another work or (quite likely) me interpreting Morris' predictions of evolution vs. creationism.
I have been searching for anything on this too. But as of yet nothing. It doesn't seem like the creationist have much of their writing online in a searchable format. I guess they want to make sure everyone "buys the book".
Edited by Theodoric, : added quote

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Lithodid-Man, posted 03-03-2009 7:28 PM Lithodid-Man has not replied

onifre
Member (Idle past 2950 days)
Posts: 4854
From: Dark Side of the Moon
Joined: 02-20-2008


Message 71 of 336 (501115)
03-04-2009 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Kelly
03-03-2009 7:26 PM


Re: This is exactly what I didn't want to do.
Hi Kelly,
I just want everyone to understand what creation science actually is.
Seems like you are just saying it's science, but it starts with the premise that things are created. Ok, I got that.
My question is, what lead you, or "creation" scientist, to conclude this premise is valid?
The obvious conclusion in evolutionary theory-if there is no creator--is that life created itself.
Evolution only occurs with "living" things, so yes, life creates itself. Your parents(ie. living beings) created you(another living being) through a natural(hopefully - lol) process.
Personally i find that harder to believe than to believe that God created life.
How can you find it harder to belive that life changes through its history due to environmental needs, than to postulate an entity capable of creating an entire universe and everything in it from nothingness?
I would say, even if the theory of evolution is proven wrong, it still remains harder to postulate a creator that is able to manifest existance from nothingness.
My point is that if evolutionists are not required to address the how of origins, then why should creationists have to address it in order to study the evidence.
They don't. Anyone can study anything at any time they wish to. Who is holding you back?
However, it seems like you would like to by-pass the scientific method of providing objective evidence for the claims that life is created, and move right on up to a fully accepted theory having taken none of the proper steps to get this concensus amongst people of science.
There are rules to explaining a phenomenon in a new light/theory. First you present the hypothesis, then collect facts to support the hypothesis - actually this should be done first - but..., then present a proper theory and subject it to peer review. After many, many years you may/or may not gain a consensus and the theory is tentatively accepted as the best possible explanation with the current facts that have been gathered. If these steps are not taken, no one will simple accept your claims, of anything.
Preaching to the choir must get really boring.
Funny, you approach this site, make a bunch of claims about nature, provide no evidence to support your assertion or to explain what "creation science" is, and then turn around an insult the forum members for not being up-to-speed on what you personally believe. I guess you're just smarter than us, bro.

"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks
"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Kelly, posted 03-03-2009 7:26 PM Kelly has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 9:18 AM onifre has replied

Kelly
Member (Idle past 5495 days)
Posts: 217
Joined: 03-01-2009


Message 72 of 336 (501226)
03-05-2009 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 71 by onifre
03-04-2009 12:06 PM


The real question, onfire, is
What led people to deny the obvious signs of creation that was an accepted teaching for hundreds of years and assumed by most early scientists?
It wasn't until Darwin that this popular notion of evolution became a topic and eventually dogmatic teaching.
You really can't say that it was observation. The laws of thermodynamics, the complex structures if living organisms and the universal gaps between types in both the living world and the fossil record support creation.
Going from recognizing the processes of mutation, selection and sexual recombination that produce variation within type--which is really nothing short of great design (microevolution), to extrapolating that these processes can explain presumed evolutionary changes from simpler to more complex types (macroevolution) is not any sort of logical inference from observation--but a fantastic faith in the future of a theory that the facts are certainly failing.
No one can logically extrapolate from mutation and natural selection to evolution in the Darwinian sense or even in the neo Darwinian sense by claiming they have observed any such event.
Edited by Kelly, : No reason given.
Edited by Kelly, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by onifre, posted 03-04-2009 12:06 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Percy, posted 03-05-2009 9:27 AM Kelly has not replied
 Message 74 by bluescat48, posted 03-05-2009 9:31 AM Kelly has replied
 Message 75 by Modulous, posted 03-05-2009 9:59 AM Kelly has replied
 Message 84 by Coragyps, posted 03-05-2009 12:51 PM Kelly has not replied
 Message 95 by onifre, posted 03-05-2009 2:03 PM Kelly has replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 73 of 336 (501228)
03-05-2009 9:27 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Kelly
03-05-2009 9:18 AM


Re: The real question, onfire, is
You keep saying that people don't know what creation science is, but when pushed to describe it all you can come up with is invalid criticisms of evolution. You're just validating what people have been telling you about creation science: it has no coherent theory of its own and consists primarily of fallacious criticisms of evolution.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 9:18 AM Kelly has not replied

bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 74 of 336 (501230)
03-05-2009 9:31 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Kelly
03-05-2009 9:18 AM


Re: The real question, onfire, is
What led people to deny the obvious signs of creation that was an accepted teaching for hundreds of years and assumed by most early scientists?
What led scientists to adopt evolution was doing "science." By observation, experimentation & extrapolation, scientists discovered that natural processes were responsible for the evolutionary changes to species not some special creation that was believed previously.
Edited by bluescat48, : No reason given.
Edited by bluescat48, : correction

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 9:18 AM Kelly has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 10:32 AM bluescat48 has not replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 75 of 336 (501235)
03-05-2009 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Kelly
03-05-2009 9:18 AM


Creation's explanation is...?
Hello again Kelly,
I hope you are beginning to enjoy it here - you are certainly entering into the spirit of it all
The real question, onfire, is...What led people to deny the obvious signs of creation that was an accepted teaching for hundreds of years and assumed by most early scientists?
A better explanation. One that parsimoniously explained a great deal of the evidence that had been accrued up until that point, the same kind of evidence that was causing the creation scientists of the time to begin to scratch their heads and wonder about.
It wasn't until Darwin that this popular notion of evolution became a topic and eventually dogmatic teaching.
Unfortunately, I agree that much of teaching is dogmatic. Some teachers manage to get away from this, but constraints of time and budget often mean they cannot. This isn't just biology, but history, languages, geography, maths, religious studies, physics etc etc. That's a whole topic in its own right. We have a thread tackling this issue that you might want to participate in: Indoctrination.
You really can't say that it was observation.
Well it was multiple observations from disparate disciplines that all seem to be coherent with the conclusion that all life was related in some fashion. Darwin didn't invent that idea, but he gave an excellent starting description as to how that might in fact be the case. That starting description implied certain other things about the world that must be true if the description was true...they are called predictions.
The laws of thermodynamics, the complex structures if living organisms and the universal gaps between types in both the living world and the fossil record support creation.
And they don't contradict evolution. In fact - irreducibly complex molecular biology was a prediction made using evolutionary reasoning way back at the beginning of the 20th Century. And evolution doesn't explain why there there are gaps between diverse lifeforms but it also explains why some gaps aren't all that big at all (lions and tigers can have children together, ring species etc). It not only can explain the gaps, but the patterns of those gaps. All in all, evolution is just a better, more complete explanation.
Unless we know something about how the 'creation event' took place, we cannot know if it is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics. Was the work that went into it 100% or more efficient? By being vague, creation can be consistent with anything and thus it predicts nothing. We cannot know if we should expect to see complex or simple life forms (from what we know of creation, everything that is created is more simple than its creator) and we won't know what to expect to find in the fossil record until we know exactly what was created and when...was it all at the same time or over a period of 3 billion years?
It is these basic things that creation science has had difficulty with that evolution doesn't have difficulty with at all.
Going from recognizing the processes of mutation, selection and sexual recombination that produce variation within type--which is really nothing short of great design (microevolution), to extrapolating that these processes can explain presumed evolutionary changes from simpler to more complex types (macroevolution) is not any sort of logical inference from observation--but a fantastic faith in the future of a theory that the facts are certainly failing.
No one can logically extrapolate from mutation and natural selection to evolution in the Darwinian sense or even in the neo Darwinian sense by claiming they have observed any such event.
May I invite you to Confidence in evolutionary science? The person I started it for decided that they didn't want to debate there for some reason. The punchline is that it isn't just a case of extrapolation, but of converging lines of evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 9:18 AM Kelly has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Kelly, posted 03-05-2009 10:19 AM Modulous has replied

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