Reasons for Creationist Persistence

RIGHT...so why don't you read through this thread and tell me if it reads more like an empirically supported research paper or an opinions page from the NY Times...

Understood... The top resources I prefer are those of Loma Linda University (a seventh-day adventist university) and their Geo-science Research Institute...

If anybody else was asked to support their opinions, they would be expected to do so.By persistently refusing to support your opinion, you are just undermining your own credibility. When creationists persistently refuse to put up their evidence, it's usually because they don't have any.Think how easy it would be to prove me wrong.Instead, you prefer to assert me wrong.

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I don't even know what you want...Are you asking me for the names of my acquaintances?How many names would satisfy you? The thirty or so that I know? The five hundred + on the DI list? However many pro-creation scientists actually exist?Or are you just trying to annoy?Edited by mjfloresta, : No reason given.

... and that you can circumvent that limitation by slavish devotion to a holy scripture held to be inerrant in all things?Your inconsistency is showing. If you want to embrace uncertainty and tentativity, as befits a scientist, then evolution, the scientific model based on the best evidence available, is the way to go. Embracing the religious dogma of creationism, which asserts a monopoly on eternal truths (that need not be verified - "just trust us" says the creationist), is not consistent with the ethods you've described above. They don't. You can't successfully prosecute science by ignoring evidence, misrepresenting those who disagree with you, making assertions supported by no evidence, and circumventing peer-review.Yet these are the only ways creationism can be supported. I suspect many of your "friends", particularly the biologists, would be quite dismayed to learn that you're smearing them all across this forum, asserting that they hold such counterfactual ideas such as1) the idea that mainstream scientists, particularly biologists, are all members of a grand conspiracy to fabricate vast amounts of fraudulent data in order to suborn Biblical "truths";
2) the idea that a 2000-year-old holy book written by shepherds and moneychangers is somehow more authoritative on biology than biologists, considering that it asserts, among other things, that locusts have only 4 legs, that goats are born with spotted coloration because their parents ate and drank near spotted reeds, and that a man can ride around inside a whale for three days and nights;
3) that representatives of all known animal species can fit in a space the size of three boxcars and be used to repopulate the Earth - in only decades - after a deluge that extinguished all other life on Earth, and that the descendants of 8 people would, after only 5-6 generations, be sufficient in number to have populated all the civilizations of the ancient world.I could go on, but I still think we're experiencing disagreement about who constitutes a "creationist." As I've said, that term is best used only to refer to people who reject the scientific, evidentiary consensus on the history of life on Earth (which has nothing to do with God or religion) in favor of a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible that asserts, among other things, an Earth that is only 6-10 thousand years old, and that all known species were created ex nihilo by God almost identical to the way they appear to us now.No adherent to those beliefs could possibly be a successful scientist, except so far as they check those beliefs at the laboratory door. It's impossible to produce legitimate science chained, as creationists are, to an unyielding, counterfactual ideology.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Uh, excuse me. Engineering? Computer science? Aeronautics? What do those have to do with the biological sciences? Indeed, what does computer science (my own professional field, BTW) have to do with science, period? Some math. Some electrical engineering, if the guy works with embedded programming (which I do). What does evolution have to do with any of that? Besides, engineers have a reputation of being overly pragmatic and having little patience for theory -- I've been working as a software engineer alongside electrical engineers for nearly 25 years and I've seen that many times over the years.Also, what do you mean by "creationist"? Are all of the people you cite young-earth creationists who toe the ICR line? Or is it just that they believe in God the Creator? In particular, for the fields that could count (biological, geological, paleontological), exactly what qualifies those individuals as "creationist"? For example, a practicing geologist would have a hard time remaining a YEC, but that wouldn't keep him from believing in God the Creator.

Any or all of those would be better than evasion. My estimate is zero. Prove me wrong.(Just so you don't accuse me of moving the goalpoasts, make that: people who do science in biology-related fields and come up with results that conflict with evolution.)

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The Salem Hypothesis rears its head again!

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The "Salem Hypothesis" (named after Bruce Salem) is a name for a correlation that has been observed amongst scientists, between subscribing to creationism and working in an engineering discipline.

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I'm the one who proposed man's finiteness. How now am I circumventing "that limitation"? I think uncertainty and tentativity are perfectly coherent with the notion of a finite mind, so no problem there... Who's smearing who? I've never made this claim, nor have I asserted that my acquaintances have made this claim. DID I EVER SAY THAT?????? Once again, YOUR ASSERTION, NOT MINE. I've never made these claims on behalf of my acquaintances.{qs3) that representatives of all known animal species can fit in a space the size of three boxcars and be used to repopulate the Earth - in only decades - after a deluge that extinguished all other life on Earth, and that the descendants of 8 people would, after only 5-6 generations, be sufficient in number to have populated all the civilizations of the ancient world.{/qsYet again, your words placed in my mouth...are you serious? Unless your understanding of their beliefs is skewed by misunderstanding in which case the slander is on your part, not mine...Just one question; Why the quick degradation into baseless accusations?

Creationists say that.If that's not what you meant, then like I said, we're just having a misunderstanding about what you mean by "creationist." Creationists hold the views that I listed. If that's not what you meant, then you didn't really mean "creationist."If you just meant people who believe that God created the universe, but have no disagreement with the explanation that natural selection and random mutation are the source of variation and adaptation within species as well as new species altogether, then you didn't mean to say "creationist" - you meant "theistic evolutionist."It's not a big deal. People show up here all the time saying "I believe God created life and used evolution to do it; I must be a creationist." But that's not what "creationist" means at all. Are you? These are the beliefs that constitute creationism - that creationists share. (I should know; I was one.)If those weren't the beliefs you were referring to, then you weren't talking about creationists. The people you're talking about are theistic evolutionists, misidentified.

From Wikkipedia on the Salem Hypotheses: (my bold)

I am referring to creationists who are skeptical of the ToE (some are OEC, some YEC). The OECers do not necessarily (many don't) subscribe to a global flood or other aspects of YEC.Thus I am referring to (scientific) skeptics of evolution, some of whom are also religiously skeptical of evolution, but others who aren't.

It's mostly a joke. (You know, like Godwin's Law.) Sorry it went over your head. Although you might have read a little further:

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It is used in circles where the debate between evolution and creation is occurring, often humorously...

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Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

ok

Crash's reply already posed the right question, but just in case, let me reemphasize by asking it again in a specific way. Are you really saying that you have friends and acquaintances who work in any of the biological sciences while rejecting the unifying theory of all of biology? Or who work in any of the geological sciences while rejecting all geological evidence of an ancient earth? Or who work in any of the astronomical sciences while rejecting all cosmological evidence of an ancient universe?*AND*...(and this is the most important part)...who also believe that the earth was created just a few thousand years ago and experienced a world wide flood around 4000 years ago that wiped out almost all life?I agree with whoever made the comment about engineers, which includes software engineers. For some reason I've never been able to figure out, and it perplexes me a great deal since I am a software engineer (a programmer, in other words), engineers are particularly susceptible to the creationist viewpoint. Maybe it's because there's nothing in the Bible that contradicts electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical or software engineering.Anyway, if your answer to those questions is "yes", then send your friends and acquaintances here, please!!! We'd love to meet them!--Percy