Creationism IS a 'Cult'ural Movement!

Not that much, actually. Sure, as phylogenetic techniques have expanded in popularity and ease of use, we've been forced to rejigger the charts for some species that were poorly-represented in the fossil record, or who exhibited cryptic morphology.But on the whole, in the big picture, the charts haven't ever changed that much. I realize that; I'm trying to change your mind with logic. If they're just "guesses", how is it that so many people, working completely independantly, manage to guess nearly the exact same thing?That's no guess. That's proof that there arre actually relationships there that are being detected. When multiple lines of evidence and research converge like that, it's proof. Those are complex forces. Natural selection is particularly complex. And you can't even understand mutation without understanding genetics, which is very complex. Well, yeah. Ignorant, mostly. You don't strike me as stupid; just arrogant. I did show you the proof - convergence of multiple lines of evidence.You didn't respond to it. You just ignored it and lied. Would you like to try it again, or can we all just conclude you're not here to do anything but spout creationist misinformation?

Ok, there are so many things I don't agree with that maybe I fail to address some of the more egregious ones because I have this naive idea of establishing some philosophical baseline we could start from. As for moondust, are you telling me that whatever you would define as valid science has never changed their mind about something? Wasn't it NASA that was concerned about finding large amounts of moondust in the first place?Some of you may be under the impression that the church in general has resisted evolution. Maybe you should find out, for instance, how many Baptist colleges teach evolution? But of course, you would define 'conservative christian' as any christian who doesn't believe in evolution, so the debate is, again, pointless.So, I probably should make one last effort to say something and give up: People disagree with evolution. Period. Some of them are very intelligent and knowledgeable people and you're going to have to find a way to deal with that. To try to classify those people as ignorant, conservative christian, whatever, is just a cheap shot. But the classifications themselves are pretty bogus, in my opinion. You can find people in just about any discipline who do not accept evolution, and those who do accept it, including what I would call conservative christians.We could sit here and have a perfectly pleasant discussion about the wave vs. photon theory of light, or some combination thereof, but for some reason evolution cannot be discussed, and I think the fault is really more on your side than ours. You guys are congenitally unable to be honest about the quality of evidence for evolution. I know, I've discussed this with a lot of people and I am always the ignorant one. I am immediately a moron because I don't accept some vaguely defined theory. Not that the person I'm talking to has ever done one single experiment themselves, of course, but they sure know how to quote Science magazine. I guess it's because the implications are so great.

I think that for the purposes of this thread the class of anti-evolution arguments being discussed are those that can be shown to be demonstrably false yet still used by a subset of anti-evolutionists who all just happen to be fundamentalists christians. I am sure there are a number of conservative christians who would take slight to your assuming that anyone would take the anti-evolution argument and correlate it with conservatism.The point is that there are still people who DO USE the moondust argument and they almost exclusivly use it from the pulpit or equivalent. There are people who still believe and preach that the earth is 6000 years old. There are people who believe and preach that a worldwide flood is responsible for all the geologic features on Earth.All of these ideas ARE based on ignorance because given enough factual knowledge it is child's play to demonstrate that they are false.What is worse, these people want every child in the USA to be forced to learn about these beliefs as if they WERE actually valid.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

If you've really got the strong arguments against evolution that you claim then lets disucss them. Start a thread. I bet that if you dare to do that we will find that you don't have a serious argument at all.Creationists are strong on bragging but when it comes to the arguments - even from supposedly "Intelligent and knowledgable people" like Behe or Dembski it all falls flat.

Nonsense. I'm slowly realizing that there is a tremendous ignorance of the christian community here, not that there is some easily defined thing we might call the christian community. ID and all that is defensive - people want the freedom to teach their own kids what they believe in. They are being forced by law, by the fiat of an unelected judge, to subject their kids to something they don't believe in and it freaks them out.

Let me address this in the context of the quality you probably most objected to: ignorance. No one knows everything, everyone is ignorant of many things, and everything anyone knows is stuff they were at one time ignorant of. So let me know if I'm telling you something you didn't already know.One of the most important qualities of science is tentativity. Science is not about revealed truths, it's about learning how the universe works. Our knowledge grows incrementally, and as it grows we usually find that what we used to know needs to be modified, or perhaps is even wrong. For example, a little over a hundred years ago there was a huge debate about the age of the earth with estimates ranging from 20 million years to hundreds of millions of years. As time went by and older and older rocks were discovered the age of the earth was gradually pushed further and further back in time until today the evidence indicates that the earth is about 4.56 billion years old.So of course science changes its views. It must change its views. It can be no other way if our knowledge is to grow. Just ask yourself how much sense it would make to declare the state of scientific knowledge today to be the truth from now on forever and ever. What happens if someone discovers the true nature of dark matter or finds that the laws of gravity work differently over cosmological distances, what would we do then if we'd already declared our current state of knowledge to be the final word? We'd be stuck, right? Science couldn't move forward.So by necessity science is always tentative. Some things have been established with more certainty than others, but every scientific theory is tentative and therefore open to modification and even rejection in light of new evidence or improved insight.So about moondust. Given the state of knowledge at the time of the moon's surface (practically nothing), NASA judged the possibility of deep moondust sufficiently probable that the design of the lander should take the possibility into account. In other words, they designed for it not because rigorous analyses said the dust must be there (insufficient hard data to do this), but because of the uncertainty that it might be there and the potentially disastrous consequences if they didn't design for the possibility. Once we got there we discovered that the moondust wasn't very deep, that the regolith (the material covering most of the lunar surface that comes from the steady bombardment of material and particles from outer space) was quite firm, perhaps fused from eons of hot/cold cycles.So, did I tell you anything you didn't know? Would you consider it presumptuous to say that anything I told you that you didn't know were things you lacked knowledge of? Did you know the definition of ignorance is "lacking knowledge"?Addressing the rest of your post, you seem to be saying that rejection of evolution is so widespread that responsibility cannot be laid at the doors of conservative Christianity. Yet each time the creation/evolution debate makes the news, who is pushing the creation side? Can you find a single example of when it wasn't evangelical Christians? The widespread rejection of evolution is actually just a measure of the success of the creationist grassroots strategy of lobbying state and local school boards and textbook publishers, and of the failure of science education in this country. It has nothing at all to do with the evidence for evolution. I suspect most who reject evolution are largely unaware of that evidence, much like you. And here you're demonstrating one of the qualities of a cult by placing things in an "us versus them" context where their behavior is less than honorable. The truth of the matter is that creationists avoid the halls of science as if they were the inner regions of hell. It *is* possible to have a scientific discussion between creationist and evolutionist, but only if the creationist understands and accepts the nature of science and the process of scientific investigation. What we instead usually encounter is creationist hostility toward science, such as that of Discovery Institute which views the ultimate battle as one against methodological naturalism, the foundational viewpoint of all science.--Percy

Two things: Are there any statistics about what my audience might be?Secondly, I think the onus is on the evolutionist to prove his case. The proper scientific response to any new idea is, "BS, I don't believe it. Prove it!" If reasonably intelligent people don't buy your evidence you need to come up with better, not insult your audience. If there truly is some mechanism whereby species regularly evolve into something better and more complex, that mechanism ought to be one of the best understood mechanisms there is. So turn cats into dogs in the lab, map out the sequence of events like the genome is mapped, and I'll take another look. Spare me the lectures about why I'm so ignorant to even request such a thing, just put your money where your mouth is.

Again, nonsense. Where do you get this from? If you have a problem with AIG or whoever else you mentioned, why don't you do a thread about AIG instead of making these sweeping generalizations. I suspect it's a straw man for you.

TheMystic said: That statement shows a total ignorance about what Evolution is all about or what is contained in the Theory of Evolution.If Biblical Creationism is not a Cult of Ignorance, don't you think that before criticizing Evolution you should first find out if your definition is correct? Right now your audience for any response to this post is a Christian who believes GOD created all that is, seen and unseen, and who fully supports both the FACT that Evolution happened and the Theory of Evolution as the best explanation to date on how it happened.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

We have, already. Look, the debate didn't begin when you showed up. The process of scientific acceptance for evolution occurred decades ago, which is why there's no scientific debate about it anymore.What you meant to say is that the onus is on evolutionists to prove their case to you, and that's fair enough; but I just tried to do exactly that and you made it abundantly clear that everything you know is correct and nothing anybody will tell you can change your mind.How are we supposed to "prove our case" when it's clear that you're not willing to listen to anybody? If you want to see how evolution is proven by evidence, here's a good place to start. Do you know how the genome is mapped?

I think that your response pretty much illustrates the truth of the matter. Rather than produce the solid arguments you claimed to have - you go off on a rant. Evolutionary theory does not predict that you could turn a cat into a dog in a lab - not by evolutionary means. In fact unless evolutionary theory is badly wrong it should be very, very difficult to do so even by genetic engineering (which of course you would reject - indeed it would add little to the knowledge we could gain simply be comparing the genomes).It is not up to me to prove that you haven't got the arguments you claimed to have. It is up to you to show that you have them.Indeed, let me point out that even by the argument you do present - the opinions of intelligent and informed people - looked at properly - does not support your opinions. The vast majority of intellignet and informed people accept evolution. Those that disagree are almost always those that have some prior conviction which conflicts with evolution - most often a strong religious adherence to creationism. Looked at properly this evidence supports the views you object to.
Whose views should be taken more serisouly ? That of the vast majority of knowledgable and informed individuals, or that of a strongly prejudiced minority ?

Been there. Haven't read the whole site, but a lot of it.

Instead of hurling insults at me, can you make a concise statement of what you think is wrong with my characterization? Are you saying there is no mechanism whereby species regularly evolve in something better and more complex?

Well, look. Why don't we use it as a kind of "evolution school"? Start with the 29+ evidences, for instance, and open a thread about stuff you don't understand, or evidence you don't find compelling, or subjects you want to know more about, and we'll try to address that stuff.But sweeping implications of bad faith among biologists - which is exactly what you're doing when you say that it's all "guessing", no matter what scientists tell you - aren't evidence of anything but your own ideological blindness and your arrogant refusal to even consider that there may be more to biology than you know about.

Thanks, you're very kind. Do you mind telling me what your qualifications are in this field?