What is the basis for a Creationist argument against Evolution?

Welcome to the forum, Soracilla! Have fun, play nice. You are right about generalizing both for the reason you give but also for another. It seems to me that no two 'creationists' have the same idea of how things have transpired. There is the most amazing range of old, middle-aged and young earth ideas. There is one flood or a bunch. There is no evolution at all, there is some and there is a lot of hyper fast evolution. Generalizing from all that is difficult. I would say that all someone has to do here is put forward their views. It seems to me that the record of the debate to date is a clear indication of open mindedness on the side of the supporters of science (and some of the others). Everything (ever some very, very silly statements) are read, considered in detail and torn to pieces.Being open minded does not mean agreeing with or even giving any credibility to. It means, to me, listening to the idea, understanding it well enough to really know what is being said (perhaps, by asking a lot of nosy questions) and then making a reasoned judgement on it.For some of the ideas that fall within the broad range of "creationism" the deliberations have been done (a lot of times). The earth is not 6,000 years old!For some of the ideas that might fall within an enormously broad definition, for example God created the universe at the big bang. Many here who are athiest don't care to argue with and many others on the side of science, in fact, believe that.What particular views do you want people to listen to with an open mind? Care to start or join appropriate theads to discuss them. I would be very surprised if they aren't taken with an open mind.

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Common sense isn't

The third paragraph talks of finding "truth". I'm not sure what 'truth' is. But I'll be happy to find a really solid, robust working explanation for things.Your first paragraph is a bit packed with misconceptions but none of that belongs in this thread.If you want to discuss your beliefs and have them considered with an open mind you'll first have to make it clear what they are. My personal suggestion is that if you are a young earther you head off to some dates and dating threads and discuss it there.I can't make other suggestions without knowing what you do believe.

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Common sense isn't

Chiroptera has good questions for you since you are asking rather imprecise questions.However, if you mean Homo sapiens and subspecies (like the archaic form). Then about 200,000 years is the answer. Very recently some excellent finds of 160 kyr old specimens were found.

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Common sense isn't

I already gave you the answer. And we have firm evidence for it. So the 6,000 year figure is wrong.

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Common sense isn't

A couple of pop articles claim carbon dating was used which is obviously wrong. This site is not the original paper but give more detail.from: http://www.berkeley.edu/.../releases/2003/06/11_idaltu.shtml

quote:

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The sediments and volcanic rock in which the fossils were found were dated at between 160,000 and 154,000 years by a combination of two methods. The argon/argon method was used by colleagues in the Berkeley Geochronology Center, led by Paul R. Renne, a UC Berkeley adjunct professor of geology. WoldeGabriel of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Bill Hart of Miami University in Ohio used the chemistry of the volcanic layers to correlate the dated layers.

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You can take any disagreement with dating to the correct forum not this one. Since this has been covered in great detail you should read up before posting refuted AIG ideas. K?

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Common sense isn't

Soracilla, it is a good theological idea to avoid bring God's power to miraculously fiddle with things into the scientific side of the discussion.Once you start to use that as an explanation for what is observed it can, like the one Ring of Power, become very seductive. The only place it ends up is painting God as a deceitful trickster who has made it impossible to use our brains to come to an honest conclusion about the universe we see and, at the same time, to agree with a literal interpretation of Genesis. God the Jester is not a very good theological position to paint yourself into.

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Common sense isn't

If you think that the creationist side hasn't been heard then you should spend sometime reading over threads here.As an example, even whatever has been responded to. And the response continued even when he demonstrated he wasn't reading the responses. It continued even when he made up more and more wild and silly ideas. It still continued even when he supplied no support for his ideas. I think that was "listening" to a degree above and beyond what is fair.Also it is hard to know what we are supposed to be listening for. It seems each individual creationist makes up their own ideas. We have young earths, old earths, old earths with young life, old earths with one flood or many floods, young earths with no evolution at all, young earths with more evolution than any biologist would believe and finally the ID'ers at least some of which accept everything that science does, old earth, evolution, no flood and so on, except that they suggest that space aliens tinkered with things every so often (but not most of the time) and don't know how or why they did.Maybe you'd like to advance what you think we should be listening to and why you think it is worth listening to. Then we will attempt to give you the hearing you think is fair.

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Common sense isn't

LOL, I'll be very upfront with you. This is not easy to define without grey edges. That is why science blends into poor science which blends into pseudo-science. On the boundaries it can be tough to be completely clear.To a partial degree it is "what scientists do". However, the "definitions" you've been given so far are what really counts. It is the nature of activities and approaches used in the processes in the scientific endeavour that counts.So I will attempt to make a partial list of my own. Be aware that books have been written on the subject and nuiances are debated.1) Evidence
Anything that you want to have treated with in any seriousness must have some sort (and that covers a lot of ground) of data that others may obeserve, manipulate or reproduce.2) Reproduction/Replication
If an important finding is published then it gets only some limited amount of excitement until it has been replicated (and perhaps more than once). A very good example was cold fusion. It was exciting and, while many felt it was unlikely on theortical grounds, it got attempted replications rather quickly. It failed. However, it is exciting enough that some are still putting some effort into it. Until it has good replicable results (and perhaps some sort of theoretical explanation) it won't be exciting anyone again.3) Testable
This is more than replication of the intial observations. It is desirable that a new idea make different predictions from the old one and that these predictions be testable in some way.4) falsifiable
Is it possible to make test that will show that the idea is wrong? Many idea (theories, explanations) can not be mathematically proven to be absolutely for sure to be "true". However, an idea becomes an accepted theory if it is possible to think of ways of showing it to be wrong and it passes many such tests. Gradually you run out of new falsification ideas and gradually the idea is more and more accepted. Note that for important things this doesn't necessarily end. Relativity is still tested.5) Peer Verification (as noted above)
This may mean a number of things but when it is being treated in the right way it means that any experimental result, calculation or hypothosis is subject to terrible, furious debate attempting to tear it down. I've talked with practicing researchers about work they have done. The first, and sometimes most withering, "peer" review is within the lab that is considering publishing a result. Months and longer can go by while the researchers try to rip into their own results. No one wants to be caught out and embarrassed.6) Coherent
By this I mean, it is understood that new ideas and results, to be really comfortably accepted have to fit into a grand scheme of all other disciplines and results. As we learn more and more it gets harder and harder to over turn existing theories because they have been subject to so much testing and refinement and because there is so much existing evidence that a new idea must explain. Ad-hoc explanations that stand alone just don't cut it.I'm sure more will follow but that is a bit of it.

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Common sense isn't

Well, so far your example of prayer studies is starting to look a bit shaky isn't it? I'm still waiting for the independent replications.

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Common sense isn't

Ok, pick one, open a thread, use your critical thinking to show how it is incoherent. By giving you the choice we give you the advantage in picking one you are most comfortable with.

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Common sense isn't

But I have no idea what you already agree with. Why bother going over ground that we don't have any disagreement with?Here in what I think is a reasonable order are some of the major items that some of our folks here disagree with:1) The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. See Dates and Dating
2) Life has undergone a long series of changes over that time.
3) There has been no global flood in at least many millions of years.
4) We as humans are close cousins of the apes alive today.It is hard to discuss 2 if you disagree with 1 or 4 if you disagree with 2. So you might start down the list in that order. Which ones do you agree with and witch do you disagree with?

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Common sense isn't

There are very few here who would argue that there is any proof of a purely materialistic world. This isn't something that there is much arguement about. You might start a thread on this if you want to smoke out those who are interested in having such an argument but I'm not going to bother with it.Hitchy wasn't saying there was any such proof. What he said, in so many words, is that science is a limited way of knowing. It can only know about those things that are, in some way, "material". That is, things which are subject to observation. And observation with some moderately stringent requirements for being independently dealt with by more than one person, in fact, anyone who is interested in dealing with it.That doesn't prove or even say there isn't anything else. It just says the those who want to understand the material world can only deal with those things that are part of it.If you have a way of extending that way of knowing that handles the problems with the perception of individual humans then I'm sure we'd be interested in hearing about it.If not, then don't worry about it. We will not be disproving the existance of something which has no scientifically testable impact on the material world. We will continue to ignore it until it does impact on the material world. That limitation has served very well so far however limited it may be.

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Common sense isn't