The Florida Senate voted 21-17 Wednesday, following a strong majority vote in the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee, to submit the Evolution Academic Freedom Act for vote in the House.
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Fla. Senate Passes Evolution Academic Freedom Act
By
Aaron Leichman
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Apr. 24 2008 02:24 PM EDT
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This legislation purportedly advances "academic freedom," but this is a disingenuous goal. Its real goal is to permit students and teachers to advance preferential religious beliefs in a reputable scientific venue. High school science teachers and students are not qualified to debate the veracity of basic scientific theory. In the article a teacher is quoted: "To say I have problems with evolution theory would be career suicide for me." Well, yes, it should be if your job is to teach science. Much like a history teacher would rightly say "To say I have problems with the French Revolution would be career suicide for me." Or a music teacher saying "To say I have problems with Bach would be career suicide for me." Science teachers whose personal superstitions prevent them from fulfilling their professional duties should perhaps consider a career change.
Science class should be about science teachers teaching sound science, and science students learning sound science. Evolution is sound science. Creationism/intelligent design is not sound science. It is not even science; it is theology. There should be no debate about evolution in a high school class since there IS NO CONTROVERSY in the mainstream scientific community about whether evolution is sound scientific theory. Any active debate is about the details of the process of evolution, not about whether it actually is the cause of biological diversity and change. Just pick up any peer-reviewed biology journal and see what I'm talking about. And before raising any objections to this statement, please check the list of rebuttals at
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
If you've got something new, I'd like to hear about it.
Ironically, this new approach by creationists to get the bible into science class employs the same relativism that they so distain: "academic freedom" means that all ideas equal theories and have equal validity regardless of the evidence. So, when listening in on a typical Florida science class you soon might hear: "Say, Jimmy, do you like evolution? No? What better idea do you have? That the earth was created in six days and that woman came from Adam's rib? Well that's a grand theory! You get an A. How about you, Jane? Brahma sprouted from the navel of Vishnu and created the heavens, the earth and the oceans from a lotus flower? What great science! You only get a B though, because your theory didn't include Jesus." Ok, that last bit was fatuous, but I couldn't help it.
A practical question about this legislation: will a student taking a a science test who answers that the earth is 100 years old receive a passing mark? Why not, if that's what he believes? Will this be the new format of science test questions?
1. How far away is the Sun from the Earth?
a) 93 million miles
b) 1000 miles
c) Whatever you think. Don't worry, this is always the correct answer.
thats why its called "evil-ution"
It is unfortunate that the conflict in this issue has been promoted as faith (specifically Christian faith) vs. Science. In fact this is a created conflict inconsistent with historical or informed Christian teachings. This issue was addressed by St. Augustine 1600 years ago.
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.
– The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]
Augustine goes on in his writings to elaborate that the holy writings were to be understood as allegorical spiritual truth. This is consistent with all informed understandings of the Christian scriptures. For example in the new testament Christ constantly uses metaphor to explain his teachings to his disciples.
This is well articulated 1600 years later at this website http://www.bcbsr.com/survey/genint.html
Further there is nothing in the Great Commission or any other part of the Christian New Testament that impells or directs Christians to reject evolution.
Perhaps persons of sincerity can move beyond conflict to respect and tolerance.
'Dawkins hasn't discounted an intelligent agent for creation of life on earth. "
Right, he hasn't, still this intelligent agent he sees is personified as aliens as in his mind its more plausable than the supernatural alternative.
'Let's discuss why the conflicted Dawkins isn't 100% convinced that naturalism can explain all of life. "
Sure, as soon as you comment on my 2 vid links I left earlier. I comment on mine, I'll comment on yours.
agentorange;
Not everyone agrees with you. There are many more very intelligent scientists, philosophers and mathematicians that don't agree with you and your outspoken evolutionists leaders. They have satisfactorily established their theories and are winning converts.
"Again, it is important to note that this is not the definition of “science”—even though many evolutionist arguments seem to be based on the arbitrary assumption that it is. The naturalism embraced by most evolutionists is strictly an anti-supernatural belief system, a form of practical atheism. It is not, by definition, any more or less “scientific” than any other belief system, including one that allows for a Creator-God."
Dawkins hasn't discounted an intelligent agent for creation of life on earth. He at least has a grasp of 'design inference' .
Antony Flew confessed he had to be intellectually honest to give up on Darwimian evolution and accept God as creator per the ID theory. He has a strong grasp of design inference as I do.
I suggest you try another tactic of attack rather than the tired dogmas used by the evolutionists. "since (it is claimed) “no one’s ever seen it.” Considering the volume of literature that has been published by the creation science community the only two possible bases upon which one could claim to have never seen a theory of creation are: 1) willful ignorance or 2) outright dishonesty."
Let's discuss why the conflicted Dawkins isn't 100% convinced that naturalism can explain all of life. Let's discuss why an outspoken atheist/evolutionist Antony Flew converted when presented with the truth claims of ID.
HAWK/Parrot,
‘I'll still use cut and paste when I deem it appropriate.”
You use it all day every day when it comes to discussing evolution or science in general. You know nothing of them and copy and pasting is all you can manage. And sure enough below you managed to squeeze another verbatim quote, well done.
“The philosophy of naturalism only looks at material and energy for causes and excludes consideration for the supernatural.”
You know why don’t ya? B/c that is HOW Science works. Science isn’t allowed to invoke ‘god made it that way’ or supernatural answers to equations, as they’re not falsifiable. The natural and material world is ALL that science is allowed to use to explain things, this is why its basis is always a natural one.
“Behe's observations for IC are still valid regardless of the derisions from evolutionists that Behe and the folks at DI have successfully responded to”
Still valid, really which ones? I have seen Behe’s instances for IC been tossed aside after being gutted, but I’ve yet to hear a counter argument from the ID side on them. Here, watch Miller describe why IC fails. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaHcsGzyp4A
"You put your faith in naturalism and I converted first to ID then to creationism after I accepted them to conform better to reality than naturalism.”
Really, then what do you make of these? Let me guess, ‘da designer made it that way!’ Sorry, but that’s not a falsifiable answer and as such isn’t science.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=De-OkzTUDVA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WAHpC0Ah0
agentorange;
I'll still use cut and paste when I deem it appropriate.
Try these for starters (they are part of the article I refered you to). Two extensive online book lists are A Young-Earth Creationist Bibliography by Henry M. Morris and Master Creation/Anti-Evolution Bibliography by Eric Blievernicht. Periodicals include the peer-reviewed Creation Research Society Quarterly and Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, and the popular-level Creation Ex Nihilo Magazine.
All science is interpretation from a worldview. All science evidence that I know of is material, energy and/or intelligence. The philosophy of naturalism only looks at material and energy for causes and excludes consideration for the supernatural. That's why it comes up short for considering intelligence within design; there is no sound naturalism explanation for it (Dawkins highly intelligent space aliens designing life on earth is not in the realm of naturalism; Dawkins is truly conflicted).
"Likewise, “science” in most common English dictionaries is defined (for the context of this topic) like this:
sci·ence n. 1 the state or fact of knowledge 2 systematized knowledge derived from observation, study and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied
It should be noted up front that neither of these definitions either requires or excludes any particular frame of reference to which either “science” or a “theory” must (or must not) be attached. This is important, because evolutionists usually redefine both of these terms to suit their purposes by insisting that a“ scientific theory” must conform to their particular religious/philosophical frame of reference (philosophical naturalism) in order to be valid:"
Behe's observations for IC are still valid regardless of the derisions from evolutionists that Behe and the folks at DI have successfully responded to. I'll let the testimonies from DI and ICR and that of Antony Flew and others ride with that position.
It still comes down to differences of religious worldviews and the validity of the presuppositions; naturalism Vs creationism or ID. You put your faith in naturalism and I converted first to ID then to creationism after I accepted them to conform better to reality than naturalism.
HAWK,
"what is wrong with copy and paste when it fits with the discussion or situtation? "
Are you kidding? simply copying and pasting shows how utterly little you truly know, if you write something and then source it, then that's different, you quoted word for word like you wrote it.
"naturalism (scientism) of evolution is one of those worldview issues and how it is used to interpret evidence"
You must be kidding again right? ALL SCIENCE evidence is directly the NATURAL kind, evolution is not the only one to refer to the natural, material world.
". Dawkins obviously is conflicted over this issue as well."
No he's not. Dawkinds finds ID personified by aliens (natrual mind you) as opposed to a supernatural ID is quite a difference.
"Creation science and ID also interpret the same evidence from their respective philosophical perspectives and obviously come to different conclusions many times."
Ok, I asked for some actual evidence for 'creation theory' as you so elequently put it, if the 1982 book by Morris is all you have, keep trying. any evidence for ID?
"Just a footnote, steveh20...how do you get Dr. Who at 4 in the afternoon? Must not be BBC America."
I'm in the UK, though I was watching Saturdays edition I'd recorded, 4th series is shaping up nicely.
BW
Steve
Hey Shu,
Not sure if you and Steve touched upon singularity from a naturalist point of view to the Big Bang, but Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods (pp 62-64) spends a little effort on this along with invoking David Hume and causality. Could be worthwhile to review. It jumps from philosophy at the singularity stage to physics once the 'big bang' occurs. Has the physicists stumped.
God Bless
agentorangex...Wow! You found a copy! Yep. It's a bit of an old book but I do believe the Bible is a tad older. :-) It was to prove a point. We are more interested in "the latest and greatest" to believe instead of the never changing. People can argue about evolution vs. creation from now until the Lord returns and never reach agreement.
It's about faith. What do you believe? Do you trust the Bible? Do you trust evolution? Do you trust science? Do you trust the media? I worked in the media for over a dozen years. If you give me a subject and how you want the story to come out...given enough time I could make the story prove anything just about.
Neither evolution nor creation is about science. It's about answering to God. If creation is true then you must accept answering to God. If evolution is true then you don't have to (unless you believe in theistic evolution and that would just really make this whole conversation a bit more complicated....)
My position is simple. There will never be enough conclusive evidence to prove one position or the other. It doesn't hold to the scientific method and takes away valueable time from the classroom. Science class should be about the scientific method.
Just a footnote, steveh20...how do you get Dr. Who at 4 in the afternoon? Must not be BBC America.
"I'd also suggest a more thorough study on the subject of causation."
Thanks I'll revisit my well thumbed Hume (I love him, he set me straight on so much)
Regards
Steve
Steve -
First, philosophy means "lover of wisdom" or "to love wisdom"; when I ask what philosophical explanations best fits the facts, I mean just that: what are the best and most truthful conclusions we come to when all is said and done.
<<I'll take matter before mind because there's lots we don't know, funny thing, you see that as an alternative but I see it as mainstream.>>
Well, I wish you good luck with that. When you can show how things like personality, love, thought, meaning, etc., come from mindless matter like a rock, let us know. I'd also suggest a more thorough study on the subject of causation.
On other thought , the the very start of the universe is not a "normal event" in everyday speak so our everyday philosphy breaks down, it becomes meaningless ,all the philosophy you mention is "everyday" based on time and space as we experience it. I think that this is what many philosphers forget (many of them are stuck up there own back sides anyway-not all )
Steve
I'll take matter before mind because there's lots we don't know, funny thing, you see that as an alternative but I see it as mainstream.
Steve
Agentorange;
what is wrong with copy and paste when it fits with the discussion or situtation? Usually an authoritative author will say it better than I and I will only post those sections that fit my view.
My interests are in the various religious worldviews. The philosophical presupposition of naturalism (scientism) of evolution is one of those worldview issues and how it is used to interpret evidence. It is fascinating how many accept the naturalistic interpretations as the evidence.
Creation science and ID also interpret the same evidence from their respective philosophical perspectives and obviously come to different conclusions many times. One of our jobs is to determine which model works the best within our respective worldview.
Macroevolution is not as soldily proven as you profess it to be. Antony Flew is just one of the well known sceptics that has decided to follow the evidence wherever it lead him. He understands that there has to be an intelligent force who created life and abandoned naturalism only as the cause after reading the truth claims of ID. Dawkins obviously is conflicted over this issue as well. Shi V Liu is at least honest enough to state 'Whatever the degree to which Darwin may have "misled science into a dead end, we may still appreciate the role of Darwin in helping scientists [win an] upper hand in fighting against the creationsits."
It is a battle of worldviews and their philosophical presuppositions; Our battle is not of science.
Agentorange;
I read the article you suggested. The one I used came from http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Polit/misconduct.html and it is somewhat different but carries the same tone.
They both agree with my statement that peer reviews are sometimes loaded with bias and bigotry. They are not 100% infallible and we should be aware of their potential faults. This aspect has nothing to do with "science"; just the humanity of a process. The two specific examples I listed are proof of the potential problems. Michael Mann and his infamous hockey stick along with Naomi Oreskes's consensus report are two more examples of peer review misconduct.
Steve –
<< Is It me or is this a deeply unsatisfactory, why does this explanation leave me wanting something better?>>
I would respectfully suggest you may be looking for a single, silver bullet – a eureka moment – that transforms you from skeptic to believer. Sometimes this happens, but most times it’s a combination of things. The cosmological argument for God is just one position. The teleological is another (which is really what this thread is all about), and the moral argument is an exceptional argument to consider.
You can pose endless “what if’s”, but after a while you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. First, ask yourself how much “faith” you must have to believe in your alternatives. A second, tougher, and probing question concerns itself with the real truth of “why” you believe those alternatives. I have to ask myself this question too. Do I just believe because, like Freud asserted, it is just a wish-fulfillment exercise; a mere fantasy? Or is it because my belief is logically consistent, empirically adequate, and existentially relevant?
However, this thread really boils down to this: either we are the product of mindless matter or there is a Creator. The logical law of the excluded middle reigns supreme here – there is no third alternative. Mind before matter or matter before mind. Which set of philosophical conclusions best explains the situation?
Agentorange (part 2):
My overarching claim to you is you’re relying on the wrong systematic discipline to support your belief system and therefore have both feet firmly planted in mid air. By rejecting God via biology, you’re trying to saw down a tree by hitting it with a sheet of glass. You’re using the wrong tool. Operational science won’t work as God doesn’t fit under your microscope and He sure doesn’t submit to anyone’s prideful demands.
There is an important difference between the scientific and legal methods for determining truth. The legal method doesn’t ignore testimony or facts because they are not reproducible or testable. By a process of elimination and corroboration, the legal method allows history and testimony to speak for itself until a verdict is reached beyond a reasonable doubt and the balance of probability is achieved. I did not witness various battles that occurred through history and I cannot reproduce WWII so I must rely on documents and independent testimony to determine its plausibility. Certain kinds of tests are appropriate for different realms of thought. Operational science deals with the operation of things, how things function, present regularities, secondary causes, and is based on observation and repetition. Forensic science deals with the origins of things, how things came about, past singularities, primary or secondary causes, and is based on causality and analogy.
You see, your ERV obsession serves no purpose when examining the historicity of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or any real claim the Bible makes. It’s the wrong tool for the job. At best, it could challenge the literal creation of the first human being, but even then, there are least 7 orthodox approaches to the book of Genesis (literary framework, day/age, etc.) that do not cause one single doctrine of the Christian faith to be undone. Your operational science approach is the proverbial square peg in the round hole. That’s why I feel no need to explain ERV’s.
You may wrap your biological blanket around you to keep warm, but you’ll still be shivering because you lack answers to all the big questions of life – your ultimate origin, your ethics and morality, your purpose/meaning in life, and your destiny. I don't believe you have objective answers for any of them; biology won’t help you at all. At some point in your life you’ll need to grab another tool to work on them, or end up like the atheist Provine who says you’re simply goo, have the morals of your culture, have no meaning / purpose / free will in your life, and your destiny is to be worm food.
Ultimately, you and I both want the truth and believe (at least I think you do) that believing lies has bad and harmful consequences. If evolution is true and the God of the Bible doesn’t exist, then we need to believe that, embrace it, and live accordingly. If the reverse is true, however, then we need to all be Christians. Agree or no?
Agentorange:
You’ve made a lot of comments, but I’ll do my best to respond as briefly as I can, but I will likely take two posts. As I’ve said, matter/energy aren’t proven to be eternal; the first law of thermodynamics is really a philosophical claim.
<< why can’t the very Universe be equally self-created via matter/energy? >>
I would respectfully draw a distinction between “self-caused” and “uncaused”. Self-caused is a contradiction but uncaused is not. The ignoring of this distinction caused some philosophers like Spinoza ( I think it was him…) to go astray.
<< You can’t on one hand say, ‘ o my I was created instantly and by an omnipotent being and then ignore all the evidence which counteracts this assertion, if you do it’s called being delusional.>>
Not delusional I believe, just conservative in my view of not knowing/understanding everything. The original/perfect design was wrecked, which is something that can be traced back to when you think hard on it. My favorite example of this was Mary Shelly’s monster speaking to this fact in her Frankenstein book.
<< under closer inspection instances of IC fall flat and actually are explained via evolutionary mechanisms. This is how a scientific process can evaluate and determine if something is genuinely designed, or if it arose naturally like via evolution.>>
So let’s say that you visit a car factory that’s completely automated by robots – no humans present at all. Everything rolling off the assembly line appears to be the process of these machines churning things out, perhaps with them even building other robots that work the floor. No design or is it just one step removed from what you see?
<< Sure there is a cause, but that doesn’t mean the ultimate cause is a supernatural one>>
No, but it must match its effect and a mindless, matter-only world doesn’t contain the juice to cause what we have (personality, order, etc.)
<<Yes, ALL strawman talking points, and you know what I do to strawmen, I burn them down!>>
I don’t see how I am committing a strawman fallacy as I don’t see any of my points really exaggerating the claims you or other evolutionists are making. However, you might want to check your own logical fallacies (genetic fallacy, chronological snobbery, prestige jargon, appeal to the future and authority) before coming after me… You may be lighting a fire, but like Moses’ bush, my points aren't burning away… :-)
sorry about spelling, I really should not type and watch Doctor Who on the BBC at the same time.
schumacr
I can't help but agree that you can't have an infinate regress of causes but we really can't say anything about the universe we exist in before Planck time, we can't say what happens to time etc..under extreme conditions so maybe in some sense the idea of time and cause and effect completly breaks down at a universe that size and temperature, who knows wahtcondictions it originated from. "What we can't speak about we must pass over in silence"
I can't help but think that your god/gods is one of the gaps. Beacause we can't explain the origin of th universe (at this time) then god must hae been the cause of it.
Is It me or is this a deeply unsatisfactory, why does this explanation leave me wanting something better?
Kind regards
Steve
“You don’t make/cause something that’s eternal.”
Right, like how matter/energy are eternal. Such things require no causation either. So it begs the question, why put something further out from this point (god) for which we can’t as easily vouch and define it as eternal? Might matter/energy = god?
“Atheists have no problem it seems positing an unmade universe so why should an unmade Creator be any less hard to embrace?”
I am agnostic, but b/c we can tell via evidence that indeed the universe as its composed of matter/energy are eternal (the matter and energy are eternal not necessarily this instance of the Universe) and therefore there is no logical reason, not to mention evidence based reason, to take a step out further and affix another ‘uncaused cause’ when we already have one in front of us as matter/energy.
“The thing is, you must go back to an eternal “something”. That being the case, where does the evidence lead? Not to an eternal universe.”
Right, our inception of this Universe as far as we can tell isn’t eternal, (big freeze or big crunch however you like it, or maybe it stretches and perhaps stops expanding but still exists) but the matter/energy it’s composed of is there is the key distinction. If god can be this only ‘self created’ thing so as to avoid the logical pickle of causation, why can’t the very Universe be equally self-created via matter/energy? Just an idea.
Hi steveh20:
<< Tell me what you think ,leave other thinkers out.>>
My reply is what I think, but sure, I use other great thinkers to arrive at a conclusion that I believe to be accurate.
<< but I can't say that means there was nothing before it, how do you reach this conclusion.>>
Good question. Because you can’t have an infinite regress of causes. This is why Aristotle said that everything “moves”, but ultimately you must go back to an “unmoved mover”, which makes sense.
This is actually a good segue into the question you said you wanted to ask, which is “so who made/caused God?” This is a category mistake – much like asking “Where is the bachelor’s wife?” or “What does the color blue smell like?” You don’t make/cause something that’s eternal. See, not everything needs a cause – only everything that has a beginning needs a cause. God has no beginning so God needs no cause. Now, you may bristle at this, but you shouldn’t. Atheists have no problem it seems positing an unmade universe so why should an unmade Creator be any less hard to embrace? The thing is, you must go back to an eternal “something”. That being the case, where does the evidence lead? Not to an eternal universe. Not to a personal, purposeful, meaningful, ordered world coming from an impersonal, purposeless, meaningless, random universe as those who disavow God say happened, that’s for sure.
Polly,
“I am disappointed at your caricature, but not surprised”
You got some nerve, considering you’re taking your talking points directly, verbatim from a website (www.trueorigin.org/creatheory).
Don’t you have any actual knowledge of your own of which you can reflect on with regards to the topic? Is ‘copy and paste’ the best you can do? I don’t think the title of ‘HAWK’ is very appropriate, I think PARROT is more inline with your behavior and lacking originality. I am disappointed, but I am not surprised.
Daniel Paul,
C’mon, this book is from 1982! Surely you must see how many of the ideas therein have been rebuked or denounced, in fact, yup going to TalkOrigins again has some answers on them..
http://www.amazon.com/Troubled-Waters-Evolution-Madison-Morris/dp/0890510873
The 1987 trial between Edwards and aguillard referred to some of the points from this book, too bad it didn’t cut the mustard
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html
HAWK49,
“Peer review is a fallible human creation sometimes loaded with bias and bigotry”
Bigotry huh? Mkaaay. No, really, you’re just upset and don’t like science, nor the scientific methods b/c what evidence creationists try to muster are never peer reviewed and pass such critique.
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/onepage/conduct.html
Read the WHOLE article and it becomes clear your points are not about bigotry or discrimination, but how the scientific method is a form of checks and balances.
HAWK49,
Is that all you got, is that all you can do? What is your point of copying verbatim from the site you mentioned earlier? - http://www.trueorigin.org/creatheory.asp
Show us the scientific theory of creation and the evidence for it and why it’s the best theory for all evidence considered.
agentorange;
I am disappointed at your caricature, but not surpirsed
Many arguments advanced in support of evolutionary beliefs do indeed suggest that willful ignorance is indeed widespread among adherents of evolutionism. Their criticisms are often focused on simplistic caricatures instead of authentic creation science concepts. Such “straw man” caricatures are easily felled by little more than sophomoric derision, giving evolutionists (and many an unwitting observer) the deceptive impression that the creation model has been effectively undone. These same caricatures (and their Quixotic “challengers”) persist in peppering the landscape of debate, despite an abundance of informative explanations and clarifications, patiently and repeatedly proffered by a growing number of individual creationists and several creationary organizations.
Many of evolution’s proponents have thus been exposed to accurate and empirically relevant descriptions of the creation paradigm, yet they continue to limit their response to dismantling a caricature. They either pretend not be unaware of anything better than the arsenal of “straw men” they parade before the public eye, or they willfully ignore what the other side is saying. Neither tactic is representative of sound scholarship, reasonable scientific debate, or ethical standards worthy of admiration. Ironically (perhaps as a diversionary tactic?), some of them publish or cite web pages supposedly documenting “dishonesty” among leading creationists.
There's a book called "The Troubled Waters of Evolution" which is most-likely out of print. There's quite a bit of good points in there. Here's some science for you....
Peking Man was built up from a single tooth (yep...fact). Today's science did some testing and found it to be from a type of boar.... Java man turned out to be less than 200 years old and suffer from arthritis (ain't modern medicine great?).
The amount of lunar dust on the moon does not support millions of years theory. The big 'feet' on the first lunar lander was to keep it from sinking in the deep deep dust from millions of years of stellar dust. It just wasn't there.
We have the math for the burning and shrinking of the sun. If you reverse it (as you must be able to do for it to be science) then millions of years ago we are either MUCH closer to the sun which means Earth would not support evolution premise at all -or- our orbit would have been much longer around the sun making the 'year' many times longer than 365 days again not supporting the premise of evolution.
Stratta dating has some problems as stuff "isn't where it's suppose to be". The flood messed things up and it is proven in the stratta.
Arbitrary absolutism says "who cares" and gets away with teaching the religion of humanism in the science class dressed up in 'science'. Again, let's limit science class to the scientific method.
Ifeelfine72;
Science goes through peer revuew whereas other sciences.....
Peer review is a fallible human creation sometimes loaded with bias and bigotry
" This is the kind of misconduct that is, I fear, rampant in all fields of science, not only in biomedical science. Recently, as part of a talk to a large audience of mostly young researchers at an extremely prestigious university, I outlined this analysis of the crisis of peer review. The moderator, a famous senior scientist, was incredulous. He asked the audience how many disagreed with my heresy. No one responded. Then he asked how many agreed. Every hand in the audience went up. Many of us in my generation wish to believe that nothing important has changed in the way we conduct the business of doing science. We are wrong. Business as usual is no longer a real option for how we conduct the enterprise of science. …"
Dr. Goodstein, David, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, (1996),
Dr Richard Sternberg: "I was also told repeatedly that I should have found peer reviewers who would reject the article out-of-hand, in direct violation of professional ethics which require editors to find peer reviewers who are not prejudiced or hostile to a particular author or his/her ideas."
And, of course, Galileo was disparaged by his peers.
Slacker
“For example, Scientist A finds a fossel, says it is the missing link and tells the news media that it is, the news media says "Scientists finds missing link", Scientist later learns that fossil isn't missing link, yet doesn't tell anyone that it isn't, and public duped into believing the scientists have found the missing link".”
Ok, perhaps you’re not familiar with the notion of how knowledge changes over time and therefore as evidence mounts something that was once deemed THE missing link is now amongst other contemporary links which bridge the gap regarding species and their ancestors? Show me an example where scientists considered something to be a missing link, but now have changed that approach and for what reasons?
“Because you know as I do that 99% of this country doesn't care about evolution, yet the information that is given out isn't 100% truthful...”
Ok, what’s not truthful, examples please. 99%, c’mon, get real. Sure most people could care less about science discoveries (say nothing of evolution) as they are more interested in Paris Hilton, Britney spears and her shaved head or who knows what but we do have people in our country who do care and it’s more than 1%.
HAWK49
“Would a detailed explanation for creationism be sufficient for you?”
I would prefer mountains of empirical facts and evidence, but I think you’ll opt for the first line of Genesis.
“I pointed to the site”
Ya, you did (http://trueorigin.org/creatheory.asp#b7), but this is for a change, and lets be brutally honest here, this site pedals the nonsense offered from ICR namely Morris, so what makes you really consider it as a reputable source of evidence and facts? I was looking forward to something from Princeton, Harvard, Oxford, Nature of National Geo.
“literature describing and explaining the creationary alternative, while not as plentiful as its dominant counterpart, is readily available to those who seriously want to study it”
Hello, it’s called the bible or other holy books (which are literature) which make creation accounts and they are no doubt far and away more dominant in sheer numbers of books globally as compared with science books.
Site some genuine evidence with sources for creation, and I will make my best attempts to address them.
Schumacr,
“In short, you/we may just not understand things fully, which is in keeping with our finite nature.’
And so that is your rationalization for horrid design like wisdom teeth then? How is such ad hoc haphazard design evidence for omnibenevolent intelligence? It’s more like borderline neglect and stupid design. You can’t on one hand say, ‘ o my I was created instantly and by an omnipotent being and then ignore all the evidence which counteracts this assertion, if you do it’s called being delusional.
“how is the scientific criteria used to recognize or reject the claim that something was designed and something that was not”
With regards to Intelligent Design, some offer up IC (Irreducible Complexity) to exemplify express intelligent design, however under closer inspection instances of IC fall flat and actually are explained via evolutionary mechanisms. This is how a scientific process can evaluate and determine if something is genuinely designed, or if it arose naturally like via evolution.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5qZ9g4VHL4
“Strawmen? No, these are the major questions you should answer first before moving on”
Yes, ALL strawman talking points, and you know what I do to strawmen, I burn them down! Biological evolution doesn’t deal with the origins of life, or origins of the cosmos, or how or why gravity works as it does, or what atomic matter is made up of., etc. When you take a science theory and stretch it out (and wrongly) attempt to apply to all other theories it ends up not explaining anything as its not applicable.
schumacr
I'm quite interested to know how you came to the conclusion there was "nothing" before our universe came to be. Note that I don't doubt our universe had a beginning but I can't say that means there was nothing before it, how do you reach this conclusion. I'm also quite interested to know why the first cause should be a "being" (point 3) I can almost feel the question who made the being but I'm resisting it as down that way there be dragons, but it does bother me if everthing has a cause then what about god or gods (I'm 6 again).
Tell me what you think ,leave other thinkers out.
Kind regards
Steve
What is a Scientific Theory?
Evolutionists’ pretensions notwithstanding, it is reasonable to ask whether there is a scientific theory of creation, and—if there is—to ask what it is. As a foundation for answering this question, the meanings of several relevant terms must first be accurately defined. This is necessary because many evolutionists tend to invoke arbitrarily contrived and/or equivocal definitions in support of their claims (such as the non-existence of a scientific theory of creation). Seeing this tactic for what it is enables serious students of the evolution/creation debate to transcend the evolutionists’ semantic smokescreen, and a balanced and informed assessment of either side of the debate—vis-à-vis the empirical evidence—may proceed unhindered.
The word “theory” in most common English dictionaries is defined (for the present context) something like this:
theo·ry n. a formulation of apparent relationships or underlying principles of certain observed phenomena which have been verified to some degree.
Likewise, “science” in most common English dictionaries is defined (for the context of this topic) like this:
sci·ence n. 1 the state or fact of knowledge 2 systematized knowledge derived from observation, study and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied
It should be noted up front that neither of these definitions either requires or excludes any particular frame of reference to which either “science” or a “theory” must (or must not) be attached. This is important, because evolutionists usually redefine both of these terms to suit their purposes by insisting that a“ scientific theory” must conform to their particular religious/philosophical frame of reference (philosophical naturalism) in order to be valid:
nat·u·ral·ism n. philos. the belief that the natural world, as explained by scientific laws, is all that exists and that there is no supernatural or spiritual creation, control, or significance
Again, it is important to note that this is not the definition of “science”—even though many evolutionist arguments seem to be based on the arbitrary assumption that it is. The naturalism embraced by most evolutionists is strictly an anti-supernatural belief system, a form of practical atheism. It is not, by definition, any more or less “scientific” than any other belief system, including one that allows for a Creator-God.
schumacr,
“If I explained how your beloved ERV’s fit in with an intelligent Creator, would you become a Christian right now?”
No. But you must understand why, I want more than a single instance for an explanation, I want the whole explanation for all evidence and no single piece of evidence should ever convince someone for a given proposition, rather it should revolve around multitudes of evidence.
‘How about sharing what those are?’
Explain the ERV’s, Human Chromosome 2 fusion and others if you like and I’ll share whatever you’d like to know. FYI, I am mostly Agnostic and generally I find a Deistic or Pantheistic god most tenable, but that is another story.
“OK, so which “stuff” isn’t random and which is?”
Genetic mutations are random, however they too don’t work 100% completely at random chance, there is some method to their madness, but relatively one could say they operate randomly. That is, a given single point mutation, or larger mutation is random, however its affects on a population doesn’t cause a randomized affect but a deterministic one. IE, a random mutation for a mouse to have darker fur, which aids in its survival will spread based on differential reproduction, which basically means ‘X trait’ gives an added fitness advantage over its rivals and thus this trait will spread accordingly based on Natural Selection. From this view it’s easier to see that evolution in the abstract isn’t random at all, but deterministic.
“And how did the non-random, purposeful stuff arise?”
Define ‘stuff’. Do you mean matter/organics ? or do you mean stuff as in replicating molecules? And either way, neither of these applies to biological evolution. Evolution is about the how life changes over time, not the origins or ascension of life (replicating molecules).
“Causation, as I understand it, demands that you can’t give what you don’t have, so meaning, purpose, order, predictability, etc., necessitate a cause that possesses them’
Sure there is a cause, but that doesn’t mean the ultimate cause is a supernatural one, the cause equally could be natural one. If you resort to only causation to provide rationale for God, you end up having to also explain gods causation, sorry I didn’t make the rules, it’s just logic.
Let's take the arguement one level higher. The arguement assumes the creator is bound by the creation. Man created the 'world' of computers yet man himself is not bound to live life based on the limitations of the computer. God is the creator of the universe. He is not bound by things like hight, width, depth or time. He is not bound by the elements or rules of physics. Energy as we know it may just be another created thing.
We all like to limit our view of God to our ability to understand. My wife is a nurse. One of the main obstacles to treatment isn't the treatment itself but rather the ability to trust in something the patient doesn't understand. It usually takes a drastic issue for the person to look beyond their ability to understand and trust the physician. In the same way, it takes a drastic life situation for us to trust the Great Physician to save us from eternal death.
Just food for thought.
<< I've admitted what I don't know. Tell me, why do you think thetre is something rather than nothing, how do you answer the question you posed?>>
My way of answering it is to use the logical line of reasoning that Jonathan Edwards used (actually he refined an answer given by John Locke) when he was a teenager:
- something exists
- you don’t get something from nothing
- therefore, a necessary and eternal Being exists
This also dovetails well with Francis Schaeffer’s line of reasoning that you’ll find in “He is There and He is not Silent” With respect to the first premise, you can’t deny existence because it becomes a self-defeating proposition (you must exist to deny existence). So that premise is valid. Next, as Schaeffer points out, no one really ascribes to the notion that nothing produced something (i.e. nothing, nothing, nothing, WHAM, something, something, something…); anything that begins must have a cause. So the second premise is valid. Therefore, you are left with the conclusion that a necessary (something that MUST exist) and eternal (has always existed) Being exists.
Now, no thinking atheist really denies this – they just claim the universe is that necessary and eternal being. However, as the second premise above implies, if something has a beginning, then it must have a cause. If the universe had a beginning, then it must have a cause. So now we are left with the question: which way does the evidence point with respect to the universe having a beginning? It all points to the fact that it does have a beginning. So it can’t be that eternal and necessary being from our conclusion above.
And here is what you are left with – the only two sources of eternal existence are the universe and a Creator. The first choice is ruled out as noted above. That leaves a Creator as our necessary and eternal Being. He is why we have something rather than nothing at all.
Slacker said: "The problem that i have noticed is that scientist only give you the information that proves their theories, they don't give us (the people they are trying to persuade) all the facts and information or they create some ellaborate production giving the media information that has not been proven to be what it is."
Actually that is not a problem at all. Science goes through peer review whereas the other scientists have all the facts and try to poke holes at the information. If it passes then it becomes part of the base set of facts and adds to the existing theory or not.
Hawk49: I don't presume to speak for AgentOrange but I bet if you gave a scientific explanation (utilizing the scientific method) that would suffice. The problem is God and Christianity don't fit the scientific model at all and thankfully He doesn't!
Btw.. Was it me or did Jerry (bob) use a quote from the simpsons to make his argument....
To AO:
"That is NOT what Falsifiability means slacker, you misunderstood it. The scientific method uses reductionism philosophy methods to discover what epistemological truth is. It won’t find this truth over night, but slowly and collectively knowledge marches on and overtime we are revealed a more detailed and true nature of things in our Universe. Falsifiability loosely means that any given proposition (say the Earth is flat as an example) can be equally shown to be, by virtue of observation, evidence and testing, either A) true or B) false. "
The problem that i have noticed is that scientist only give you the information that proves their theories, they don't give us (the people they are trying to persuade) all the facts and information or they create some ellaborate production giving the media information that has not been proven to be what it is. For example, Scientist A finds a fossel, says it is the missing link and tells the news media that it is, the news media says "Scientists finds missing link", Scientist later learns that fossil isn't missing link, yet doesn't tell anyone that it isn't, and public duped into believing the scientists have found the missing link". that is the problem i have, misleading and false information given to the masses as Fact... Because you know as I do that 99% of this country doesn't care about evolution, yet the information that is given out isn't 100% truthful...
agentorange:
schumachr got it right. Would a detailed explanation for creationism be sufficient for you? I pointed to the site where you can begin an honest exploration and test your religious worldview system of scientism (humanism).
"While a simplistic “sound bite” approach to the origins issue may be fashionable by contemporary popular media standards, genuine science remains a matter of technical details, empirical data, and thorough analysis of the same. So what awaits those who sincerely seek an authentic theory of creation is not another sugar-coated pill, but a body of literature comprising a technical “second opinion” bringing into question the superficial diagnosis popularly embraced by a world reluctant to face the implications of a sovereign Creator who has spoken.
Whereas the landscape of popular media and selected “science” texts are peppered with simplistic allusions to evolutionary theory as fact, literature describing and explaining the creationary alternative, while not as plentiful as its dominant counterpart, is readily available to those who seriously want to study it. This is where the details of empirical science are brought to bear against both competing paradigms. [Sadly, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of evolutionary literature, which largely persists in treating the assumption of evolution as an immutable fact (and, on that basis, an inevitable conclusion), while heaping derision on heavily caricatured renderings of the creationary perspective.]
Jerry2
As you well know, I am a YEC. You can laugh at me all you want, call me stupid, ignorant, uneduacated, a hick, and lacking in original ideas all you want, but I don't care and it doesn't bother me because I know what truth is and I am secure in it.
Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
schumacr
I've admitted what I don't know. Tell me, why do you think thetre is something rather than nothing, how do you answer the question you posed?
Regards
Steve
schumacr
Thanks for the reply. I have a confession, I have no idea why there is something and not nothing ( I'm happy after Planck time though).
Regards
Steve
Part three of my responses…
agentorange:
<<Besides, look closer into things and you'll have a hard time finding omnibenelolent intelligent design. Got Wisdom teeth? You're a guy right, your testicles have to desend from your abdomen in puberty sometimes causing hernias. that isn't work of ID.>>
Ah, the Panda’s Thumb argument again. To which I reply: Two men are sitting under a large oak tree in a garden when one man says to the other, “How silly of God to support tiny acorns with the strength of this large oak tree, while the watermelons in this garden are held by flimsy and leafy plants low to the ground.” Just then an acorn fell from the tree and hit the first man on the head. After a brief pause, the second man said, “Aren’t you glad that wasn’t a watermelon?” In short, you/we may just not understand things fully, which is in keeping with our finite nature.
<< Go back to the first law of thermodynamics regarding matter/energy; this was answered months ago by myself.>>
And my answer back to you months ago remains: the first law says nothing about how energy came into the universe to begin with. As such, (1) it neither supports nor denies either one of our positions and (2) it is a philosophical statement and metaphysical pronouncement not supported by your scientific frameworks.
I think Daniel Paul make a brief and good point: there is a difference between operational and forensic science. The former is not a testing ground for God, but the latter can be. Further, I don’t believe this is hard to understand. Why can an archaeologist easily tell what scratching on a major dig is from intelligence and which is not? Why can a thinking person determine the difference between an intelligent message from the cosmos vs. space noise? We can do that with ease, and yet, we examine the engineering of DNA and other like biological entities and somehow nod our heads in the direction of time, chance, and necessity? No, this is a worldview issue, not a scientific problem.
<< Quit building strawmen talking points already.>>
Strawmen? No, these are the major questions you should answer first before moving on.
Part deux of my responses…
agentorange:
<<Yup, it’s awfully hard to explain using the ‘designer did it hypothesis’, thus why it's still around. Care to explain it?>>
I truly mean no offense when I say this, so I hope you take it that way, but – No, and the reason is, because I don’t care. Yep, I don’t and neither do the other Christians here. Why? Because I don’t think it’s a relevant issue to tackle. You have your heard buried deep in the bowels of an engine and never come up to see that an engine takes engineering, which takes an engineer. I don’t understand the guts of many engineering marvels and the flow of information (not data), but I don’t need to in order to know they didn’t come from evolution. Further (and again I mean no disrespect), I think you use these hobby horses to make you feel safe from the truth that God exists.
To prove my point, let me ask you this: If I explained how your beloved ERV’s fit in with an intelligent Creator, would you become a Christian right now? If not, how many more of your questions would need to be answered? I suspect (and I am happily corrected here) that something more than your intellectually-crafted fences are keeping you from a belief in God. How about sharing what those are?
<<I never said EVERYTHING is RANDOM or purposeless>>
OK, so which “stuff” isn’t random and which is? And how did the non-random, purposeful stuff arise? Causation, as I understand it, demands that you can’t give what you don’t have, so meaning, purpose, order, predictability, etc., necessitate a cause that possesses them.
Hi all –
Lots of comments, so let me take some of the more brief answers first (although this will still likely split up into a double post
steveh20:
<< I wonder if you could elaborate please a little more on your question "why is there something rather than nothing".>>
It’s a question of existence, first posed by Leibnitz and then other philosophers like Sartre. They are basically asking the question of how we and everything we know got here.
<< one other thing comes to mind could you define what you mean by the words "something" and "nothing" in the context of this question.>>
“something” means you, me, the world, etc. There are 2 definitions of “nothing” that I like. One is Aristotle’s: “Nothing is what rocks dream about”. The other is Francis Schaeffer’s: draw a circle and put everything that you know inside it – matter, energy, the world, us, etc. Then erase the circle. That’s nothing.
ifeelfine:
Thanks for the welcome back. I guess I need some more help: how is the scientific criteria used to recognize or reject the claim that something was designed and something that was not? I guess that’s what I’m asking. My follow on question would be: must something possess the ability to be falsifiable to be true? Or more simply, is truth dependent upon the principle of falsifiability?
The reason I ask is that I know of not one scientific test that offers a definition of truth itself or even offers to show that there is such a thing. And isn’t that what we’re all interested in here – the truth about whether there is a God or whether we’re all the product of mindless matter? You really only have those two choices – matter before mind or mind before matter. And I believe that operational science, of which biological evolution is a part of, cannot be used to determine what we’re after.
"Creation Hypothesis
As with all man’s endeavors, *TRUE* science will inevitably honor the Creator and affirm the Bible as His true and accurate record, wherever it addresses the historical past"
Notice the word 'true', used to signify that somehow any science which doesn't conform to the bible is, by this sites declaration 'not true'. Well in that case, evolutionary biology is hardly the one avenue of science that must be rejected if this is the criteria. Surely Cosmology, physics, paleotology and others can't be accepted either as they too conflict.
"Neither evolution nor creation is 'fact' by way of the scientific method. "
Evolution as a process of biological change over time is a FACT, why do you think organisms like HIV change in response to multiple drugs?
"Huxley (the grandson of THE Huxley) said that because of evolution we have no need of God or a god."
and you source for this is.......Take ONE persons view on the matter and extrapolate it all the way out, not very logical considering in the end evolution says nothing about god and it alone certainly doesn't negate the need for a creator. A single persons input on the matter and all of sudden you take it as the sole word above all others?
HAWK49,
"Complexity, Variety and Adaptability in Living Organisms and Ecological Systems
Increased over time from zero via DNA copying errors (i.e., mutations), natural selection, and millions of years
Empirically Falsifiable? Yes
Empirically Falsified? Yes"
All good scientific knowledge stems from that which can be tested and is falsifiable. FYI, it's BILLIONS of years, not millions, and where when exactly has the te above been falsified? You list some good things and then proceed to label them accordingly but leave out the details to deinf how their labels are assigned, please elaborate.
"Evolution Hypothesis
Man’s scientific endeavors will inevitably affirm man’s autonomy and independence in determining what is true and what is false."
How is this a hypothesis of Evolutionary theory again? This makes no sense at all.
Neither evolution nor creation is 'fact' by way of the scientific method. Neither can be recreated over and over for observation. Neither is 'science'. Huxley (the grandson of THE Huxley) said that because of evolution we have no need of God or a god. Clearly, evolution is simply the use of science to promote humanistic atheism. It is part of a religious belief system which has no place in our schools.
If we are going to allow one religious point of view to be taught such as evolution then we must allow multiple points of view. What do I think as a person who believes in creation? I think we could bring our students science grades up if we would focus on science in science class!
Comparison of the Evolutionary & Creationary Worldviews.
http://trueorigin.org/creatheory.asp#b7
Predominant a priori Assumptions (i.e., Philosophical Basis) concerning the Nature, Source, and Limits of Knowledge
Evolution Hypothesis
Man’s scientific endeavors will inevitably affirm man’s autonomy and independence in determining what is true and what is false
Empirically Falsifiable? No
Empirically Falsified? No
Creation Hypothesis
As with all man’s endeavors, true science will inevitably honor the Creator and affirm the Bible as His true and accurate record, wherever it addresses the historical past
Empirically Falsifiabl