Creationism does NOT belong in science.

I'll give you that one - their is no way to disprove that God exists with science. By the same token, the mainstream scientific community should not act like they have, and they do when they aren't being politically correct.

By the same token, I can suggest the Evolution is also not disproveable. Since as I have said before no one has directly watched animals trasmuate over generations, no one has witnessed it in action. Oh sure you can say that the Fossil Record can count for that, but that's only how you interprit what your seeing in the fossil record. I could say a divine creator causes each transmutation, but I can't watch him do it. By the same token, I can say that we cannot watch macroevolution happen. Scientists act on faith at this point. Remember, Darwin formed his theory AFTER he saw a hundred differnt things in Nature which confirmed what he already believed.

The idea of Evolution is an old one - it's been around since the Sumarians introduced it in their religious doctrines. That's right - Evolution was originally a RELIGIOUS doctrine. We have had a few thousand years to change it in the light of observations. After all that time, do you really think the theory is left disproveable? Of course not - it's been changed each time a new observation comes up. Thus, the theory never dies, but changes when it's disproven. Since the theory can never be disproven, I submit that Evolution is in itself pseudoscience!

 

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pseu·do·sci·ence (sd-sns)
n.
A theory, methodology, or practice that is considered to be without scientific foundation

Hello Xevious.

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Prepare to get flamed, eh?

Not that I will be the one to do it. I just want to say that "theory" is not a "law." What we understand about evolution changes. Just as our understanding of the atom has changed from it being solid and unbreakable, to the discovery of subatomic particles in orbits, to the current mathematical model that seems to be holding up all right. It's still a theory, but today it is much different than it was fifty years ago.

I wonder if anyone was upset when Dalton's gold foil experiment showed that an atom is stunningly mostly empty space? Rather this new knowledge was assimilated into the theory. Science learns... I'd rather the theories change, than scientists refuse to look at new data, or even tamper with it so it will fit. Haven't you clamed that the case in the past? Open that topic for discussion

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Xevious

You changed things around on us, I said show me why they are equally important. I never denied the importance of studying the religions of the world, but is it just as important as science? hardly.

We arleady have 'social studies' in the classroooms anyways. This is a much better solution than what you are proposing as it addresses the culture being studied as a whole rather than boiling it down to the just its religion.

Think of it this way: which is worse, if the whole world suddenly forgot everything about religion, or suddenly forgot everything about science.

Being open minded to others beliefs is a lot more important than actually knowing them.

 

Here is an interesting quote from David Berlinski that makes some interesting observations concerning evolution as it relates to predictions, falsifiability, and religion:

The evolutionary development of a particular species or population as such cannot be predicted with any reasonable degree of certainty. Predictions are possible only to the extent that a population or species happens to fit one of the patterns of evolution that have already been discovered.

Darwin conceived of evolution in terms of SMALL variations among organisms, variations which by a process of accretion allow one species to change continuously into another. This suggests a view in which living creatures are spread out smoothly over the great manifold of biological possibilities, like colors merging imperceptibly in a color chart.

Life, however, is absolutely nothing like this. Wherever one looks there is singularity, quirkiness, oddness, defiant individuality, and just plain weirdness. The redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), is often consumed during copulation. Having achieved intromission, this spider performs a characteristic somersault, placing his abdomen directly over his partner's mouth. This behavior is called sexual suicide. Prior to the discovery of this behavior, no biologist would have predicted it. After all,
if the name of the game is leaving all the genes you can to the next generation then sexual suicide would appear disadvantageous. But in evolutionary theory it is always possible after the fact to concoct a "just so story" and so it is in this case. Evolutionists claim that spiders willing to pay for love are favored by female spiders and female spiders with whom they mate are less likely to mate again. The male spider perishes but his preposterous line persists.

This explanation resolves one question only at the cost of inviting another: why such bizarre behavior? In no other Latrodectus species does the male perform that obliging somersault, offering his partner the oblation of his life as well as his love. Are there general principles that specify sexual suicide among this species, but that forbid sexual suicide elsewhere? If so, what are they?

Once asked, such questions tend to multiply like party guests. If evolutionary theory cannot answer them, what, then, is its use? Why is the Pitcher plant carnivorous, but not the thorn bush, and why does the Pacific salmon require fresh water to spawn, but not the Chilean sea bass? Why has the British thrush learned to hammer snails upon rocks, but not the British blackbird which often starves to death in the midst of plenty? Why did the firefly discover bioluminescence, but not the wasp or the warrior ant; why do bees do their dance, but not the spider or the flies.

Why? Yes, why? The question, simple, clear, intellectually respectable, was put to the Nobel laureate George Wald. "Various organisms try various things," he finally answered, his words functioning as a verbal shrug, "they keep what works and discard the rest."

But suppose the manifold of life were to be given a good solid yank, so that the Chilean sea bass but not the Pacific salmon required fresh water to spawn, or that ants not fireflies flickered enticingly at twilight. What then? An inversion of life's fundamental facts would, I suspect, present evolutionary biologists with few difficulties. VARIOUS ORGANISMS TRY VAROUS THINGS. This idea is adapted to any contingency whatsoever, and as a result has no empirical content.

A comparison with geology is instructive. No geological theory makes it possible to specify precisely a particular mountain's shape; but the underlying process of upthrust and crumbling is well understood, and geologists can specify something like a mountain's GENERIC shape. This provides geological theory with a firm connection to reality. A mountain arranging itself in the shape of the letter "A" is not a physically possible object; it is excluded by geological theory.

The theory of evolution, by contrast, is incapable of ruling ANYTHING out of court. That job must be done by nature. But a theory that can confront any contingency with unflagging success cannot be falsified. Its control of the facts is an illusion. Lewontin makes a good point concerning this:

For what good is a theory that is guaranteed by its internal logical structure
to agree with all conceivable observations, irrespective of the real structure
of the world? If scientists are going to use unbeatable theories about the
world, they might as well give up natural science and take up religion.

In his book "Tautology in evolution and ecology", naturalist Henry Peters says: "The general statement of natural selection gives an exhaustive list of the responses of an organism to the environment: selection or rejection. No result could falsify the statement. In other words natural selection explains nothing because it explains everything."

Natural selection is the sole scientific theory that cannot be superseded. Other theories, no matter how well-established are commonly overthrown or subsumed in light of later discoveries, much as Newtonian mechanics became a special case within the framework of Einsteinian relativity. But natural selection is presented as the last word in its field, monumental and unassailable, with all ensuing work subordinated to the original thesis. This is a complete reversal of the accepted method of scientific inquiry, one that effectively turns Darwin into a prophet and his theory into a pseudo-religion--in a word, an ideology.

This explains why vicious infighting goes on among evolutionary biologists, so similar to doctrinal battles among religious sects; why natural selection is presented as a universal doctrine, dominant far beyond the boundaries of biology, and why contradictory findings are jammed into the basic theory with no attempt at consistency. Lastly, it goes a long way toward explaining the incessant hostility that evolutionary biologists display toward religious faith--one does not see many astophysicists or cosmologists crowing about their victories over the fundamentalists.

The vast majority of scientific theories prevalent in the mid-19th century have been supplanted. How much longer will Darwin's immunity to fundamental scientific principals continue?

 

I think you explained it better than I could, Warren. Good post.

"Think of it this way: which is worse, if the whole world suddenly forgot everything about religion, or suddenly forgot everything about science."

History proves that the people of this planet keep Religion over Science every time. After the Greek civalization collapsed, what happened?

 

What in the world does that prove?

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So if history DOES INDEED 'prove' that religion is maintained rather than science (I believe this is a load of... but I digress), it matters not one iota. The important question would be, was it beneficial to humans? no.

So my main question to you is still the same, better for humans to forget everything about religion or science?

 

The current creation/evolution debate is a modern form of the teleology versus non-teleology argument which started 2500 years ago.

Intelligent design is a form of teleology and not creationism.

Here are some interesting observations from biologist Mike Gene that helps explain this:

"Imagine you walk into a room full of scholars representing two very different perspectives on the world. One group argues that living things are the products of some greater wisdom. These scholars point to various biological structures, such as the human eye, and argue that the optimal arrangement of the parts seen in these structures point to some type of designer as their cause. This same group also highlights the harmony and beauty that is seen in the natural world, again suggesting a form of wisdom that lies behind it all. The other group sees things very differently. They appeal to chance and a huge span of time and argue that the harmony and optimal arrangements could very well have arisen by chance. They argue that natural forces, over huge spans of time, served to stabilize these ordered configurations and thus there is no need to invoke any type of designer. This same group then highlights various chaotic features of the world that suggest there is no designer.

You might be thinking that I have been talking about a group of creationists and evolutionary scientists arguing in the auditorium of a local college. You would be wrong. The scholars arguing in that room actually once argued in the halls of Ancient Greece. The teleologists were represented by men such as Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, and Aristotle. The nonteleologists were represented by such men as Democritus, Leucippus of Elea, and Epicurus of Samos. These thinkers argued back-and-forth with each other over a period of about 200 years. Their works would later influence such European scientists and philosophers as Robert Boyle, William Paley and David Hume.

In other words, the arguments for design did not start with Paley, nor did they start with naive religious believers. No, such arguments began with people like Socrates and Aristotle."

And then there is the Roman poet Lucretius Carus (99-55BC). Lucretius believed life to have originated at some definite moment in the past by natural processes but that created beings included 'a host of monsters, grotesque in build and aspect' who were subsequently eliminated by their sterility.

These ideas sound strangely similar to those of Charles Darwin. In fact, Lucretius even wrote:

"In those days, again, many species must have died out altogether and failed to reproduce their kind. Every species that you now see drawing the breath of the world survived either by cunning or by prowess or by speed. In addition, there are many that survive under human protection because their usefulness has commended them to our care."

I wouldn't be surprised if Darwin borrowed these ideas and thus his views about natural selection are not something that was forced upon him by the raw data (as the romantic story book version of history teaches).

The point is that this debate between teleology and materialism is at least 2500 years old and has involved some of history's greatest thinkers. The notion that current ID arguments are nothing more than Christian reactions to the painful "truth" of Darwinism is a notion divorced from historical context.

If one's sense of history goes no further than 100 years, it's easy to get the impression that materialism has been vindicated and teleology has been refuted. But if that sense spans 2500 years, one suspects only that materialism has just recently obtained the upper hand with more sophisticated versions of the same arguments. The ID movement has the potential of evening the playing field by reviving its arguments in more sophisticated versions. Is the 2500 year-old debate really over? Of course not.

 

The Harvard Political Review

Questioning the Orthodoxy By Richard Halvorson

Darwinian evolution's academic monopoly is being challenged by a new scientific theory that claims to better explain the evidence. Historically, most evolution critics have been scientifically illiterate religious zealots. But a growing number of serious scientists touting Ivy League credentials, multiple Ph.D.'s, and tenured professorships are challenging Darwin's previously incontrovertible academic standing. Many of these "evolution skeptics" adhere to what is known as Intelligent Design theory.

Intelligent Design (I.D.) argues that evolution can explain much about biology, but not everything. The immense complexity of DNA and the dizzying intricacy of the simplest cell were unknown prior to the 20th century. In light of these discoveries, current I.D. research assesses the limits of complexity that can originate through natural processes alone. Advocates of Intelligent Design conclude that life's origins must have required an intervening intelligence, because natural reactions cannot produce such intricate biochemical structures.

However, this conclusion's possible theological implications have drawn severe attack from dogmatically secular academics: if scientific evidence implies the intervention of an intentional designer, the most logical designer probably would be a deity. Orthodox Darwinists are using their control over academic institutions, research facilities, political figures, state school boards, and national media to oppose research on this new theory.

Atheism Impeding Science

Challenges to Darwinism have been suppressed ever since Origin of Species' was published. Louis Agassiz, a 19th-century Harvard paleontologist and founding member of the National Academy of Sciences, was shunned by academia when he alleged that Darwinism gained prominence in spite of evidence. As he wrote in 1869, "Darwinism excludes nearly all the mass of acquired information," and "the explanation supplied by Darwin and his henchmen is not congruent with the facts."

However, within a decade of Origin of Species, only a handful of scientists retained their skepticism of the new theory. Darwinism's rapid success was, in part, religiously motivated. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins wrote, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Similarly, Michael Ruse, editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy, told the HPR, "Scientists have certainly introduced issues of atheism."

Yet their dogmatic adherence to a materialist explanation of the universe is itself unscientific and has impeded scientific progress in the past. Stephen Hawking writes in A Brief History of Time that despite mounting evidence in the mid-20th century, scientists made "a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a Big Bang," because that explanation "smacks of divine intervention." Afraid that the Big Bang's theological implications would unseat their atheistic dogma, scientists ignored evidence and resisted the true theory of the universe's origin for decades. Darwinist ideologues are similarly impeding current progress on Intelligent Design.

Indeed, Darwinists have organized to counter I.D. research and education efforts. Skip Evans is Network Project Director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a national political effort to suppress challenges to Darwinian orthodoxy. Evans said the NCSE opposes ideas and evidence that would "water down" Darwinism in the classroom. Critiques of evolution might "cast seeds of doubt in the students' minds," Evans told the HPR. Responding to I.D. theorists' allegations of institutional bias, Evans said they are "just whining" and "being crybabies."

Censorship and Discrimination

Scientists and researchers who question Darwinism tell of intense censorship and job discrimination. A doctoral student had to leave Rice
University after he presented research casting doubt on Darwinism. Dr. Jed Macosko was denied a postdoctoral research position at Caltech because everyone the lab hired had to be "convinced of evolution," Macosko told the HPR.

At Baylor University, professor and I.D. theorist William Dembski experienced what he called "academic McCarthyism" from science faculty who withdrew funding from Dembski's research facility after discovering that his research challenged Darwinism. He compares doubting the Darwinian Orthodoxy to opposing the the party line of a Stalinist regime. "What would you do if you were in Stalin's Russia and wanted to argue that Lysenko was wrong? That's the sort of situation we're in. You have to play your cards very close to the vest, and you can't really say what you're about," Dembski told the HPR.

Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemist and I.D. theorist, told the HPR that questioning Darwinism endangers one's career. "There's good reason to be afraid. Even if you're not fired from your job, you will easily be passed over for promotions. I would strongly advise graduate students who are skeptical of Darwinian theory not to make their views known."

Because of this discrimination, some professors have adopted pseudonyms. "Mike Gene," who hosts www.idthink.net, (http://www.idthink.net,) teaches cell biology at a secular private college; he is waiting for tenure before revealing his identity and publishing a book he has written on Intelligent Design.

Illogical and Misinformed Critics

Opponents of Intelligent Design paint its supporters as religious fundamentalists promoting an incorrect theory. But this criticism stems from misinformation and poor logic. First, not all evolution critics are religious. For example, geneticist Michael Denton, an agnostic, wrote Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which persuaded many scientists to support Intelligent Design. Second, even if a claim has a religious source, it is not automatically false, though the Darwinists imply otherwise. Third, few critics actually address I.D.'s scientific arguments. Indeed, while I.D. theorists simply want to talk about science, Darwinists often bring religion into the matter, accusing them of being "fundamentalists" and "creationists."

Darwinists also accuse the I.D. community of "quote mining" and "misrepresentation" of research questioning Darwinism. For example, Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould writes of failed Darwinist embryological theories and predicts a "new and general theory of evolution" to replace the common textbook orthodoxy. Intelligent Design theorists fully acknowledge that Gould is not rejecting Darwinism, but they believe that the issues he discusses reveal deeper dilemmas that are better resolved through the I.D. paradigm. Moreover, because I.D. theorists are shut out from publishing in established journals, they have created two peer-reviewed academic journals of their own, adding to the prodigious publications on I.D. theory.

Highlighting evolution's role as the golden calf of the academy, French scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once called Darwinism "a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow." But I.D. theorists hope to dismantle Darwin's shrine in the pursuit of scientific truth, to discover the bounds of evolution's explanatory power. Behe told the HPR how I.D. research could change the future of science: "Darwinism will be in the position of Newtonian physics today. It will be seen as a good explanation for a limited set of data. The more we discover about the cell and how life works, the more intricate and complicated we see things are, the less plausible Darwinism becomes."

 

I'll say it again: why do religious people try to put their ideas in the science department?

Science and religion are two different things.

Creationism is not part of science, since it can not be proven, as of yet there are no machines which can measure God.

The End.

 

James R>>The fact that the first long quote does not explain the well-known evolutionary reason why a spider might commit suicide after mating makes me rather suspicious of the agenda of the people who wrote these articles.<<

The article does provide a well-known explanation given by evolutionists as to why a spider might commit suicide. Evolutionists can also provide equally convincing explanations as to why it would be dis-advantageous for spiders to commit suicide. The point is that evolutionary "just so stories" can explain anything after the fact, thus they explain nothing. They have no empirical content. There are no evolutionary principles or laws from which one could predict sexual suicide in a given species of spider. Simply trying to establish that something is possible is about as weak of a claim there can be.

Any one of us can come up with multiple, plausible stories concerning the evolution of a given biological feature. But plausibility is about the weakest criterion one can apply to an evolutionary hypothesis. - Robert Dorit, Biology Dept., Yale University

 

Is it better for humans to forget everything about religion or science?"

Religion and Science have similarities and differences which give each of them differnt roles in society. Religion works on building human community and laying down ethical foundations. These are things which science is quite candidly not qualified to handle, no matter how you argue it. Science works logically through the methods True and True is True, or True and False is False. Many things in human morals and ethics are simply not designed simply in black and white terms. It's ironic, that if one tries to apply logic to moral arguments, one finds that logic can support ANY argument as long as one has the facts to back it up. This fallability ot Logic is one lost to many people. In theory, one can justify genocide through the premice of the world being overpopulated. You and I both know that the thought of Genocide is highly questionable to most people, but scientifically, IF one can prove an overpopulation burdon, one can justify the genocide as a logical solution.

What you have their is an example of scientific intellectualism spinning out of control without moral guidence. Adolph Hitler is a wonderful example. Hitler was in every way, in intellectual man. He painted artworks, and his art is still considered to be of good quality by many artisans. He collected ancient artifacts and had a very high interest in archaeology and ancient civilizations. He played a musical insturment. He founded Germany's Autobaun and he came up with the 1st prototype design for the Volkswagon Beetle. No matter how you slice it, Hitler was a VERY intelligent intellectual. He was a billiant tactician in World War II - he took out France, which at the time had the worlds best Army. He nearly captured Moscow, deep in Russian territory. With Italy at his side, Europe fell in a very short amount of time. But, his morals were highly questionable. His thinking spun out of control, and he wiped out almost 1/5 of the worlds Jewish population to say nothing of the hundreds in France, Russia, Poland, and many other countries.

What scares me is that if one reads his autobiography, he was able to find logical justifications for much of his beliefs. You might laugh at me, but it's true.

In the end, when civalizations collapse and people rebuild, Religion always comes out on top because Science is not qualified to build human community. If it was, the Greeks would have rebuilt on a scientifice foundation - and they were probably the only civalization his history in which science ran so far through their core. If they couldn't do it, NO ONE could do it.

I am not taking an opinion which is "better" because both are very important in society. I am just saying that Science cannot and will not ever take Religion's function in society over.

 

Warren,
Evolution is the best current working theory that explains the origins of man. Until a better theory is offered, nothing else should be taught in science class. To contradict this, you must produce a workable theory (inteliigent design? - remember you need evidence) that holds up to the scientific method.
All of your posts are futile. Sure, there are many things to question about evolution. We should continue to question evolution and its processes. It is constantly being refined. But that is not the topic of this thread. Until a better theory is provided, evolution is the best theory we have.
If you think there is a better alternative, post about that and the evidence to support it. We will see how it holds up to scientific scrutiny.

 

The whole scientific method is currently based around the idea that God is not proveable, everything must be naturalistic. That's what the issue boils down to. This only RECENTLY become the definition for science, and I should point out that Naturalists created this definition around the time Darwin proposed "Origin of Species." I think Scientists were making the statement "We don't need God anymore." because until then, they didn't have a purely naturalistic theory which explained the origins of life on Earth. After they did, they changed the rules of science to say "God is not proveable."

Before ANYONE talks any further about wether or not Intelligent Design is scientific or not, we must settle the question of wether or not the premice of "God is not proveable" is a true statement or not.

We need to settle rules for that debate in itself, because we are going beyond what is science and into much deeper intellectual waters.

 

Warren,

(From the previous page...)

Nothing is wrong with a non-materialist suspecting intellegent design. However, scientists and materialists have several ways of expressing their practical abhorance of non-material excrescence, e.g.:

Occam's Razor:

"Plurality is not to be assumed without necessity", or "What can be done with fewer [assumptions] is done in vain with more," or "Entities should not be multiplied beyond need."

Isaac Newton; Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Principia Mathematica; Rule 1:

Ernst Mach, Principle of Economy:

Einstein;

Positivism: The invisible and the non-existant look very much alike.

====================================================================

Until proof of intelligent design is demonstrably manifest (e.g.: the designer drops in for a cup of tea), science & materialism must treat intelligent design as an unnecessary assumption because it adds ultimately only the impossible task of explaining how the very first designer itself came to be 'designed".

"It's turtles, all the way down."

 

Mr.G>>Nothing is wrong with a non-materialist suspecting intellegent design. However, scientists and materialists have several ways of expressing their practical abhorance of non-material excrescence.<<

A non-teleologist can explain anything by invoking imaginary molecules, imaginary life forms, imaginary functions, imaginary selective advantages, and imaginary environments, all situated in
the unobservable ancient past. They accept all this imaginative speculation for blind watchmaking but demand absolute proof for seeing watchmaking. This is obviously a double standard.

From such a position, all evidence must point to a non-teleological cause. If it doesn't, then it becomes "no evidence." That is, a non-teleologist has only two options - evidence for a non-teleological cause or the unknown. Thus, it is common for non-teleologists to interpret the fact that there is no evidence for their positions to mean we are dealing with the unknown. This also explains why it is that when non-teleologists are asked what type of data they would consider evidence for intelligent design, they inevitably retreat into the realm where they demand certain proofs of ID. They are so indebted to their world view that it is not possible for them to tolerate an ID inference because it is only an inference. They need proof and certainty. But only with ID explanations.

Scientists don't accept naturalistic abiogenesis because of the evidence. No, scientists accept naturalistic abiogenesis because the game rules of science preclude any hint of teleology. It is a faulty assumption that science is about coming up with the best possible explanation. Non-teleologists embrace extraordinary claims without any evidence, yet demand (while pounding the podium) proof of ID.

To me, it is not a question of proof, but a question of whether data exist that trigger a suspicion of ID. One then takes it from there. Proof would be nice, but science shows us that we don't need it. For example, there is no independent evidence that the type of life forms posited to exist prior to modern-day-like bacteria ever existed. Yet this is a working hypothesis that is the meat-and-potatoes of work in abiogenesis.

Now, as I see it, evolution and life's history is wide-open and
vulnerable before ID. Even beings as modestly intelligent as
we can shape and alter evolution through artificial selection (where selection is guided) and genetic engineering (where mutations are planned). Thus, I am trying to determine if there is solid evidence behind attributing major evolutionary innovations to random mutations and natural selection rather than planned mutations and guided selection.

I personally see more than sufficient evidence to trigger a suspicion that ID is behind the origin of life in the fact that biology not only needs teleological language and concepts, but that such concepts really do generate an understanding of life. I think life expresses enough complex specified information such that ID is a better explanation for its origin than geochemistry. For me, this evidence goes beyond mere suspicion and takes me close to the realm of the "most likely."

Thus, since I have (in my mind) good evidence that life was
probably the product of intelligent design and the fact that evolution is so vulnerable to ID means I need a much more rigorous set of evidence to think random mutations and natural selection were indeed the only mechanisms behind the origin of biological innovations post-abiogenesis.

 

Cutting to the chase...

Oxymoron: Certain Speculation.

 

See, there can be no evidence, cause evidence is used in the scientific way, and science has excluded things they can not measure, except in hypotheses.

 

Mr.G>>Cutting to the chase...


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...I have (in my mind) good evidence that life was probably...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Oxymoron: Certain Speculation.<<

Yes, my teleological views on the origin of life are speculative and tentative. Are your non-teleological views on abiogenesis, speculative and tentative? Do they involve any inferences, any references to unobservable entities?