The Official Perfection KOs Creationism Thread!

Well, I think it's time to stir the old pot again!

I'll start the new thread for the following reasons:
1. So Evolutionists get the first word
2. To enlighten the masses to the evidence for evolution including: evolutionists unaware of some of the fascinating evidence, those in the middle who need to see the light, creationists to combat the notion that evolution has no evidence and that creationism is scientific.
3. So I can set up some fair ground rules to make the thread more fun.
4. Sadistic Pleasure

The Rules:
1. No swamping the thread with articles. If you feel an article would be appropriate you may post it, but please only one per response. Also do not just post some random article, please use it as a means to augment your arguement, not as your arguement.
2. No yelling at someone to read a book. You want to post an exerpt from a book as part of your arguement, be my guest. However, yelling at someone to read a book is not going help.
3. We are arguing scientific credibility, therefore religious texts are not by fiat correct. If you want to argue religious philosophy go to the "Prove God Exists" thread. Please stay on topic
4. All standard forum rules apply, especially the no flaming, trolling and spamming rules. While one may consider their opposition to be incorrect let's not assert that they are not intelligent.

Here's my claims:
1. Evolution is a valid scientific claim
2. Creationism is not a valid scientific claim
Edit: Note: When I refer to creationism I'm refering to god creating life directly (not through evolution), this includes such permutations as intelligent design theory, gap creationism as well as literal 7-day creationism. I am not refering to evolutionary creationism.

Let us take a brief look at some of the evidence that give credence to evolution.

1. Biogeography, animals are in close proximity to structurally similar animals. Now, creationists may argue that it is because of the similar climate but they are mistaken. Take the famous example of the Galapagos Islands. The birds there are structurally close to the ones off the South American coast even though the climates are competly different. Therefore the location must be the factor in taxonomic relatedness. Additionally islands with much more similar environments have birds that are more related to the birds of thier coast than to the birds of the Galapagos. Surely if there was an intelligent designer the birds from similar islands would have similar structures to face similar challanges, however this is simply not the case. Geography is the measure of structural similarity not climatology!

2. Paleogeography, continental drift theory shows that around the time of the early mammals (as per the fossil record) Australia breaks free from all other continents. Today, Australian mammels are massively different from all other mammels. How can creationism account for the fact that there is such a massive difference?

3. A clear line of homologous structures. In the fossil record and among modern animals they follow a nested branching line of similarities in structure. For example all vertabrates have spines and all mammals have fur. Why is it that no animals besides vertabrates have fur? With creationism there is no answer, with evolution, the answer is because the predecessor to all furry creatures was a vertabrate. Now, many creationists will argue, "well what about structures like the eye?" But when one looks at the nature of a squid eye vs. a bug eye vs. a fish eye we see that just because they have the same purpose they are very different in terms of structure. The method in which squid eyes and fish eyes focus is very different, and bug eyes look completly unlike the eyes of other animals. The structure in eyes is very different as is the way it works, however mammal fur and structure is basically the same for all mammals!

This is clearly evidence based upon observed phenomena, so we can put the myth that evolution has no way to observe it to rest!

I'll post more on a "feel like it basis"

...and how does this lead to GDRs?

Japher said:

...and how does this lead to GDRs?

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It doesn't. I just like talking about awesome subjects. GDRs are awesome, so is evolutionary theory!

Creationism, as in a God working through evolution, or taking the Bible literally.

If the latter: No one here beleives it, so why argue against it?

One question. You claim that evolution is scientific. But for the theory to be considered fact, it must predict something. As yet, to my knowledge it hasn't. Can you really claim that Evolution is fact if it hasn't predicted something which later has become true?

Creationism as in god creating the animals directly (not through evolution), this includes such permutations as intelligent design theory, gap creationism as well as literal 7-day creationism.

Numerous posters believe in such constructs, both literal 7-day creationism and other permutations that are rejections of evolution and belief in god creating animals directly.

Mise said:

One question. You claim that evolution is scientific. But for the theory to be considered fact, it must predict something. As yet, to my knowledge it hasn't. Can you really claim that Evolution is fact if it hasn't predicted something which later has become true?

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Ah but evolution has numerous things!

It predicted the emergance of more tranistional fossils
It predicted the discovery of a means of inheritance as well as a means of changing genes without recombination (mutations)
It predicted the emergence of more vestigial structures, embryological homologies, and a correspondance between DNA and chemical activity
It predicted that the branched nature of taxonomy would remain branched and not intertwined
It predicted the existance of beneficial mutations

These are but a few of the many many predictions that evolution has made, and subsequently verified showing a strong case for its validity.

"No one here beleives it, so why argue against it?"

I'll argue it, mainly because this IS an "official" thread... If were just another unofficial thread I probably wouldn't bother arguing something I don't believe in.

1. Evolution is a valid scientific claim
2. Creationism is not a valid scientific claim

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I agree with both of these. However, creationist never argue Creation based on science, since they are religious fruitcakes who haven't a grain of knowledge inside their "god given" brain.

Biogeography, animals are in close proximity to structurally similar animals

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BS, and you know it. Elephants live in close proximity with monkeys! The reason the animals that live together live together is because god made it that way. Many of the animals HAVE changed over the years, but this has nothing to do with evolution, it has to do with inbreeding with animals of other species. You hardly ever see this, but every once in a blue moon the animals of given location meet to praise god for creating them and have wild drunken orgies with Jesus and the other animals. Sometimes one the animals gets knocked up by god and has a baby that is slightly different, or "gifted", than the other ones...

Paleogeography, continental drift theory shows that around the time of the early mammals (as per the fossil record) Australia breaks free from all other continents. Today, Australian mammels are massively different from all other mammels. How can creationism account for the fact that there is such a massive difference?

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I think I already explained how animals change, not to mention what Australian DO to animals when they are bored and lonely... As for continental drift, and you bone evidence, and is specualted that god and other celestial being planted those bones there to throw scientist off of proving that god exist so that he doesn't have to let as many people in when the final judgement comes. Places seem to be shifting, and one can credit it to the crusts position on the mantel, but you just can't throw out the FACT that places with the highest amount of earthquakes are also the mostly deeply infected with sinners (i.e. California)... Think about it!

Why is it that no animals besides vertabrates have fur? With creationism there is no answer, with evolution, the answer is because the predecessor to all furry creatures was a vertabrate.

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Not so fast bubba! Scientist are the ones who made up the names like vertabrates, defining them based on certain attributes that they deemed characteristic enough to distinguish them. Going back and saying that what they say is right because they defined it doesn't work! What if scientist definied mammels as land living only, and had no tails! That would change your whole argument. Also, many of you smarty pant scientist are now speculating that reptiles may of evolved into birds, explain how that ties modern traits into common ancestors! A bird is nothing like a lizard.

Seeing how I shot down all your arguments, imPERFECTION, I think we all have no choice but to denounce science in lieu of religion. We all most sacrifice a virgin and pray to god that we aren't smited for our ignorance.

Arguing science vs. religion never works, especially when the fantasy world that religion makes up is so much more fun than the real world.

Perfection said:

Ah but evolution has numerous things!

It predicted the emergance of more tranistional fossils
It predicted the discovery of a means of inheritance as well as a means of changing genes without recombination (mutations)
It predicted the emergence of more vestigial structures, embryological homologies, and a correspondance between DNA and chemical activity
It predicted that the branched nature of taxonomy would remain branched and not intertwined
It predicted the existance of beneficial mutations

These are but a few of the many many predictions that evolution has made, and subsequently verified showing a strong case for its validity.

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I don't know what those words mean.

But I was thinking more like evolution only has evidence, but hasn't predicted, say, the next step in evolution. In other words, there is no possible test that we can conduct that would conclusively PROVE evolution.

wasn't there some experiment with the tse-tse fly?

I'll respond to the less sarcastic criticisms and let the sarcasm fall by its own absurdity.

Japher said:

BS, and you know it. Elephants live in close proximity with monkeys!

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The fact that animals live in close proximity with unrelated animals does not negate the fact that there is a greater correspondance of structural similarities between organisms located nearby geographically with different ecological niches and different environments than organisms occupying similar ecological niches in similar environments located far away geographically.

Japher said:

The reason the animals that live together live together is because god made it that way.

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Umm in my example none of the animals lived together. Also by just stating god made them that way without being able to come up with testible predictions you lose all scientific credibility.

Japher said:

Many of the animals HAVE changed over the years, but this has nothing to do with evolution, it has to do with inbreeding with animals of other species.

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While introgression is certainly a method of producing variation it has been proven that other mutations do in fact exist and that they are capable of being favorable in artificial selection. Since their are many parrelels between artifical and natural selection then there is considerable amount of evidence that mutations are capable of evolution. Lastly looking at the similarity of protiens like globins we can see how a sequence of mutations could tranfer one globin to another providing additional support for evolution.

Japher said:

As for continental drift, and you bone evidence, and is specualted that god and other celestial being planted those bones there to throw scientist off of proving that god exist so that he doesn't have to let as many people in when the final judgement comes.

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That's theological not scientific. We're only debating science here.

I gotta go, I'll debunk the rest later

Hey! YOu never said this was a scientific debate! If that was the case you can't bring religion into it! That is just wrong and has nothing to do with science!@!!

hypocrit, god will surely smite you, especially if he goes with my rewritten version of the bible.

Perfection, I believe you are taking too broad a brush to this topic and thus this thread WILL revert back to the same old arguements. As far I as I understand this debate, the creationists here don't necessarily argue for literal translation or use Genesis as a scientific text. In fact most creationists here have no problem with micro-evolution such as that seen in the Galapagos finches (primarily because that type of evolution HAS been very well documented by observation of the finches and subsequent animals). Creationist arguements here have been specifically targeted at Macroevolution, even though many of those posts show a woeful misunderstanding at what macroevolution actually is.

So if you want this thread to be meaningful (slim chance at that) it at least should argue the points that are really the source of controversey.

Start by clarifying the arguements. Creationism claims that all species that have ever existed were created as a unique species over a discrete period of time and that since then no new species have been created, though many have been lost. Evolution teaches that when a group is genetically separated from its original population and is subject to different selective forces than the original population, or by the process of drift, mutation or other genetic processes, that group may develop into a new and unique species. Over geologic time scales, speciation, genetic mutation and recombination, these species can develop radically new body plans or other traits than the original parent population.

Creationists do not necessarily claim that everything was created in 6 days. They DO ask to see evidence that macroevolution has happened.

Evolution does not claim that it is possible for a pug to evolve into a flamingo. They DO claim that both pugs and flamingos once had a common vertebrate ancestor.

I'm not here to post articles or proof. I'm just trying to make it clear what people are actually trying to prove. If my summaries are incorrect, please let me know. But the way I see it, these debates have gotten nowhere because people do not argue the same point.

Mise said:

One question. You claim that evolution is scientific. But for the theory to be considered fact, it must predict something. As yet, to my knowledge it hasn't. Can you really claim that Evolution is fact if it hasn't predicted something which later has become true?

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First of all, let me explain the scientific method for you, clearly you must have slept through your 8th grade science class.

First, observe some aspect of the universe.
Second, Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consitent with what you've observed.
Third, Use this hypothesis to make predictions.
Fourth, Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
Fifth, Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

Now, following this method, Charles Darwin (along with others of his time) put together the groundwork for the modern theory of evolution. This theory has undergone significant revision in the time since it was first published in Darwin's book On the Origin of the Species.

So to answer your question, no, he can't claim that evolution is fact. No scientist ever would. Why do you think we still include the theory part in the theory of gravity. We do however, consider the theory of evolution as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth revolves around the sun.

PRoNTaNTiNo said:

First of all, let me explain the scientific method for you, clearly you must have slept through your 8th grade science class.

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Moderator Action: This is exactly the sort of thing that turns these threads into pointless exercises. Warned. Eyrei.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Much of the debate is also caused by a misinterpretation of the word theory. For instance, with math there's a theorem that in any given right triangle, the sum of the squares of the distance of the two lines forming the 90 degree angle will be equal to the square of the diagonal line. (A^2 + B^2 = C^2) This is assumed to be true because we assume the principles behind it are true-like that the definition of a centimeter is the same in all cases and that X^2=X*X, or that 1+1=2. In math, the definitions of principles are absolute therefore the validity of the theorems is absolute as well. Should the definition of the character "2" be changed for whatever reason, then the theorems surrounding it would have to change to remain accurate.

In the scientific world, theories work in much of the same way. With facts replacing mathematical principles. We observe that things tend to migrate towards objects with mass, and the speed and resistance at which things migrate towards said objects are dependent on the mass thereof. Thus the theory of gravity.

The difference between scientific theories and mathematical theorems is that, unlike math where all the principles are known and constant, we don't know all the facts surrounding the theory of evolution. Thus the theory of evolution cannot be inherently false or true, but is instead is based on the reliability of the facts on which it is based.

Mise said:

But I was thinking more like evolution only has evidence, but hasn't predicted, say, the next step in evolution. In other words, there is no possible test that we can conduct that would conclusively PROVE evolution.

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I have a number of comments on your statement.

1. In science all we can do is wiegh the evidence and try to test predictions. There is no way to "Conclusively Prove" anything. Further expiriments can show errors in the way things are done. A successful expiriment does not garuntee the validity of the theory. Numerous expiriments failed to show the incompleteness of Newton.

2. Predictive power doesn't mean predicting the future it means predicting the emergence of data unknown to the scientist to support their claim. If one can succesfully predict some piece of data will be found and it is, then it is just as credible as a lab expirament.

3. Evolution certainly has future predictive power, however it's often very hard to do so in nature because it's not a carefully controlled expirament. Mutations are chance occurances and their results often hard to predict and so we wouldn't be able to predict which one would/could occur in a setting. Now simplistic frequency shifts in traits have been shown in nature, but to my knowledge no major change has been predicted in a natural setting. However, in a controlled laboratory setting things are quite different and numerous evolutions have been induced.

Japher said:

Hey! YOu never said this was a scientific debate! If that was the case you can't bring religion into it! That is just wrong and has nothing to do with science!@!!

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Actually rule 3 states this is based on scientific evidence! And I can bring religion in slightly to demonstrate how it's unscientific.

Pirate said:

Perfection, I believe you are taking too broad a brush to this topic and thus this thread WILL revert back to the same old arguements. As far I as I understand this debate, the creationists here don't necessarily argue for literal translation or use Genesis as a scientific text. In fact most creationists here have no problem with micro-evolution such as that seen in the Galapagos finches (primarily because that type of evolution HAS been very well documented by observation of the finches and subsequent animals). Creationist arguements here have been specifically targeted at Macroevolution, even though many of those posts show a woeful misunderstanding at what macroevolution actually is.

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Well, since most of them take issue with speciation I'm dealing with small scale speciation. The birds on the Galapagos are different species then those on the South American coast

First I'm believe in creation but trying to put all evolutionists and creationist is a black and white groups won't work. I don't trust and believe everything a creationists say yet I find myself agreeing and learning from evolutionists also. This wrong to say just because someone believes in creation that person is againest science or is ignorant of science since I like the subject myself. In the end I have different interpretion of the evidense just like christians interpretion the scriptures differently. I watch programs on TV and read books & articles that it very obvious these scientist gives the credit to Evolution while I look at the same evidense and Praise My God and amazed at His wonderful creation. I know my interpretion of the Bible and science can be wrong (even though I feel very strongly about my views) since I'm not perfect nor have perfect knowledge and wisdom.