Evolution versus Creationism

[Aramazd]

Well, my point here is not to equate the two, but to recognize that neither live in a vacuum and both significantly impact each other. We can't pull the two apart, and expect them to behave.

That was the gist of what I was trying to say, but I lack your eloquence.

 

[GoodGame]

Well, I don't think the Creationist criticizing evolution is particularly fallacious. After all, for Creationism to be true, evolution needs to be false. If they can't show evolution is false, they have a problem! If that is the sole extant of their argument that Creationism is correct, then yes it is a problem, but t's not often the case.

This leads to an example that illustrates the distinction I've been making in this thread:

1. A scientist with creationist beliefs, criticizing evolution science on scientific merits IS conducting science.

2. A scientist with creationist beliefs, criticizing evolution on theological concepts (e.g. existence of god) is NOT conducting science.

In the first example, religion is a completely irrelevant detail to the process. In the second example, applying religion is to make a categorical error if they purport their criticism is scientific; Otherwise #2 is just another theological discussion. This is the main reason with ID annoys me.

A third example where religion and science intersect, would be the philosophical. As in a comparison of the philosophy of a particular religion vs. the philosophy of science.

After all, for Creationism to be true, evolution needs to be false.

This is actually 'false', because creationism based on biblical literalism doesn't mandate the mechanism by which God created the universe; Biblical literalism (fundamentalism) implies it was a 'poof' event. Any mechanism can be guessed at, but none is described, so the mechanism is totaly undefined, and can therefore even evolution might be the mechanism of God's creation (Lamarck's inspiration, I believe, IIRC). This illustrates my other point that creationism and evolution are not two opponents in a zero sum game, at least in the realm of science. In the realm of theology, some religious people want you to believe they are a zero sum game, for polemical reasons.

 

[Ghpstage]

Yeah, I've found many engineers who don't think of evolution or natural history as a naturalistic process. I think part of the issue is that they often are designers, and thus are prone to seeing design. As well, I think that it's the scientists who care more about theory.

I'm not sure here, from my perspective as an engineering student the number of pointless parts and things that seem half-arsed in the human body disproves any idea of humans being designed to perfection.

Well, the big thing is that a lot of engineers simply aren't scientists.

I'd go more along the lines that engineers rarely have any education in biological fields and therefore simply aren't qualified to give an answer anyone should take seriously. (unless they provide proofs but the chances of that are essentially nil)

It's the equivalent of asking a chef to balance your accounts

 

[Perfection]

This leads to an example that illustrates the distinction I've been making in this thread:

1. A scientist with creationist beliefs, criticizing evolution science on scientific merits IS conducting science.

2. A scientist with creationist beliefs, criticizing evolution on theological concepts (e.g. existence of god) is NOT conducting science.

In the first example, religion is a completely irrelevant detail to the process. In the second example, applying religion is to make a categorical error if they purport their criticism is scientific; Otherwise #2 is just another theological discussion. This is the main reason with ID annoys me.

A third example where religion and science intersect, would be the philosophical. As in a comparison of the philosophy of a particular religion vs. the philosophy of science.

Philosophical of Science is part of science.

This is actually 'false', because creationism based on biblical literalism doesn't mandate the mechanism by which God created the universe; Biblical literalism (fundamentalism) implies it was a 'poof' event. Any mechanism can be guessed at, but none is described, so the mechanism is totaly undefined,

Not really, it says it happened in 6 days, which is not how evolution was.

and can therefore even evolution might be the mechanism of God's creation (Lamarck's inspiration, I believe, IIRC). This illustrates my other point that creationism and evolution are not two opponents in a zero sum game, at least in the realm of science. In the realm of theology, some religious people want you to believe they are a zero sum game, for polemical reasons.

Two things:

1. There's a terminology quibble here, when I say "Creationism", I mean of the anti-evolutionary God directly created the species sort (I think this is fairly common parlance). I'm not a staunch supporter of this view, but I can see how differences in terminology can lead to confusion.

2. God-driven evolution IMO destroys a major point of Darwinian evolution! Darwinian evolution allows for dumb physical processes to produce ingenious results through the power of natural selection. To suppose a creator God manipulating the universe to produce humans through lengthy foresights into how the universe would turn out dumps the natural selection model in favor of a sort of divine conspiracy theory.

 

[GoodGame]

Philosophical of Science is part of science.


Not really, it says it happened in 6 days, which is not how evolution was.


Two things:

1. There's a terminology quibble here, when I say "Creationism", I mean of the anti-evolutionary God directly created the species sort (I think this is fairly common parlance). I'm not a staunch supporter of this view, but I can see how differences in terminology can lead to confusion.

2. God-driven evolution IMO destroys a major point of Darwinian evolution! Darwinian evolution allows for dumb physical processes to produce ingenious results through the power of natural selection. To suppose a creator God manipulating the universe to produce humans through lengthy foresights into how the universe would turn out dumps the natural selection model in favor of a sort of divine conspiracy theory.

But philosophy is a humanity, not a science. Philosophy of science is still philosophy, and therefore a humanity. A philosophy of science discourse that lead to a practical methodology *might* be science.

Does a Philosophology (real word?) of science exist?



@ your #2, if you discuss God as a driving force in science, as a bona fide scientific cause, then he's like the ether, resistive force, or any other imaginary constant/variable that scientists hypothesize to cover up gaps in their hypothesis. God in that context can be hypothesized, but then you need real empirical evidence (which does not include literary criticism nor theological doctrine) to validate the hypothesis. Are we saying that such exists? (Note that claiming the wonderfulness or complexity of the universe as evidence for the existence of God as a scientific cause of the universe---is very crappy evidence).
Theology allows us to say that god exists, and to even say that god exists despite what humans. But regardless, citing theology as scientific evidence in a scientific endeavor, is never going to count as science, unless the 'scientist' is fond of making categorical errors, sophism, lieing, self-denial, etc.... (And I'd argue that -ology just makes something a study of, and state that theos -ology 'study of god' is not a science, but a humanity).

At any rate, I don't think there is anyway to split 'creationism' into sub-ideas. You can say the seven-day thing, but it's still a barely described *poof* that neither affirms nor denies a mechanism. It just describes intent and a time frame. Could not a God who makes things go *poof* not also work evolution much faster than 'nature' ever could (i.e. Could God not make all the animals through a mechanism of evolution at 'Godspeed'?). But that's all theological arguement in my mind anyways.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, lets say God kickstarted the whole process.

The beauty of Evolution is that it starts very simple. One cell. This means it doesn't need a creator which is very complex to create it. It just means a creator with the ability to make one cell. After that is created he sits back and observes what happens.

After many cycles of evolution, we pop up, look around us and are amazed at the complexity, so we conclude that a being which designed all this would have to be even more elaborate himself. Until the ToE comes along that is. So this God could be a one-trick pony deity with little power needed beside creating a single cell. And the spontaneous combustion of a bush.

 

[peter grimes]

The beauty of Evolution is that it starts very simple. One cell.

I see a mistake in this line of thinking. It's treating the history and evolution of life on Earth as a number line. It starts at 0 and goes off to the right, through billions of years and billions of generations, and all creatures currently alive are on the very right edge of the line.

But 'the first' cell (which I don't really think ever actually existed - someone mentioned earlier that it's more likely that life started trillions of times before the DNA model supplanted everything else) is already very far removed from inanimate matter. In order to have a cell, there have to be replicating molecules that not only record the necessary instructions to make more instructions, but also the mechanisms to make the containers they're held in. The self-replicating molecules are a step to the left of the cell, and all the traditional machinery found in prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and archaea.

I don't see how one can draw a divisive line and say to the left the matter is inanimate, and to the right it is alive. Shades of gray seems to be a more useful way to think about it. After all, are Viruses alive?

Are Prions?

 

[uppi]

I don't see how one can draw a divisive line and say to the left the matter is inanimate, and to the right it is alive. Shades of gray seems to be a more useful way to think about it. After all, are Viruses alive?

I think you can. But the question is rather: Can it evolve? For evolution to work, there needs to be a mechanism to reproduce the organism in a way that preserves the traits of the organism, but allows for a mutation of that traits.

Once a cell or proto-cell has these properties, then there can be evolution. So I think you can define a starting point (However, I don't know enough of biochemistry to say where that point was point)

 

[Perfection]

But philosophy is a humanity, not a science. Philosophy of science is still philosophy, and therefore a humanity. A philosophy of science discourse that lead to a practical methodology *might* be science.

Does a Philosophology (real word?) of science exist?

Well I don't think something needs to be a science to be part of science. For example, mathematics isn't a science, but it's intimately woven into what science is and to call mathematics not part of science would be quite weird!

@ your #2, if you discuss God as a driving force in science, as a bona fide scientific cause, then he's like the ether, resistive force, or any other imaginary constant/variable that scientists hypothesize to cover up gaps in their hypothesis.

So that would be scientific and theological claim, would it not?

God in that context can be hypothesized, but then you need real empirical evidence (which does not include literary criticism nor theological doctrine) to validate the hypothesis. Are we saying that such exists? (Note that claiming the wonderfulness or complexity of the universe as evidence for the existence of God as a scientific cause of the universe---is very crappy evidence).
Theology allows us to say that god exists, and to even say that god exists despite what humans. But regardless, citing theology as scientific evidence in a scientific endeavor, is never going to count as science, unless the 'scientist' is fond of making categorical errors, sophism, lieing, self-denial, etc.... (And I'd argue that -ology just makes something a study of, and state that theos -ology 'study of god' is not a science, but a humanity).

Well on the flipside, if we use science to discredit different conceptions of God, would that not be an intersection between science and theology?

At any rate, I don't think there is anyway to split 'creationism' into sub-ideas. You can say the seven-day thing, but it's still a barely described *poof* that neither affirms nor denies a mechanism. It just describes intent and a time frame.

Yeah, and intent and a time frame are sufficient for splitting the idea!

Could not a God who makes things go *poof* not also work evolution much faster than 'nature' ever could (i.e. Could God not make all the animals through a mechanism of evolution at 'Godspeed'?). But that's all theological arguement in my mind anyways.

Well, it could have scientific implications! The reason many of those who believe we have divine origin reject 6 day creationism is precisely because of science. The reason many reject evolution is because of theology.

 

[Taras Bulba]

I think you guys are missing the point of religion (if there is anything that I missed you'd REALLY like me to respond to, please ask me again and I'll try my best to answer).
Religion is based on Faith. Faith is believing without seeing. Without literally having that tangible evidence. That's the whole point of faith. (this doesn't mean that you can just say "I believe" and go to heavan)
If I were to give you some crazy mathematical equation you couldn't solve, and I told you the answer is "x" and then I solved the problem out slowly for you and showed you step by step what exactly needs to be done, what would be the point of having that problem? There'd be no point. That's how religion works. If God said "this is EXACTLY how everything works, and what you need to do (this plan sounds familiar to me....) there'd be no point in coming here if we wouldn't have any choice in what we do.

Now if a religion were true, it would have scientific applications. Mainly because there would be a really smart dude you could ask questions to.

I didn't know that's how scientists did it

 

[GoodGame]

Actually the faith aspect of religious belief is quite clear to us, and not really relevant at this point. We're more discussing how religion is misappropriated into scientific discussions.

 

[El_Machinae]

I didn't know that's how scientists did it

Most breakthroughs are done through the rigorous testing of a theory proposed by someone who really stood out. 99% of the time, a really smart dude looks at the data, thinks of a theory, and then tests it enough to convince masses of other people to test it too.

Having access to a really smart dude (or even an all-knowing dude) would make science much easier.

 

[Taras Bulba]

Actually the faith aspect of religious belief is quite clear to us, and not really relevant at this point. We're more discussing how religion is misappropriated into scientific discussions.

well I was wondering, as you guys kept asking questions that aren't necessarily answerable, or why I believe them. Because it takes (and I have) faith.

Most breakthroughs are done through the rigorous testing of a theory proposed by someone who really stood out. 99% of the time, a really smart dude looks at the data, thinks of a theory, and then tests it enough to convince masses of other people to test it too.

Having access to a really smart dude (or even an all-knowing dude) would make science much easier.

I'm just teasin' I know what you meant

 

[Birdjaguar]

Most breakthroughs are done through the rigorous testing of a theory proposed by someone who really stood out. 99% of the time, a really smart dude looks at the data, thinks of a theory, and then tests it enough to convince masses of other people to test it too.

Having access to a really smart dude (or even an all-knowing dude) would make science much easier.

So what if this really smart (or all knowing) dude presented a theory that either could not be tested or contradicted what was generally accepted? Do you then question his "smartitude"? Dismiss his theory until he proves it? or Question your assumptions?

 

[GoodGame]

So what if this really smart (or all knowing) dude presented a theory that either could not be tested or contradicted what was generally accepted? Do you then question his "smartitude"? Dismiss his theory until he proves it? or Question your assumptions?

It'd still be a hypothesis until tested, not a theory; An open mind can hold conflicting, but reasonable hypotheses. If validation of the original hypothesis required empirical data that couldn't be gotten with the current technology, then it'd remain a hypothesis. A null hypothesis version that produced contrary data might weaken or modify the original hypothesis, but people with open minds would still consider everything until there exists a theory that is strongly* validated.

It'd be a matter of pragmatic choice (e.g. test the easiest ones first? test the better funded ones first?) as to which of your pool of hypotheses to test, but fruitless to assume any are wrong without testing.


*some subjectivity there, there might be controversy, lack of consensus,etc.. on how well validated the theory was.

 

[Aramazd]

So what if this really smart (or all knowing) dude presented a theory that either could not be tested or contradicted what was generally accepted? Do you then question his "smartitude"? Dismiss his theory until he proves it? or Question your assumptions?

You look for a way to test/contradict it.

 

[El_Machinae]

We saw that happen with both the Theory of Relativity and String Theory. Einstein was shown to be 'mostly correct' much after he proposed his theory. And we basically pat String Theorists on the head these days, until they give us something useful

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I see a mistake in this line of thinking. It's treating the history and evolution of life on Earth as a number line. It starts at 0 and goes off to the right, through billions of years and billions of generations, and all creatures currently alive are on the very right edge of the line.

But 'the first' cell (which I don't really think ever actually existed - someone mentioned earlier that it's more likely that life started trillions of times before the DNA model supplanted everything else) is already very far removed from inanimate matter. In order to have a cell, there have to be replicating molecules that not only record the necessary instructions to make more instructions, but also the mechanisms to make the containers they're held in. The self-replicating molecules are a step to the left of the cell, and all the traditional machinery found in prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and archaea.

I don't see how one can draw a divisive line and say to the left the matter is inanimate, and to the right it is alive. Shades of gray seems to be a more useful way to think about it. After all, are Viruses alive?

Are Prions?

I deliberately started with the one cell for three reasons, 1. I'm no biologist 2. to avoid the question: how did this cell came to be and 3. it was not really relevant to the rest of my post.

Evolution deals with the way life develops, not the way life came to be.

 

[GoodGame]

I think if you reason from a first cell, it's more assuming some third idea, like panspermia or a Intelligent Design kind of creationism (e.g. a creationist who feels evolution began after a ID force laid down the first cells).

I agree with Peter, El Mach, et al, that a more skepticist-proof line of reasoning has to start from the organic soup (e.g. Miller-Urey) and work it's way up to cells.

 

[Taras Bulba]

It is exactly because religion equires faith, that it should not be used as a scientific argument. Science is about finding explanations for how reality behaves and amassing evidence that this is the only way in which reality can behave. Saying that things behave in a certain way because "I have faith that it does" is the exact opposite of science. And that is what creationists say when they dont believe in evolution because the bible says different. It requires faith to believe the bible, and vastly less to believe evolution.

I never said religion and science where one in the same, I stated that they do not contradict each other and that they go hand in hand, not that they work the same way.