Creation and Evolution

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As I have said already, the scientific method is incompatible with complete certainty. No theory is unassailable. You could disprove any scientific law tomorrow, by simply coming up with something that explains the facts better. This has already happened, with the disproval of the luminiferous ether or the theory of plate tectonics. Archaeology is no exception, and your declaration that it is different from other sciences seems arbitary.

It's not a case of "completely eliminate all possible doubt, only then will it be right", it's a case of "this theory explains the evidence we have best, so we'll work from this till a better theory comes along or evidence comes to light that casts doubt on it".

I see no problems with stages 4-6, despite the contempt you apparently feel for them.

Stage 4: Natural selection is not driven by "competition" for survival with other creatures, simply adaptation to the environment (which will usually but not always include a predator / prey factor).

Stage 5: We have organisms existing in all degrees of complexity, all the way down to where the barrier between living and unliving breaks down (such as viruses, or stromatolites). While the initial creation of life is hugely unlikely, nobody was counting all the false starts.

Stage 6: It is the logical conclusion--again, until new evidence is discovered that suggests otherwise. It may not be as romantic as being the chosen of an omnipotent being, but it should still be investigated to avoid intellectual dishonesty. This does not exclude God from the equation, as He could simply have set the universe in motion, knowing that it's running would result in us after a long time.



You are aware that not everybody who advocates evolution as a theory is humanist? Indeed, you seem to be a bit confused about whether humanism is a religion, given that you use the phrase "atheist genesis", then turn around and state humanism is a religion. But plently of scientists are atheist, agnostic or followers of one of the theistic religions.

The theory is not incompatible with Christianity. For example, it is possible that the "seven days" of Genesis did not refer to the universe being created in that timespan, but rather God showing the author a different part of creation on successive days. Or it could be a metaphor, dramatic license, bad translation or many other things.

You seem to have the assumption that this is two competing religions. It's not--it's a process of human thought that has nothing to do with religious faith in something that cannot be proven or disproven. Also, you're putting the cart before the horse--it wasn't a case of "we need to make this be true, so let's come up with a nice story", but of "we have this evidence of early life, what theory would best explain it"?

Nah. It's just...if not evolution, damned if I know how life could have got here. It had to come from somewhere, and it doesn't look much like it's always been around. Logically, it would be easier for a simpler form to arise from normal organic chemistry, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to assume that our genome is a constant. Now, you'd imagine most of these original self-replicating thingies would have eventually boiled back into that primordial goo, but, as we learned in chemistry, atoms often form molecules as an energy sink. Such a self-replicating mechanism would have functioned excellently as such an energy sink and provided balance for a system. Though each replication would be prone to fault and circumstance, redundancy is an excellent device for offsetting error. All this would require would be a high enough energy input to allow for rapid replication. Though this doesn't foster increasing complexity under constant conditions, there's nothing saying they would have been. In fact, a more complex molecule with a higher level of internal redundancy may be more resilient and adaptable, thus it would find its way into other systems. All that digesting the basic concept of evolution would require, then, would be extrapolating this process into multifarious adaptations. It's really not all that fancy.

I'd like to contest the proclamation that the conception of life would necessarily be "unlikely." Complex organic molecules form all the time as energy sinks, and this would happen far more often without the intervention of lifeforms that can assimilate these molecules into themselves. Many of them even "simulate" reproduction. You wouldn't start with a proper self-replicating thingamajig, look you. You'd start off with short life feedback loops that would generate the conditions that would be required for further sophistication. You wouldn't see this happen again, though, because these precursor molecules would keep getting eaten or otherwise disturbed. Life is messy. In a world without life, however, it would be logical to assume that systems that would otherwise be likely to be disturbed or destroyed would be much more abundant.

sounds like every judeo-islamo-christian text.

Evolutions 4,5 and 6 are speculations. They have nothing to do with science. The way teachers and text books present this sort of thing as facts rather than as speculation is motivated by more than laziness or ignorance. The court battles against any other speculation shows something bigger is at stake. I posit that it is a religion, jealously defending its existence. Humanism.

To preemptively answer skafather, my Christian faith is based upon Jesus Christ, the New Testament and the signs & wonders that truly follow. Jesus respected the old testament and therefore, so do I -- on that basis.

For your fourth point, it is a common misconception that evolution will always make life more complex. Creatures will "devolve", if the circumstances of a population make a trait a disadvantage for long enough. Snakes have lost their legs, moles have lost their eyesight, several species of bird have lost their capacity for flight. The theory of natural selection rewards the best-adapted creature, not the most complex. Indeed, "complexity" is a somewhat arbitary term. Humans are less complex in many areas than other animals.

On the fifth point, I have already cited life-forms that blur the lines between living and unliving.

I completely agree the sixth point is supposition, but as I have been saying, it is a supposition which is supported by all the existing evidence, where no better theories exist to explain the same evidence. So by the scientific standard that is applied to every theory, it is true, though it could certainly be disproved in the future. Many other theories have been founded on less evidence in other areas (such as in astronomy or quantum physics).



Or maybe it proves that some people dislike a highly specific view of the origins of life being pushed upon children (And it's nearly always Christian creationism--I've yet to see a creationist who would give equal time to the world being created from the corpse of the frost giant Ymir, or from Pangu pushing apart the earth and sky). Creationism or "intelligent design" is an attitude of wilful ignorance with some truly absurd leaps in logic, such as Satan creating dinosaur bones to test the faith of mankind. Teach the story of Genesis by all means, just keep it out of the science classes.



You keep saying this as if it's a proven fact, but never produce any evidence for this epic Humanist conspiracy to decieve the world in order to accomplish...something or other. Many scientists in all fields, historical and modern, have been strongly religious in areas other than humanism. Indeed, look up Gregor Mendel, also known as the "father of modern genetics", whose work in breeding pea plants was critical in filling in gaps in Darwin's theory of natural selection. He was an Augustinian monk.

No, you're just overcomplicating the matter.

4: Your perception of this is a bit slanted. All that is assumed is that more sophisticated organisms will have opportunities to arise. It isn't necessarily assumed that the more sophisticated organism is "better." It just happens that, over the millions of years since the origin of life, sophisticated organisms have consistently managed to remain entrenched long enough to allow for further sophistication to take place, eventually allowing for nifty, little gadgets like us.

5: Actually, it's a truism that it's only possible for us to speculate as to how life truly began. This is generally accepted by scientists. For all we know, life could have originated in the excrement of an alien visitor. However, the simplest thus most accepted assumption is that the earliest living things were simply sophisticated organic compounds.

6: Cosmology is a bit of a different subject.

Regarding 5. As someone once said 'There's a reason old earth sayings become old - it's because they are true.'

Dude, I'm an aspie, so give me a break. Spell it out.

Evolutions 4, 5 and 6 are not subject to being "repeatable, isolatable and verifiable". That is the scientific method.

For instance carbon 14 dating beyond the last catastophe shows the world is old. Why? Because the radioisotopes landed on the planet at a rate that can be projected out as being old. How do we know how fast the carbon 14 landed on the planet? Because the world is old. That's faith, not fact. The carbon 14's descent is not repeatable, isolatable or verifiable.

If you are not sure (as all true scientists admit) then have the Aspergers honesty to admit it, even if there are other, competing alternatives. Especially to impressionable school children; you don't want to stifle their curiosity. They might come up with a better answer.

This is priceless. Still ALL of science is based upon some fundamental faiths. In this case, it is that the measurable rate is assumed to be similar to what would have occurred in the past. Reasonable? Maybe, maybe not. But, there HAVE to be assumptions. One could do as the medievals did, and take God as one of those, coming up with such instruments for the attack which is known as Occam's Razor.

I don't care much about "competing alternatives." It just isn't feasible for life to have burst into being, fully formed, and it isn't feasible for it to have developed over as short a timespan as you propose. Matter just doesn't do that.

Well, thinking about things in terms of evolution kind of sparked my own curiosity, and it fired up my imagination as well. I began envisioning alternative life forms on different planets, alien intelligence, et cetera. To me, it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. I also felt a deeper kinship with the other animals on the planet.

They're welcome to it. They're not going to take up the interest, though, if they aren't given the most current information on the topic.

By saying this, you're effectively denying the possibility of God on merely faith-based reasoning. I'm unimpressed.

Faith != Reason

(A joke for us Java people)

Last edited by Flagg on 10 Apr 2007, 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As someone who has spent far too much
time dealing with Java, I have to say that
I've never seen this construct used. Is it actually
legal to assign a test without an intermediate variable
in this way?

And I agree with the fact that faith IS NOT reason. However,
reasoning without faith is pointless. Try it sometime, without
cheating the way Descartes did. It gets one nowhere.

I believe it's the Uncompatible/Does not equal sign.

It's been a few months since I fiddled with Java so I may be rusty.

You're looking for:
!=

Then.