Subject:
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Re: Evolution vs Creationism
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 15 Jul 2002 21:34:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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6009 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> > It's just that one can bend the written word to fit the data.
>
> But then the creationist runs into a two-pronged problem:
>
> 1) if they're changing their "interpretation" of The Immutable Word,
> then how do they justify those changes within the context of
> The Immutable Word?
Apparently without a 2nd thought, sadly :( It still rather catches me by
suprise that the 1st instinct isn't "Oh! We might be wrong!" but is instead
"Oh! We must have misinterpreted!". The justification, BTW, is just that:
'Our former understanding was incorrect, our new one is right'. I'd 10 times
rather hear a Creationist say "Well, I still believe in Creationism with
this new 'twist' on it, but I have to admit I'm less confident in it than I
was before."
> 2) if they're changing their interpretation anyway, why bother with
> An Immutable Word in the first place? IE., why use Genesis at
> all, if you're just going to tweak it as much as necessary?
Well, obviously if *ANY* part of the Bible is false, some other part might
be false-- and if people can pick and choose what to believe and what not to
believe out of the Bible, then where would the religion be? Short answer
being that because they've got faith in certain things in the Bible (like
the morality that it sets forth, etc), they feel that they need faith in
*all* of it. Why come up with a new theory when you can tweak the old one
such that it still fits?
> And what happens when (as is often the case) observation simply refuses to
> correspond with Genesis-based prediction? When does the creationist say
> "you know, I was wrong!" As someone else pointed out, when Darwin put forth
> his theory of natural selection, Creationism was the wisdom of the day, yet
> the Darwin model of evolution won out over centuries-established dogma.
Different for everyone, I guess. Slowly but surely, as more and more
evidence has made its way into the public eye, more and more people are
abandoning Creationism...
> Of course, you might not be referring to the Genesis creation myth, but as
> I've said previously, my argument has focused on that particular myth and
> the existence of an infinite God/creator. Further, the entire push to
> establish old-school creationism (ie: Intelligent Design) in public schools
> is based on an overwhelmingly Xtian faith-base and is put forth almost
> exclusively by Xtians. That's not dismissing the idea based on its
> adherents, but in the context of this debate it's ridiculous to pretend that
> the underlying discussion isn't about evolution vs. Xtian creationism.
Well, yes it's ridiculous to assume that that's not the crux of the debate,
but I think Creationism in general is an issue-- IE I would support
Creationism in schools so long as they *ALSO* other flavors of Creationism,
including the theory that ++Lar created the universe, which has (I think)
equal scientific merit.
> > Hence, yes, SOME Creationist theories aren't falsifiable
> > because they're too loose. Some are. And my take on Biblical Creationism is
> > that it's falsifiable. But again, some people's take on Biblical Creationism
> > is flexible enough so as to withstand any falsifying evidence.
>
> Please provide an example of something from creationist "science" that has
> been confirmed to a high degree of verifiability via scientific means.
I think you're asking too much insofar as "high degree of verifiability",
but as far as actually "fitting the mold" of science, the "++Lar created the
universe" theory fits.
> After you've done that (which I don't think anyone can do), give me an
> example of a prediction made by creationist "science" that has been borne
> out by empirical observation (which I also don't think anyone can do.)
Falsifiable? Barely. "If ++Lar created the universe, a universe should
exist" Now, if the universe didn't exist, bingo! We've disproven the theory!
But a universe *does* exist, so the theory may yet hold. Actually, hey, the
"++Lar created the universe" theory may actually be *MORE* scientifically
plausible since we could also say "If ++Lar created the universe, ++Lar
should also exist", which we can also show to be highly likely (aka proven).
Utterly basic Creationism, however, won't let us touch whether or not the
Creator exists, so the ++Lar theory is scientifically more probable. "High
degree of verifiability"? Nope. At least not by my yardstick.
But compare to something which I think actually is *NOT* scientific such as:
"my aura is infinitely more holy than yours", since there's absolutely
*NOTHING* tangible about the theory-- therefore making it unscientific.
Ditto "God exists". 100% unscientific.
> And when you're giving those examples, please restrict yourself to answers
> that do not also confirm evolutionary theory, since those answers are better
> served by the theory that requires fewer huge assumptions (such as "there's
> this creator entity, see...")
And now the point surfaces that I'd be ever so eager to agree with you on.
The ++Lar theory may be technically scientific, but it sure as heck doesn't
invalidate Evolutionary theory, nor make for a better explanation.
> > And basic Creationism (IE an unspecific Creator(s) created the
> > universe, end of theory) actually has even less scientific value. I may
> > still argue that it has *some* scientific merit, though, as it's not a
> > disproven theory, and is nearly incapable of being such
>
> Tell me how it could be disproven; a theory that cannot be wrong has no
> value in being true.
Again, it's only various flavors of it that can be disproven. As we already
agreed, *strict* Biblical Creationism could be disproven if we found out
that creation took more than 6 days. *Looser* Biblical Creationism could be
disproven if we found out that, say, humans preceeded the Earth, or that
animals preceeded light, since the *order* specified in the Bible under a
'looser' interpretation would still need to hold true.
In the end though, a person is able to discount any evidence they're
presented with as being fraudulent, which means that Creationism as a theory
*ISN'T* falsifiable if you're not willing to accept certain things. But then
again, you could say the same thing for *any* scientific theory, such as
"the world is round". You can't PROVE it to me because I have the power to
deny any evidence you present me with as being intentionally created to
deceive me.
> Also, tell me how basic creationism could be verified with a high degree
> of certainty.
If suddenly the Creator made its presence known. Keep in mind, though, that
again, you or I might wish to deny the evidence presented to us by assuming
that we were delusional or some such.
> That's a truncation of my point, but essentially correct. You must recall
> that I've been working from the assumption of an infinite God as Creator, so
> in that case all bets are off. If we're talking about a non-infinite
> creator, then we can't really use Genesis, but that's okay--there are other
> "creationist" theories. Even then, I'll need you to present a few
> predictions based on creationist theory that can be tested.
Done and done. All hail ++Lar. :)
DaveE
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Evolution vs Creationism
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| (...) See my previous point that falsifiable theories that are proven false have no explanatory scientific value. This is the case with biblical creation. The "day-lengths" thing--to which you correctly refer as disproven--was by the way a classic (...) (22 years ago, 15-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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