Creationism vs. Evolution : Boring !

Everything is evolving whether we argue about it or not . It is metaphysical folly to spend much time on this issue . However from a social standpoint this debate is shaping our educational and political system . I would like to throw my own monkey wrench into the gears . So , IMHO if it is to be required to teach creation "science" alongside Darwinian theory in our public schools then all creation myths should be offered as equally viable theories . At least those representitive of American society . In Arizona and New Mexico Hopi and Navajo creation stories should be offered alongside the Genesis account . The many , many Hindu stories and all the African tales . The Japanese Sunami origins and the Aztec . Prechristian Northern European and the Greek . Chinese and Inuit . After all , they are not trying to establish Christian faith as the official US doctrine are they ? So , those who are just trying to have an honest debate between comparable theories would not mind if other voices had equal time .

But the creation theory does give a simple answer to an age old question:

Q: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
A: The rooster, of course !

You called it Darwinian THEORY, which is the key piece IMO. Many teach it as absolute fact.

Anytime anyone says something is "settled science" or scientific fact, they are just trying to shut off a debate because they can't win it.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SETTLED SCIENCE!!! Big complicated science is seldom proven, only a theory supported by observation.

wayne stephen wrote:Everything is evolving whether we argue about it or not . It is metaphysical folly to spend much time on this issue . However from a social standpoint this debate is shaping our educational and political system . I would like to throw my own monkey wrench into the gears . So , IMHO if it is to be required to teach creation "science" alongside Darwinian theory in our public schools then all creation myths should be offered as equally viable theories . At least those representitive of American society . In Arizona and New Mexico Hopi and Navajo creation stories should be offered alongside the Genesis account . The many , many Hindu stories and all the African tales . The Japanese Sunami origins and the Aztec . Prechristian Northern European and the Greek . Chinese and Inuit . After all , they are not trying to establish Christian faith as the official US doctrine are they ? So , those who are just trying to have an honest debate between comparable theories would not mind if other voices had equal time .

I agree. evolution as the form of creation belongs with all these other theories. Evolution as creation, just like all the rest, is a matter of faith. Evolution does as you say happen all the time, we even evolve as we grow older, our DNA changes with age. It not only wears out, but tries to correct for things it finds in its environment. This is also called breading by some people. However, there seem to be some well established limits to how far afield these genetic changes go. We as people with a reasonably good understanding of genetics still have to work pretty hard to come up with something new, but that is not evolution, it is creation. We have not been able to present the right environment to living creatures (sorry for the use of the word) and have them spontaneously evolve to a different kind. That is we may be able to get a different dog with the right environment, but getting a non-dog from dog parents doesn't seem to happen. Even at the fringes of "dog-ness", reproduction and will to live seems to suffer. A small distinction perhaps, but there anyway. The truth is none of us were there, or even close. Anything we believe about our origins is by faith. "Science" is expensive, really expensive. I have not experienced any real science in my life as it seems a science is "done" by someone paid to find a particular view already held.

I have read through a biology book that often uses the word evolution right after several paragraphs that would actually speak well of some kind of creation, as if the line about evolution was added just to make the book salable. The incredible coincidences required to make life at all is amazing. Numerically, the odds against life happening are very great. If we were to look at it in terms of a lottery, the players would have been crying "Fixed" long ago. That is it seems that even if one has the evolution faith, it must be a guided evolution.... or a type of creation.

Again faith. Teaching any faith as a science is wrong, including evolution. Faith is faith and science is science.

Anyone is welcome to their own faith, and as far as I can tell, everyone's faith is a little different anyway. The only thing I ask, is that none of them (including my own) get forced on others. In other words, neither evolution or creationism should be taught in schools, unless they are taught as faiths and understood as such (even the word theory is questionable in evolution any more). In such cases they should be equal and the student should be expected to do their own search for truth in their life with no hint of what the teacher actually believes.

John Polk wrote:But the creation theory does give a simple answer to an age old question:

Q: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
A: The rooster, of course !

Eggs predate chickens by hundreds of millions of years. Or about 5000 years, if you're in that camp.

OK , Perhaps my phrasing is too vague .

R Scott - The key words are science and theory . Once a theory has enough factual data to support it , more or less it is considered true .

Len Ovens - I was in no way hinting that Darwinism belongs in a category equal to faith based beliefs . Darwinism is not a faith based sysytem . It is science .

My intention with this post was to discuss a political tactic to those communities who have to cope with Christian Creationists imposing their belief system into public school curricullums . My intention here is to discuss a way to at least neutralize the argument that Creationism is equal to Darwinism as science . I believe this tactic would work at the Supreme court level .

So , If the first chapter of Genesis is equal to "The Origin of Species" as science then so is the Greek:In the beginning was Chaos. Then came Earth which produced Sky. Covering Earth each night, Sky fathered children upon her. Earth was personified as Gaia/Terra and sky was Ouranos.
So is the Norse : There was only a chasm, Ginnungagap, in the beginning bounded on either side by fire and ice. When fire and ice met, they combined to form a giant, named Ymir, and a cow, named Audhumbla, to nourish Ymir. She survived by licking the salty ice blocks. From her licking emerged Bur, the grandfather of the Aesir.
So are the many stories in the Rig Veda , such as this : Before the divine pair of Earth and Sky, who created the gods, was another god, Tvastr, the "first fashioner". He created Earth and Sky, as a dwelling place, and many other things. Tvastr was a universal impregnator who made other things reproduce .

I am stating that we should insist on all these other myths to be taught along side the Genesis myth . That insistence will unveil the true intention of teaching Creationism in the Public Schools . That intention is to create an official state religion . Insist that the Inuit Creation story be taught as creation science in the public schools and you will see how open and fair this public debate really is .

Raven made the world and the waters with beats of his wings.He had the powers of both a man and bird, and could change from one to the other simply by pulling his bead above his head as one lifts up a mask.His earth was dark and silent. He had created water and mountains, and had filled the land with growing pea-pod plants.After five days, one of the pea-pods burst open; out popped a fully-grown man, the first to walk on Raven’s new earth.
{ I like this one . We are legumes . Pod People !}

wayne stephen wrote:
I am stating that we should insist on all these other myths to be taught along side the Genesis myth . That insistence will unveil the true intention of teaching Creationism in the Public Schools . That intention is to create an official state religion . Insist that the Inuit Creation story be taught as creation science in the public schools and you will see how open and fair this public debate really is .

I agree with this completely.

wayne stephen wrote:OK , Perhaps my phrasing is too vague .


Len Ovens - I was in no way hinting that Darwinism belongs in a category equal to faith based beliefs . Darwinism is not a faith based sysytem . It is science .

No, it is faith based, you are strong in the faith. None of the people who profess Darwinism were there. The science is very far from complete to give Darwinism any credence. I was mostly saying starting such a topic is just a way to argue without going anywhere. I see the word science in Darwinism much like I see the phrase "clinically proven" on many products such as snake oil.

I am perhaps stating that I agree with the original idea of not discussing religion (darwinism included). True believers will never give up whatever their position is.

Evolution is science because it is provable and you can replicate it. I've seen junior high school science projects showing the evolution of bacteria resistant germs. If you can replicate it, it's science.

Len Ovens wrote: No, it is faith based, you are strong in the faith. None of the people who profess Darwinism were there. The science is very far from complete to give Darwinism any credence.

That is pretty much the point of science - it is never complete, there is always more evidence that can be collected to support or refute and idea or theory. However, for an idea to be accepted into the scientific mainstream it must have huge amounts of evidence and relevant experiments must repeatable. Even one piece of evidence refuting it would be sufficient to cause a true scientist to review their position - provided that evidence is testable/repeatable.

To say that a scientist is taking a faith based position is grossely misleading - from a scientific perspective I could say that "the theory which is best supported by the evidence is...". I don't claim to have full understanding of every single step of through the history of evolution, there are many missing links and it is likely that those links will never be filled. However that doesn't weaken evolution's position as the theory which best fits the evidence (historical record, study of living animals, variations in genomes between species, forced evolution of bacteria in the lab).

As a creationist I don't have any evidence to support my position, bar belief in the veracity of an ancient text which is full of contradictions (both internal and with other creation myths from other cultures).

True believers will never give up whatever their position is.

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” - Carl Sagan

Here's a "not boring" thought. Creationism itself has evolved!

First a woman gave birth to the world. Then, a male & female god had sex and created the world. Then, a male god (Egyptian -Ptah) creates the world through an act of masturbation. Then, the god of my ancestors speaks the world into existence (boy, do we like to talk!)

this is an excellent idea, i think this is totally right. either all spirituality should be avoided as a part of schools cirriculum, or they should teach each of these widely varied creation stories.
i especially think the native american creation stories should be included, not just included but highlighted, due to their being a major part of the real history of this particular land.
lots of trickster crow stories!

Raven made the world and the waters with beats of his wings.He had the powers of both a man and bird, and could change from one to the other simply by pulling his bead above his head as one lifts up a mask.His earth was dark and silent. He had created water and mountains, and had filled the land with growing pea-pod plants.After five days, one of the pea-pods burst open; out popped a fully-grown man, the first to walk on Raven’s new earth.
{ I like this one . We are legumes . Pod People !}

i like this one too.

another, much darker, by a tortured poet

"When God, disgusted with man, Turned towards heaven, And man, disgusted with God, Turned towards Eve, Things looked like falling apart.
But Crow Crow Crow nailed them together, Nailing heaven and earth together- So man cried, but with God’s voice. And God bled, but with man’s blood.
Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint Which became gangrenous and stank- A horror beyond redemption. The agony did not diminish. Man could not be man nor God God. The agony Grew. Crow Grinned Crying: “This is my Creation",
Flying the black flag of himself."

~ Ted Hughes

If you have an hour and like to watch people talk, this is a good one.

Cj Verde wrote:Evolution is science because it is provable and you can replicate it. I've seen junior high school science projects showing the evolution of bacteria resistant germs. If you can replicate it, it's science.

I think you're confusing evolution with adaptation. Evolution remains a theory because in 150 years nobody has ever observed, or created a spontaneous genetic mutation resulting in a new and beneficial trait that is passed on to it's offspring. And it's not from a lack of trying.

The theory of evolution remains a theory for many serious reasons.

first, it directly contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. We are losing species at a predictable rate, and yet there has never been observed an emergence of a species, even in the lab (experiments with insects, bacteria, and viruses have been running for decades exactly for this purpose).

Actually, the advent of genetic science has pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of evolutionary theory IMO. It has been found that DNA does adhere to the laws of thermodynamics. And information held within DNA degrades with successive replications.

The science of genetics predicts that a new species can never emerge from an existing species. I'm not talking about "micro evolution" here where an animal can exhibit variation within it's animal kind.

Genetic science has shown that DNA contains redundant error correction built-in to ensure that the effect of thermodynamics is minimised during replication (it catches and corrects mutation).

It also violates the law of information systems, in which it states that information always has a source. It can not spontaneously emerge from randomness.
It also violates the principle of irreducible complexity (an organism is only as complex as is necessary - no spare parts). For a species to spontaneously emerge, multiple mutations must exist at the same time that violate this.

The time needed to obtain just 6 simultaneous mutations to produce 1 beneficial function within a cell has been calculated to be on the order of 16 billion years - which puts it in the ballpark age of the universe. It is estimated that on the order of 1 trillion simultaneous mutations are needed to transform a bacteria cell to an earth worm cell.

Natural selection is in direct opposition to evolution. This isn't my opinion. It is the position of science. If we have two cows, one with short hair and the other with long hair, and we get a bitterly cold winter... The short haired cow freezes and the long haired cow survives. The amount of genetic information available for cows just reduced (according to the laws of thermodynamics), and the species just became less variable, not more.

The fossil record indicates the opposite of evolution is happening.

When Darwin proposed his theory, the cell was considered to be about as complex as a tennis ball. We now know this is totally not the case. We now know that for life as we know it to exist, we need DNA. DNA is an incredible complex molecule and we have never observed it to spontaneously form in any way other than by replication of an existing molecule.

A computer operating system is massively less complex than the simplest life form. Does it make any sense that if we introduced random code into windows 8, that we will eventually end up with Mac OS X without the system crashing at any point in between?

Interestingly, the first indication for Darwinian evolution having serious problems became apparent with Mendel's laws of genetics which were formalised at about the same time. They state that for a specific trait to be expressed, it must be coded for by both parents. This means that not only does a number of random mutations have to occur within a DNA strand at the same time (which manage to bypass the redundancy error correction), but exactly the same mutations have to occur at the same time, in another set of identical DNA. Statistical mathematics has been used to calculate the probabilities required to support evolution exceed the statistical definition of impossibility (1 in 10^50).

Science has moved past the theory of evolution. As usual, it will take the general population to come to terms with that.

What I find frustrating is that schools teach this theory as if it were a fact (or law), when it's no longer taken all that seriously. The only reason why such a myth still lingers is because there has been no success in over 150 years to explain how we all got here, while at the same time excluding supernatural means, and adhering to the established laws of physics, genetics, mathematics, and information theory.

In short, how we got here is a wondrous mystery of the ages that we rob our children of in an attempt to seem like we know it all. Once again, reductionist science is attempting to find a one step solution to a seven step problem.

Here is some math:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1--tP49mOoE

There is no way (using the mathematical definition of impossible) that random chance can give rise to what we see today. The probability of having a single usable protein spontaneously emerge is equivalent to finding one specific elementary particle in a universe roughly the size where our own universe represents 1 elementary particle. 1 in 10^150 is completely, insanely impossible even compared to the mathematical definition of impossible (1 in 10^50).

It is no flippant remark at all to conclude that some intelligence is behind everything. What that might be exactly is a totally different subject but at the very least, our education systems should acknowledge this.

What makes so many people very uncomfortable is the fact that if there is an intelligence behind our existence, then there is a real mathematical probability that we will at some point be answerable for our own choices and actions, and the world we live in does not necessarily belong to us to do with as we please. We now find ourselves deep in the fields of philosophy and meta-physics, facing questions about why we seem so fixated on the creation, while wilfully ignoring the creator.

horizontal gene transfer between species

Evidence turning up that genes transfer from species to species much more readily than we might expect. Sexual reproduction is not the only source of gene transfer and frequent 'reshuffling' the DNA deck can possibly generate speciation events.

Nick Kitchener wrote:

Cj Verde wrote:Evolution is science because it is provable and you can replicate it. I've seen junior high school science projects showing the evolution of bacteria resistant germs. If you can replicate it, it's science.

I think you're confusing evolution with adaptation.
...

Perhaps I am. I know that I really don't want to get a bacteria that is has evolved or adapted to resist anti-biotics!

Nick Kitchener wrote:
It also violates the law of information systems, in which it states that information always has a source. It can not spontaneously emerge from randomness.

According to wikipedia, the Laws_of_information_systems are not really laws. I'm OK with evolution violating "a collection of observations and generalizations."

Nick Kitchener wrote:
Natural selection is in direct opposition to evolution. This isn't my opinion. It is the position of science. If we have two cows, one with short hair and the other with long hair, and we get a bitterly cold winter... The short haired cow freezes and the long haired cow survives. The amount of genetic information available for cows just reduced (according to the laws of thermodynamics), and the species just became less variable, not more.

I guess I just don't understand this.
Hasn't nature "selected" the long haired cow? Again, according to wikipedia, "it [natural selection] is a key mechanism of evolution."

Also, it doesn't seem that the genetic information has been reduced. The micro-evolution that takes place everyday, everywhere suggests that the info is still there though I'm assuming you mean two cows that are related. My Belted Galloways have extremely long hair, yet the herd they come from had short hair. I imagine that under certain circumstances, their descendents would revert to short hair.

I don't understand the exact mechanism, but there seems to be plenty of genetic variability.

Christopher Hitchens laid this issue to rest several years ago. Here he is, returned from the dead in a more real sense than could possibly have happened when most religions were born. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxjOG0uYSWY

I generally hear about design from the Christian camp. It is said that this particular god did it all. For this story to be true, the others must be false. I know many soft Atheists who do the same as many soft Christians and say that all religions and points of view should be respected equally. Well, either these conflicting stories are true or they are not. Once I determine that I've been lied to, there is no reason for me to respect the story or to trust the purveyors of that story. They've lost credibility. I don't hold it against them personally. For many, it is well compartmentalized. I would still go to a dentist who believes in ghosts, but I wouldn't let him watch the kids, for fear of having them scared by fantastic stories of human sacrifice, zombies or the end of the world.

CJ: the mechanism you're looking for could be Epigenetics. Here's a quick explanation.

So I went off to feed my long haired [beef] cows and started thinking Fractal Adaptive Cycles in Natural and Human Systems. They "evolve" & get more complex and then finally collapse. It's a pretty big permaculture concept & I don't think it violates the laws of thermodynamics:


The beef cows got me thinking about milk and I started to wonder about humans developing the ability to digest lactose (after weaning). Adaptation or evolution?

Nick Kitchener wrote:Evolution remains a theory because in 150 years nobody has ever observed, or created a spontaneous genetic mutation resulting in a new and beneficial trait that is passed on to it's offspring. And it's not from a lack of trying.

According to this it is due to a mutation passed on to offspring so ...evolution? Check this out!

...research into the evolutionary origins of lactose tolerance has already clearly illuminated some fascinating aspects of human evolutionary history. Perhaps most intriguingly, the convergent evolution of African and European populations in relation to cattle domestication reveals that shared aspects of human culture across different ethnic groups affects our evolution in similar ways. Regardless of skin color or geography — whether dealing with Stone Age Europeans, Swiss milk maids, Maasai warriors, or modern hunter-gatherers — evolution plays by the same rules.

Neat!

Hi Nick
Thanks for your post
I enjoyed that last paragraph best of all.

What makes so many people very uncomfortable is the fact that if there is an intelligence behind our existence, then there is a real mathematical probability that we will at some point be answerable for our own choices and actions, and the world we live in does not necessarily belong to us to do with as we please. We now find ourselves deep in the fields of philosophy and meta-physics, facing questions about why we seem so fixated on the creation, while wilfully ignoring the creator.

Does your belief in a creator make you uncomfortable? If I don't believe in a creator then I don't feel guilty . Mmmmmmm I think this is a circular argument . If you have faith then you have faith and believe . The argument about intelligent design you eloquently
presuppose allows for evolution but calls it adaption.
There fore it's really a self defeating argument.
Unfortunately I don't have time to go through your
other paragraphs at the moment but I hope others do in the mean time

Oh and evolution is a theory not a myth no gods are involved Wow I had an idea maybe they evolve too ......
Look how the God of creation became the war god of the Isrealites coming out of the desert to smite the Cananites and later in became the God of Jesus , the God of brotherly love . Jjust a thought

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:CJ: the mechanism you're looking for could be Epigenetics. Here's a quick explanation.

That was awesome! I mostly kept a straight face, getting my info from a hipster it was a little tricky.

David Livingston wrote: Wow I had an idea maybe they evolve too ......
Look how the God of creation became the war god of the Isrealites coming out of the desert to smite the Cananites and later in became the God of Jesus , the God of brotherly love . Jjust a thought

You must have missed my post - I covered this:

First a woman gave birth to the world. Then, a male & female god had sex and created the world. Then, a male god (Egyptian -Ptah) creates the world through an act of masturbation. Then, the god of my ancestors speaks the world into existence (boy, do we like to talk!)

Maybe you got it subliminally.

Maybe

I should not have assumed the person was speaking from a Biblical stand point although I am willing bet he he is

David

Hi Nick
I now have the time to reply to your statement that evolution contradicts the laws of thermodynamics .
I really enjoyed this argument you made above as I had not heard it before and it took me back a bit until I thought it out . Basically thermodynamic laws apply to closed systems where no energy goes in or out . You are assuming that the whole earth is one such system . If this were true i would have to admit you have a valid argument and to book myself into the nearest church /mosque /synagogue for instruction
But the earth is not such a closed system every day the sun pours huge amounts on energy in the form of sunlight onto the earth. When the entropy effects on the sun are taken into account then evolution on earth does not contradict any of the laws of thermodynamics .
Thanks for giving my brain a workout.

David

I'm going to throw another monkey wrench into this discussion. Life may not be as improbable as we imagine because carbon could be unnecessary, as Lee Cronin describes:


But, wait! *as any good salesmen* There are more monkey wrenches to throw into the collective works!

The Universe is like as free meal (Michio Kaku):


Could there really be no beginning? (Minute Physics):

^^^interesting videos ^^^

i like the space bubble bath ideas =)
i think he's onto something big and true there, smart guy.
actually i think it sounds like a lot of mystical ideas from ancient texts and such. the old religions, or rather more spiritual less dogmatic kind of paths.

i think that these kinds of spiritual ideas are much more appealing and closely related to modern science, although many science oriented folks might not consider them and be sort of automatically opposed to them without really understanding them because they have gotten so turned off by religions due to the dominant ones.

to me , i think of similar things as "the bottomless beggar's bowl of the buddha". we all live in the blessing of the infinitely bottomless cup of true abundance, that rains down freely on our undeserving sorry selves, regardless of being worthy or unworthy..in this, life is a gift, the gift has already been given...tho the universe does give some pretty crappy gifts at times! but not always, the gift and freely sharing nature of the universe is readily apparent, if you cannot see it you are not looking at it correctly.

this is all obviously contrary to the dominant paradigms of our time, tho hoping that these paradigms are fundamentally shifting.

Hi folks, interesting thread. Quite a few misconceptions coming up over and over again. It's worth pointing out that evolution itself is not considered a "theory" - it's an established fact; it happens and it has happened in the past, and humans and other life forms are linked. This is considered settled. The *Theory* of Evolution refers (in the same sense as the Theory of Gravity or the Theory of Relativity) to the conceptual body of knowlegdge and data that underpin our understanding of how evolution occurs now and has occurred in the past. Adaptation and evolution are the same thing - what some people call "macroevolution" is simply "microevolution" that has been going on for longer. As for epigenetics, this is of minimal importance to evolution - effectively it is another mechanism of gene regulation that in a couple of cases can be transgenerational (but not persistent enough to be that important).

As for "irreducible complexity", this is not a barrier to evolution, nor is the "information problem" - the source of information being written into genomes is the environment, and the mechanism for writing that information is natural selection (that was Darwin's key insight). There is a group in the US called the Discovery Institute who have been trying to push "Intelligent Design" as a part of a creationist agenda, but their arguments have been roundly trounced by the scientific community, including by scientists who are themselves religious. Christians such as Ken Miller and Francis Collins have been very prominent in showig that evolutionary theory is perfectly compatible with religious belief.

I guess the bottom line is that there is no reason why Christians, Jews, Muslims or others should feel they can't accept the findings of evolutionary science - I have many religious friends working in the field of genetics, and they have no problem with it; indeed, they are valued colleagues making real contributions to science. Another friend of mine who is an Anglican minister has been very vocal in his criticism of creationism and indeed wrote an article entitled "rescuing Genesis from the Creationists".

Is there a Permaculture angle to all this? Yes there is! Organisms are not static, but the genepool of a species will shift towards what "works best" within its niche (it's a bit more complex than this of course); an understanding of how evolution works can therefore be very useful to the permaculturist trying to design systems where the different elements contribute to a whole. And given that life has been trucking along abundantly on this rock for several billion years, it should be a demonstration in itself that great things can happen with a very light or indeed absent touch