Master's in Creationism

Could you please elucidate on your scientific credentials?

I and others in this debate, have some formal training in the natural sciences.

Could you please give your credentials?

Actually, Creationism DOES make predictions. The incomplete fossil record, inverted geological layers, and the limitations of mutations were ALL predictions made by Creationism, before they discovered.

They do not have "peer reviewed" papers, because no secular scientific publication will ALLOW their papers in, even if it is on a neutral subject. The minute you have a creationist label, you are essentially banned.

Likewise with government funding. You could have the cure for cancer, and need funding, but the minute you mention "God" all government funding would cease.

Kinda hard for the creationists to compete in that environment. However, they do have ongoing research projects.

http://www.icr.org/article/4564/

http://www.icr.org/article/new-rate-data-support-young-world/

FYI: they also offer to provide their scientific findings, in a "non dumbed down" format, for any scientist desiring to review their data. They also attempted to publish their findings in a peer reviewed publication. They were refused.

Also, several secular scientists have built on their discoveries. In particular, Russell Humphreys, "Starlight and Time", has been "springboarded" off of by secular scientists. (FYI, Dr. Humphreys HAS published in peer reviewed publications, by some miracle).

Anyway: your claims are just...false. In regards to the accusations you made at me above, NONE of what I have brought up here, was taught to me by ICR. The ICR program is one in which you are called to think critically about subjects...instead of just accepting peoples word on them.

This is one of the reasons, it is so obvious that Evolution is a religion. YOU have never done any experiments, Mr. Dark. YOU simply put your "faith" in atheist scientists. And you "fight with zeal" anyone who messes with your priests.

 

I'll agree with that. Just because scientific explanation doesn't make use of miracles and divine interventions, doesn't prove that miracles and divine interventions can never happen. Anything's possible, I guess. Science defines a smaller subset of possibility: possibilities that are consistent with observed natural processes and causation.

I think that most Christians believe some version of that. Certainly many evolutionists do. (It's false to dismiss all evolutionists as atheists. Some are, some aren't.)

There's quantum pair-production, virtual particles and such. But yeah, I do think that your point is a good one.

Science, evolution, and certainly biological evolution don't even really address what I think of as the ontological question-of-questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything exist?

Personally, to my thinking, religion can't really answer that question-of-questions either. Attributing everything to God doesn't suffice, since we would still have to account for God. Defining God as eternal and hence without a temporal origin doesn't successfully answer why there's an eternal God rather than nothing at all. Insisting that existence is part of God's essence seems to avoid the question rather than answering it. Why is there such a thing as existence?

Ultimately religion, along with science and philosophy, bangs its head up against the most basic of ontological conundrums and can't answer it. I'm not sure if our concept of 'explanation' even applies to it.

I'm more inclined to treat the Genesis story as cosmological myth, in just the same way that I treat similar myths produced by other ancient cultures. Calling them 'myth' doesnt mean that they aren't valuable or instructive. Mythology kind of embodies ancient people's philosophical and theological understandings in anthropomorphic narrative as opposed to abstract theoretical form. Myth can certainly have truth in that respect, even if we needn't accept it as literal historical fact.

But yeah, if we adopt a theory of creation that works both ways, a created temporality that extends into the past as well as into the future, then creation and evolution might well be made consistent. God might have chosen to create a universe in which phenomena have natural explantions that human beings can understand.

I see no reason to believe that myself, but I've heard of religious evolutionists who do believe similar things.

 

Great post...I think we have finally come to some level of agreement and understanding.

However, my point about something coming from nothing is more scientific in that we don't have scientific evidence of something coming from nothing. All true scientific evidence tells us that in order for something to be, it has to have either developed or spawned from something else or it had to be originally created from a creator.

If I never knew what a watch was and I happened to be walking through the woods one day and I stumbled upon a metal stopwatch amoung all of the leaves and dirt, my inclination would be to think that this thing did not just appear out of nowhere. This had to have been made by someone or something.

And an even deeper point is that in addition to me thinking that the stopwatch was made by someone, I would probably also think that it was made for a specific purpose because of the intricate design and craftsmanship...

This discussion has been very enriching...

 

So far an interesting discussion.
However I do disagree with the statements that "the universe came from nothing." The theories and hypotheses I'm familiar with all start with a source (either mass or energy, or both).

Changing topics slightly:
Do supporters of creationism agree with scientific theories and predictions of how the solar system and the universe will end?

 

Not sure what you are talking about with the end of the universe thing... A Christian creationist would probably refer to the book of Revelation when talking about the "end times" from a human perspective.

On your point about the universe coming from nothing. Ultimately whatever you choose to call it...mass, energy or both...essentially those things had to come from somewhere. Where did the mass and energy originate. That is the eternal question that, ultimately, no one can answer...

 

This is not part of the theory of evolution. This is all cosmology and physics and stuff.

And what are yours?

A certificate from a creationist organization doesn't impress. Neither do non-accredited online Christian colleges.

Incomplete fossil record because every animal that dies doesn't turn into a fossil.

Inverted geological layers - plate tectonics.

Limits of mutations - you haven't shown the limits

Because creationism isn't science!

Because if it was secular and worked it would get funding. If you're somehow using God to cure cancer, you wouldn't need funding.

Lots of things fail peer-review. That's why they have it.

Or just accept creationists ideas. You still haven't answered any of the questions I've asked.

Because I'm not a biologist. And I may be debating with zeal, but that's just my personality. Also, biologists aren't my preists. They don't lead me spiritually, they don't collect 10% from me, they don't coach me morally, and they don't judge me or guilt me.

 

And show me what you can that they were predicted before discovered (hundreds and thousands of years ago). They were observations back then. "Oh look, sea shells on mountains, must have been from a world-wide flood like in the Bible."

And evolutionary prediction is Tiktaalik. Because of the consistency between evolutionary biology and geology, they were able to predict what it would look like, where it would have lived, and in what layer of rock it would be found. It took 5 years, but they found it.

Depends on the brand of creationism. Can't really make a blanket statement.

Exactly, no one can currently answer it. However, creationists just say "creator."

In physics, when talking about the big bang and what happened before it, it's like saying when you're standing at the north pole, what's north of you?

 

Have you ever noticed an interesting blend of science and religion. There are numerous hospitals that hopefully function from a scientific perspective, yet are administered by religious orders of all descriptions. Science functioning within a religious framework of administration.

It is also interesting in western societies that science grew from scholarship fostered by religion. Without religious scholarship, there would not have been any learning. The state was certainly absent and the private sector underdeveloped and unable to foster systematic growth in knowledge.

Today we have private schools systems run by religious organisations. Without them, the state systems would collapse because of overwhelming numbers. Secular scientists today are standing on the shoulders of scholars from religious orders. Darwin and Newton were Christian. Islamic scholarship gave us writing and numeracy and a considerable assistance with medicine.

I subscribe to a view that science has given us a window, albeit tiny, to God.
I am not entrenched in dogma. I do not know how you would give a scientific explanation of the beginnings of the world to a society that is still throwing spears. Mythology brings truth within a framework that can be digested by the audience.

Myths should not be excluded by science as they are largely underpinned by truths. The trick is to distil the truth. Part of the distilling process is developing a hypothesis based upon a prossible truth and then test it. Entrenched positions on the truth leads to failure. Do not throw the baby out with the bath water. It is not a zero sum game.

Perhaps this is where religion and science intersect.

 

well said... great points

 

That is an interesting analogy. It is also an interesting way of not answering the question. Where in the natural world has something ever manifested itself from nothing? This is a question that you must consider. It does not prove creationism, but it is a compelling point that there may very well be a creator. It does not necessarily mean that the creator made everything the way that we see it today, but it does suggest that at some point there was nothing and then someone made something...

 

It's not evolution, but I'll address it.

Virtual particles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluctuations

These are particle pairs that "pop out of nowhere," exist for a short time, exert forces, and then disappear to nowhere.

Yet one more reason why young earth creationists completely dismiss quantum theory (and most of modern physics).

This is sort of a last resort of theists, but then the last resort of the other side is, "Well where did the creator come from? Where was he before he created the universe? Where did his power come from? If a creator is required to create, isn't a creator required to create a creator?" And it never really goes anywhere from there.

 

If you look at the title of this thread, you'll realize that the point of the discussion was originally to discuss creation theories and ultimately the origin of the universe. It spun off into a conversation about evolution...

It is easier for me to wrap my mind around an idea that there was always a creator that has existed for all of eternity and He created our universe than to believe that out of complete nothingness, something just appeared by sheer chance...

 

I think that the point is we don't know scientifically and speculating is meaningless at this point because we don't know of anyway to test the theory. For example, we don't know what happens to matter when it is sitting in the singularity of a black hole. We don't know what happened before the big bang or what prompted it. Perhaps someday when physics theory is more advanced and we have some equations then perhaps speculating on such things will be more meaningful. The above assumes that "manifesting itself from nothing" is referring to the big bang, in which case the statement is a false assumption. We don't know if it was nothing or not. We just don't know. If instead you're referring to creating life from no life then I think that is different from "manifesting itself from nothing".

 

There is no E in judgement? Are you sure this is not a variant?


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/judgement


Abner

 

Sorry, I thought since the original news story focused on evolution vs creationism that what we were talking about it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,509719,00.html

I guess the degree could be all encompassing. But since the discussed had evolved to it's present point I was trying to keep it on topic.

Just because something is intuitive doesn't mean it's correct.

How do you know what there was before this universe? How do you know the universe isn't eternal? There could have been something from this. We don't know there was "nothing." Especially since "nothing" isn't natural.

 

Of course I do not know. That is one of the only parts of my faith that I have to rely on and believe by faith alone. The great thing about the bible is that from the middle of Genesis until the beginning of Revelation, there are eyewitness accounts or physical evidences of almost all of the things described in the bible. One can certainly debate the veracity of those accounts and evidences, but that debate is for another day.

My point is that the only 2 parts of the bible that truly must be taken on faith alone is the creation story from Genesis, which obviously no one personally witnessed other than God, and then Revelation, because it speaks of things that have yet to happen. My faith is not blind. There are many evidences of the bible and especially, because I am a Christian, evidences of Christ and the miracles that he performed and ultimately his resurrection. Again, many debate the accuracy of these stories, but I have seen enough proof from alternate sources other than the bible to feel confident that Jesus was real, that he performed many miracles, and that he was resurrected, which are all things that were prophesied many years before by several prophets in the old testament.

My intention is not to change the direction of this discussion, but I have heard many (not necessarily within this thread) say that in order to believe in Christianity you must have a lot of faith. While that is true, faith is only part of the mix for me personally. I try to be very scientific and logical when deciding about the things that I believe and fortunately my faith is confirmed by many scientific evidences that have come throughout history.

Creation just happens to be a unique part of the bible in that there is no evidence or eyewitness accounts and that is why I think it is a central point in many religious debates...

 

It all started when...

I think the driving force behind this thread was that after I read this article I stated the fact that "creationism" is not science (as many people have since stated) so therefore a Master of Science degree would be bogus. That got bmills072200's panties in a bunch so he went on this whole anti-evolution/pro-creationism tirade (shenanigans) and whatnot, even though I never even mentioned evolution in the beginning. Classic creationist knee-jerk reaction...

Sorry bmills072200 that I haven't been able to further bunch your panties but I'm currently in Qatar on business and I haven't had time to comment. Thanks to all of those who stepped in and handled things while I was absent.

 

Should drop this part of your argument

Sorry I hate to say it but the above mentioned bit about the weather is at worst a bait and switch tactic, and at the least just a layperson's misinterpretation of science. I know quite a few meteorologists and a couple of evolutionary biologists (at the PhD level) who would be the first to shoot down this connection to the field of evolutionary biology. True if you are arguing the actual meaning of the word "evolve" you could use this sentence in that weather evolves very rapidly in many cases (i.e. the formation of a storm), but this form of "evolving" is in no way correlated to the biological meaning of the word evolution which deals with random mutation of the genetic code over vast amounts of time. In other words a small wind with a little humidity may "evolve" in to a big storm over the course of the afternoon, but this in no way affects the weather pattern of the whole area from that point forward. It would be just as truthful to say that printed books have "evolved" from written word, to movable type printing press, to type writer, to word processor, to modern computers; however, no one would for a moment assume that this was ANYTHING like change of a biological (i.e. living) population over the course of geologic time.