What makes Creationism so hard to believe in, and evolution so easy?

[Biochemist]

Uhm, what about logical positivism (I believe I got that term right)?

Nothing wrong with that. It is just straying from the scientific method. When logical positivism is used to support theses where there is not an obvious logical conclusion, it looks like bias. There are a lot of basic science sorts that see the totality of creation as evidence for deity, sort of along the lines of the text in Romans 1. You can complain about the Bible, but a lot pf people think that Pauls argument ("hey, come on, you think all of this stuff just showed up?" Romans 1:20, Revised Bio Version) is a rational one, not a theological one.

 

It is also a little like trying to claim that the extraordinarily detailed markings on male Mallards and Wood ducks are a result of natural selection. It can certainly be argued, but some folks think those arguments are silly, given the extrordinary detail and the incrediible complexity of feather alignment.

 

It seems to me that answer is to stay with the scientific method or not. It may make sense to default toward the simplest explanation consistent with facts (Per Ockham's razor) but in this case, neither option is obviously simpler.

[TeleMad]

It seems to me that answer is to stay with the scientific method or not. It may make sense to default toward the simplest explanation consistent with facts (Per Ocham's razor) but in this case, neither option is obviously simpler.

 

Completely wrong.

 

The simplest explanation is the natural one. The supernatural explanation has the world's biggest assumption in it: the putative existence of a magical pink unicorn .... uhm ... I mean ... a God.

[Biochemist]

Completely wrong.

 

The simplest explanation is the natural one.

Perhaps. But I think the simplest answer is theistic. Why would you postulate that your answer is "simpler" in the absence of any evidence?

[BEAKER]

The simplest explanation is the natural one. The supernatural explanation has the world's biggest assumption in it: the putative existence of a magical pink unicorn .... uhm ... I mean ... a God.

Can I use your glasses? I just wanted to see myself from another perspective. - Can't you see the Unicorn?... Here, you can use my glasses - He's right over there!

[Zohaar818]

Perhaps. But I think the simplest answer is theistic. Why would you postulate that your answer is "simpler" in the absence of any evidence?

 

It IS a simple/simplistic answer. It is for those who like it simple and cannot handle the complexities and vagaries of life and the universe..methinx.

As for intelligent design...it doesn't take intelligence to create the universe, only to appreciate it.

 

As for the theists..the first and most compelling reason I do not believe in Creationism as the[ judeo-christian-abrahamic] theists do is the book of Genesis. The God walking in the garden is so un godlike that it beggars belief. And BTW..the only way Adam and Eve could have realized they were naked is if someone close to their experience was obviously not...and that would be God..yes? So why is God naked on planet earth..afraid of catching cold? Too much of a suntan... Being bitten by bugs. Or maybe He couldn't breathe the air...

The God of genesis is not omnipotent, and has poor control over his subordinates if Genesis 6 is anything to go by.

 

And the 2nd reason iI am unconvinced is the variety of religious dogmas and churches which have arisen out of the attempt to make sense of the Holy Book.

Do you think the myriad variations of faith and creed all claiming to be Christian is an accident or did it come about..like the mallard duck feather patterns..by design?

Seems to me if there was one God who wnated to be worshipped as such and in a specific way, and given the time he's had to get the message through to us...we would all be adherents of one religion and not a thousand plus...

 

But finally, and here is my most important reason for not buying into the Deist/Creationist/ID propaganda....I call it the snowflake and Tsunami rebuttal;

To the poster who remarked that the paterns of duck feathers argued for intelligent design..what about snowflakes? each and every one is supposedly unique and each is beautiful..and each utilizes fractals. Now, does God design each and every snowflake?

And also, to say that our experience here is all a part of ID...doesn't that logically command that the tsunami which wiped out Sumatra and Sri Lanka is also a result of ID?

[Not to mention earthquakes, floods, forest fires, epidemics, lightning striking golfers....]

Surely if God designed [unstable] earth he designed it to have tectonic plates which would compress against each other causing stress on the surface/crust that would be released by earthquakes, guaranteed to be hazardous to all life forms in the immediate area.

Makes you wonder if god really does care about the life and welfare of each and every one of His Creatures..doesn't it?

 

Really, it makes me wonder just how much 'thought' has been given to the asssumptions of some 'believers'...

 

-Sincerely

-Zohaar

[paultrr]

Completely wrong.

 

The simplest explanation is the natural one. The supernatural explanation has the world's biggest assumption in it: the putative existence of a magical pink unicorn .... uhm ... I mean ... a God.

 

The French mathematician and astronomer Pierre Laplace was so inspired by the metaphor of the clockwork universe that when asked about the existence of God he famously replied: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

 

The fourteenth-century English philosopher William of Ockham is best known for his principle (Ockham's razor, also called the Law of Parsimony) that "entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity" — that is, the simplest of two or more competing scientific theories or philosophical explanations is preferable.

 

To the religious, which start with a faith presuposition, order in the universe translates to or implies inteligent design, which they in turn attribute to a Creator or God. To us scientists we see the order in nature as a result of itself through cause and effect. We have what amounts to as a theory or hypothesis that explains the origin of the universe. However, there are unanswered questions when it comes to that origin even if our general model is one in which the universe has its own self origin without an outside cause. Going back to Ockham's razor to us the simplest answer for the lack of God's signature is no God exists, or at least none that left a signature of any type. To the religious the simplest explaination for origin of order is an intelligent designer. Its a matter of perspective and choice which I already mentioned that the religious by faith are predisposed to assume the ID approach over the one we use.

[Zohaar818]

The French mathematician and astronomer Pierre Laplace was so inspired by the metaphor of the clockwork universe that when asked about the existence of God he famously replied: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

 

The fourteenth-century English philosopher William of Ockham is best known for his principle (Ockham's razor, also called the Law of Parsimony) that "entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity" — that is, the simplest of two or more competing scientific theories or philosophical explanations is preferable.

 

To the religious, which start with a faith presuposition, order in the universe translates to or implies inteligent design, which they in turn attribute to a Creator or God. To us scientists we see the order in nature as a result of itself through cause and effect. We have what amounts to as a theory or hypothesis that explains the origin of the universe. However, there are unanswered questions when it comes to that origin even if our general model is one in which the universe has its own self origin without an outside cause. Going back to Ockham's razor to us the simplest answer for the lack of God's signature is no God exists, or at least none that left a signature of any type. To the religious the simplest explaination for origin of order is an intelligent designer. Its a matter of perspective and choice which I already mentioned that the religious by faith are predisposed to assume the ID approach over the one we use.

 

Wow! That was very well said. May I please add my own, hearty "Amen".

 

-Sincerely

-Zohaar

[Biochemist]

...As for intelligent design...it doesn't take intelligence to create the universe, only to appreciate it....

Seems a little antithetical, since intelligence is part of creation.

[Biochemist]

...the first and most compelling reason I do not believe in Creationism as the[ judeo-christian-abrahamic] theists do is the book of Genesis.

As I mentioned before, many (most?) Judeo Christian theists do not take Genesis literally.

...the poster who remarked that the paterns of duck feathers argued for intelligent design..what about snowflakes?

Hmmm. Snowflakes are intriguing (e.g., why do they tend to maintain three axis symmetry, even when they become a significant macro structure?). But they are a little bit different than Mallard duck feather design. No one is claiming that snowflakes are driven by natural selection. That claim is made (or perhaps, must be made) for Mallard feather design.

...doesn't that logically command that the tsunami which wiped out Sumatra and Sri Lanka is also a result of ID?...

This is the "Why does God let bad things happen?" question. Personally, I think this is a deep one, but is probably a topic for another thread. Suffice it to say that I think God's priorities are a little bit different than ours, so He weights "bad" defferently.

Really, it makes me wonder just how much 'thought' has been given to the asssumptions of some 'believers'...

Believers are like any other large population of people (americans, voters, businesspeople, teachers, etc). Most people don't think too much most of the time. In a context like this, it is inappropriate to hold the non-thinking mass against the logic of a particular thought model, just as it is inappropriate to hold non-thinking teachers against Fishteacher (not picking on you FsT). Just because most folks don't think about things, does not mean that no one does.

[lindagarrette]

Perhaps. But I think the simplest answer is theistic. Why would you postulate that your answer is "simpler" in the absence of any evidence?

The problem with the theistic "explanation" is that it doesn't explain anything. It just attributed everything to the unknowable.

[bumab]

The problem with the theistic "explanation" is that it doesn't explain anything. It just attributed everything to the unknowable.

 

I don't think many people would suggest it's completely unknowable. I gather your definition of "unknowable" is "unknowable through experiment." We certainly can know things upon which the scientific method is inapplicable. It's doubly wrong to hold theism, which really makes no claim that the natural world should image God, to a standard which, by definition, can only investigate the natural world.

 

Creationism is a theistic point which does make a claim on the natural world, and thus can come into conflict with the scientific method. Many theistic points of view make no such claims.

[paultrr]

Wow! That was very well said. May I please add my own, hearty "Amen".

 

-Sincerely

-Zohaar

 

Thanks, but notice it does bite both ways on this. I myself see the order in nature just as a signature of nature itself. However, that is based upon the witnessed fact that nature seems to generate order. It still does not in and of itself stipulate that there is or is not some first cause for all that order generation in the first place. At that point we who hold to science apply logic of one type that makes its own assumption that nature is its own source. Believers tend to apply another form of logic, rather human thinking based itself, that if their is order something or someone had to start that orderly process. We say something with that something being nature. The believer because of faith says someone. The actual evidence, since none of us was there does not really say either way. But at the same time there is no evidence of any direct nature than any sort of God exists. We apply the principle and simply say the lack of evidence is its own answer. The central difference between us and people of faith depends upon is that belief. They believe in a first cause. To them the order is an argument for design. To us its part of the argument against design.

 

Those who believe in unicorns will always see evidence of such, using that argument. Those who do not believe in unicorns will have another answer on that subject like its all a product of their minds. We each look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions.

[paultrr]

This whole point of view thing has a simular ring in all the arguments dealing with philosophy like determinism versus free will. If one looks at the statements out of top people in the field of physics absolute determinism is no longer held by them because we simply cannot find an honest way to fully predict large or small scale systems enough to rule out randomness as a first cause. I've noticed believers tend to pounce on this as somehow inidicating they could be right. But there is a strong problem in that line of thought that Einstein himself brought up in his does God play dice statement. Einstein may have been a deist, himself. But in the society at the time he uttered such a statement a lot of the the big people out there where believers in one form or another. He used a generic term for God in that statement. The problem is when you boil it all down the God of the Bible is no where seen as a God playing dice. Yet, if God does play dice then if anything nature would be showing a very strong evidence against the God of the Bible and far more in favor of the normal deist type God that starts everything and sets back and let's it take care of itself.

 

This whole debate about determinism and about how the universe came about was fought many times over in Christianity and in lots of other major religions. The general concensus out of religion tends to side closer to say Linda's type of view then to what the type of view most in the field of physics are expressing now. We tend to seem more like the Arminians and it seems those with a biology background and the religious more closer to Calvin.

 

All of this goes right back to pre-conceived notions each and everyone of us have. Some favor strict order. Some do not. The few of us who deal with the sub-atomic tend to see it a bit of both ways. In and behind all of this is a personal worldview being expressed that colors our point of view on almost the same general evidence. The question one must ask oneself is how much is one's own look at that evidence being colored one way or another by preconceived notions.

 

For all of Linda's quotes she is simply relating what she has learned at one point or another that has over the years become her own world view. The same goes for each and everyone of us. What started out as evidence based becomes so ingrained that we never bother to try and see the other side of the issue. At that point, like it or not it becomes dogma by the standard definition of such. Everyone here has their favorite dogma. With Linda's it's the athiest dogma and point of view which has and never will be probably the only view out there held by anyone in the field of science, even by her own admital. She just thinks the rest of us are crazy and split personalities(Her own words in another section). Like her or not or her ideas she is consistant to her world view far better than some Christians I know out there ever thought of being.

 

Those here who favor say the ID approach favor such because of their world view. I do not care what evidence you present to a true believer they will always see things different unless they begin to actual question that faith. Untill that point quoting scientific evidence or biology, physics, etc does not work. Their dogma will always find a but if.

 

Going back to that lack of evidence being its own evidence I personal see it that since not all the evidence is ours to see yet(we have no absolute theory of everything) I leave the possibility open. But if I went on the evidence we have thus far I'd side with the there is no God camp or with the one I am in, the agnostic camp. Using the Unicorn approach: I've seen no physical evidence there are unicorns. Untill I do I will only say I see no evidence for such. Now if someone does find evidence for such then when I see that evidence I will be forced by the evidence to admit they exist. Untill then they remain a myth and beyond evidence that supports such. That's logic. No where did I step beyond the evidence I have. I did not make the leap to saying no unicorns exist. Yes, I doub't they exist. But I keep an open mind on the subject just in case someone walks one of those damn unicorns up to me and proves that assumption wrong. :friday:

[lindagarrette]

I don't think many people would suggest it's completely unknowable. I gather your definition of "unknowable" is "unknowable through experiment." We certainly can know things upon which the scientific method is inapplicable. It's doubly wrong to hold theism, which really makes no claim that the natural world should image God, to a standard which, by definition, can only investigate the natural world.

 

Creationism is a theistic point which does make a claim on the natural world, and thus can come into conflict with the scientific method. Many theistic points of view make no such claims.

I don't understand what you are trying to say but I can correct one point. Unknowable is whatever theists consider unexplained by science. As everyone, including theists become more educated, the unknowable (gaps) becames smaller and smaller and God becomes more insignificant.

[lindagarrette]

For all of Linda's quotes she is simply relating what she has learned at one point or another that has over the years become her own world view. The same goes for each and everyone of us. What started out as evidence based becomes so ingrained that we never bother to try and see the other side of the issue.

Your assumption about my understanding is completely wrong. Determinism is not a point of view. It is a scientific law that is needed to validate experiments. And I am not attached to any belief. As scientist, I have an open mind to any evidence that would contradict or expand on an accepted hypothesis. So far no one has ever presented evidence of any causally undetermined event. The only response to my challenge is the forever dragging in QM "uncertainty" stuff which is irrelevant to the physical world of space time and does not belong in this discussion.

[Biochemist]

... As everyone, including theists become more educated, the unknowable (gaps) becames smaller and smaller and God becomes more insignificant.

Incredible statement. My appreciate for God increases as I learn more, and as more is known.

 

I am recursively surprised by how little of this you understand. I really don't expect you to agree with any of this, but your failure to acknowledge that others have different values (e.g., that some folks value things other than the scientific method) is quite remarkable. And the notion that greater education results in less need for God is a strikingly arrogant position.

 

I don't need God to explain facts to me. I also don't need a woman to do my laundry or cook my meals. But I still value highly value the relationship. And, oddly, I can't demonstrate that value by the scientific method.

[paultrr]

Your assumption about my understanding is completely wrong. Determinism is not a point of view. It is a scientific law that is needed to validate experiments. And I am not attached to any belief. As scientist, I have an open mind to any evidence that would contradict or expand on an accepted hypothesis. So far no one has ever presented evidence of any causally undetermined event. The only response to my challenge is the forever dragging in QM "uncertainty" stuff which is irrelevant to the physical world of space time and does not belong in this discussion.

 

Then, why does not a single statement out of any major player in the field of physics agree with what you say(ie Hawking, etc etc,) especially some very much recently mentioned quotes when it comes to spacetime itself. Not a single person on this forum who works in any scientific field at all tends to agree with you either. How is it that you alone can be right and everyone else wrong on that issue of determinism?