Creationism and the Presidency
Creationism is its pure form is the belief that the word was created about 10,000 years ago and the fossil record exists only because of the great flood during Noah’s era. The question that I would personally like to have answered is whether the President of the United States is, or is not, a subscriber to this notion. In an age of scientific discoveries and daily breakthroughs can we afford to have leaders who think that scientific method itself is a hoax? This particular webpage tries to examine the issue and includes some of the primary pro-creationist information.
Since Bush is a born-again Christian of the new style, the liklihood that he is a creationist is quite high. In fact, I’d be shocked if he was not. But except for a Frontline documentary on Bush’s beliefs, we know very little. This is something I’d like to know. I think it’s important. Has he ever come out and told anyone? If he thinks the whole thing is bogus it might offend his flock. So is he misleading them? Or does he believe in creationism and is ashamed of his belief? It just seems strange to me that a man so religious never lets on about the basics. I want to know. And while we’re at it can we find out whether he subscribes to “talking in tongues” too.
related links:
Bad Science
Adam and Eve Toast?
Rob,
Not sure what you mean. Does that mean we all accept that both the planetoid on which live as well as animal life is millions of years old? If so, then we clearly have a contradiction in that the Earth as well as animal life cannot have existed for both a short period of time as well as a long period of time. They are mutually exclusive.
So, where does that leave us? Well, we have reams of evidence to establish that the Earth is billions of years old. That alone makes the “new earth” creationist hypothesis scientifically invalid. If we are merely talking about animal life and not the planet (something which again refutes the typical creationist source), we again have reams of evidence of animal life that is millions of years old. There are many dating techniques that have done nothing but substantiate each other in terms of the relative age of animal fossils. You would have to disprove every possible dating technique and the fact is that you cannot.
You seem to look past this statement: We HAVE evidence of evolution at work. We HAVE evidence that it has happened within our lifetime. We have modern evidence of species adapting naturally and forcefully through human intervention. Many animals on Galapagos are examples of species that were separated from similar species in other areas that developed differently. Dogs are good example of humans forcing the creation of sub-species (i.e. new races).
Increased genetic complexity has not been proven impossible. Keep in mind that the *odds* of something happening has no bearing on whether the theory that it *did* happen is valid. What are the odds that time will slow down as you get closer to the speed of light? What are the odds that light can bend? The discussion of odds is moot. We have evidence that these theories do explain current and past phenomena.
Speciation
Perhaps you don’t understand the definition of speciation:
Would you like to try the speciation argument again? Speciation is nothing more than an alternative to gradual evolution. It still means that evolution happened, just not in a methodical, gradual process. Ok. That’s still evolution.
Creationism has no basis in science. It provides no methods to scientifically verify its findings by unbiased observers. None, nadda, zippo. The moment they hit “and a superbeing made…” they stop being scientific. The moment you hit, “You have to have faith…” you stop working science.
As far as Mr. Behe’s fantasy, I can find armies of scientists that can find all kinds of holes in this theory. Here’s one
Again, you fail to understand how science finds truth. That fact alone makes this a discussion with a mad man. You are making assumptions about what does and does not work without understanding the true science behind the methods.
Fact: Substantial modern and fossil evidence exists that species adapt and evolve based on environment. I have given many examples which you have ignored. That evolution is possible is a moot point. There is no question that it is possible. How it progresses over time is clearly up for debate.
Fact: We have evidence of rock older than 10000 years. To dispute that the planetoid is less than 10k years I need only find ONE rock! Only one! Even if every rock fossil found was less than 10 years old and I was able to scientifically date a single rock at as little as 20k years, I destroy the creationist theory that the planet is 10k years old. There are mountains of geological evidence that support that the earth is billions of years old. However, you do not want to believe (key word) that could be true. Multiple branches of science substantiate this claim. Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry all provide additional evidence of the age of this planetoid.
Fact: We have evidence of animal fossils older than 10000 years. That blows away the theory that animal life is only 10000 years old. Again, I need only find one fossil to disprove your claim. I would suggest you discuss your claims with a paleontologist doing real research into the subject. They can help you to understand the true science behind dating techniques. Further, I would suggest you take courses in Chemistry to fully understand how half-lives work and how they are evaluated.
You are trying to use cute explanations that seem to revolve around probability rather than science. Like I mentioned before, what are the odds that mass grows infinitely as you get closer to the speed of light? What are the odds that light bends? What are the odds that light is both a particle and a wave? Which is more mathematically probable: that we evolved over millions of years from lower forms of life or that a drunkard built a raft and somehow herded all the world’s animals onto it during a flood? The volume of excrement alone would be enough to sink the ship….or this discussion.
Let’s be clear, there are two distinct discussions here. First, does creationism hold any scientific truth whatsoever? Second, does evolution hold any scientific truth?
As to the former, the answer is a clear, “No.” Creationism has no basis in scientific truth. There is absolutely no debate about this. Scientific truth can be independently verified and creationism cannot. The moment you use “and an uber-being created…” you stopped being scientific. Creationism is belief not science.
As to the later, you have no idea the breadth of explanation needed to dispute evolution. Beyond the areas of paleontology, you have areas of genetics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, physical anthropology, and more that have to be explained. All these areas have research that substantiates the claim that life and this planet are far older than 10k years. Probability has nothing to do with this discussion. There is substantial scientific evidence to support the evolution theory. Period. You can jump and down and rant about probabilities until you are blue in the face. Until you understand how to use the scientific method, we are unable to continue our discussion. The fact remains that using the scientific method, evolution theory can be substantiated and creationism cannot. That you think that there are areas that evolutionists cannot explain is self delusional.
I would suggest you continue your discussion with real scientists that actually work with dating fossils or chemical half-lives or genetics or physical anthropology or cultural anthropology or …
Lastly, I would suggest Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark.”
Thomas,
First, the particular times that I lean on probability as evidence strongly correlate with those times where Evolutionary theory is devoid of proof or “laboratory examples” and instead provides highly speculative, hypothetical, and sketchy models.
Also, most of the really good critiques of Irreducible Complexity give Behe much more respect and acknowledge that he has made some genuinely good points. Still, Behe’s critics’s responses require evolution to do more and, thus, to work faster. Spetner proved that experiments/observations in the lab practically never (if ever) yield mutations which add complexity. Therefore, at the least, “irreducible complexity” ends up strengthening Dr. Spetner’s already rock solid case. How? This is analogous to a car which already has no engine and which now has an even more distant destination.
The kind of science you describe is not interested in the truth, but rather attempts to rubber-stamp naturalist philosophy, at all costs and despite the scientific evidence.
Here is some additional reading:
Creationism in the Science Curriculum?
The Short Proof of Evolution
The evolutionary theory can be stated simply as:
1. There is a variety of species. This is self-evident.
2. All life requires a parent. There has never been a scientifically documented case of life spawning from non-life.
3. Older forms of life are less complex that more recent forms. This comes from the fossil record. Both in dating and in other techniques such as homology. An example would be that whales have a hip bone. Why would they have a hip bone if they have never been able to walk? The answer as it turns out is that whales probably did have the capability to walk as seen in fossils of animals related to whales.
Notice this has nothing to do with *how* we got to where we are. I’m stating nothing about Darwinism or how smoothly the evolutionary process worked. Rather, it simply states that using the above three criteria we evolved from less complex forms.
Further, science as you mentioned, in general is not in the business of finding truth. Rather, in general, science is in the business of filtering out falsity. Science is founded on establishing whether a theory is “not true” rather than a theory is “true”. Thus, there has been no credible scientific evidence that the evolutionary theory is not true. There is, however, evidence that the creationist theory is false.
This is where you lose me. I see this so-called refutation with the following moniker:
Jonathan Wells, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular & Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
This clearly implies that this guy (a Christian conservative) is associated with Cal. He’s not. He went there and got a degree like the hundreds of thousands of others, myself included. He’s not in the department as implied by this. He taught some during a postdoctoral stint, that probably meant he was a TA or teaching assistant at Cal. This sort of misleading attribution is only used to bolster credibility and doing it this way is highly dishonest. I suspect research into any of this will show a lot more dishonesty than honesty which is ironic since these folks are so holier-than-thou about all this.
John,
I think that trueorigin.org was trying to explain, as stated in Wells’s bio, that he “has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley”. However, you do make a good point that the heading at trueorigin.org implies more. However, it is very likely that this was a much more innocent mistake than you suggest. In fact, I’ll even extend your point by admitting that Wells’s went into his studies with a pre-bias towards proving creationism. Nevertheless, Well does have a knack for explaining the best creationists arguments and evidence very well and that is why I reference him… and I’ll let his arguments and evidence stand on their own apart from his biography… (which, BTW, “ain’t nothing to be ashamed of”)
But… to be sure, many other creationists that are respected scientists (particularly Spetner and Behe), were very committed and convinced Evolutionists (with no particular “axe to gind”) who only became Creationists when the evidence (eventually) pointed them in that direction. For example, read this about Behe.
Homology is another corroborate piece of evidence. It is another field of study for which creationism has no explanation. Creationism has no explanation for vestigial organs. Your famed professor completely overlooked the fact there must be a reason the DNA of vastly different animals produces similar structures. The only explanation is that all organisms are related by decent.
Perhaps we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do you believe that species can adapt and change?
Let’s take an example of that adaptation. In 1859, 12 European wild rabbits were imported to Australia. By 1886, their decedents were colonizing new areas of southeastern Australia at a rate of 66 miles a year in all directions. By 1907, they had reached the west coast. So, sometime in the 1940’s biologists came up with the idea of using myxomatosis, a viral disease normally carried by mosquitoes. This disease was non-lethal to South American rabbits but was fatal for European rabbits and harmless to all other lifeforms. By the 1950’s it had wiped out most of the rabbit population. Now, what would creationism theorize would come next? How would creationism scientifically postulate what would happen? Evolution, as it turns out, as a very simple explanation. The rabbits would adapt and a variant of the rabbit would take over that was resistant to the disease. Indeed that is exactly what happened. Creationism has no scientific explanation for this phenomenon. It has no predictive ability to determine what would happen.
Your arguments against Darwinism are completely irrelevant. Darwinism is simply an explanation for *how* evolution might have occured. It says nothing about *whether* it occured or not. Your link only shows an example of why Darwinism might not be true. Thus, you have provided no evidence that refutes the claim that evolution happened.
As I said, evidence of evolution can be established and tested in today’s world. We can take two groups of animals of the same species, separate them into areas of different environmental influence and they will eventually evolve differently and some cases into different species. The only explanation is that they adapted and changed.
>“Older forms of life are less complex that more recent forms.”
That is not a tautology. Perhaps you don’t understand what it means for a statement to be tautology. “Tomorrow is another day.” That is a tautology. It is a self-evident statement. If you accept that older forms of life are less complex than more recent forms of life, then you are accepting that evolution happened.
Creationism as a hypothesis has no scientific means to establish its authenticity as a scientific theory. This is in part because it cannot be falsified and thus is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Creationism is not science. Regardless of whether you believe in evolution, this is a cold, hard fact. It should not be taught as science. It should not be accepted as science.
Evolution does have mountains of evidence from a variety of fields of study that all substantiate the theory that species adapt and change based on environmental changes and, in general, variants that are best suited to their environment survive. Numerous fields substantiate evolution’s predictive value including Homology, Paleontology, Paleonanthropology, Biology, Genetics, Cosomology, Chemistry, Stratigraphy, Biogeography, Embryology the list goes on.
Let me mention some serious flaws in Behe’s logic by the way. His leap that there must be an intelligent designer because there are areas of biochemistry which have not been explained is ridiculously sophomoric. So much so, that I seriously question his scientific credentials.
This argument equates to people 500 years ago, unable to explain disease, claiming that an uber-being caused people to be sick. Unknown has a place in the world of science. It does not in the world of religion. He provides *no* evidence of a “designer.” Stating that we don’t know something provides absolutely no evidence that a designer exists and created something. That is a basic mistake in logic for someone supposedly versed in science. Furthermore, complexity, in and of itself, is not evidence of a designer. He is also discounting the numerous silly, useless things in our genetic makeup (e.g. a tail bone, a reticulated spine etc.) that would indicate that any such designer should be fired.
His “leap” about the donkey is also specious as donkeys and horses (and zebras) share genetic ancestry. Zebras are a good example of an animal that eventually became a new species from its ancestral horse by adapting to its environment.
His arguments about finding biochemical systems developed in a Darwinian fashion are also ridiculous and quite wrong. There is plenty of evidence that natural selection happens in biochemical environments. Antibiotics are a good example. If you are sick and the doctor prescribes antibiotics he will tell you to take the entire prescription. Why? If you only take half of it, the bacteria causing you to be sick will have a chance to adapt and hit you harder as well as the previous medicine will not be as effective. The bacteria that cannot withstand the medicine will die. The bacteria that evolve will survive. Another example is the intense concern of viral adaptation in a biochemical attack. While we might be able to synthesize a vaccine for the original agent, it is very possible that the virus will adapt, evolve if you will, into something on which the vaccine will no effect.
DEBATES OVER THE VALIDITY OF CREATIONISM IS OVER. It’s idiotic. Unless the conversation is about BUSH and creationism all posts will be rejected at the moderation level.
I did find an interesting and recent article at Wired.com about how scientists view Bush (Election: Science Plays Politics”). But, admittedly, the article doesn’t portray Bush very well (no surprises, when has academia every liked Conservatives?). But most interesting is that I didn’t see anything about creationism/Evolution anywhere in that article. As others have said, there is too much to lose and not enough to gain for either presidential candidate to “show their cards” on this one.
BTW, I’m sad our side-bar debate has been cut short, but I understand and most of Thomas’s last two posts were already answered in my previous posts: #50, #58, see links in post #55, and especially post #18.