Baraka_Guru

Heathen.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

But He died for our chocolate bounty!

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

roachboy

just to say the obvious, most of christianity is not of the literal interpretation of the bible camp. most accept that the origin story is an allegory or is metaphorical and so can accomodate both an acceptance of one or another notion of biological evolution with belief in a god. the fundamentalist/literal interpretation school has a real problem--which is also why they create such problems when they are politically mobilized & in a position to exercise power---which is that their *particular* and quite odd interpretation of genesis makes god/biological evolution into an either/or. and it is a measure of their political reach that the "issue" is framed in those terms. and it is as an enactment of the effects of that reach that this thread is most peculiar, that the question moved so quickly off the *particular* beliefs and actions of the creationist squad and onto a question that pit science against christianity.

it ain't so simple.

it also ain't so easy to simply assume that folk who accept this nonsense do so because they're stupid people. back in my wayward youth i passed through a charismatic group for a little while and remember great emphasis being placed on "being like unto a child" in matters of faith. personally, i find this emphasis more than a little strange. but in that case it fit in with a system that saw itself as "touched by the holy spirit" and all that, so in a space of direct experience of some manifestation of their faith, one that by-passed mediation. so there's a circuit inside of at least some of the creationist groups that explains how and why their positions are as they are (obviously what i just noted isn't a complete one) that doesn't require you assume people are fucking idiots. i say this because if there is a political conflict here, it makes no sense to underestimate your opponent.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

I wish that were the case. I wish we were dealing with some tiny fringe group. We're not. It's a majority of Americans and a growing number of Europeans.
On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution

roachboy

there are particular denominations that adhere to the literal interpretation thing. most don't.
and there are alot of catholics. for these same groups, catholics aren't christian. go figure.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Which denominations teach the creationism myth doesn't matter to me. That it's accepted by a majority of the people in my country over good, solid science certainly does. "Most of Christianity" in the US absolutely does fall into the literal interpretation camp. As you said above, these opponents can't be underestimated.

Creationism as an incarnation of anti-intellectualism or whatever is dangerous in that it hinders scientific development. It's the responsibility of every person that values science to defend it.

roachboy

Pew Forum: Public Opinion on Religion and Science in the United States

this is a more helpful poll based on a larger sample.

i'm not at all saying "yay creationism" btw--not at all. what i am saying is that the viewpoints are particular--if you look at this poll, the lowest levels of acceptance of the notions connected to natural evolution are amongst evangelical protestants. this isn't exactly shocking, is it?
and there are alot of these people in the united states.
but the point nonetheless remains that a majority of people accept some version or another of darwinian-style evolution.

within the scientific community, however pew chose to define it, the numbers are overwhelming in the opposite direction, btw. over 80% accept evolution as an explanation.

it's curious that you use the same language as the christians who accept "creationism" to denounce it: that it is an abomination for example. that's a big sin. bad bad bad.

a curious thing in the polls though: belief.
as if accepting the theory of evolution and accepting the idea of some god mucking about doing stuff are equivalent...how'd that happen? so you get basically a poll about matters of faith. how exactly did evolutionary theory get reduced to a matter of faith? what does it mean to "believe in" evolution?

the problem is that in significant areas of the united states, the way these questions are framed remains dominated by christianity, directly and indirectly. it is an indicator of just how non-secular the united states really is. compare the polls in the us to those in any other industrialized country on this question: the differences are pretty shocking.

my main point is that so far as i am concerned i don't particularly care what people imagine about the world around them so long as the more wacky beliefs--creationism among them--don't acquire a degree of political power. people believe all kinds of stuff. so i see this as a political matter more than as a social matter--only important as a function of mobilization of a particular sector. so the solution, if you like, is to undercut that political power and let the evangelicals slide back into a richly deserved political irrelevance. but so far as the actual beliefs go, while i in principle agree with you, will, i don't really care about it as a problem. i am concerned with the political frames that enable such lunacy to take hold are, because they're part of the process that enables political power to be obtained & held....so it's like that more.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

I know you're not saying yay Creationism, and to be honest the last thing I want to do is adopt the Bush "you're either with us or against us" policy, but this particular subject is near and dear to my heart (brain). You being an enlightened cat, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.
This worries me more than the other number, to be honest. I'd hate to have someone working on a cure for cancer or a safer method of transportation to stop because they've concluded "god did it". I don't have a problem with scientists believing in god the same way I don't have a problem with oncologists smoking, but when they're so fundamentalist that they deny something as well established with verifiable, sound science as evolution, wouldn't you agree that could cause problems?
Well, being a bit snarky, I was using it ironically. Like if I called Creationsim the devil and science god. It's just my liberal elitism.
How would you propose best undercutting them politically? It seems pretty clear that they do have political power and that power is leading them to introduce this to children in public schools, which is my main gripe. It's not constitutional at all, and I figured Edwards v. Aguillard put the issue to rest, but it hasn't as the creationists have tried to hide their religion under the brown paper bag with two holes cut out of "intelligent design". I can keep it out of schools in my area because I know people, but there's not much I can do with the Texas Ed board.

MSD

I don't think I was pandering at all. I explained something concisely and clearly to someone who had never heard the whole story, and it made sense to him. The important thing is, he accepted that evolution works and that it's how we got to where we are.

Raghnar -ITA-

I'm sorry, I've work to do and stopped to this reply but I wanted say my point of view:
Yes. Not so drastic, but it is!
Expecially when media strikes fears or doubts into people's mind a bunch of fools comes into the department asking silly questions.
Sometimes by reason, sometimes not.
When there was chernobyl radiobiology and nuclear department was literally invaded by guy that asked to measure the radioactivity of their homemade vegetables or thinks like that. When there was spreading a voice about black-hole creation in LHC a bunch of curious guy came to the Dean of the department that puntually asked we PhD student to answer the questions... and so on... :P

However the most curious thing about Creationism and Science I've ever heard was from a Full professor in Nuclear Physics Varsaw. He was a fully creationist believer, like believing in a 6000 years old Earth, retending that the science that HIMSELF was doing and confirming the billions age of the Earth was only a faith test by God.
I mean, you are a Nuclear Scientist, the ratio between U235 and U238 are because of differents decay times that in billions of years create a disproportion. One of the main proof of anciety of the universe is your main study subject, and you turn your head pretending that all you're studying are bullshit that God deliberatly crafted for somewhat sadistic reason?

Some people are truly ignorant and with a better education can understand the point about Science, but some others simply don't want to listen even if they are major world expert only to don't face the brutal truth.

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

MSD

You can't argue with a true believer, you can only produce facts to shield those around you from their bullshit.

Raghnar -ITA-

Sure.
My point was only that this mechanism is sociological and psycological and cannot be fought only with teaching and facts. He cannot be fought at all I think.

This professor obviously had more scientifical facts in his mind than what you can teach in school and college to anyone (I mean, an entire life of on-the-edge Scientific Research, is not exactly what you can teach to the avarage joe) and anyway refuses to watch at all the proofs he had to growth his religious unbelievable beliefs (Come On, Earth made by god 6 thousands years ago? Not even the Pope beliefs that anymore!!).

Before knowing him, I was thinking that this was the consequence of an "returning analphabetism" (we say in Italy), but now I think is also a matter of personal demands.
Ignorance must be fought, but this type of thinking will NEVER disappear becouse no metter how many proofs you bring or how many intelligent or educted a person can be:
If he need it to wake up smiling, he will think it.

And I see nothing so wrong with it...

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

LoganSnake

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

SecretMethod70

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

spindles

Hmmm - this is a false argument. Saying a majority *believe* in creationism because they don't believe (or don't have an opinion) on evolution doesn't add up to me.

It is like saying I don't like oranges, so I must like apples!

__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

Willravel

Read the poll I liked. The options are "believe in evolution", "do not believe in evolution", and "no opinion either way" (with no answer at 1% falling within the margin of error). No opinion and don't believe are both incorrect, so I feel my concern is a legitimate one.

And this isn't as unimportant as whether one likes or dislikes apples, this is about how many people understand and accept reality. Not liking apples is a perfectly reasonable position to take, but not accepting the theory of evolution or not even having an opinion on it are errors. Those 61% of people polled are in err.

MSD

I'm almost more concerned about the 36% with no opinion either way than the creationists. These people are most likely not religious fundamentalists, yet they're ignorant of one of the most well researched topics in the past few centuries, and the basis of biological science.

spindles

I did read the poll. "Do not believe in Evolution" does not equal "Believe in Creationism". That's the point I was making.

It makes more sense to say those that "Do not believe in Evolution" = "Dumb Asses", which is what your last post says.

Question is, what does the poll have to do with the OP?

__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

Willravel

That's exactly what I'm saying. Being agnostic on very, very basic and well understood science is a good indicator of whether or not someone is "dumb", though I'd not use that word. I'd probably use a word like "educated", but I'd be implying high school diploma level education.

Regarding what the poll has to do with the OP, the main reason to actively disbelieve evolution involves a supernatural (read: creationist) belief. It's not like there are alternative, scientific theories to evolution.

Raghnar -ITA-

I hate to repeat. But that professor I cited is scientifically more educated than, most probably, every single person in this whole forum. Surely is scientifically much more educated then the 99.9% of the people, and yet choose to assume a fundamentalist position that probably only less then 0.1% of the people in the occidental world assume (Not even priest think about 6 thousand years old Earth with Garden of Eden and all the metaphorical stories).

Sometimes (probably most of the time) is a matter of "education", but sometimes not. Sometimes is just a matter of being happy in a peculiar psicological and sociological environment that form personal believing. Is not a "wrong" way of living or thinking, is only thinking about happiness and without going to this extremes (a Dean of nuclear physics that think that universe was made in a Week 6000 years ago) everyone build is own illusions to follow his own personal pursuit of happiness.

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

Willravel

He's been ill-educated by his church. I'd argue, on the issue of creationism/evolution, he's less properly educated than the majority of people that have posted in this thread.

Raghnar -ITA-

Why you think is only a matter of education? Why your values are better then theirs?

He knows his deals about evolution and genetics, probably more then any graduate-degree science student. He knows the theories, the experimental proofs better then you can read at any divulgative-level Dawkin's book.

Hell: we are scientist, common people to get the answer google up and read the sketches of the simplification of what another people told them about a scientific article and call themselfs "educated", we read the article and watches the references say ourself "so much to learn, so little time". (only joking)

Just because he is in fact so well educted that cannot accept science-thruth as the only possible thruth and in particular evolution as scientifically demonstrated and verifiable such as benefits of liver transplants or theory of relativity.

In fact for the well used Popper-ian epistemology theory of evolution isn't in fact a science because is verifiable (and also at this there are doubts) but not falsificable...

If I must be sincere, this creationist professor was MUCH MUCH more scientifically precise than you talking about evolution so I cannot accept your second statement.

Ill-educted by church? Possible, but in Poland there wasn't much space for church back in the old day of URRS* and in the hard edge post-war/cold-war communism.
Anyway it doesn't mean so much: I was a catholic cathechist now I am an atheist scientist, because I've learned, thinked and readed so much, and I feel the scientific thruth more elegant and complete then the religious one, so making me happier, and I simply changed point of view.
For example what changed my view of realty and metaphysics forever, slowing twisting me from a christian with "some" doubts to an atheist, is the deep understanding of quantum mechanics, thing that most atheist (or pretending so) cannot even imagine.

That professor surely learned, thinked and readed as much (and surely more then) me (and I think also you), and choose with all the possible awareness (and I think more then most) that christian reality make HIM happier.

The important thing is not to found a belief on prejudice (as you are doing now) and ignorance (as many creationist do).
You must fight both ignorance (teaching science and evolutionism more deeply as you can) and prejudice. The latter is harder to be teached, but consist not pretending that your point of view is the only possible right one.

*EDIT: Pardon me. URRS is an Italian Term, I meant Soviet Union...

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

FuglyStick

Once again someone is trying to marry "faith" with "intelligence," and find some correlation. Faith is not a matter of reason, and therefore has nothing to do with intelligence. There are brilliant believers, and mind numbingly stupid atheists.

__________________
AZIZ! LIGHT!

Willravel

Values are entirely irrelevant. Facts are facts.

With a proper education, evolution is presented in a case as iron clad as gravity or the speed of light. It's when things interfere with that proper understanding that you get people like Ray Comfort or the nuclear physics professor that you made up because your argument can't stand on its own. Instead of allowing themselves to objectively view the fact, the verification of those facts, and the testable pattern that those facts create, they allow religion to bleed in, to undermine science with faith.

Why don't we do this: list every piece of evidence for creationism and, if you can find anything. Without even having a degree in biology, I'll debunk it completely. When that happens, we can lay the idea that creationism is anything but religion trying to invade science's space to rest.

Edit:
Let me make one thing clear: you can be a scientist that believes in god, in fact about 8-10% of scientists do, but you cannot be a scientist and subscribe to the theory of creationism (6,000 year old earth, people living with dinosaurs, no evolution). They are mutually exclusive in the same way that you cannot have an abstinent porn star.

Raghnar -ITA-

I told you one think that, if reciped and not passed through can be change your life:
Science itself isn't a FACT, only a big theory about facts and about the correlation between them.

At Last, as I told you, theory evolution isn't like Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation or Maxwell's Equations: isn't falsificable, is hardly verifiable, is discussed the validity itslef among the itself scientific community.

This thing, that you don't know or you haven't understood properly that professor knew it very well, that put his choice, regrettable and discutible of course, much more aware then yours.

For my point of view awarness is the only thing that matter in the life of a person so in fact the choice of the professor is more right then yours, even if I find ontologically ridicule the creationism (by for many of the creationist current, dinosaurs never existed) and the atheism idea is what I've married long ago.

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

Willravel

It's okay that you can't list any evidence for creationism; no one can. Creationism isn't science, it's religious faith that's trying to be sold as science. It's wholly different in every way from the real, factual, demonstrable, testable world.
I never claimed that science was a fact. I will, however, be happy to define science as the process by which we systematically understand with workings of the universe by use of observation and experiment, both of which have been applied to evolution and have demonstrated it to be our best understanding. And there are no alternative theories to evolution for the diversity of life.
Newton's universal law of gravitation is out of date. You may want to read up on Einstein's theory of general relativity. It's falsifiable because it's incomplete.
Evolution hasn't been falsified yet, but that's simply because all data collected, every observation and experiment, supports it. That doesn't mean it's not falsifiable, though.

My very favorite thing about evolution is how verifiable it really is. Every time we've seen speciation, evolution is being verified. Every time we find a fossil, it's further verification of evolution. Every experiment ever run about evolution has demonstrated that evolution is our one best answer as to how biodiversity works.
Your professor isn't real, so in order to counter him, I will make up a professor.

Professor A is smarter and more correct than all other professors. Professor A says that evolution is real and is the best explanation for speciation and the diversity of life on Earth. Professor A says that creationism is just religion masquerading as science.

I guess we can put the discussion to rest.
What's your definition of awareness?

Baraka_Guru

Science at work.

HowStuffWorks "How do scientists determine the age of dinosaur bones?"

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Raghnar -ITA-

How smart... =_='

You Falsifiable don't mean that "has been falsified", means that "can be falsified", that is what popper mean for Science.
Newton's Gravitational Law has not been falsified with general relativity, General relativity has put some stricter conditions of applicability (that doesn't mean falsify) to Newton's DYNAMICS, giving to the attraction between object not character of a direct interaction but character of a geomerty. The Gravitational force is, until now, the Newton one, instead there are some try of differents parametrizations.

How can you falsify something based on stocastic and chaotic mutations?
There is some sort of experiment that can you tell "no, this can't be casual"?
No, there aren't, and because theory of evolution can't make any quantitative predictions, can't be falsifiable.
When you study General relativity you calculate that time slow down in a system accelerating, and you can verify relativly easly: you make a satellite with an atomic watch and see if and how times slow with the earth gravitational attraction (and so acceleration), and if this measure is accurate within the prediction of Einstein, General Relativity is, in this applicability frame, right, otherwise is wrong.
General Realitivity is, in this field, is verified because the GPS works.

I don't deny It.
But evolution isn't a FACT, is only a theory that in some famous epistemological system isn't even considered scientific.
As every theory you have to believe it, or refuse it.
You believe in LQG or String Theory (or you think that conceiling General Relativity and Quantum Theory is an impossible task)?
I cannot blame you by choosing one of the three option, even if the third is not a scientific choice but perfectly understandable.

You insult me pretending that I'm lying only because I met a person different from your expectations.

How funny. -_-'
I tell you that instead of professor A you can put my name (but I'm no professor, only PhD student), but that doesn't mean that I have not to respect people that have religious beliefs over their scientific knowledge pretending that they cannot be smart or even exist... -_-

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

Willravel

I was being snarky.
Evolution isn't just mutation, it's also natural selection.
Of course you can. Nearly every scientific theory intentionally ignores outside variables so that a general system can be described. That doesn't make the system untrue. Evolution, as a theory, has a lot of variables involved, and many of those variables aren't taken into account, but the theory can still be applied to reality to make predictions. And has. Applying his knowledge to the theory of evolution, Dr. Ernst Mayr predicted that speciation occurs with faster genetic evolution. It turns out his prediction was correct. Entire trees of evolution have been created and then tested to demonstrate the path of a species evolution. It most certainly can be used to predict.
Then I'm arguing with your Warsaw nuclear physics professor by proxy? What is it we're doing here if you understand and accept evolution as reality? Is this just a debate about whether or not evolution is a science, because if it is we probably have other threads for it. This thread is about the problem of creationism, or religion pretending to be science.
I'm not well educated in the field of physics. My last class was to get my general electives back in college, and was really only physics 101 What I do know, however, is that science isn't something you "believe in", it's something you either understand or don't understand. I may not understand PhD level physics, but I do understand evolutionary biology. I can make a prediction right now that I wouldn't be able to without the theory of evolution: if global climate change causes a new ice age, humans with the genes that favor more fat and resilience to cold will be able to adapt better to the cold, and will be more likely to reproduce, creating more cold-friendly children. Any genetic mutation during however long the ice age is that is beneficial will be more likely to survive and give the human(s) a better chance at adapting completely or holding out until the ice age ends.

Now, how could I make such a prediction without evolution?
My point was that even if your professor is real, he doesn't demonstrate anything. It's either an appeal to authority fallacy or a red herring. Whether he exists or not, he's moot to the discussion because he can't be verified.

Raghnar -ITA-

And you know wrong, pleased to tell you.
Science is in fact more or less entirly opinable.
Think that my PhD thesis will be, to put that easy, to demonstrate that energy conservation principle isn't true under certain conditions (I not the first, that comes from Bohr but Pauli stopped him!)...

In edge science you have to believe in an intuition, if you attain of what you measure you can't do real science, you do only base technics with a scientific flavour.

In fact LQG (Loop Quantum Gravity) and String Theory are both attempt to unify General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics starting from differents basic assumptions, but for both there isn't feaseble experiments that falsify one from another.
For now you can only believe in an assumption or an another or, since both assumptions sound reasonable enough, only on what theory sound to you more elegant, if you prefer seeing the space-time as "stringy" or "loopy" (or maybe "non of above"). Saying that one of them is the "fact" is only a science-fundamentalist assumption, like fanboys telling personal prefers as "facts".

At the same way pretending that evolution is a fact due to uncertain and unprecise prediction is fanboyism not science. Evolution is a theory, probably the best about biological differentiation, but is a theory.

Creationism is surely not science, must not be though about science, but pretending to eradicate it as the flat-planet beliefs have been eradicated, for now, is utopia (or distopia).
Because
I- scientific robustness of this theory isn't so strong as you believe.
II- people need, sometimes, to believe is what make them living better, screw the Science! And for some reason some people feels not so good without thinking about been projected by some God as his image and resemblance.

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

MSD

Science is a process, not a theory, not a fact.
Newton's gravitational law has been falsified through experiment. The most famous example is the case in which Newtonian theory failed to correctly predict the positions of planets relative to Earth and the Sun, and applying Einstein's relativistic model predicted those positions correctly.
Evolution predicts that allele frequency within populations will vary and that certain gene expressions will tend to be selected for, selected against, or have no impact on the propagation of those genes by sexual reproduction depending on their benefit to the organism. If predicts that those organisms most able to adapt to change in their environment will tend to survive and reproduce at a higher frequency than those unable to adapt. These predictions have been observed to be true.

Willravel

I think we're moving off topic, Raghnar, and I take partial responsibility for that.

Raghnar -ITA-

Can be also seen dynamically as process.

The perihelium of mercury was corrected thanks to general relativity.
As I said that was not a correction to the Newtonian FORCE (that basically remains mM/r^2, eveinf writing in covariant form) but to the newtonian dynamics.

EDIT: Yes, true, we are OT, stopping now! Sry! ^^'

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

Strange Famous

Calling those who believe in God (approx 3/4of the world) morons isnt exactly a very productive way to address a debate.

Nor are creationalism and evolutionism mutually exclusive ideals.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Willravel

3/4 of the world are not creationists, SF. And I don't think anyone means to call all creationists morons, though many are. They're simply wrong. They are in err. Creationism is religion being applied to the wrong field.
They are mutually exclusive. Creationism teaches that speciation is a myth, that all species as they are now have been that way since the earth was created by god, whereas evolution demonstrates and explains speciation.

Raghnar -ITA-

1- Last statistic I red was saying about 95% of the world believe in some god. Anyway that means putting in also the buddhist and so on, that mopstly don't really believe in any god but have a strong spiritual way of thinking life.

2- Evolutionism is mutually exclusive with every driven-type of biological generation. If you believe in darwinian evolution then you can't believe that god put evolution in order to create man as it seems, as evolution is a pure stocastic process even if is leaded by natural selection. There are various type of creationism and everyone is incompatible with darwinian evolution (but not everyone totally incompatible with science), from the 6000 years old earth, to the intelligent-design/evolution-type process that lead to the man as his apex (and the concept of evolution apex is that is totally out of darwinian evolution way of thinking.).

__________________
English N00b - Please help if you have time and correct my errors

Strange Famous

[QUOTE=Willravel;2730768]3/4 of the world are not creationists, SF. And I don't think anyone means to call all creationists morons, though many are. They're simply wrong. They are in err. Creationism is religion being applied to the wrong field.
[QUOTE]

And so we see that evolutionalism is a religious belief to the same degree protestantism is, and just as arrogant.

You cannot possibly know or DISprove that the universe has an intelligent creator nor that man has a universal soul.

Yet you feel able to claim such idea's are "wrong"

In fact, all that you can see is that they are not proven by the feeble, vainglorious and tottering tautology of human science... a world of knowledge that claims to answer everything, and yet is so pitiful that it cannot explain how even the human mind itself works. That fact that people cannot tell if something is true or not does not make false.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Willravel

Evtolusionalism isn't a word, and science isn't a religion.
Disprove that the Trix Rabbit didn't create the universe.
Something which is contradictory is wrong. If I say "All bips are blue. This bip is not blue." even though bips are entirely theoretical, and thus cannot be tested, what I've said is wrong. Creationism is inherently contradictory, therefore it's wrong.

Strange Famous

The arrogance of science of religion is very well demonstrated by the above.

Truth is universal and fixed, it is independant of human understanding.

The rational view is that the universe was created one way or another, and that no human knows or understands how. It is equally unknown if their is a God who is the Creator, or if everything we are in an accident of chaos. To believe that humans evolved from single cell organisms is as credible as the earth being 6000 years old... both are unknowable an human science is but a weak and myopic fumbling in the dark.

The evolutionalist believes that the nature of truth is affected by their own comprehension of it.

Religion shows us that man is part of something larger than himself, that the earth revolves around the sun

The pathological scientist will tell us that all of the stars and all of creation revolves around himself, and sneer at anyone who questions his "scientific proof"

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Willravel

Well, no, not necessarily. Being created suggests a creator and there's no evidence of a creator, despite what creationists claim. There was something before the big bang, and it was likely a singularity of some sort, which predated time and space. Because it existed "before" time, you don't need to worry about "well what created that?". It's actually neat.

Anyway, because we don't know something yet, like the precise happenings of the big bang, does not mean we'll never know, in fact it seems we're getting closer. I won't say that we absolutely will know, but it's not necessarily unknowable, after all we know things now that were considered unknowable in the past.
This is where science and religion part ways. Scientifically, there's no accounting for a creator so the idea is simply moot. Religiously, though, there's a role for the creator that has nothing to do with evidence or science, it's supernatural. This is where the issue of creationism has all sorts of problems, as it's taking the unscientific and trying to apply it to science. It'd be like applying general relativity to the book of Genesis. It makes no sense.
You're incorrect. There's overwhelming evidence that complex life developed from simply life in the past over a long period of time through mutation and adaptation. Whether or not you find it credible doesn't matter. The evidence is there and it's been verified.
There's no such thing as an "evolutionist". It's a made-up word to try and make it seem like science is broken down into denominations like religion. That's not how it works, at least with the theory of evolution.

And evolution is independently verifiable. It can be verified independent of any human bias because of the scientific method. The "nature" of evolution is not affected by the scientist.
This is also wrong. Scientists don't sneer, and religious people think that the creator of the universe has a personal relationship with them. In trying to paint scientists as self-important, you skip the fact that it's actually the opposite.