Thread: Split from Palin for VP: Creationism in schools

Originally Posted by Seraphim

The fact that there are a bunch of physicists that "agree" that these things happen doesn't verify what they are saying any more than the fact that many Christians "agree" that God created everything out of nothing.

Theoretical physicists (and astronomers in my opinion as well) on the other hand use known physical laws as the "paint" for constructing new images of how they try to explain the unproveable. That they are physicists doesn't make the fact that they are speculating anything other than what it is-speculation.

They use what is known as a "redshift" in the brightness of distant supernovae and calculate whether the universe's expansion has accelerated or decelerated since the explosion of that supernova.

It's direct observation and calculation of unaltered data (light waves), no different from the particle physicists you cited.

It is entirely different from your Christianity reference because the observation is objective, anyone with suitable instruments can repeat it, whereas agreeing on a supernatural entities existance is opinion and highly subjective.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Using science as the standard by which to judge whether something should be included in a classroom would then also exclude such things as art and philosophy...

As has been mentioned by myself and many others, there's no problem with having a clas to teach creation, or religion, but it needs to be labeled for what it is, not as a science. Art and Philosophy aren't trying to be labeled as science (naturalistic science anyway).

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

As has been mentioned by myself and many others, there's no problem with having a clas to teach creation, or religion, but it needs to be labeled for what it is, not as a science. Art and Philosophy aren't trying to be labeled as science (naturalistic science anyway).

Just read your red-shift quote. Yes, redshift is repeatable and we did use it in labs, etc, but it only demonstrates we can use optical qualities to determine distance-likewise it is fine not to say life was created, so long as saying it happened by random is also not called "science". Science is all about observable, demonstrable, things. Evolution, or more specifically this idea that life was not created but just happened, by the interaction of still more things that happened to already be there, in the right proportions, etc etc is a theory and as such is also not science, either. It is only one of many possible explanations, and if it cannot be proven (so far it has not been) then it has no more reason to be called "science's answer" than any other. That very quest, that study-which perhaps could find either way-is science not some tentative belief in one theory that realistically does not explain any more than the other.
When it has been proven, and it has been proven that no intelligence was involved in bringing the events to pass, then it can be called "the scientific answer". Until then it is just another believable pipe-dream and deserves no more support than other theories that explain just as much, such as creationism.


Russel, I propose a draw as to which idea explains the origins of life-as to be honest, if one is willing to accept astronomical coincidences acting on matter and energy which cannot be created or destroyed...in the right order and making it subject to not only life but adaptation-then it is just as believable that likewise an intelligent being who also cannot be created or destroyed, intentionally brought these events to pass.
Where I do not concede is that creationism should be banned from schools, ultimately, unlessl proven otherwise, it is just as feasible an explanation as the primordial soup coincidence theory, and there is nothing about pure science, that negates its possibility. Unwillingness to consider other possibilities after all, is not science, but as stated before, dogma.

Kids are smart.
Teach both, without poo-pooing one idea or the other, and let them come to their own conclusions. We are after all trying to teach brilliant *thinkers* for the work force, not automatons. Real automatons are cheaper, after all, and don't get paid by the hour.

John P.

Originally Posted by JohnP

So far there has not been a laboratory experiment in which an organism, even a single cell-has randomly been generated through happenstance, came to life, and then adapted/evolved/adjusted whatever. There have been attempts to create life, using pieces of single cell organisms, altering them genetically, all sorts of things I presume...but not so far anything by random.

When I said evolution can be observed from start to finish, I was not incorrect. Genes have been observed to have mutated and given positive and negative effects as a result.

You've misunderstood me, you seem to think I meant that the origin of life has been witnessed, which is not what evolution means. Evolution means only that one organism's genetic makeup can adapt over time, this is as good as proven. The origin of life could have happened by a similar mechanism, but no there is not a definitive theory for that yet.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Creationism in its purest sense does not seek to say whether living things adapt to their environment, only that they were created in the first place. Which, to be honest, has not been disproved at all. I think one can believe in creation and evolution at the same time, as they are not exclusive of each other. However the atheistic viewpoint on how life began as opposed to the theistic (any God(s) depending on one's religion) asks one to make just as many leaps of faith and is just as much a question of religion as someone standing on a soap box outside the school thumping his bible.

Hope this clarifies the misunderstanding a bit?

John P.

Yes but Creationism in it's traditional sense claims that every single organism was designed by a creator, the common sense of creationism now doesn't have the luxury of making that claim because it's been thoroughly refuted.The question of whether life could have been originated by a creator is, I agree, unrefuted.

As for science being faith based; yes, but the leaps of faith that one must make, on occasion, to accept science are based on a long track record of disproving the leaps of faith required by the established religious doctrines throughout history. This is not uncommon to rationality in every other subject of life, since we rarely have the luxury of absolutes, we must occasionally base our decisions on the "best bet". And for issues regarding the natural world, science has been the unchallegend heavyweight for as long as it's been secular.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Russel,
that definition of "religion" is just as broad as my own of "evolution" apparently, and is wrong.
Religion is simply a belief system in which a deity, object, or even another person is worshiped, praised, or invoked in order to gain favor with said deity or avoid harsh treatment by the same (generally speaking). The world and history are full of religions who worshiped deities who they did not necessarily think created the universe.

I'll agree to some of that, but the notion of the supernatural is where religion begins, and that is what I meant by saying that anything touting a creator is religious.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Secondly, your analysis
Also does not answer any question, as of course science seeks to explain how the natural world interracts, dynamically. Even scientists in the employ of churches do this, believe it or not. True science is not "OK, let's bar this idea because it requires the belief in a higher intelligence than our own, now let's see how much support we can give this other idea which has infinitesimal odds against it...because that has to be it". Such is not true science but dogma, and allows for the personal religious beliefs (regardless of whether the scientist personally believes in a higher Power or not.)

You've mistaken science for some other entitiy. Science is the study of the natural world through naturalistic means, of course that excludes "higher intelligence" because the higher intelligence is supernatural.

The argument of "infinitessimal odds" is one of the commonly disregarded arguments against science because it names the end condition before analyzing the probablility. You can make any event seem outrageously umlikely if you name an end condition and leave out all other possibilities. The truth is that the same argument holds for subatomic particles bonding and interacting the way that they do, which gives rise to chemical interactions like DNA. So if you really want to make that argument you have to take it up with particle physicists.

Originally Posted by JohnP

We aren't exactly disagreeing, so much as I don't believe you are arguing against the points I actually am trying to make.

No, it's jsut that the example of your ford truck is misleading, there is no legitimate way for your truck to have come about naturally (not randomly; those two words make all the difference).

Originally Posted by JohnP

Yes I know, an oversimplification, but it throws enough doubt into the atheistic viewpoint so as to render neither the be-all/end-all explanation. Therefore, IMHO neither should be taught as "the" explanation for the origins of life, at the exclusion of the other. after all enforcing one or the other as the ONLY explanation would be tantamount to religion in schools.

John P.

Evolution is taught as the only explanation because it's the only one that is scientific, we've dicussed the reasons why Creation (or ID) isn't science many times before. To summarize scientific theories: they're based on precise observation of natural processes, tested thoroughly before being published, tested by unaffiliated entities after being published, used to make predictions about future events, not the result of supernatural causality because the supernatural world can never be examined by natural instruments or entities (like people).

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

They use what is known as a "redshift" in the brightness of distant supernovae and calculate whether the universe's expansion has accelerated or decelerated since the explosion of that supernova.

It's direct observation and calculation of unaltered data (light waves), no different from the particle physicists you cited.

It is entirely different from your Christianity reference because the observation is objective, anyone with suitable instruments can repeat it, whereas agreeing on a supernatural entities existance is opinion and highly subjective.

Physicists have, for quite some time now, acknowledged that the universe went through a series of expansion periods where the speed at which it expanded changed.

OK, so the speed of light is a constant...check.

Speed that that celestial obect is travelling can be calculated by the red shift of the light coming from it...check.

Calculating distance is getting better, but accuracy still is an issue as you head into the outer reaches of the "edge of space", what is the accuracy? 5%, 20%?


All I'm saying is that idea put forth about the speed at which things happpened changed variably sounds like a bit of hand-waving at best. It just sounded a bit fishy to me, and thus my retort.

So, astrophysics may be able to tell us a bit about how big and how far and fast the universe may be, but how does that relate to the discusssion at hand? Is the Big Bang a cosmic nuclear explosion that came out of nothingness, or is the expanding universe showing how God created the universe out of nothingness X number of years ago?

I'd also like to thank all involved for yet another interesting, and well debated going over of this topic!

Originally Posted by JohnP

Just read your red-shift quote. Yes, redshift is repeatable and we did use it in labs, etc, but it only demonstrates we can use optical qualities to determine distance

IIRC, supernovae have a certain frequency that denotes their explosion, the redshift is how that inital frequency has been altered by the two bodies in question (us and the supernovae) having accelerated away from one another.

Originally Posted by JohnP

-likewise it is fine not to say life was created, so long as saying it happened by random is also not called "science".

We've discussed the difference between evolution happening randomly and happening naturally many times before, there is a huge difference.

Random implies that you have genes that are just mutating and expressing themselves with no regularity, this does not happen in real life. Natural means that the environment that an organism resides in has an affect on how those genes are expressed and that the environmental conditions determine which memberrs of a population pass on the genes that allowed them to survive.

Randomness couldn't be farther from what causes evolution.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Science is all about observable, demonstrable, things. Evolution, or more specifically this idea that life was not created but just happened, by the interaction of still more things that happened to already be there, in the right proportions, etc etc is a theory and as such is also not science, either.

First off, you've just barred creationism from the discussion with that first sentence. It's a hard reality to grasp but you've done so quite well. (but seriously, you are correct in that statement and it does eliminate the Supernatural as being credited for natural events).

Secondly, yes science is entirely based on theory, every science book in the world is filled with similar theories. And until they are disproven they will be taught as the prevailing explanation for the phenomena that we observe.

There is no difference between a scientific answer and a scientific theory as you suggest that there is. The reality is that your using a general speech form of the word "theory", not the scientific definition, which is much more rigorous.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Russel, I propose a draw as to which idea explains the origins of life-as to be honest, if one is willing to accept astronomical coincidences acting on matter and energy which cannot be created or destroyed...in the right order and making it subject to not only life but adaptation-then it is just as believable that likewise an intelligent being who also cannot be created or destroyed, intentionally brought these events to pass.

John P.

I accept.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

So, astrophysics may be able to tell us a bit about how big and how far and fast the universe may be, but how does that relate to the discusssion at hand? Is the Big Bang a cosmic nuclear explosion that came out of nothingness, or is the expanding universe showing how God created the universe out of nothingness X number of years ago?

I was still refuting the presentation on "God days" as being demonstrable by that simple exponential function. The function doesn't acount for an acceleration, only a consistent deceleration, making it false.

"it does eliminate the Supernatural as being credited for natural events"

Only so long as credit is based on scientific observation. Credit itself is based on faith so I don't see how John P.'s statement eliminates the Supernatural as being credited for natural events whether it is true or not. Every observation man makes and records is filtered through his own sensory interpretations and is subject to them. If the supernatural is not, then its proof cannot really be closely compared to natural proofs, but it can still be credited for natural events because ultimately people do the crediting and the discrediting on their own judgments and perceptions

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

I was still refuting the presentation on "God days" as being demonstrable by that simple exponential function. The function doesn't acount for an acceleration, only a consistent deceleration, making it false.

But doesn't relativity say that the faster things move the slower time gets? (I'm not up on relativity at all, so bear with me...).

So, since scientists say that the rate of universal expansion is increasing, doesn't that make our relative timeline decelerate as time goes on? Isn't that the point he way trying to make?

I didn't read it very carefully, as I read it at 7am while trying to watch my 3 1/2 year old out of the other eye.