Thread: Split from Palin for VP: Creationism in schools

Originally Posted by Bruno

Matter can also pop into existence out of nothing, together with their anti particle.
Their net sum is still 0. If they get separated instead of recombined, both can live their own life.
And if they recombine, the situation will be back the way it was.

yes indeed, thanks for pointing that out, haven't had my coffee yet so i'm practically retarded.

also, Prions jump species barrier : Nature News here's an interesting story... for the first (that I'm aware of) time, an organism has been observed crossing, the species boundary. interesting stuff, and good debate-fuel.

Originally Posted by JohnP

So....millions of experiments with possibly just as many "natural" environmental situations-and no life.
The instant life DOES happen in a laboratory-it will have been created.

Didn't you accuse me of making weighty claims that were unsupported? Because that is what you've just done. There are many men and women working with genetics, true, but there have only been a small handfull of those researchers actively trying to prove abiogenesis and evolution. Why so little interest? Because when they talk about viable scientific answers to the question, there is only one for each repsective field, evolution and abiogenesis. Everything else is outside of the realm of laboratory testing and is therefore useless to making scientific progress.

Researchers use the principles of the theories to cary out their daily experiments, and so the theories have a useful place in the world of biology, whereas ceding the issue to a creator is useless for making advancements and is therefore disregarded, regardless of whether it could be true or not.

Originally Posted by JohnP

It is also safe to assume at this point that any future experiment demonstrating the same, will simply have been yet another act of creation.

This is blatant equivocation!

Your using the term "creation" to mean the formation of life. But the issue we've been discussing (admittedly off topic) is whether or not life "formed" via natural mechanisms or via supernatural design.

If life is formed in a lab, it will have been through natural mechanisms that could have occurred without the help of a lab technician. It will not have been "created" by the will and mysterious methods of an unknown designer.

(again, with the caveat that it's possible for the laws of the universe, that are being referred to as natural mechanisms to have been designed, if you want to look at it that way. But the point still holds, life formation does not imply an intentional end product which would be the case for creation.)


edit: (clarification, the theories discussed above are considered as "proven" because the methods that they facilitate are proven in a piecewise fashion since, as has been shown, it's extremely difficult to have a singular experiment that affirms the entirety of the model. The "proof", as it were, is it's usefulness, like Quantum Theory which Bruno alluded to earlier.)

We see evidence of evolution every day. It can be seen naturally in bacteria, it can be forced in the lab, and we see some of its evidence in the fossil record, for some examples.

We have a hypothesis, then, based on observable and repeatable phenomena, that might explain how very simple life can become very complex life.

I'd argue that there are no observable and repeatable phenomena on which we can hang creationism-- which is why we can't teach it as a scientific theory.

Originally Posted by ScottS

We see evidence of evolution every day. It can be seen naturally in bacteria, it can be forced in the lab, and we see some of its evidence in the fossil record, for some examples.

We have a hypothesis, then, based on observable and repeatable phenomena, that might explain how very simple life can become very complex life.

I'd argue that there are no observable and repeatable phenomena on which we can hang creationism-- which is why we can't teach it as a scientific theory.

But do we really see evidence of evolution? Possibly, and again possibly not. If there were hands down evidence that evolution rather than genetic deterioration was occuring, evolution would not be a theory.


It is unproven. It doesn't matter how many proteins are created in what way-none of those experiments demosntrate that life began without a creator anymore than they demonstrate life was created. We simply do not know. Therefore it is wrong to simply say "this is how it happened".

Likewise as to your last statement, the same experiments some claim support evolution (or more correctly, the autogenesis of life theory, as evolution itself does not contradict creation in a pure sense..) could also be said to support creation...hence a double edged sword.


If one is banned from the classroom for considering the possibility of a creative force, then the other should also be, for supporting (so far also without proof...) the belief that there is not, and life is the culmination of an astronomical number of coincidences. Many post that "evolution can be seen in the laboratory" (or similarly) but in reality-it has not been. There are many links to inconclusive data, that could easily be dismissed as mutations.
Personally I'm not ready to cast off evolution in its entirety, but it is not "the" answer nor have iterations of it supported by atheism been any more proven than non-atheistic views.

Quite simply, one could point at a single cell organism and say "look...the ingredients in that organism can be created in a lab, in the atmosphere we believe surround the earth X billion years ago, if they were to flow together and lightning were to strike...see how these two form DNA?" thinking he had proof life occurred without creation; however the equivalent argument would be that simple discovery of what are potentially the building blocks of creation does not prove it did not occur.

Similarly if so many species have adapted through the ages to various environments, then indeed, if the species were simply a coincidental life form....all life would have been annihilated many many times; on the other hand, if the hand of design were involved...the creatures could be coaxed along, adapt? overcome, multiply, etc etc etc.

It also bears pointing out that many studies of gene mutations which some have implied demonstrate continuing evolution...often demonstrate deterioration and not improvement. Even studies of our own chromosomes show them to be breaking down through the generations rapidly. If indeed we were "adapting" and not by some internally programmed "code"....then we should by all logic have chromosomes and a genetic structure that is improving. Correct? Then why is this not the case, if we are indeed adapting.

Students learn about particles which are not subject to the restraint of time, apparently, subatomic particles, that are considered to "jump" from one level to the other instantaneously-without ever being anywhere in between....
yet none of us has seen an electron, proton, or neutron-or any other subatomic particle under a microscope-and we have no problems teaching quantum theory in the classroom....because, like creation, it is one possible explanation that is practical.

Likewise, no experiment as of yet done has disproved an act of creation-none of them. Some are tantalizingly close to envisioning how life was constructed, but none go far enough as to show it was not constructed.

Put a bowl of flour next to an egg and some baking soda, near some water. If under natural conditions the flour were to blow into the water, and perhaps the egg roll into the mixture along with the baking soda...perhaps dough would be created....
...and if the house were to burn down due to overheated wiring....
...perhaps it could then even turn to bread. However, that is a far cry from proving that is how the muffins at the local bakery came to pass, rather it is an understanding of some of the processes and components.
Belief in life without a creation point simply because some of the building blocks have been found is exactly the same as the belief that bread is created by leaving the eggs and milk section at the supermarket too close to the flour. It requires a religious belief-atheism-to believe this all occurred without a baker.
Schools should not be in the business of supporting one religion over another, nor claiming there is more support for the "no baker" theory, because..look at the different kinds of bread, than they should support the theory of "hey-bread. There must have been a baker".
Choosing one over the other is tantamount to pushing one religious belief over another in public schools, and is therefore misguided at best.

Experiments showing amino acids or proteins etc can be created similarly in a laboratory do not prove that life occurred this way.
There simply is no conclusive proof that there was no creation involved, and statistical evidence actually points to the likelihood that life was given a helping hand.
What you believe that helping hand is or was, or if it even existed, is up to you. Whether you see an immortal Creator of some form, or a previously evolved species from elsewhere conducting an experiment or that life is a repeating cycle...or Zeus' tears and a turtle....or perhaps time itself as the creator, creationism does not address these, and is in and of itself not a religion but a hypothetical answer to a question evolution so far does not answer, and autogenesis of life theory is simply but one other hypothetical answer, with no more proof.

Viewpoints which only consider the side of atheism cross the line into supporting one religion over another, simply because these viewpoints completely bar the idea of any creative power older or more intelligent than mankind, while using extremely convenient scenarios and tossing around billions of years as if they were seconds to increase in the holders' minds the possibility of the events having occurred without a creative hand. True science is no place for such closed-minded thinking, nor is the school, where until proven all feasible possibilities should be considered. Those believing it not feasible simply believe so based on a religious belief, not on any factual evidence one way or the other, and are in the same boat as creationists, IMHO.

Teach both or neither, because evidence of suspected adaptation, or laboratory creation of amino acids...do nothing to disprove creation, and could in fact be used to support it.

The evidence for either can either be believed or cast off, but not by scientific evidence, but religious assumptions-"there is no creator, so that theory must be false" makes the assumption of no creator, and is a religious viewpoing of atheism, just as much as "There is a creator, therefore all of this was created".
There are an infinite number of creation theories as well as religious which include some of them. Likewise other theories have their proponents as well. I feel both should be taught, in their basest, simplest versions-as potential explanations for life. Going farther into depth onto *which* version of creation would indeed be siding with a religion, just as claiming lab generated amino acids prove there was no creation would be doing the same. Science is science, speculation, whether atheistic or not, has little right to be taught as fact without proof.
Until one or the other is proven "right" there is nothing "wrong" with teaching both.

John P.

John, you've used the term closed minded to describe the people who differ from your own point of view, but you haven't taken the time to grasp a sufficient understanding of the other side.

Some points that you've made:

1) Genes are deteriorating. First off, source please? Second, evolution makes no claim that all genes must constantly be improved. Take this example; my sister is a geneticist (mostly deals with plants) who works in a lab that has a breeding population of fruit flies for use in certain studies. Last year, they decided to increase the genetic diversity by doubling the number of the flies and allowing them to breed as usual. They began to notice that their fruit flies were dropping... well... like flies and undertook a genetic sequencing of a number of the flies to determine why. The result? The new flies were a standard wild variety, and possessed a gene that made them innmue to a certain kind of transposon ( a type of gene the randomly splices bits of DNA into sections where they don't belong Transposon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) that is common in fruit fly genes. The original flies had "evolved" that immunity out of there genetic code as well as the transcription factor that made the transposon active. So when the two groups interbred, the new "evolved" flies were subject to random destructive mutations caused by the transposon.

So their code was "degenerated" with respect to that previous need for immunization, but a step forward in the absence of it (less genetic coding to be done, more efficient slightly, if nothing less it was a neutral evolution.

2) Human genes are deteriorating. Well, humans aren't really subject to natural selection are we. We've gotten so good at adapting the environment to suit ourselves that there's really no mechanism driving our best specimen to be supported in any significant way.

3) "Creation" is what is being viewed in all of the experiments listed thus far. This is still equivocation on the word "creation" I really can't respond to the way your using it, since it's an "artistic" use of the word.

4) Life occurring naturally requires an astronomical number of coincidences. This is an outdated argument because there are really very few coincidences. There are explanations out there, that are based on solid physical laws, to show that the building blocks of life are no different from the building blocks of the rest of the world. Molecules and elements interact in the same way regardless of what they constitute on the macro scale. The only coincidences are that the cosmological constants are the way that they are and that quantum mechanics works the way it does. The same argument of improbability can be made for oil being created out of prehistoric plant and algae matter, or flawless diamonds out of dirty, non-translucent carbon.

5) There's no evidence to disprove Creation. True, but that's not the way it works. If you present an idea, YOU must prove it. Scientists presented Evolution and have found many of it's constituent implications to be extremely well documented and are in the process of using it to make real progress.

Gotta go for a bit, work to be done...

As a side note, how does the creation community argue with the existence of things like transposons? The only thing that transposons do in a genetic code is screw things up. If living things were indeed created, why would there be such a useless, destructive piece of genetic material. The creator would have to take credit for it if he's going to take credit for beginning or designing the whole process.

This is why evolution (or abiogenesis) is a useful model, it answers questions like that by admitting that there's no predetermined outcome to any gene mutation.

How would creation settle with a situation like this.

I bet the answer is; "Its not for us to know why"

It is not for us to know why

Oh dang! someone already got it

Transposons, thats Satan's work.

Originally Posted by Hutch

Transposons, thats Satan's work.

That would be the evil, fallen side of creation. Transposons are to the rest of us what the bad superman was to urban civilization