Thread: Split from Palin for VP: Creationism in schools

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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.

Russel....that's exactly what I've been trying to accuse you of. Were you to stop trying to put creation or its proponents into such a tiny box, I wouldn't be sitting here arguing with you.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Some points that you've made:

1) Genes are deteriorating. First off, source please?

You want a list? Here's one interesting site that might spool you up...so of course I linked to it...

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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.

Our sisters have similar jobs, mine used to work (perhaps still does but at a different university) in a genomics lab, is near completion of her PhD and knows her way around a sequencer also. Doesn't mean that has anything to do with whether either of us is right or wrong, and your sister's fruit fly experiment no more proves there was no creation, than does observing people being born with different colors of hair. Why make allowances for all the things evolution doesn't claim or does claim in all sorts of different circumstances...then in turn lock creation into only one possible version which you have already discounted?
Even the version of creationism requiring an all powerful omniscient creator (not all versions do) is not discounted; as if such a being created the laws of physics...why would this enlightened being then choose to use "magic" to complete the process? It also bears mentioning, even architects know the materials in their bridges degrade....yet they still design bridges. Even belief in a perfect creator does not require that he created US to be perfect....so really it's a shallow argument to point out things that bother one about our own genetic code, then ask why we are not perfect. Belief in creation does not require a belief in "perfect" creation. Just creation. Otherwise we are getting into a religious discussion, and there are reams of similar questions people use to feed their rationalizations that they answer to no one, like "Why do people die?, Why is there war?" That sort of thing. If we were made "perfect" we would already know all the answers, now wouldn't we.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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.

Well, either it applies or it doesn't. One would think we as humans would be more adapted to sunlight and UV rays, that we would have less instances of leukemia and other illnesses often linked to environmental conditions, that sort of thing. Otherwise our tendency to create shelters in communities (house, apartment, etc) is very similar to other animals that do the same thing. Do they not adapt, either, because they alter their environment to live in these shelters? For that matter, why are we not shorter, so as to better fit the standard automobile, and why are we not all physically well built (after all-part of evolutionary theory involves "attracting a mate")...? We cannot make generalizations like these obviously.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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.

Again, you make some good points, but did not read my (admittedly tedious at times) posts. I have not once stated that "creation is what is being viewed in all of the experiments listed". You misquote or at least misunderstood my posts. I am saying that so far no experiment has created life, even under nearly every imagineable coincidence. When life IS produced from scratch, if you will, in a lab....my argument is that a team of PhD's and their workers manipulating all variety of natural (and perhaps not-so-natural) substances and conditions managing to achieve life of some sort, is only a demonstration of life being created and therefore does nothing to disprove creation theory any more than it proves autogenesis, abiogenesis or whatever you choose to believe in. It only proves life can be created. Of course you could argue "but those conditions could have happened naturally". Of course. Throw around a few billion years like nothing, and one of these times when a dumptruck drops a pile of brick it's going to fall in the form of a house....not saying it's impossible...but...no more implausible than the idea someone built the house. Essentially if life is created in a lab, it will not disprove creation, and to think so is a mistake; another act of creation, should it occur (wrt manmade life) is not a good argument against creation the first time around.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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.

Actually....it isn't that outdated, as unless the ability to adapt is somehow pre-programmed, every time a life-threatening environmental change occurred, all life would simply die. Leading to a need for successive RE-generation of life at a later date. It also bears pointing out that your building block statement simply demonstrates a lack of understanding of creationism in its purest sense. Of COURSE the building blocks for life are no different from other building blocks.We aren't made of pixie dust. This statement no more disproves creation than claiming Ford did not build my truck because it used steel in the engine.
An interesting aside...there is a good deal of controversy over the actual source of oil, now-and apparently the prehistoric plant/algae matter belief held for so long is losing ground with many, but I digress....

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

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...

Hmmm. Again, the reading thing
While I said there is no evidence to disprove Creation that is not ALL I said. I also pointed out many of those same pet experiments you link to could also be claimed by creationists. They are not as mutually exclusive as you wish them to be, and that is the crux of why I believe neither theory should be given more importance in the classroom. Explain them, and leave it at that, as ultimately it really doesn't matter, does it? You're here, I'm here. Once that is done, the research as to what is or has happened since life began can continue.
Incidentally, "Scientists" did not present Evolution-Charles Darwin did. One man. He also was not an atheist.
Please elaborate, also...you require ME to prove creation...and yet teams and teams of scientists are only "in the process of using it[the extremely well documented constituent implications you mention] to make real progress". Talk about a vague statement- Make real progress to what? prove life adapts? So what-doesn't disprove creation even if it does; prove life was not created? So far they've only proven they can generate some of the building blocks....which again, is like saying Domino's didn't make the pizza you had delivered, because you have discovered cheese in the local grocery store. So if the goal of science (honestly...religion? there is a huge bent pushing to prove an atheistic view rather than considering all possibilities) or at least those scientists you side with is to prove life was NOT created, then so far they have failed, by the same rules you apparently wish to apply to creation. So, tit for tat here, perhaps that really is how it works.
Schools should not be in the business therefore of indoctrinating children into the religion of atheism, as it has no more proof than creationism. Schools should IMHO take a more agnostic viewpoint and let the students arrive at their own conclusions. The laws of science will still be there after all, and even scientists on all sides of the issue (creationists/atheist/agnostics etc) get to use the same ones.

So why push the Atheist religion, when it is just as simple to leave it out and say "here is hypothesis A, and here is hypothesis B" and set the students lose on it.






John P.

Originally Posted by JohnP

Until one or the other is proven "right" there is nothing "wrong" with teaching both.

John P.

You are right of course. But one should be taught in science class, and the other in religious class.
That is how it should be, because one is based on science, and one on religion.
And that is how they are taught in most Europen schools.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You are right of course. But one should be taught in science class, and the other in religious class.
That is how it should be, because one is based on science, and one on religion.
And that is how they are taught in most Europen schools.

Until its proven it might as well be religion as it requires tons of faith to get past the glaring problems in Darwins hypothesis!

You've referred to "the atheist religion" around a dozen times in your various posts, which underlines your own lack of reading on the basis of it being an oxymoron. Besides, I can't recall having said in this thread that a creator cannot exist (and evolution makes no claim whatsoever), just that for the formation of life and it's subsequent diversification, natural pathways are a possibility. You've added your own personal bias to the equation.

About my statement that you must prove creation; it wasn't literal. If a person or group posits a scenario, then that person or group is bound to prove it.

That website is definitely on the better side of creation science, I'll give you that. But they are not distinguishing between DNA that is actually used to code for a human and the "junk DNA" that's estimated at being around 90% of the human genome. When you reduce their figures down by 90% the argument becomes a lot less valid.

***Why not just say "here is hypothesis A, and here is hypothesis B" and set the students lose on it?***

First off, we're back to the established definition of "science" as dealing only with natural phenomenon, so you'd have to either change that definition or pioneer a new discipline that allows for supernatural events.

Besides, creationists still haven't addressed the issue of how to assess the Creator. Science requires that you probe the "cause" to understand it in ever increasing detail if an "effect" is to be attributed to it. If all other things are assumed equal, this one question remains. Evolution may be continually evaluated through genetic comparisons, but how could we ever determine the means and methods of a transcendent creator? If we cannot do that, it belongs outside of science.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

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

I've actually had several pastors tell me that human illness is merely a physical manifestation of sin. Guess that's why I should mail them a check each month, eh?

For those of you that think this belief is limited to the local reverends, read CS Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" which goes on about a similar concept for some time.

I think sometimes that can be true. There are guys at work all the time who call in sick, and they're sick because they feel so badly and dreading that they are supposed to go to work. But then later when they realize they've been cleared to not have to come in, they decide it's a nice day for golfing and suddenly they feel fine

You can just send me paypal, checks take too long. I- er, I mean God needs your money now!

I'm not sure what thread to put this in, but I thought this might be interesting to link here

Palin speaking at an Assembly of God church in Wasilla, AK

(I haven't listened to it yet, I don't have audio where I am currently)

Originally Posted by jockeys

I've actually had several pastors tell me that human illness is merely a physical manifestation of sin. Guess that's why I should mail them a check each month, eh?

For those of you that think this belief is limited to the local reverends, read CS Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" which goes on about a similar concept for some time.

People who claim this (I've the problem of pain.....it's not quite THAT simple) haven't read their Bibles as Christ himself refutes this when He is asked whether a blind man or the man's parents have sinned. He states that neither have.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

People who claim this (I've the problem of pain.....it's not quite THAT simple) haven't read their Bibles as Christ himself refutes this when He is asked whether a blind man or the man's parents have sinned. He states that neither have.

as Ghandi so eloquently puts it:
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

people are a problem.

I usually try to stay out of debates such as this, but...

Let me start off by saying that im not a scientist, engineer, doctor, lawyer, theologian, or anything else. I dont even play any of these on TV. Im a high school grad, former Army tanker, and full time computer security nerd. All of the below opinions are just that, opinions.

In my opinion, creationism, evolutionism, or ID can not be proven, at least not with the current understanding of the scientific community. There's too many pieces of the puzzle missing from each side to be able to definitely prove one way or the other.

That being said, science classes are, or should be, designed with express intent of passing on current knowledge. This basically has the effect of bringing students up to speed with where science currently is as of the date of instruction. This gives them all of the information they need to go out into the world and further that knowledge so that it can be passed on to later generations for the same purpose.

In order to do so, the information being passed on to them should be based on current theories, theories that are supported by what evidence science has gathered up to this time. Once a student is out of school, they are encouraged to begin working on whatever theories they themselves may have or believe. This way, any subsequent work is based on current knowledge. To me, that's what science is all about. Students are welcome to follow current theory, follow alternative theories, or come up with their own theories, and help prove whichever they choose to follow. But the teaching of science should be limited to those theories that are supported by evidence.

Without getting into the theological aspect of this point, I wholeheartedly discount the biblical account of creation. We know that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, we know that other forms of life existed way before that, and to date, no evidence of humans existed prior to some tens of thousands of years ago. Based on that, I do believe that we evolved from other species. Please bear in mind that just because I say I discount the biblical account of creation doesn't mean I discount creationism alltogether. After all, someone COULD find a human skeleton that dates back millions of years. They just haven't done it yet.

Lets say that I am an alien from another planet much older than Earth. Lets also assume that my world is dying from . As a scientist, I am tasked with the job of somehow preserving my race by seeding another planet with life based on my DNA. So I take some DNA, mix it into some other stuff, put it in a few hundred capsules, and eject them into deep space. At this point, I have no idea where one of the capsules will land, or what will happen to the DNA inside during flight, or what shape life from this stuff will take. Im just concerned about trying to grow something based on my races DNA.

Now, one of those capsules hits Earth, breaks open, and the stuff inside starts to grow. Life begins on Earth as a simple form and eventually evolves into humans. Does this scenario not fit both the basic definitions of ID AND evolution? Replace the word "alien" in my scenario with the word "god", change the premise of the scenario around a little bit, and all of a sudden, it fits the basic definition of creation AND evolution.

The point is, we cannot possibly find evidence to prove either way how life first started. We cannot go back to the day life started to take a sample of the pool of goo where the first single cell organism sprang to life, and we cannot possibly find that capsule that the alien/god sent to seed this planet with life. Both would be the equivalent of looking for the point of a needle in a VERY large haystack. Either way, the same still holds true. Somehow life was CREATED on this planet, either through pure chance or an intentional act, and that, humans EVOLVED from that life.

All of this being said, I firmly believe that what SHOULD be taught in schools should be based on the evidence we currently have. The students themselves will decide what theory they believe. In my admittedly limited knowledge of creationism, the only proof shown to support it is the seeming lack of proof they cite for evolution.

Wow, this turned out longer than I had intended. Ok, flame away