Vidar's Comments
dogrun81: When multiple explanations of facts arise, scientists use something called "Occam's razor" to weed out the most unlikely of the two. One of the criteria that's selected upon is the one that invokes the least unproven entities, such as god.
Until there is direct scientific evidence of one or more gods the theory of evolution remains the best explanation for the diversity of life.
Creationism also doesn't further our understanding of why things are the way they are. Evolution does this by proposing a mechanism through which the diversity of life came about. The closest thing creationism comes to an explanation is "god did it", but it doesn't go further than that. It is never explained how god did it, why he did it, what processes were involved, etc.
In the scientific community there is no debate about this. Creationist promoters such as Kent Hovind and creationworldview.org like to imply discord amongst scientists by claiming there is a controversy, but that is mere deception. Kent Hovind and those like him are lying to you, because it will get them publicity, and publicity will generate money. They are not out to inform you, they are after the money in the pockets of a large gullible audience.
Also, the modern theory of evolution is a heck of a lot more complete than Darwin's proposal. Over the last 150 years evolution has been the most scrutinised theory in all of science, and it still stands strong. In fact, it stands stronger than ever before because of all the scrutiny. All the errors and misconceptions have been weeded out quite thoroughly.
I suggest you pick up a book called "the blind watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. It contains a reasonable explanation of the modern theory of evolution. Just ignore the atheist bit.
Until there is direct scientific evidence of one or more gods the theory of evolution remains the best explanation for the diversity of life.
Creationism also doesn't further our understanding of why things are the way they are. Evolution does this by proposing a mechanism through which the diversity of life came about. The closest thing creationism comes to an explanation is "god did it", but it doesn't go further than that. It is never explained how god did it, why he did it, what processes were involved, etc.
In the scientific community there is no debate about this. Creationist promoters such as Kent Hovind and creationworldview.org like to imply discord amongst scientists by claiming there is a controversy, but that is mere deception. Kent Hovind and those like him are lying to you, because it will get them publicity, and publicity will generate money. They are not out to inform you, they are after the money in the pockets of a large gullible audience.
Also, the modern theory of evolution is a heck of a lot more complete than Darwin's proposal. Over the last 150 years evolution has been the most scrutinised theory in all of science, and it still stands strong. In fact, it stands stronger than ever before because of all the scrutiny. All the errors and misconceptions have been weeded out quite thoroughly.
I suggest you pick up a book called "the blind watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. It contains a reasonable explanation of the modern theory of evolution. Just ignore the atheist bit.
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dogrun81:
The start of life, and the emergence of life from non-life is a seperate study known as abiogenesis. This is a fairly new study, and therefore there is not nearly as much evidence for it as for evolution. Just because Darwin didn't come up with such a mechanism doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I've (briefly) checked out creationworldview.org.
The site calls itself Creation Worldview [i]Ministries[/i] and has a massive cross on the main page. This does not bode well for science.
The articles rely on a misrepresentation of science. It uses the word 'evolution' in everything that isn't evolution, like astronomy.
It tries to put the supernatural in science, even though science deliberately excludes the supernatural simply because it can not be studied, proven, or disproven. You yourself said it doesn;t have any evidence for god, becuase he can't be proven.
It relies on a false dychotomy between Darwin and God. They state that id Darwin was wrong about even the tiniest detail of his theory, god must be true. Science doesn't work that way. If Darwin was off at some detail, then this detail will be corrected, and the result is a theory that conforms better to reality.
They misrepresent an article about a slight variation in the speed of light near the beginning of the universe as proof that earth is only 6000 yers old. This is outright dishonesty.
I'm not impressed by creationworldview.org, to say the least.
The start of life, and the emergence of life from non-life is a seperate study known as abiogenesis. This is a fairly new study, and therefore there is not nearly as much evidence for it as for evolution. Just because Darwin didn't come up with such a mechanism doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I've (briefly) checked out creationworldview.org.
The site calls itself Creation Worldview [i]Ministries[/i] and has a massive cross on the main page. This does not bode well for science.
The articles rely on a misrepresentation of science. It uses the word 'evolution' in everything that isn't evolution, like astronomy.
It tries to put the supernatural in science, even though science deliberately excludes the supernatural simply because it can not be studied, proven, or disproven. You yourself said it doesn;t have any evidence for god, becuase he can't be proven.
It relies on a false dychotomy between Darwin and God. They state that id Darwin was wrong about even the tiniest detail of his theory, god must be true. Science doesn't work that way. If Darwin was off at some detail, then this detail will be corrected, and the result is a theory that conforms better to reality.
They misrepresent an article about a slight variation in the speed of light near the beginning of the universe as proof that earth is only 6000 yers old. This is outright dishonesty.
I'm not impressed by creationworldview.org, to say the least.
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dogrun81: If creation science was ever taught in schools, it has been superceded 150 years ago when the theory of evolution was devised.
Also, show me the thousands of scientists, their experiments, and their observations. Are any of them recent? Are any of their hypotheses viable as science?
Also, show me the thousands of scientists, their experiments, and their observations. Are any of them recent? Are any of their hypotheses viable as science?
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White man: What does it matter what relatives Obama has? And why does it matter that he has more recent African forefathers than, presumably, you?
Make a desicion about who you vote for based on the policies he proposes to implement, not on his family, or his race.
Pious: Evolution does not postulate that a pig can be bred into a dog.
Also, mutations are not always bad. For instance, there's a family in Italy who have a mutation that makes them more resistant to heart disease. The mutation arose a few hundred years ago, and has since slowly spread through the populous, just as evolution predicts it will. Get you facts straight.
dogrun81: You won't find any creation science proponents who actually do know something about science, because creation science isn't science. If it was, creationists wouldn't have to try to force it into the classrooms through lawsuits, it would emerge as the most likely answer on it's own. It doesn't, because it doesn't have a shred of evidence to support it.
OT: Poor ducky. Someone should apply a pair of scissors to the feet of whoever did that.
Make a desicion about who you vote for based on the policies he proposes to implement, not on his family, or his race.
Pious: Evolution does not postulate that a pig can be bred into a dog.
Also, mutations are not always bad. For instance, there's a family in Italy who have a mutation that makes them more resistant to heart disease. The mutation arose a few hundred years ago, and has since slowly spread through the populous, just as evolution predicts it will. Get you facts straight.
dogrun81: You won't find any creation science proponents who actually do know something about science, because creation science isn't science. If it was, creationists wouldn't have to try to force it into the classrooms through lawsuits, it would emerge as the most likely answer on it's own. It doesn't, because it doesn't have a shred of evidence to support it.
OT: Poor ducky. Someone should apply a pair of scissors to the feet of whoever did that.
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At least I'm not the only one who thinks this is a disturbing trend.
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Abiogenesis doesn't invoke unexplained entities. That makes it the better explanation, even when it's currently incomplete. Research is continueing. More will be learned. The origin of life will be explained without the need for god.
The fossil record is direct evidence for evolution, as is DNA, and chromosomes, and taxonomy, and the various ring species, all of wich are explained by evolution. The phrase "god did it" explains nothing.
If you want tranitional fossils, do a google search. You will never find a complete list, becuase scientists have som many fossils that it's impossible to determine whether a fossil is a new species, or a member of an existing species with mere slight variation, like all living humans are slightly different from each other. Scientists now have too many fossils to catalog using the existing system. scientists have more transitional fossils than they know how to handle. We have thousands of tranitional fossils. Hell, we have fossils of fifteen thousand species of trilobites! If you want a corckaduck, don't bother. Evolution postulates no such nonsense.
The wikipedia page on transitional fossils is not complete. It says so on the page. Do more research. Find more complete lists of fossils. It's not hard to do.
The beginning of the universe is not part of evolution. The beginning of the universe is part of cosmology. Scientists do not know how it all started yet. Maybe the LHC will shed some new light on it. Just because we don't know yet how the universe started doesn't mean that "goddidit".
Life transitioning to other forms of life have been observed. Single-cell organisms producing multi-cellular organisms have been observed. Changes to different Genus have been observed over many generations, just as evolution predicts.
Ben Stein's movie is a blatant propaganda piece, designed to pull money from the pockets of a gullible audience. It equates science with nazism. It's a great, big, fat, lie. Take it's claims with a truck-load of salt. Do research of your own regarding it's claims, and do so beyond creationist websites.
If I were head of a scientific research facility, I would want people who ask questions based on the evidence rather than based on their religious convictions, so, no, I would not want to have creationists under me. There is no evidence for creationism. All the arguments for creationism have been crushed over and over again. Find something new already. We are getting tired of debunking the same old arguments agian and again.
Find holes in all of your own beliefs, and correct them. This will make you a better person. This advise goes out to everyone, creationist or otherwise. It's how science works.