Theory of Creation?

[juliod]

The big problem in the debate over creation is the utter lack of a "theory of creation".

They never tell us the where and when or their theory, and never tell us the evidence that supports it.

For example, Genesis is true, then the three most important events in history are 1) The Creation, 2) The Flood, and 3) The Babel story.

Some creationists accept 4004 BC for the date of creation. But I have never seen anyone put a date on the other two.

The Babel story should be very easy to support, since all branches of linguistics should point to the location of the tower as the origin.

It's also remarkable that no creationist organization has yet built a replica ark and showed that it it seaworthy and capable of carrying a large number of animals, etc.

DanZ

[old ag]

Note from last night: the quote "the world that then was..." is from 2Peter 3:6 "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished".

Now The theory of Creation may be stated thusly:

"The universe, and all that is in it, including time itself, was created Ex Nihilo about 4,004 years ago by an all powerful, pre-existing Supreme Being, who, from time to time, has intervened in its history."

The most obvious predictions flowing from this are:
1. The universe will exhibit design features.
2. It WILL BE ORDERLY, allowing for systematic investigation and understanding by man.
3. There will be physical evidence of the interventions noted.

The theory of evolution may be summarized thusly (?):

"The universe and all that is in it, except time itself, arose spontaneously from nothing and by chance somewhere between 13-16 billion years ago. Later, life itself also arose spontaneously and by chance and progressed from simple to complex forms up to the appearance of man".

The most obvious predictions from this are:
1. The universe will not exhibit design features.
2.The universe will be random and disorderly making systematic investigation impossible.
3. There will be no evidence of intelligent interventions in its history.


Am I way off base??

Old Ag

[seventil]

Additionallly, why would "God did it" be any better as an explaination than e.g. "something did/caused it". Concluding that this something is God is a clear non-sequitur, and even if it was valid logic we'd still not know which God(s).

jwu

I never wanted to conclude that believing in God causing something was better than an explanation.

I simply stated that believing in God (Divine Intervention) to explain something - AND - still trying to find a natural way to explain the same thing is completely viable. To my knowledge, no Creationist has stated that there can NOT be a natural way to explain the unexplainable - it's just we haven't revealed it yet.

Bah, I forgot what we were talking about.

[Gollum]

"The universe and all that is in it, except time itself, arose spontaneously from nothing and by chance somewhere between 13-16 billion years ago. Later, life itself also arose spontaneously and by chance and progressed from simple to complex forms up to the appearance of man".

The most obvious predictions from this are:
1. The universe will not exhibit design features.
2.The universe will be random and disorderly making systematic investigation impossible.
3. There will be no evidence of intelligent interventions in its history.

Am I way off base??

You're somewhat off-base. The only part of the initial statement that could be construed to be "evolutionary" theory is life [...] progressed from simple to complex forms [...] and even that (lacking as it does any mention of mechanism, natural selection, speciation, etc.) isn't a very complete statement about evolution.

The rest of it (origin of the universe and life) are not part of evolutionary theory. The "universe" part comes from cosmology and is speculative at best. The most common origin of the universe theory (the big bang) says (among other things) that time as well as space and matter originated in that event. Regardless of the accuracy of the big bang or any other cosmological origins theory, evolution does not assume any of them to be true or false (including supernatural theories) and doesn't depend on any particular universal origin theory. Similarly, evolution does not propose nor depend on any particular "origin of life" theory, again including supernatural ones.

Now ... on to the predictions ...

1. The whole "evidence of design" thing is the thrust of the ID movement and no one has managed to propose a definition for what constitutes "evidence of design" that everybody can accept. Before you can state that the universe will (or will not) exhibit design features, it is necessary that the definition of that term be proposed and agreed.

2. I suspect that "random and disorderly" has much the same problem as "evidence of design" (i.e. no agreed definition.) Even if we accept the commonplace definitions for those terms, there is no reason to assume that postulating the big bang or abiogenesis necessarily leads to that conclusion. At least I have never seen the chain of logic that starts with the big bang and arrives at random chaos as a logical consequence of it.

3. "Evidence of design" and "evidence of intelligence" are probably synonyms (both undefined!) Even if we accept some "gut instinct" definitions for those terms, we have only moved the issue back a step. Something may show design or show evidence of intelligence but there's still a large leap of faith involved in saying that such "evidence" is proof. If we were to find "Inspected by #43" engraved at the sub-atomic level on every bacterial flagellum ... that would be proof of design. As it is, the whole thing is an argument from ignorance where we are saying "I don't understand how it evolved so it must have been designed."

[jwu]

Note from last night: the quote "the world that then was..." is from 2Peter 3:6 "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished".

Now The theory of Creation may be stated thusly:

"The universe, and all that is in it, including time itself, was created Ex Nihilo about 4,004 years ago by an all powerful, pre-existing Supreme Being, who, from time to time, has intervened in its history."

The most obvious predictions flowing from this are:
1. The universe will exhibit design features.
2. It WILL BE ORDERLY, allowing for systematic investigation and understanding by man.
3. There will be physical evidence of the interventions noted.

Ok, but i'd like to add some things:
4. The universe has a purpose
4.1. The universe will be efficient for fulfilling this purpose
5. The universe should be contain evidence from which one can conclude that it is young (no "appearance of age")

The theory of evolution may be summarized thusly (?):

"The universe and all that is in it, except time itself, arose spontaneously from nothing and by chance somewhere between 13-16 billion years ago. Later, life itself also arose spontaneously and by chance and progressed from simple to complex forms up to the appearance of man".

You are messing up the theory of the big bang with abiogenesis and the theory of evolution. They are distinct and do not depend on each other.
The big bang theory includes the beginning of time, as time and space seem to be interdependent. It does not propose that everything arose from "nothing". It does not propose that it happened by "chance", but as far as i know the cause is simply not known or understood. That does not equal the statement that it was a mere chance thing.
Abiogenesis isn't about spontaneous emergence of life either, but rather a more or less gradualistic process with several steps in between.
The theory of evolution, in its naturalistic understanding, does not propose that things have to go from simple to complex. Such a change just is consistent with it. While mutations are random, natural selection is not.

The most obvious predictions from this are:
1. The universe will not exhibit design features.

In case of an naturalistic big bang as the origin, yes.

2.The universe will be random and disorderly making systematic investigation impossible.

No. A naturalistic big bang does not contradict the emergence of natural laws which have an ordering effect.

3. There will be no evidence of intelligent interventions in its history.

No. A naturalistic big bang as the origin of the universe, abiogenesis as the origin of life and naturalistic evolution as the cause of the diversity of life does not mean that a deity cannot exist or intervene. It just means that it didn't intervene in the relevant situations, not in any others.

To my knowledge, no Creationist has stated that there can NOT be a natural way to explain the unexplainable - it's just we haven't revealed it yet.

Many do this. Whenever a "evolution can't account for this, therefore God did it" thread appears somewhere on a forum we have such a case. The entire concept of irreducible complexity as an argument in favour of intelligent design depends on this - it completely denies that a naturalistic event could be a reasonable explaination for such systems. Would it not do so, then it'd defeat its own purpose.

jwu

[Jose]

The theory should follow these guidlines:

Empirically Testable & Falsifiable...

This is where both theories Evolution and the "Theory of Creation" will break down and become metaphysical discussions: Origins are by definition one time and PAST events, they are not subject to the above criteria and the evolutionist dismisses the only witness (God) out-of-hand.

I accept God's explanation on"faith" because it fits MORE of the data than evolution and makes more common sense, But I can not test it!

This is a common complaint about evolution. It makes the assumption that "testing" requires repeating it exactly, and that "falsifying" requires showing that it happened differently (probably by watching). Actually, "testing" of virtually any scentific hypothesis is done by using that hypothesis to make predictions, and then collecting data to see if those predictions are met. "Falsifying" the hypothesis occurs when the predictions are clearly not met.

For example, Darwin's original hypothesis was that change occurred gradually. This is the "gradualism" that creationists often criticize. The hypothesis of gradualism predicts that changes should be seen in any comparison of "species now" vs "species then." It turns out not to be so. Many species seem to stay very much the same for long periods of time. So, gradualism is falsified.

In the face of data that falsify the hypothesis, what should one do? Obviously, throw out the hypothesis and come up with a new one. Gould came up with one that looks pretty good: long periods of little change, with shorter periods of rapid change. This hypothesis matches the genetic data much better, and is therefore the current version of the hypothesis.

What would falsify the theory of evolution? Many things. The theory predicts that the evolutionary sequence from ancestor to current descendent is strictly correct. If we were to find evidence (eg fossils) of current descendents in rocks that are much older than those in which we find the presumed ancestors, then that prediction is not met, and the theory has been falsified.

The theory also predicts that species that have descended from a common ancestor should have similarities in their DNA sequences. Those similarities should be greater for species whose last common ancestor lived more recently; similarities should be less for species whose last common ancestor lived longer ago. If we were to find species that are clearly "sister species," but whose DNA is wildly different, then this prediction is not met, and the theory is falsified.

In short, one can make a number of different predictions, and then determine whether those predictions are met.

Creationists use this approach (correctly) to try to falsify evolution. That's what all of this "teach the controversy" stuff is about. The difficulty arises when we find that a prediction is not met--is it because the theory is wrong, or is it because the prediction is wrong, or because the data are incomplete? So far, the creationists' falsifications have been shown to suffer from one of the latter two problems. "There are no intermediate forms" would be a great falsifier, but it turns out not to be true because the creationists' definition of "intermediate form" is not what evolution predicts an "intermediate form" should be like. "Polonium haloes show that basement rocks are actually extremely young" would be a great falsifier, but the data behind that assertion were incomplete. It turns out that there are much more mundane reasons that the polonium haloes exist.

So, the theory of evolution is testable and falsifiable, and therefore meets seventil's criterion.

As a scientist, I can say that the only assumptions I make are these:

1. people can think about things and figure them out.

2. natural processes have been going on since they started going on.

Now we may be getting somewhere. Your assumption 2 is, in fact, a statement of faith. You admit that you "assume" that they are going on now as they always have been, but you can not know that or test that or prove that. The best you can do is point to a few centuries of observation. "The world that then was, perished" (sorry, book and verse escape me at the moment) in the flood and a new one was started. The most I can admit is that the processes have been pretty constant since that time.

I think we are actually in agreement here--look more closely at my assumption #2. I did not state that natural processes have been going on always. I stated that they have been going on since they started. This is the same assumption you made in saying that they have been pretty constant since the Flood. Your model proposes that they "started" at or right after the Flood. My model proposed that they started "sometime," but doesn't suggest when that was. If it was the Flood, then the data should tell us. This is part of what we said when working through a scientific test of the Flood Model, in The Flood As Science.

[Jose]

That's a pretty bold statement. Tell me, how does an evolutionary model explain the first moments of the universe and abiogenesis? Or, do you subscribe to an evolutionary model that does not claim to know these things? Either way, you either believe in something that can't be explained logically, or you have faith in something that can't be explained through current natural and physical laws. Using a divine intervention in these instances seems fair to me, no?

I think we have to say that we must subscribe to an evolutionary model that does not claim to know these things. Because we don't have data, we must say that we don't have the answers. Sure, invoke devine intervention. Or don't. We don't have any way of telling one way or the other. However, everything after those first moments fits with current known laws, so we'd have to conclude that God's role was, at most, to push the "start" button. Could be. It will be interesting to see what future scientists figure out as more data become available.

The bottom line is Creationists don't know if God did change the physical and natural laws for certain events, or he followed them and did the miracles in a different way. Remember, what we call Divine Intervention could just be an undiscovered law that we haven't discovered yet.

True enough. "Magic" is often just processes we don't understand. The tricky part is to figure out when God changed the rules. The logical approach is to work backwards, using the laws of physics as we know them, until we find some kind of discontinuity that indicates that this is where God did his thing. As old ag has stated, biblical reasoning would say that this was at or just after the Flood.

I just don't know what we're debating sometimes. I think we've shown time and time again that most of Creation is in agreement with evolutionary theory - even from a young earth perspective. So I was assuming we were talking about the parts of the theory that don't bode well. I'm aware that general evolutionists don't involve abiogenesis in the theory.

Well...I think that your thinking is mostly in agreement with evolutionary theory, but that is certainly not a statement that characterizes the YECs in the US who want to overturn scientific teaching in the schools, and replace it with "design theory." I have even seen letters-to-the-editor in our local paper that say we should arrest people who have "Darwin fish" on their cars, because displaying a "Darwin fish" is a hate crime. When the Kansas school board put evolution back into the state standards, school board members started receiving death threats, and nasty letters calling them "babykillers." There is very strong anti-evolution sentiment here.

Perhaps I worded that wrong. I should have said "atheistic model" maybe? When exploring the origins of how and when we came to be on this world, you have to think something, don't you? Either God did it! - or - we evolved without divine intervention. I agree "I don't know" is an acceptable answer. But is "I don't know - but it's not God" an acceptable one as well? I'll argue that some evolutionists on this forum make my latter argument.

The point is not that we are saying "I don't know - but it's not God." We are saying that it is not a valid scientific conclusion to say "I don't know - therefore it must be God." This is what the notion of "Intelligent Design" is based upon--if there is anything we don't know in complete detail, then it must be God. This is jwu's point:

Additionallly, why would "God did it" be any better as an explaination than e.g. "something did/caused it". Concluding that this something is God is a clear non-sequitur, and even if it was valid logic we'd still not know which God(s).

The scientific approach is to look at the data, and see what they tell you. If the data lead you to a hypothesis, great. If they don't, then you leave the gaps. You don't have to conclude anything in particular if you don't have the data. You certainly can think real hard, and try to come up with possibilities. If you can, you should test those possibilities. Often, we come up against inadequate technology, and just cannot push the explanation farther until the next discovery or invention comes along. We don't just throw up our hands and say "God did it" and go home.

Remember, though, that from a Creationist view, God is the natural world. Although we seek to understand how God works through natural laws, understanding does not transcend a Godly power. I'm sure if we are around long enough, we'll be able to create something from nothing, possibly traverse space-time, and maybe even view and understand the very beginnings of our universe. Any one of these discoveries will not disprove God - I think we can all agree that really nothing will disprove God...

Indeed, nothing will disprove God. But, it's interesting that you suggest that God is part of the natural world. He is referred to as a "supernatural" being, where "supernatural" means "above and beyond natural." Still, if this is the worldview of all creationists, then it might make more sense to me that there is such a clamor to move God into the science classroom. We have not done so because science, by its very nature, works with evidence from God's Creation, and seeks to reason from the data and not from prior knowledge of how and when God did what. The assumption is that, if God did it, then he'd leave us clues in what he created. Unfortunately, the clues are rather cryptic, and seem to point away from the biblical interpretation.

[Jose]

Now The theory of Creation may be stated thusly:

"The universe, and all that is in it, including time itself, was created Ex Nihilo about 4,004 years ago by an all powerful, pre-existing Supreme Being, who, from time to time, has intervened in its history."

The most obvious predictions flowing from this are:
1. The universe will exhibit design features.
2. It WILL BE ORDERLY, allowing for systematic investigation and understanding by man.
3. There will be physical evidence of the interventions noted.

The theory of evolution may be summarized thusly (?):

"The universe and all that is in it, except time itself, arose spontaneously from nothing and by chance somewhere between 13-16 billion years ago. Later, life itself also arose spontaneously and by chance and progressed from simple to complex forms up to the appearance of man".

The most obvious predictions from this are:
1. The universe will not exhibit design features.
2.The universe will be random and disorderly making systematic investigation impossible.
3. There will be no evidence of intelligent interventions in its history.

Am I way off base??

Old Ag

Not way off base, no--but as noted above, there are some clarifications in order. I'll note these things:

As I highlighted in blue in your quote, the created world should show evidence of its creation. As I noted in a prior post, the laws of physics should lead us backward in time to some kind of discontinuity at about 6000 years ago (to use Ussher's chronology). Does it falsify this model to find that there is no such discontinuity at that point?

What about the red bit in the quote above? I'd need to modify it, to say that the universe should not exhibit design features that cannot be explained by natural mechanisms. This is important, because the way that biological evolution works, it produces life forms that have the appearance of design. That is, they work pretty well in the environments in which they live because that's what they were selected for. This has been discussed in the thread, Evolution is a Non-Random Directed Process.

This makes me think of a couple of other things to add to your list:

• The created world should contain no sloppy designs.
• The natural world should show many examples of sloppiness.

If we look closely at living things, we find quite a number of goofy things that none of us would have put into our creations.

Should the universe be random and disorderly, preventing systematic investigation? No. There can be systematic investigation of random, disorderly things. Consider the recent publications on the molecular arrangement of water molecules in liquid water. There's a disorderly thing, and yet, it was studied very effectively. So, the presence or absence of randomness and disorder are neither here nor there--both models should predict the same things.

I would agree that there should be no evidence of supernatural intervention. But then, there is always the possibility that God chose to create things with no evidence of intervention--the "Appearance of Age" model that some of the young-earth creationists like.

So, it seems to me, the main differences are (1) evidence of supernatural intervention at some point in time, and (2) evidence that natural processes simply cannot produce what we see. I think this gets us to the two big debates: what really is the geological evidence? and just how does evolution work, and how can it account for the organisms that now exist?

[seventil]

The entire concept of irreducible complexity as an argument in favour of intelligent design depends on this - it completely denies that a naturalistic event could be a reasonable explaination for such systems. Would it not do so, then it'd defeat its own purpose.

jwu

I see your point, jwu. However, perhaps my view on this differs from the mainstream; I believe that irreducible complexity in favour of intelligent design through naturalistic events is a wonderful explanation for such systems.

I've never liked the idea of God transcending His own laws; I've always liked the idea of us as mankind not being able to comphrehend exactly what He had done, but striving towards a great understanding of the natural processes at work in God's power.

[jwu]

That sounds a lot like theistic evolution, which is my own point of view too.

jwu

[Gollum]

I believe that irreducible complexity in favour of intelligent design through naturalistic events is a wonderful explanation for such systems.

That's having your cake and eating it too. If you accept naturalistic causes and mechanisms for irreducibly complex systems then what's to prevent you from taking the next step and accepting that there's no need for an intelligence or a designer at all?

Isn't that what ID and creationism generally are all about? The contention that these things cannot be explained by naturalistic causes and therefore a designer (aka God) must be behind it all?

Of course it really all gets back to the simple observation that scientific mechanisms cannot prove or disprove the existence of the supernatural so the debate will rage on without end.