Evidence for Creationism, is there any?

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FreddieFreeloader
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Evidence for Creationism, is there any?

Post #1

Post by FreddieFreeloader »

I found this quote in the "Why do you believe in Creationism or Evolution?" thread, as a response to a claim that there was no scientific backing for Creationism.
Illyricum wrote:No scienticfic backing? What do you call Louis Pastuer's studys that disproved spontaneous generation? How do you explain the the fact that the earth is perfectly placed, that if it were just little bit over here or a little bit over there that we'd either burn up or freeze? Have you ever studied the complexity of the human body, of a plant or animal, or even of a microscopic cell?
As evolutionists (I'm doing the popular thing of calling evolution, abiogenesis and cosmology the same for sake of simplicity)
provide backing for their theories Creationists (specifically Young Earth Creationists) try to explain "scientifically" why that evidence doesn't hold.

I observe two things in above quote. First a misunderstanding of the implications of scientific studies (here in the case of Pasteur's experiment), but secondly, and more importantly, in the question of the burden of proof.

On to my question: Ignoring whether or not Creationists are correct in disproving the theories... Does disproving evolution, prove creationism?

I think that the answer is a loud and clear NO!

Then I ask you, what evidence do we have for Creationism?

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Evidence

Post #11

Post by Warren »

Greetings,

I have a few comments about what was presented. First of all "laws". Since the beginning of recorded scientific thought, there have been two basic concepts regarding reality: rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists, always throughout history the vast majority, claimed that all humans, in each and every activity, first came to an intellectual conclusion, and then implemented, to the best of their individual abilities, that conclusion. My short hand for this is "think and then act". Empiricists strongly objected. Each empiricist insists that each human, in every activity, performs the activity with any intellectual input, and then thinks about the activity after it is over. Short hand is "act and then think". All empiricists are creationists, so God is the basis for the activity unfolding, so there is no need for intellectual input for the activity to unfold.

All scientific "laws" are the creation of rationalists, and it never ever been necessary for proof in an everyday situation to support any one "law".

Case in point, Gregor Mendel. It if now widely accepted, even among Mendell's strongest supporters, that he faked all his results. To my utter amazement, I recently hear one of Mendel's supporter use that accepted fact to further praise him. She said, I paraphrase, "that just goes to show you how brilliant and prescient he was, that he could produce faked results that turned out to the be truth". Well they didn't turn out to the be truth, because like all faked results, they are fundamentally false. Genetics is a scam. There are no genes, there are no nucleic acids, there is no phenotype nor genotype. These are all madeup concepts to support the rationalistic concept that man is a machine; hence there must be a mechanical mechanism to explain man's variation.

One example. Once rationalists had invented the concept of recessive and dominate transmission, there were cases where it obvious that both chronomsomes had a recessive gene; or where at least one chromosome had the dominant gene; but, strange or all stranges, no trait appeared. Did those rationalists accept the theory must be flawed? Not at all. They invented the word "non-penetration", and then said the genetype didn't penetrate into the phenotype. Well in regard to the basic genetics theory, the genetype is the cause of the phenotype. The phenotype is just a fancy word for trait appearance. There is no capacity in the genetics theory for the phenotype to have the capacity to produce a trait without the genetype telling it to do so. If the phenotype could act without the genotype, there is no basis for having a genotype.

So no law is the basis for any valid evidence in favor of creationism or evolution.

Here's some evidence: the flounder, or any flatfish. Each one is born with both eyes on either side of the body, and the fish swims upright. Then as the young matures, one eye travels around the fish and both eyes end up near each other on the same side, after which the flounder swims on it side.

It is irrational to claim that the thousands of gene mutations if would have had to take, if genes existed and there was genetics, could have occurred. There is no basis for them. Creationism is the only rational explanation.

Take care,

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Post #12

Post by perfessor »

Otseng wrote:
It would also be good to define what we mean by Creationism. Here is my definition:
1. A supernatural entity created the entire universe (including all living things)
2. The earth experienced a world-wide flood

Any other additions/clarifications on my definition would be welcome.

What creationism does not address are:
1. The nature of this supernatural entity
2. When the universe or living things were created
Hmmm - I'm not sure I understand what the alleged flood has to do with either evolution or creationism - except perhaps tangentially in that belief in creationism necessarily includes belief in all things Biblical.

The Creation Model (CM) is consistent with the first law of thermodynamics. That is, the sum of the energy and matter in a closed system is constant. If we consider the entire universe as a closed system, the only way it could have been created is if a system outside of the universe created it.
This observation also applies to the Big Bang model currently being refined by cosmologists - I don't see how it excludes evolution theory, so I also don't see how it applies as support of creationism with respect to life on earth.
The CM is also consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. That is, the amount of of useful energy decreases after any work process in a closed system. Creationism does not violate this rule.
As far as the development of life on earth is concerned, it is important to realize that we are NOT a closed system. Locally (earth) we are bombarded by a gajillion gigwatts of electromagnetic radiation every day. (Please don't ask me to define "gajillion") But I don't see the application of the second law, which applies only to closed systems.
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Post #13

Post by otseng »

ENIGMA wrote:
otseng wrote:
It would also be good to define what we mean by Creationism. Here is my definition:
1. A supernatural entity created the entire universe (including all living things)
2. The earth experienced a world-wide flood

Any other additions/clarifications on my definition would be welcome.
I would suggest the addition of a third point:

3. Said supernatural entity initially created multiple kinds or groups of living creatures.
I would concur with this addition.
One of the first things I learned in the genetics portion of Biology 101 is that Mendel more or less lucked out in his research since he picked two traits that were not linked (the color and shape of pea pods) and worked from the assumption that no traits were linked (i.e. Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment) which was not the case.
Can we then say that Mendel's laws are generally correct, but not universally correct?

The CM is also consistent with biogenesis (I'm leaving it out as a "law" since that could be up to dispute ;) ). That is, from all observations of life, we see life only coming from another life. We have never observed in our current environment life coming from non-life. (For discussions on abiogenesis, go to How did the first life form come about?)

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Post #14

Post by otseng »

perfessor wrote:
Hmmm - I'm not sure I understand what the alleged flood has to do with either evolution or creationism - except perhaps tangentially in that belief in creationism necessarily includes belief in all things Biblical.

It actually has a lot to do with the CM. It answers many things in our physical world (including the fossil record, extinction of dinosaurs, formation of oil/coal, etc). I've started a new thread to discuss the flood - Global Flood.

This observation also applies to the Big Bang model currently being refined by cosmologists - I don't see how it excludes evolution theory, so I also don't see how it applies as support of creationism with respect to life on earth.

I don't want to get into why the EM is not consistent with the first law in this thread, but you can start a thread on it and we can debate it.

As far as the development of life on earth is concerned, it is important to realize that we are NOT a closed system. Locally (earth) we are bombarded by a gajillion gigwatts of electromagnetic radiation every day. (Please don't ask me to define "gajillion") But I don't see the application of the second law, which applies only to closed systems.

My point is, along with all the laws I presented so far, there is no dispute that the CM is consistent with the laws. Laws take higher precedence than models. If there is a discrepancy between the two, then the model is subject to revisions. If anyone can point out violations of the CM with the laws, then the CM has weaknesses. As to the EM, I do see discrepencies with the laws, though I will defer discussions on those to other threads.

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micatala
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Post #15

Post by micatala »

A couple of comments.

I think "Is there any evidence for creationism?" is the wrong question. The real question, in my mind is, "Is creationism consistent with all the available evidence?"

To make analogy with a legal case, say a murder. We could ask "Is there evidence to support the guilt of A?" For this question, there may be a lot of people for whom we could answer this question "Yes". However, if the answer to the question "Is the contention that A is guilty consistent with all the available evidence?" is "no", then the answer to the first question is irrelevant.

If one is creative enough, one can probably find some evidence to support that A is guilty no matter who A is.

So far, we have three assumptions that have been put forward:
1. A supernatural entity created the entire universe (including all living things)
2. The earth experienced a world-wide flood
3. Said supernatural entity initially created multiple kinds or groups of living creatures.
I would ask if we can make a fourth assumption. Namely,

4. The creation was a one-time event, and no subsequent intervention by the supernatural entity occurred.

I know this may be a controversial assumption to some. I suggest it because if we do not make this assumption, I foresee that every time evidence is offered which shows or at least suggests that the CM false, this can be countered by assuming another supernatural intervention.

Perhaps we should agree whether we are only going to consider evidence for creationism, or if evidence intended to falsity the CM can also be offered. In other words, do we want to stick with the original question or add consideration of the second question I have suggested.

I will say up front that I believe assumptions 2 and 3 (assuming we are talking about multiple creatures similar to the kinds we have today) to be false, but that 1 may be true.

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Post #16

Post by otseng »

micatala wrote:4. The creation was a one-time event, and no subsequent intervention by the supernatural entity occurred.
For sake of discussions here, I can agree with this assumption.
Perhaps we should agree whether we are only going to consider evidence for creationism, or if evidence intended to falsity the CM can also be offered.
I think falsification of creationism can be offered here. But to limit the scope of discussions, I think offering how other theories can explain things should be left out.

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Post #17

Post by otseng »

Another set of evidence to support creationism is the Anthropic Principle. Basically, the AP shows that the universe is "fine-tuned" for life as we have now. And if things were different, the universe and life would not exist. The odds of us being here by pure chance is extremely remote. And since we are here, the most probable explanation is that we are the creation of an intelligent being.

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Post #18

Post by Nyril »

The odds of us being here by pure chance is extremely remote. And since we are here, the most probable explanation is that we are the creation of an intelligent being.
Okay. And what created your intelligent being? By your logic, it is more likely that being was created then simply happening by pure chance, and the being that created it was more likely created, and so on down the line.
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Post #19

Post by otseng »

Nyril wrote:Okay. And what created your intelligent being?
The origin of the creator is out of scope of this thread. This thread is simply showing evidence for a supernatural entity creating the universe. If you would like to discuss the origin of the creator, please start another thread and we can talk over there.

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Post #20

Post by LillSnopp »

otseng wrote:
Nyril wrote:Okay. And what created your intelligent being?
The origin of the creator is out of scope of this thread. This thread is simply showing evidence for a supernatural entity creating the universe. If you would like to discuss the origin of the creator, please start another thread and we can talk over there.
I cant see any evidence for it. What kind of evidence would this be? Most Creationist make the rather pointless analogy of the watchmaker.

Is the Universe complex? In Human eyes, perhaps so, we seem to have an obscene obsession for labeling things that in reality does not need one. Humans managed to literally crawl from the soup of creation and become what we are today, imperiling perturbed race, whom claim we are the pillar of existents... Laughable indeed.

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