Creationism vs Evolutionism

[otseng]

OK, give me reasons why evolutionism or creationism is right or wrong.

[Corvus]

If that's the case, then why don't you believe what He told you He did? All the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), has some sort of Creator as the cause of a young universe.

Argumentative. The simple answer is that I don't believe absolutely everything without something suggesting itself in its favour.

Also, why do Evolutionary propronents give us this "supreme being" cause, but then try to force him out of the picture at every successive turn? Sounds more like a smoke screen to me.

Argumentative. And off topic. It's not really an evolutionary standpoint, but a deistic one. Christians see God as a personal force moving through their lives. Deists see God as a supreme power that has set everything into motion, but entrusted it all to us. Since I can't see God splitting oceans and turning sticks to snakes and back again, I have to suspect it's always been like that. Deists don't believe in doctrine. Quite simple. Evolutionists can be just as devoted to God as people who think the bible is the literal truth.

However, I do know some Christians who don't believe the genesis account was literal, or that the entire old testament should be called into doubt. Some believe in evolution. They still follow the teachings of Christ, so they're no less Christian because of it. God isn't abandoned. God guides humanity at pivotal moments of history. God may be the mechanism that allows creatures to evolve. Why is this so difficult to understand?

I doubt if you would be willing to undergo torture and death for the voices inside your head

Just because a man is willing to die for something doesn't make it true. Perhaps I would be willing to die for the voices. You need not be so quick to judge.

Sure, we need evidence to support some claims. But to say that science is sufficient to explain ALL phenomena is a little arrogant and frankly, well, I hate it to say it, but UNPROVEABLE.

Where did I say science can solve everything? Without a crystal globe to see exactly how far science will come, of course it's unproveable. But I do believe science can eventually solve most natural phenomena, if not all. It's already made significant strides. There will always be things we may never know, however. I don't think the origin of species is one of them.

You are EXACTLY right. At least I'm up front about having presuppositions. Evolutionary scientists will make it sound like they have NO starting assumptions whatsoever so whatever they expouse to has to be pure, unbiased conclusions.

Wow, and you say that I'm angry.

Uh, because it's a debate forum. And at the risk of inciting your anger again, to show the self defeating nature of believing in Evolution. Whether I got my point across or not is up to the audience. But don't worry, I have a pretty good idea of my impression on you.

I wasn't angry. Only shocked that someone could enter into an evolution vs creation debate saying that they aren't prepared to show evidence for their view, but proceed to espouse nothing but opinions and still imagine they can be taken seriously, then have the audacity to make generalisations like "Evolutionary scientists will make it sound like they have NO starting assumptions whatsoever so whatever they expouse to has to be pure, unbiased conclusions." or ad hominen attacks like, "Don't you mean evolutionary scientists? I would be more than happy to provide you with a list of scientists who subscribe to Creation, but I'm sure they don't count as REAL scientists to you", with absolutely no foundation.

I'll refer you to the rules: 5. Support your arguments with evidence. Don't just make a blanket statement without factual support.

But what about otseng's empirical evidence for Creation? That also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Wrong. I am more open to the possibility of creationism now. I'm glad that it has actually become a theory instead of a name for the people who ineptly try to pick apart evolution. But I think I've shown why exactly I do not believe creationism by presenting valid counter arguments. You will notice that over the course of this topic, although I argue against creationism, I never say that it isn't a valid theory. Only once did I say that humans living with dinosaurs sounds absurd. But I'll admit here; otseng himself admitted it's hard to swallow, and I concede grudgingly it's possible, although I do doubt it for the time being until further evidence presents itself.

What about my empirical evidence for evolution? It seems to have fallen on deaf ears also. Except the only reason you're making this an issue with me for not believing otseng is that he's the one whose view you most agree with, or I'm the one whose view you most disagree with. But thankfully, you're honest about your prejudices.

Like I said, I would be thankful if creationism is true. That way I can be completely assured of the existence of God and be reassured about the existence of an afterlife.

When I say dots, I mean a particular animal. This animal turned into that animal. Not a dot of reptiles turning into a dot of birds. So, I didn't see any of that on the link you gave me.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean... evolution isn't animals giving birth to a completely different animal... but I feel you know this. Could you elaborate?

My Y-axis is complexity, not time.

Ah. Well. Something like that may exist, though I can't think of anything I've seen off the top of my head. The closest thing is that chart I posted, which is to show which animals had common ancestors by tracing genetic similarities and shared characteristics.

I have a question. We see that nature as a carefully balanced system. Simply introducing a species where it doesn't belong can completely ruin this system. This has been seen with the introduction of rabbits to Australia. The rabbits eat the grass and precipitate soil erosion, which then washes away the soil and causes severe damage to the environment, and they also compete with other wildlife. Cane toads were introduced to combat bugs that ate sugar cane in Australia. What they became was one of the largest threats to the wildlife here - where it has no natural predators - that we've ever had.

What I want to ask is how did a cohesive system be arranged after the animals landed in the ark? Wouldn't many of species have become extinct in the struggle to re-establish order?

[clue]

Corvus, thanks for the civil reply. If I have time, I will start a thread to explore some of the tangents that we've briefly discussed here.

[otseng]

Let's talk about another area. How did all the oil and coal reserves form? We have massive oil and coal deposits. Coal deposits can have millions, or even billions, of tonnes of coal in a single place. Likewise, oil deposits can have billions of barrels of oil in them. How can such large deposits exist according to EM? According to CM, the flood rapidly buried large amounts of animals to form oil and massive amounts of plants to form coal. The EM doesn't have a good explanation for the massive reserves that we see.

[Corvus]

Let's talk about another area.

I'd really like an answer to my questions, though..

How did all the oil and coal reserves form?

There are two theories. The abiogenic and biogenic theories. According to the biogenic theory, fossil fuels are the altered remnants of ancient plant and animal life deposited in sedimentary rocks. The organic molecules associated with these organisms forms a group of chemicals known as kerogens which are then transformed into hydrocarbons by the process of catagenesis. According to the abiogenic theory, fossil fuels are primordial, being part of the Earth as it formed.

Interestingly, a lot of microbiologists favour the abiogenetic theory, believing fossil fuels are actually created in the earth, I'm assuming by microbes.

To quote Wikipedia:

The dispute is of more than academic significance, as abiogenic theory suggests that oil is an extremely abundant resource — in fact, that oil reservoirs may often refill from below as they are depleted!

Proponents of the biogenic theory have fought back, arguing from significant advances in the understanding of chemical processes and organic reactions and improved knowledge about the effects of heating and pressure during burial and diagenesis of organic sediments. Biogenesis remains the majority theory. But the abiogenic theorists may have the last laugh, because reports from the field in the U.S. and Middle East suggest that some oil patches are in fact refilling from the bottom.

We have massive oil and coal deposits. Coal deposits can have millions, or even billions, of tonnes of coal in a single place. Likewise, oil deposits can have billions of barrels of oil in them. How can such large deposits exist according to EM? According to CM, the flood rapidly buried large amounts of animals to form oil and massive amounts of plants to form coal. The EM doesn't have a good explanation for the massive reserves that we see.

First of all, the evolutionary model is not what you're disputing. The evolutionary theory is supposed to explain the origin of plants and animals, not where they end up. What you're disputing is geologocial theory.

Secondly, how does the existence of a world wide flood disprove the existence of macroevolution and how does it prove that all creatures were created in their current forms by God? It's only something that, if true, proves the veracity of a single section of the bible - the flood.

In defence of geology, plenty can happen in the course of billions of years that might create these fossil fuels. Landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, swamps, hurricanes, sandstorms, tsunamis. Ever seen a peat bog, otseng? In the moist climates of Ireland and Britain, you'll find ditches in the ground with partially carbonised organic waste - peat bogs. They cut up the mossy substance found there and use it as fuel for fires. Considering almost the entire world is believed to have been once moist and tropic, it's not too much of a stretch.

You don't have to answer the following, because I've already established that this pursuit is more or less irrelevent to the debate, but if you'd like to briefly reply:

I'm guessing that if there was a layer of water under the earth's crust, any volcanoes before the flood would have belched up water, and not lava, correct? If that's the case, all that would be necessary to disprove the theory would be to find an igneous rock older than the flood.

When was the flood, by the way?

[otseng]

I'd really like an answer to my questions, though..

I'm not trying to ignore any questions. I tried to go back and see what questions you are referring to, but I can't find them. Could you restate the questions again? Thanks.

Secondly, how does the existence of a world wide flood disprove the existence of macroevolution and how does it prove that all creatures were created in their current forms by God? It's only something that, if true, proves the veracity of a single section of the bible - the flood.

It's all interrelated. Fossils is one of the major foundations of EM. And so it's contingent on how the fossils got there. EM says fossils were formed over millions of years as a gradual process. CM says they were practically all formed during a worldwide flood. If fossils were all formed at one point in time, then the EM theory would collapse.

In defence of geology, plenty can happen in the course of billions of years that might create these fossil fuels. Landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, swamps, hurricanes, sandstorms, tsunamis. Ever seen a peat bog, otseng?

It takes over 20 feet of organic matter to form 1 foot of coal. And yet we see hundreds of feet of coal. I have never seen a peat bog so huge as to be able to create such massive coal deposits.

Considering almost the entire world is believed to have been once moist and tropic, it's not too much of a stretch.

Why was it moist and tropic before? Why was it that way back then? Why is it not that way now? What changed?

I'm guessing that if there was a layer of water under the earth's crust, any volcanoes before the flood would have belched up water, and not lava, correct?

I guess there wouldn't be any volcanoes before the flood. They would've all been formed during the flood. Just like all the major mountain ranges were formed during the flood.

Isn't it interesting that practically all the major mountain ranges run north and south? Why is that? Shouldn't it be random according to EM? With the flood theory, the major mountain ranges were formed as the upper crust started to settle as the water underneath gushed out. As the crusts were moving, they started to slow down as the water underneath disappeared. The momentum caused the upper crust to buckle and form mountain ranges parallel to the mid-Atlantic ridge.

If that's the case, all that would be necessary to disprove the theory would be to find an igneous rock older than the flood.

The easiest way would be to find fossils underneath the original water layer. That would disprove the theory. But, you'd have to dig 10 miles down.

When was the flood, by the way?

By interpreting the genealogies of the Bible, less than 10,000 years ago.

[DeoxyriboNucleicAcid]

I have just read the six pages that so far make up this discussion.
I am not a Christian but I can understand why people want to believe in gods.
However, what creationists say (I really can't dignify them by calling them 'scientists') is that God left masses of evidence showing the great age of the Universe lying around (fossils, light from distant galaxies, the presence of lead and other decayed elements), left us with vestigal body parts (appendices for digesting cellulose and vestigal 3rd eyelids for example) and yet made the world in six days a mere 6-10,000 years ago.
What creationists are in effect saying is that God set out to deceive us by leaving false evidence for evolution and the age of the universe for us to discover.

Creationists are actually calling God 'The Great Deceiver'.

Further, if the evidence for Creationism is so compelling, publish this evidence in a peer-review scientific journal. No one has even attempted to publish such evidence in a reputable journal for more than 150 years. Now I suppose the response will be that the great conspiracy of scientists stops such publication; that science is a massive fraud wrought by Satan on unsuspecting humanity.

Oh please.

Science is far from perfect it gets things wrong and there is occassional fraud. Piltdown is often cited. What is forgotten is that scientific error and fraud is only ever discovered by other scientists not by religionists. Correcting errors is part of the scientific process and, believe it or not, the ability to be wrong is science's greatest asset. Creationists can't ever be wrong because they allege God says it's right: QED.

What I have always wanted to ask an adherent to the Noah's Flood story is which one of the 8 crew carried the malaria bacillus? Which of the animals carried rinderpest? Did Mrs Noah carry the gonnarea bacterium? Who drew the short straw and volunteered to catch syphillus? All these microbial creatures must have been carried on the Ark. Everyone must have felt just terrific.
"Ham, I don't care how bad your bubonic plague is today, it's your turn to clean out the 300 tonnes of manure"

While I'm on the subject of Noah, please tell me how the Blind Tasmanian Mole managed to get from the Middle East to Tasmania. Or how moss managed to survive the flood and appear in Antarctica. If it was tectonic movements that took the continents so far from each other (which is quite true) then, had it done so in a rush 4-6,000 years ago there would still be a 1 metre bow-wave circling the globe.

Oh tosh, stuff and nonsense!! No serious minded person could ever accept the foolishness of creationism. Bah! I say, bah!

[Corvus]

I'd really like an answer to my questions, though..

I'm not trying to ignore any questions. I tried to go back and see what questions you are referring to, but I can't find them. Could you restate the questions again? Thanks.

I have a question. We see that nature as a carefully balanced system. Simply introducing a species where it doesn't belong can completely ruin this system. This has been seen with the introduction of rabbits to Australia. The rabbits eat the grass and precipitate soil erosion, which then washes away the soil and causes severe damage to the environment, and they also compete with other wildlife. Cane toads were introduced to combat bugs that ate sugar cane in Australia. What they became was one of the largest threats to the wildlife here - where it has no natural predators - that we've ever had.

What I want to ask is how did a cohesive system be arranged after the animals landed in the ark? Wouldn't many of species have become extinct in the struggle to re-establish order?

Secondly, how does the existence of a world wide flood disprove the existence of macroevolution and how does it prove that all creatures were created in their current forms by God? It's only something that, if true, proves the veracity of a single section of the bible - the flood.

It's all interrelated. Fossils is one of the major foundations of EM. And so it's contingent on how the fossils got there. EM says fossils were formed over millions of years as a gradual process. CM says they were practically all formed during a worldwide flood. If fossils were all formed at one point in time, then the EM theory would collapse.

But it doesn't prove the CM hypothesis at all. It would just prove that at one time, a lot of animals got fossilised at the same time.

But it's odd. We have layers and layers of earth, each revealing increasing complexity of origins. None of the layers ever have the wrong animals in them for the wrong times.

Under the creationist model,

• *most rock should be sedimentary and indicative of cataclysmic flooding. There should be no rock formations that indicate the passing of millenia of gradual accumulation of undisturbed sediment, such as multi-layered riverbed formations. There should be no large lava flows layered on top of each other.
  *Animals would be sorted according to weight. Small dinosaurs at higher layers, heavier dinosaurs in the lower layers.
  *If marine animals were fossilised, they would also be sorted by weight. Plesiosaurs, primitive whales, and placoderm fishes (relatively slow-swimming and quite large) should end up in the same layers. Ichthyosaurs and porpoises (smaller, faster swimmers with almost identical body shapes and similar diets) should also occur in the same layers.
  *there should be no sorting of large rooted structures such as coral reefs and trees. There should likewise not be differential sorting of microscopic structures of the same size and shape, such as pollen grains.
  *sorting should not correlate with date of the surrounding rocks. If all fossils were created by Noah's flood, there is no conceivable reason that, for instance, lower layers of fossils should always end up sandwiched between lava rocks with old radiometric dates.

ref: Talkorigins.

But evolutionists have found animals and transitions that they predicted to find at around the eras they expect to find them.

In defence of geology, plenty can happen in the course of billions of years that might create these fossil fuels. Landslides, avalanches, earthquakes, swamps, hurricanes, sandstorms, tsunamis. Ever seen a peat bog, otseng?

It takes over 20 feet of organic matter to form 1 foot of coal. And yet we see hundreds of feet of coal. I have never seen a peat bog so huge as to be able to create such massive coal deposits.

Have you ever seen a jungle so huge? Even still, we don't know exactly how "fossil" fuels are formed. I personally favour the biogenesis theory, but the fact that it's reported the oil is replenishing itself is astonishing. You may have actually succeeded in changing my mind, otseng! Except it's not in the direction you wanted.

Considering almost the entire world is believed to have been once moist and tropic, it's not too much of a stretch.

Why was it moist and tropic before? Why was it that way back then? Why is it not that way now? What changed?

Continental shift changed everything. The position of land and oceans plays an important part in regulating the temperature of the earth. They store and transport heat around the world. The earth has warmed and cooled for millions of years. The climate now appears to be growing warmer. We may even enter another tropical age if we're lucky. Or a desert one if we're unlucky.

That's the simple answer. I don't quite feel like using google to search for anything on climate change. I keep getting pages on things like environmental concerns and global warming anyway.

I'm guessing that if there was a layer of water under the earth's crust, any volcanoes before the flood would have belched up water, and not lava, correct?

I guess there wouldn't be any volcanoes before the flood. They would've all been formed during the flood. Just like all the major mountain ranges were formed during the flood.

Isn't it interesting that practically all the major mountain ranges run north and south? Why is that?[/quote]

Not really. From what we understand about mountain ranges, most are formed by pressure between tectonic plates.

http://www.lgfl.net/lgfl/leas/haringey/ ... 20file.JPG

Notice those major mountain ranges are mainly coastal. There are still plenty that aren't north and south, including the tallest, the Himalayan mountains. The coasts of the Americas, which that map shows has the longest major mountain range, seems to have a massive plate pressing against it. Which explains the San Andreas (?) fault that causes so many earthquakes in Cali.

When was the flood, by the way?

By interpreting the genealogies of the Bible, less than 10,000 years ago.

I'm guessing you don't trust modern dating methods? I'm interested in seeing if creationists can, in due time, disprove geology, biology and evolution, dating methods, perhaps metereology too, if it needs to, and still be able to claim a scientific approach.

DNA wrote:

Oh tosh, stuff and nonsense!! No serious minded person could ever accept the foolishness of creationism. Bah! I say, bah

Take note, Mr. Tseng. DNA has called it not only 'tosh, stuff and nonsense", but "bah, bah"'d it too!

[Quarkhead]

DNA, you missed one of my favorite questions: what the heck did the carnivores eat after they got off the boat? Like, before the vegetarians had a chance to reproduce?

[clue]

I have just read the six pages that so far make up this discussion.

Very commendable of you.

However, what creationists say (I really can't dignify them by calling them 'scientists') is that God left masses of evidence showing the great age of the Universe lying around(fossils, light from distant galaxies, the presence of lead and other decayed elements), ...

fossils - what specifically about fossils points to an old Earth?

ligh from distant galaxies - read Dr. D Russell Humphreys Starlight and Time.

presence of lead and other decayed elements - I suppose you are talking about radioactive dating. This is a perfect example of how starting assumptions affect a person's conclusions. Allow me to illustrate:

How do dating methods work in general? Radioactive elements decay gradually into other elements (e.g. uranium-235 decays to lead-207). The original element is called the parent, and the result of the decay process is called the daughter element. As time passes, more and more daughter will be produced. By measuring the ratio of daughter to parent, we can theoretically measure how old a sample is.

Now, what assumptions must be present in order to arrive at a date?
1. the original condition of the sample is known (e.g. the sample did not contain any daughter isotope or the quantity of daughter isotope is known). Will you agree there is no way to prove this from a sample taken from the wild?
2. decay rates have always been constant. Will you agree there is no way to prove this? I mean, the past environment could have been drastically different (especially since YOU are talking about billion of years where spontaneous generation occurred and single-celled life forms gave rise to multi-celled forms, etc.) than what we perceive it to be today.
3. the sample was closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added. Again, impossible to prove and highly unlikely with a sample taken from the wild.

Now, I don't deny a dating expert's measurements of the exact quantity of parent/daugther isotope in a sample at any given point in time. What I do contest is his interpretation of supposed age of that sample based on those measurements.

Evolutionists love to quote radioactive dating because the conclusions fit nicely with their idea that the world is very old. But if you can't refute any of the (unproven, highly unlikely) assumptions that I've outlined above, then you'll have to agree that age is just an interpretation of the raw data and not a fact in and of itself.

...left us with vestigal body parts (appendices for digesting cellulose and vestigal 3rd eyelids for example) and yet made the world in six days a mere 6-10,000 years ago.

In principal, you can never fully prove that a body part is vestigial (useless) because there is always the possibility that you just haven't discovered its proper use yet. Has there ever been an occasion where scientists thought that an organ was useless only to find out later that it was not (e.g. the appendix)?

What creationists are in effect saying is that God set out to deceive us by leaving false evidence for evolution and the age of the universe for us to discover.

Creationists are actually calling God 'The Great Deceiver'.

Wow! Talk about deception. Who would you say is being more honest with the Bible? If we were to believe the Evolutionists, we would have to throw out Genesis, and all of the New Testament. If Genesis can't be believed because God couldn't have created the universe in 6 days and Noah's flood never occurred, then the NT can't be trusted either because it quotes from Genesis as if it were the basis for most/all other doctrine.

Science is far from perfect it gets things wrong and there is occassional fraud. Piltdown is often cited. What is forgotten is that scientific error and fraud is only ever discovered by other scientists not by religionists.

Correcting errors is part of the scientific process and, believe it or not, the ability to be wrong is science's greatest asset. Creationists can't ever be wrong because they allege God says it's right: QED.

But if we took your advice to heart, this also would never have been discovered as fraud. So, we'll probably continue to question what we think is the biggest, most enduring fraud in the sciences today, thank you very much.

[otseng]

What creationists are in effect saying is that God set out to deceive us by leaving false evidence for evolution and the age of the universe for us to discover.

Deceive? Because you happen to believe that everything is old, so that makes God in the wrong?

Further, if the evidence for Creationism is so compelling, publish this evidence in a peer-review scientific journal.

Doesn't mean though that the theory isn't valid. Just because something is not published in evolution biased journals doesn't discount it.

Oh tosh, stuff and nonsense!! No serious minded person could ever accept the foolishness of creationism. Bah! I say, bah!

Bah?! That's a very convincing argument.

If you want to debate, please present arguments and logic, instead of blanket statements like this.