...figuratively speaking.
The most recent articles on this page have drawn a lively "exchange of fire," mostly from the anti-creation audience, and aimed toward the writer and those who agree with him. This can be seen in the comment stream following the four articles. One should observe not only the wide variety of opinions but the passionate assertions made on both major sides of the subject. The passion of the arguments tells us something about how both the believers in Creation and unbelievers see the importance of the issues.
Not wishing to add to the smoke or heat of arguments, but rather to clarify the issues involved for the average readers, this writer will be addressing some of those recent comments. The more one can engage the other side, the better, for truth tends to surface best in environments of free speech. So, this column is not out to obscure but clarify what is true, and not through a censorship approach. Comments following these articles will seldom be deleted by this writer, unless they are too vulgar to print, accidental duplications, etc. Sometimes opposing arguments are pretty enlightening, and even reinforce a Biblical Creationism perspective in the end.
Science itself is not the true Believer's enemy. This writer feels that all roads paved with truth lead to Jesus, if followed in the logical direction and in keeping with all the road signs, inside and outside of the scientific method. That has been this writer's experience, after listening with a relatively open mind to a variety of believing and especially unbelieving arguments for forty years. Some would say that religious folk lead with their feelings, and their brains never catch up. Yes, that happens a lot. But it does not always apply just to those on the creation believing side. This column encourages everyone to do their thinking first, and engage their emotions only based on reasonable foundations. It is a time-honored approach to discovering reality in many realms, but especially in the natural world.
Seeking to be charitable to all men, who as a species are traditionally seen to be much more valuable than animals (per Jesus' teachings) and equal to each other in the eyes of their Creator (per the Judeo Christian Scripture, the founding documents of the USA, and the Gettysburg address) this column will continue to point out both the logic and evidences for a belief in the Messiah of the Ancient Hebrew Scriptures, and the illogic used or shortcuts taken by the other side for the possible purpose of promoting a worldview that is not in keeping with well established realities, or with American principles of other kinds.
By laying out a rational approach to what is seen by many as a purely irrational belief system, this and future articles on this page will be short, based heavily on current events, historical fact, common knowledge and on the sensibility of average people interested in having reason behind their beliefs. Reason can't replace faith, but faith that goes beyond reason does not have to necessarily contradict reason. Articles will try to employ a general respect for honest inquirers on both sides of the supernatural belief barrier.
In the first article in this series, we began by showing the value of clarifying terms. There is a very important difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, for example. One is scientifically testable, clearly useful, and proved to this writer, and the other is neither testable nor so proved. To argue for the whole of Evolution in general without such distinction, leads school children and adults, even professional scientists to unknowingly extend credibility into unproven areas due among other things, to a failure to distinguish between these terms.
By referencing in the second article the founding of our country (by a document signed by 56 people who believed in sacredness and honor), and in mentioning the "Declaration of Dependence..." a point was being made. The burden of proof in this country, especially during wartime, would seem to be on the folks who disagree with sacred ideals like Creation, not on those who agree with the clear wording of the founding documents. It is a time-tested American tradition to break with English errors, not to join in with them. I realize this point is outside the scientific method, but much of reality does exist outside that constraint, in many folks' humble opinions. True, there can be a difference between Creationism and Christianity, between American patriotism and good logic, etc. Many faiths believe in a Creator but define that Creator differently. But when the founding fathers of America speak of a Creator, of the self evident truth that there exist unalienable rights and equalities among men all of which arise from a single divine source, labeled clearly as "the Supreme Judge of the World," the meaning was and still is "clear as a liberty bell" to Pilgrims then and now.
One commenter seemed to think we must redefine the Declaration to include an atheistic belief in nature as the creative force, such as we have in the Darwinian philosophy now shaping children's minds in science class. But based on the times and the western European cultural roots and background of the signers, that is an untenable interpretation of the clear meaning of the words to anyone at that time or now who is aware of the Judeo Christian Scriptures. Sometimes atheistic naturalists have no understanding or regard for those ancient writings, a fact clearly evidenced in some of their comments. The July Issue of Acts and Facts lists statements in the Constitutions of all fifty states, written across three centuries, that reinforce this point http://www.icr.org.
The third article in this series asked the readers to look for and be willing to recognize greatness in unexpected places, and to let facts overpower ones prejudice when an arch-rival team has a good day. That particular article seemed to generate volleys of fire from both sides, more than any of the other articles written so far. Maybe this writer started the first volley of emotionalism in the way he spoke of his opponents in the creation vs evolution controversy. Maybe the writer should control himself better, and that he admits. Passionate assertions without evidence, however abundantly stated, do not a good argument make. That applies equally to any side in the discussion. May the readers call each other to account when they lead with emotion, banter unfairly, use poor logic, or attack with malicious intent. And let us all be aware that good logic and useful evidence can be applied to the discussion from sources outside the hard sciences, for example by recorded historical eyewitness testimony. Such is the best evidence in a court of law where re-enacting the entire crime for experimental testing is impossible.
The fourth Creationism Examiner article sprung from the popularity of the World Cup to highlight the need for fairness and review of the referees themselves. Just as it seemed to exist in the soccer matches in South Africa this summer, often an unfair playing field exists in this contest over world views, where the main opponents are really philosophical faith systems. Both are appealing to science, evidence, and logic, and trying to win points in the public arena. Sometimes bad calls or cheap shots occur with no one to enforce fairness in the arguments. At such times, the reader himself must judge what is fair and what is not. This was the second most controversial article, judging by the comment stream.
We have much more to discuss. Please be on the look out for the next in a series of reports and opinion related to Columbia and Creationism. And thanks for reading!
Comments
Write quickly; Horner's team is likely to blow your whole macro-evolution argument right out the water any day now.
Dear Mark,
If you want to have a conversation that is fine, a debate even better. Present your argument for Creationism/Intelligent Design; by this I do not mean your criticism of Evolution. Present your argument as if you have never heard of Evolution, stick strictly to a positive argument for Creationism and present facts and evidence. If you can't do that there is really nothing to talk about. You need to understand that the reaction you are seeing here against Creationism is because creationists are always, always, always attacking and trying to discredit Evolutionary Theory and honest scientists' work. They demand scientific standing while refusing to do any scientific research. I, and others, am tired of it.
If you truly want to have a meaningful discussion please understand this.
Creationists are religious believers who are desperate to cling to their particular religious doctrines, regardless of what reality is. Logic doesn't matter. Scientific facts don't matter. The scientific process of empirical observation, investigation, and analysis doesn't matter.
However, our context is western society in the 21st century, where science has acquired very well-deserved credibility through countless achievements with results that pervade our lives (whether geology, chemistry, medicine, and so on). Cognitive dissonance motivates religious believers to try to pretend to themselves and others that their religious beliefs are in some way justified scientifically, despite the reality that their religious beliefs do not even exist in scientific research. (Read the professional science research articles.)
Unfortunately, those of us who take science seriously have to work to keep the pseudoscience nonsense creationists love to spew from getting too much out of hand.
Of the 2 arguments, TOE is a much larger LEAP OF FAITH than ID is. The observable world in which we live is absolutely full of organisms that are so amazing, that to believe they all just came about through mutations over a period of several billion years is such a stretch that as the article's author put it, the burden of proof is on the evolutionists. The evidence for macro-evolution is so incomplete, that it takes someone "wishing and hoping" to find enough fragmented pieces to put together in a way that "might" show that evolution is "possible." It is amazing to me how arrogant they are, always assuming they are much more intelligent than creationists. I'll bet that those that are commenting so aggressively are just evolutionist pawns, who just regurgitate what they were told by their college professors, who are just regurgitating what their college professors told them...and so on. How much evidence have each of you actually put together yourselves that "proves" TOE, I wonder?
Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Playing with chicken genes.
A little splice here,
Some protein there,
MY! Theropods are MEAN!
The answer, BG, is in evo-devo.
Same goes for you Bryan, just present a positive argument for Creationism using facts and evidence; not an attack on Evolutionary Theory. The burden of proof is on the person putting forward the argument, always. Mark seems to be calling for a reasonable discussion here. I have proposed a starting point; if it is too much for you just say so, we won't hold it against you.
Wareng:
What a wonderful way to put it! That's exactly it!
Whoa! They just edited down Wareng's comment! They deleted the place where he says scientists feel attacked by believers, who constantly try to _claim_ scientific credibility, but who will not do any scientific work.
We're tired, tired, tired of it. Tired of telling people what science is, only to have them ignore everything we say.
Ooops-- I take it all back! It was two different Wareng comments-- they are there, they are there...
It is a fact that current species evolved from earlier species, through the natural mechanisms of reproduction, variation and selection. It is a fact that most (probably all) life on Earth shares common ancestry. These are proved beyond any reasonable doubt by confirming evidence found in: shared & divergent morphology, co-evolved relationships, convergent evolution, observed speciation, Lenski experiments, shared DNA, inherited ERV markers, molecular biology, vestigial traits, atavisms, genetic mutation, embryology, the fossil record, paleontology, archaeology, transitional species predictions, radiometric dating, dendrochronology, thermoluminescence dating, ice core dating, biostratiography, archaeogenetics, biogeography, plate tectonics, geology, chemistry, and physics. Any competing "theory" must explain all these BETTER than the current equation of replication+variation+selection.
To say that macroevolution is not testable is simply a lie (or a display of stunning ignorance of the topic).
Here is just one of many examples of how you TEST macroevolution. Retroviruses can leave very unique markers in the DNA of cells they infect. Sometimes they infect the reproductive cells of an organism, and so that DNA marker is passed on to the organism's offspring. The ONLY way to get the marker in exactly the same spot is to inherit it from a parent. Since over 25% of our genome is stuff left over from endogenous retrovirus infections suffered by our ancestors, then we can look at some of those unique markers and see patterns. If evolution is true, then ERV markers should have a very distinct pattern - humans and other apes should share markers. Humans and chimps should share the most, and humans should not share any with gorillas that they don't also share with chimps.
So, we TEST EVOLUTION by using the data to test our hypothesis. Evolution passes the test
Now, let's look at the other side of the argument. How many times have supernatural explanations been used to explain natural phenomena? How often have supernatural explanations been found wrong, and replaced with natural explanations? Let's see...
The Sun - was a god, now a ball of fusing hydrogen
The Moon - was a god(dess), now a big round dusty rock
The stars - were gods or spirits, more flaming gas balls
The tides - were attributed to gods, now gravity
The seasons - attributed to gods, now Earth's tilt
Earthquakes - were caused by gods, now plate tectonics
Lightning - was thrown by a god, now static electricity
Rain & drought - was God, now atmospheric moisture
Health & disease - was God, now germs & genetics
Schizophrenia - was demonic possession, now brain chemicals
Epilepsy - was divine possession, now neurology
Origin of species - was God, now science (evolution)
Identity & personality - was the soul, now neuroscience
There's a trend here somewhere...
But honest Christians say it best. This statement is signed by over 13,000 Christian CLERGY:
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris."
- Butler College Clergy Letter
Well
RickK,
You've got to be kidding me with that excerpt from Butler Clergy. If that is for real, which I'll assume it is, then those "clergy" are just a bunch of liberals that have tried to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to believe, if any. To try to say that Christians hold that viewpoint is ridiculous.
BryanG:
I'm sure they'll thank you for deciding that they are not "Christian" enough for you.
Your reaction-- accusing them of not being Christian-- simply goes to show that creationism / ID are religious dogma, not science.
Bryan G, please Google "Butler College Clergy Letter", look at the names and affiliations of the signatories, find one near you, and ASK THEM. You clearly need some help on your interpretation of nature and scripture, and I'm sure that anyone on that list would be happy to help you improve your interpretation.
I also suggest you read Augustine of Hippo on the mistake of denying the facts of nature when they conflict with your interpretation of scripture. As theologians have pointed out for centuries, scripture is NOT to be interpreted 100% literally. Such intepretation is simplistic and leads to intellectual absuridities.
Besides, if you believe in God, then you MUST believe that God wrote nature too - without any human scribes or editors.
Appears Bryan G is a devotee of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
It is a popular argument with creationists - and young earth creationists especially - to pretend that evolution is a merely part of a worldwide atheistic conspiracy against their religious beliefs (young earth creationists extend this to astronomy and geology being part of the evolutionist/atheist conspiracy - the idea that astronomers and geologists are merely pushing an evolutionist religion by saying the universe and earth have been around for billions of years just to give evolution enough time to work). Thus, when anyone points out that there are in fact at least tens of millions of Christians who disagree with them, they'll use all kinds of other zany trash talk against these other Christians because dealing with such realities rather discombobulates their zany atheist conspiracy theory nonsense.
If you want creationism to be taken seriously by scientists, it has to meet the same criteria as science. Namely, it has to make valid, testable predictions. So far that hasn't happened. In fact, Young Earth Creationism has utterly failed on every prediction it makes and Intelligent Design Creationism is a PR campaign that specifically avoids making predictions for that reason. There aren't "two sides" to this, at least in terms of science. There's science, and there's a small minority of creationist shysters who misinform their listeners egged on and funded by powerful zillionaire interests who want to drive a wedge between the grassroots public and K-12 public education for the sheer noble reason of relieving their high end property taxes on mansions and large estates. That's it. -- Austin Science Policy Examiner
RickK,
I checked out your "Clergy Letter", and, while I didn't waste my time looking at every single one, it was just as I thought. The list of "clergy" located in SC is full of liberal ministers, based on the church affiliations they have and what those church affiliations stand for. I find it extremely frustrating to hear you telling me that I need work on my interpretation of scripture, as if you know anything about scripture and what it says. Even if you don't translate scripture literally, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn from the Bible except that GOD created the Earth -- Intelligent Design.
Bryan - I'm sorry you're frustrated, but I can understand why. You have a belief system and a worldview that is simply untenable. And you apparently know very little about it. So to justify your reality-denying beliefs, you must dismiss millions of other Christians, calling them "liberal" as if that was the ultimate insult.
Tell me, Bryan - to learn the dangers of flattery from the fable of the Fox and the Raven, must you believe that a fox actually talked to a raven? When you hear a poetic verse that says "His smile set her heart aflame", do you actually think the woman's chest spontaneously combusted? Why would you allow your mind to soar with poetry, but limit your interpretation of scripture to absurd, mechanistic literalism?
And why, as an apparent Christian, do you find it so easy to treat other Christians with such disdain?
As for "intelligent design", why do think God made all that evidence for natural, Darwin-style evolution?
RickK,
I simply don't have the time to continue this back and forth with you, so this will be the last time I look at this comment thread. Every comment you leave is so FULL of arguments that I would love to respond to, but I wouldn't know where to start. It would be great if I could discuss this with you further in person, but like I said, I just don't have the time. I know that I'm right in a way that you will not be able to understand, but hopefully one day the truth will find you, because you certainly don't appear to be looking for it.
Correction to my last post:
It would be great if I could discuss this with you further in person, because I just don't have the time to write it all down here.
I'm happy that you "know" you're right. So long as you lack the courage to actually put your beliefs to the test, you can go right on "knowing" - just the way a child "knows" there is a Santa Claus, or that some people "know" that UFOs exist, that aliens abduct people, and that astrology is the path to truth.
But what value is such "knowledge", based on nothing, untested and untestable? If your beliefs don't mesh with reality and can't withstand challenge and questioning, then what possible basis do you have for questioning others? What gives you the right to judge those "liberals" when you can't address simple questions about your own beliefs?
If you want to truly understand your own faith, then I suggest you talk to one of those clergy in the Butler list. If you want to dramatically improve your understanding of your own mind, I can suggest several excellent books.
Or, you can skip all that hard work and just go back to "knowing you're right".
Hello Mark. Although I agree with your statement "Passionate assertions without evidence, however abundantly stated, do not a good argument make", I do take issue with factual claims you make in your article(s):
"There is a very important difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution, for example. One is scientifically testable, clearly useful, and proved to this writer, and the other is neither testable nor so proved." - This is not the case. Macro-evolution (or more accurately - "speciation") has been shown both in living animals and the fossil record.
"often an unfair playing field exists in this contest over world views, where the main opponents are really philosophical faith systems. Both are appealing to science, evidence, and logic, and trying to win points in the public arena." - Evolution and the science supporting it require no faith...it has evidence. Although Creationism attempts to draw on science, it does so poorly...from what I have seen.
A scientist throws a rock in the air, watches it fall back to Earth, and demonstrates through mathematical formulas how mass curves space and therefore masses are attracted to each other. The math can be tested repeatedly; mass can even be shown to bend light.
The testability means "belief" is not necessary because the action is demonstrated. However, disproving always remains an option, as new data comes in; Einstein refined and replaced Newton, for example.
A creationist throws a rock in the air, watches it return to Earth, and says the funtional equivalent of "the spirit of the rock wanted to return home."
No test for that spirit exists, so it is not science - just a belief system. And since the nonexistence of said spirit cannot be demonstrated through science, the true believer sees no need to embrace rationality.
Bye bye, Bryan.
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