Creationism Challenge

[Heath Winchester]

You disregarded the entire meaning of this thread and came up with another response that's been said a thousand times before like it was something profound. We are not debating the two. This was thread for people to look at the the other side of things besides one view. Having an open mind works both ways which is something that people don't seem too understand.

You seem to know something all of this so I am surprised by your response. If you would bother to research a bit you would find some compelling cases leaning towards Creation. Certain aspects of it can be studied. I doubt you will as you seem to already be a "pro" on it all. So I just want to say, stick to the topic at hand instead of derailing it.

[almightybob]

Your statement "it's just another theory like Evolution" indicated a flaw in the understanding of the scientific process. There is no Theory of Creation, because there is no evidence to back it up. It is not a scientific theory, and it is in no way equivalent to the Theory of Evolution. I sought to correct that.


But if you only want to talk about the ICR, then let's.

I am familiar with the ICR and its pseudoscience, which is replete with logical fallacies. Take this article on the Protection of God, which argues that, if conditions on Earth were slightly different, we would not be able to survive. They argue that conditions are perfect because God made life and made the conditions perfect. They have the cause and effect the wrong way round. Life didn't make the conditions happen. The perfect conditions are what allowed life to exist. Of course life can only evolve on a planet suited to sustain the particular type of life.

Venus and the gas giants have the wrong kind of gases for humans (or any other life forms) to survive there.

No, it has the wrong kind of gases for any life forms which have evolved in a totally different atmosphere to survive there.


We can breathe in the current ratio of nitrogen and oxygen because we've evolved in that atmosphere, not the other way around.
Our low tolerance of UV rays, X-ray etc exists because we have always been shielded from them by the atmosphere, not the other way around. (Surely a God providing 'perfect protection' would have made the O-zone layer indestructible?)
We can tolerate a very narrow pressure range of ~1 atmosphere because that's the pressure we've evolved in, not the other way around. (This one is particularly ridiculous - you just have to look at deep-sea fish to see that life is capable of surviving at far, far greater pressures.)


To use an analogy: One week, you win the lottery. It's not because your numbers are particularly special in any way - they just happen to be the one in a million combo. They might seem special to you because you picked them and then won, but had you picked any other set and won with them, you'd think that set was special.
"But what are the odds that this set of numbers, the only one I picked, has won?!" you say.
"Well, if your set hadn't won - which has happened every week until now - you'd think nothing of it, you wouldn't have won, and we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place," I say.

Once you've already won the lottery, the probability of your numbers being winners is 1. Before that, though, it was 1 in a billion or whatever.
Just like, once you've got a planet which can, and does, sustain life, obviously it's then the perfect planet to sustain that particular type of life, and the life which does evolve is perfectly suited to be sustained on that particular planet.


The whole thing is an argument from personal incredulity - I can't see how it could possibly be a coincidence, so Goddidit.

[Heath Winchester]

Ah yes! This is more of what I was looking for regarding this topic. Read this quick little snippet. http://www.icr.org/earth-formation/

What do you think of it?

I'm not a huge fan of either theory. They're both incredibly farfetched that I don't know how anyone puts any faith int them.

[almightybob]

Well I'm no geologist, but I have several friends who are studying geology or geography, so I'll send them this link.

From my own point of view, I very much doubt that this assertion:

There is no global evidence of long periods of time between these layers or indications that these layers took long periods of time to form.

is true, because it is contrary to all the geography I was taught at (Catholic) school, and it would imply that there is some sort of worldwide cover-up of geological data.

Also, the article seems to assume that extreme volcanic activity caused sandstone rock layers in Scotland. As a Scot, I can assure you that there are not many volcanoes around here. Apparently there used to be - several billion years ago.

And also also, I'm sure I've heard the whole "rapid erosion" thing debunked somewhere, but I can't remember where right now.



Actually, I just found this article on talkorigins.org, where they visit a museum run by the ICR and are given a presentation about this very topic. They have PhD paleontologists and geologists with them, so they're much better qualified to point out flaws in the argument than me.

A few snippets in case you don't want to read the whole thing:

I asked Austin [man presenting lecture] whether he had any evidence that any of the more typical sedimentary rock - limestone, sandstone, or shale, had ever been deposited rapidly, but he provided no such example.

[...]

Austin also failed to mention why, if these forests in Yellowstone were such good models for catastrophic burial and coal formation, they do not contain any coal deposits.

[...]

Many of the sedimentary strata in and around the Grand Canyon contain the tracks of animals. The red Kayenta formation, exposed nearer to Glen Canyon Dam, contains the tracks of dinosaurs. I have seen these tracks personally, and told Austin so. I asked Austin to comment on the fact that these tracks exist, and are difficult to square with a catastrophic formation of the layers of the Grand Canyon. It is inconsistent to have all life on earth obliterated by a flood, and then have animal tracks in the layers deposited by the flood. Austin stated that these certainly were animal tracks, laid down by animals walking through mud or sand, but he never satisfactorily explained how animals could happily meander through an area so soon after a global catastrophe.

[Possumdude0]

Well here's an interesting article on young earth creationism.

Those are some compelling arguments towards a young Earth (although not necessarily a young universe), but I was looking for Biblical reasons.

Also, is it possible that the Earth is very young, but that the universe as a whole is is very old?

What they did was count backwards using the incredibly boring chapters of lineage in the Bible which go "And X beget Y, beget Z, beget...". However, they also assume that most, if not all, of these people lived at least a hundred years, and some many more (eg Noah supposedly lived to be over 900 years old). They make these assumptions because - you guessed it - the Bible says so.

So they used genealogies to find the age of the Earth without knowing the actual age of most of the people involved? That doesn't seem like a very good method.

if conditions on Earth were slightly different, we would not be able to survive. They argue that conditions are perfect because God made life and made the conditions perfect. They have the cause and effect the wrong way round. Life didn't make the conditions happen. The perfect conditions are what allowed life to exist. Of course life can only evolve on a planet suited to sustain the particular type of life.

I've read arguments in that vein. If you're talking only about conditions on Earth, then it's pointless, because there are billions (trillions?) of planets in the universe, any odds for life forming on a single planet become much more likely given that many planets for life to try to form on.

I've also heard arguments in that vein which go farther, claiming that there are a number of things in the universe which, had they been slighty different at the start, would have prevented human-like life from forming (or even all life, in the cases of some of these things which would prevent the formation of planets or such). This makes more sense, unless you believe in a theory of multiple universes, and think that ours is just the lucky one, like Earth is the lucky planet. Personally I've never been presented with enough evidence for the existence of multiple universes.

I'll try to find the article that explained that, it's been a few months and considering I didn't read it very carefully I'm probably mis-quoting it. But it seemed compelling at the time. I know where one article on that idea is, but that one doesn't cite sources, so I don't want to post it.

[E-5]

icr.org is a good lesson in false dichotomy

I'm going to start "The Institute for Research that Everybody is Hitler." Basically my whole premise will be that I'm not Hitler, so if you're not me, then you must be Hitler. You're either me, or you're Hitler.

I had a girlfriend who diagnosed her car problems as about as well as these guys did "research." She would come up with such doozies as, "well my car won't START so it must be the starter" and when she lost the belt that turned the alternator she was excited because if the belt was already gone the mechanic wouldn't have to take it off when he replaced the alternator.

If you believe the bible is the literal word and you want to take it that way, then go ahead. But I take issue with people who try to take faith and inject it into a system that doesn't try to prove the supernatural nor use the supernatural to prove anything.

If a scientist says, "we don't know enough about this organism to say anything for certain," you can pretty much take that on face value.

However, a lot of the articles on irc.org seem like they're saying, "hey, there isn't enough evidence to prove any of this, but hey, *wink *wink you know what it's all about right"

And this is an organization that is trying to train a new wave of science teachers. The public school systems are bad enough as it is without their help.

[Mardoct09]

I am a long time researcher of the both Evolution and Creation theories. None are proven as of yet.

Stopped reading there. Evolution is as proven as gravity and particle theory. Notice it is called particle THEORY. Why? In science, a theory has evidence going for it. Simple postulations are a HYPOTHESIS.

Evolution IS SCINETIFIC FACT.

[Possumdude0]

I am a long time researcher of the both Evolution and Creation theories. None are proven as of yet.

Stopped reading there. Evolution is as proven as gravity and particle theory. Notice it is called particle THEORY. Why? In science, a theory has evidence going for it. Simple postulations are a HYPOTHESIS.

Evolution IS SCINETIFIC FACT.

What specific evidences do you know for evolution that make you believe it is a scientific fact?

[sanddbox]

I am a long time researcher of the both Evolution and Creation theories. None are proven as of yet.

Stopped reading there. Evolution is as proven as gravity and particle theory. Notice it is called particle THEORY. Why? In science, a theory has evidence going for it. Simple postulations are a HYPOTHESIS.

Evolution IS SCINETIFIC FACT.

What specific evidences do you know for evolution that make you believe it is a scientific fact?

Common sense. duh. there is plenty of evidence for it...look around you. In what SCIENTIFIC way could animals have evolved like they did? Having buttsex with squirrels?

[Possumdude0]

Common sense. duh. there is plenty of evidence for it...look around you. In what SCIENTIFIC way could animals have evolved like they did? Having buttsex with squirrels?

If there is plenty of evidence for it then why don't you name the evidence? I'm not denying evidence, I'm asking which evidence it is that convinced you.