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Vote - Evolution, Intelligent Design, Neither116 Votes
Issue:Certainly, Intelligent Design is not scientific, but neither is evolution. Scientists neither observed nor verified by experiment macroevolution and the chemical formation of the first cell.Belief:Remove biological origins from the natural sciences and make it a separate course like archaeology, cryptology and other forensic sciences that rely on observation and logical inference.Loading People... |
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MichaelR(B.B.B.09)hey deanw;you need to go back to school.there are at least two fish in the us that get up and walk out of the water.a catfish in florida that can travel for hours out of the water to find other ponds to feed in.and more importantly a new variation of the asain carp that is doing much the same thing.and recent footage on the discovery channel,and national geographic shows a tribe of chimpanzees macking and hunting with spears.of course these are only facts.and we know they are as nothing to faith.
Yes some fish can walk out of a river and monkeys can make tools. You need to educate yourself further, like most creationists!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Teaching intelligent design would make a mockery of our country! Support real science, the proof of evolution has been set in the tree of life, if you don't know this then your not smart enough to make a decision.
I feel I have to express how saddened (and not a little frustrated!) I am to see so many thoughtful people get in such a pickle over this...
Evolution by selection really does explain, simply and beautifully, the fabulous complexity of life on earth - and yes, where us humble humans came from too.
And there is no necessary reason to see it as going against God. Evolution is not evil! It's wonderfully, mind-openingly, fabulously exciting!!
Darwin, and many others since (eg through genetics), have unravelled how life became so mesmerisingly diverse.... but not how it came to be in the first place. Darwin would be the first to admit that! Perhaps... science will explain this in time too... but, until then, christians (and other creeds with their creation stories) can rest easy: scientific reason need not be in conflict with religious faith. Please, please think carefully and reasonably before making this so.
This has all become a hideously rancourous 'debate'. I'd suggest to all EO Wilsons' 'The Creation' as this book has a much needed gentler and more thoughtful tone.
And to finish....
Would accepting evolution inevitably lead to rejecting your faith in God?
Would faith in God necessarily prevent you from rationally accepting evolution?
Evolution IS a fact. If you don't have any ideea what a Theory means in the scientific world, look it up.
Teaching Intellegent Design in schools couldn't be done without teaching religion, so it would have to be optional. Many biology courses teach evolution as a fact rather than a theory so biology would have to become an optional course for students who believe in intellegent design.
Biology is a natural science and should be taught. But the material is very biased towards evolution and I'm not sure how that bias could be taken out without making most biology textbooks obsolete.
I think a special module in biology courses about intellegent design could be done as an elective for parents who have strong religious views and want their children to know that there is a lot of science that does support intellegent design. But it would have to be definetly an elective module. Students with religious beliefs who wish to, could take the elective module on intellegent design.
It is a good point, all science subjects should teach observation and logical inference as well. Biology is an essential science for students who want to become Doctors, Veternarians or study it in college or even just to have a well rounded education. I can't see making it totally optional, but then again biology covers a lot of territory. Could some aspects of biology be taught where the issue of intellegent design or evolution doesn't come up?
Reason, Observation, and Experience; the holy trinity of science.
Teaching Intelligent Design is what we call in Europe : OBSCURANTISM
Old G: Science measures the distance from the stars to our planet in light years. Their light travels at (forgive my redundancy) the speed of light and you say that at that speed "time would stand still." Then how can we be sure that their light really takes millions upon millions of years to reach us? Either time is running or time stands still, but we cannot have it both ways. I know the theory of relativity tries to explain this, but if time stops for the light coming to us, by mathematics I know that 0 ? 1,000,000.
Ah, but this is one of the basic concepts behind relativity (for interesting reference, one only needs to look up the "twins paradox"). We can indeed only have it one way, and light (or any relatively moving object) can indeed can only have it one way, but there are indeed "both ways"...and in every single experiment designed to either prove or disprove relativity, relativity has passed with flying colors. If we throw a clock at the speed of light (a ludicrous concept, no matter, not even a subatomic particle, can be accellerated to the speed of light as it would take infinite energy to do so, or so we think so far...but this is merely a thought experiment...atomic clocks on air and space craft has repeatedly confirmed the predictions of relativity beyond any doubt), an observer seeing that clock travelling at the speed of light will see its hands not moving...even if we follow the clock's progress for thousands (or millions) of years. But from the clock's perspective, it is not that the hands stop moving, but rather that the trip was instantaneous. And again, the delay in time from a light-signal (radio for example is merely light at a much, much longer wavelength that that of visible light) travelling from earth to mars is exactly as the speed of light would lead us to predict. The same holds for the signals sent from earth to the moon during the appolo missions. Unless you're suggesting that the laws of physics change as one gets further from earth (gallileo would be getting nervous at this point), there is no escaping the fact that the speed of light, from any frame of reference in spacetime is finite and constant -this is the wildest prediction of relativity in my opinion...even if we're moving at half the speed of light away from a light source, we will measure the speed of its light as being the same as we would if we were standing still relative to said light source...only the light's wavelength is altered (the principle behind the "red shift" of stars that are moving away from us). Again, this has been experimentally verified over and over.
Now I'm going to choose my words carefuly, as I don't want to discourage you from participating in this discussion. I'm noticing a trend in your agruments where your answers to some points eventually smack of conspiracy theories. Of course, you are absolutely correct in that science has had its fair share of frauds. Science is performed by humans, and thus of course, there have undoubtedly been many documented cases where unscrupulous scientists, desperate for acceptance or Nobel prizes or funding (or whatever else drives them), have falsified results or omitted information that could have discredited their ideas. Sadly, this is as unavoidable as is theivery, murder, and every other form of human sin. Scientist are, after all, only human, and humanity is certainly a mixed bag. But when experimental proof of a concept is attained by many scientist from all over the world, again and again, as in the case of relativity, it cannot so easily be dismissed.
I completely agree with you, as I've stated, that we have a long way to go in understanding the universe around us, but we cannot merely dismiss experiments, which are conducted by many scientists of many ethnic backgrounds who all agree on the results time and time again, as conspiracy. There is no escaping that light from distant galaxies can take hundreds of thousands, millions, or even billions of years to reach us depending on their distance from us. There are many many other forms of experimental proof which confirm and enforce the conclusions that scientists/physisists have drawn. This is not something scientists take on faith, (as may indeed be the case with evolution I'll concede)...we measure the speed of light on earth with stunning accuracy -indeed, this was done with reasonable accuracy when lanterns were a common light source (for excellent reading on the subject, check the book "The relativity of wrong" to see man's documented progress in measuring the speed of light), and we send spacecraft and measure the speed of light via radio signals and the delays between emission and absorption. All of the arguments I've mentioned cannot be the result of unscrupulous science, even if evolution is actually riddled with it as they have been successfuly been proven by experiment and observation by scientists all over the world.
Faith cannot be considered proof, nor can disproving one particular theory out of a great many confirm another theory. If a scientist who seeks to consolidate religion (or more accurately, his particular religion) and science is to be taken seriously by his peers, he must do so in the language of science with either direct experimental proof, or at the very least, direct observation of phenomena which cannot be dismissed by, or contradict, experimental proof or direct observation to the contrary. So far, this has not been done. You cannot blame science for this. In the field of biology, it may be easier to argue religious views, but when physics comes into play, one certainly has his (or her) work cut out for him.
I don't belive in conspiracy theories. I believe scientists make mistakes. Some of their mistakes somehow are taken as truth and remain so for decades, even centuries. And mistakes have been made by all, even by Einstein himself. Read below:
In 1887, two scientists Michelson and Morley did an experiment to measure the velocity of light and confirm the basic laws of nature. They sent light beams along the direction of the earth's travel as it went around the sun. The earth moves about 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, which is a small but measurable percentage of the velocity of light. Their experiment was to show that a beam of light sent in the direction of the earth's travel should be the speed of light PLUS the speed of the earth. While a beam sent backwards should be the speed of light MINUS the speed of the earth. No matter how many times they and many other scientists repeated that same experiment, it always failed. The measured speed of light was always the same in any direction. For 20 years modern science was in a quandary. Were Newton's easily provable laws of physics wrong? In 1905 Albert Einstein thought he had found a solution -- but he was wrong.
Earlier in 1873, the noted Scotsman mathematician/scientist James Maxwell wrote his famous four equations. His equations have become a gold-standard in science and are still accepted without changes or doubt. While integrating his differential equations, Maxwell had to add the mathematically required integration constant. In math, the integration constant is usually called "C." Maxwell's equations relate the static electric attractive force of an electron to the same magnetic attractive force of a moving electron traveling in a circle or a coil of wire. To make the equations match the experimental measurements, the integration constant C had to have the units of 186,000 miles per second. Everyone made the incorrect assumption that C was the "velocity of light." Today, science still calls the velocity of light C.
One hundred two years ago, in 1905, Dr. Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. It has become the basis for much of modern physics. In 1959 a young American student, Marshall Smith, read his paper and found that it contained a simple arithmetic error, therefore the theory must be false. Years later as a college physics student he told his professors about his discovery of the math error. They didn't believe him, even when he showed them a much simpler way to solve advanced physics problems. Einstein's Relativity Theory produces a series of well-known paradoxes. In mathematics and logic, whenever a syllogism, system of logic or theory produces a paradoxical result, it is almost always the result of an incorrect premise. Today as a senior physicist, Marshall still asks, "Why is it that modern science for 100 years has believed a theory which is based on a simple math error?"
The answer is simple. It was a mistake in the normal "peer review" process used by the prestigious physics journal in which Einstein's Special Relativity paper was first published. In 1905 the famed peer-reviewed German journal "Annalen der Physik" published Einstein's first paper on the Quantum Solution to the photoelectric problem. That unique and widely acclaimed paper had just won Einstein the Nobel Prize. To win the prize, obviously many esteemed physicists had reviewed that paper and established its reality and correctness.
But also in that very same journal issue, Einstein published several other avant-garde theoretical papers, including his "Special Theory of Relativity" which contained the math error. Why did no one catch the obvious error? It was simply because chief editor, Max Planck or co-editor, Wilhelm Wien, had made the fateful decision not to send Einstein's Relativity paper out for the usual in-depth peer review. That Relativity paper, along with Einstein's other papers, were published without any scientific review. It seems from the historical record that none of the other scientists around the world in the physics community knew that the journal had broken its own publication rules. The other scientists all assumed that since "Annalen der Physik" was a strictly "peer reviewed" journal, that Einstein's Relativity paper, with the simple math error, had already been reviewed and approved by a team of highly esteemed elite scientists. But not so. Thus in the early 1900's no scientist would dare to point out the obvious math error in the Relativity paper. To have done so, the scientists thought, would be the same as calling the esteemed reviewers, the greatest minds of physics, a bunch of dribbling idiots and drooling dolts. Not a good thing to do if you want a future career in physics. In their competitive scramble to get along and go along within the physics community, the scientists simply could not see the truth of what was in front of them. It would take the innocence of a child to state the obvious. He (Marshall) was 14 at the time when he found the obvious math mistake in Einstein's paper.
And what was that Simple Math Error? It's so simple even a child could figure it out. It was a matter of re-interpreting the meaning of the negative results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Einstein had interpreted the negative results as meaning that C is the constant velocity of light which nothing can exceed. That "fact" actually has never been proved and was and still is only a "hypothesis" stated by Einstein. He then set the speed limit at 186,000 mi/sec. To make that work, Einstein had used the equation called the Lorentz Transform. This is both mathematically and logically incorrect. The Transform seems to give the numerical or arithmetic "right answer," but mathematically it is false. The Lorentz Transform uses the square root of the velocity squared divided by C squared.
Mathematically all square roots have two answers, the positive and the negative root. Einstein, in his paper, seemingly without telling anybody, had arbitrarily tossed out the negative root as not having any physical meaning. But that is a mathematical and scientific "no-no" and means that the original premise of Einstein's Special Relativity Theory must be incorrect. Under the Lorentz Transform an object will travel at V = 1,000 mph East, and also -V = 1,000 mph West, at the same time. That clearly is paradoxical.
This is equivalent to Einstein stating in his theory that the square root of four is equal to two. For most people, those numbers seem absolutely correct. But actually that is false, since the square root of four is equal to both plus two AND minus two. For the mathematically challenged, that is equivalent to Einstein claiming that two plus two is equal to five (2 + 2 = 5). And that same mind-boggling math error is published in every modern advanced physics textbook on Relativity Theory. But since, supposedly it was published in a respected "peer reviewed" physics journal, who would dare to argue with it?
The usual problem with producing a hypothesis based on a "false" premise is a paradoxical result. For example: (1) All dogs have four legs, (2) All four legged animals are cats. Therefore: All dogs are cats, AND/OR All cats are dogs! Which premise is false? With the Special Theory of Relativity, the resulting paradox, was called the "twin paradox" along with several others which were discovered later.
Amazingly, no theoretical physicist quickly tossed out Einstein's Special Relativity Theory as false, eventhough it produced a paradoxical result - indicating a false logical premise. The simple fact that Einstein himself published the "twin paradox," should have been a strong warning or at least a first clue that the Special Theory of Relativity must be wrong. Actually, one noted physicist did toss it out and exactly for that reason. It was Einstein's own professor, Dr. Lorentz, who never accepted Relativity as a valid theory. Dr. Lorentz had developed the Lorentz Transform as a classroom demonstration tool in an attempt to explain the negative Michelson-Morley experiment. He taught it to his students in advanced physics classes, including Einstein, as a simple "curiosity" which produced the seemingly correct arithmetic answer. But it did not produce the correct logical mathematic or scientific answer.
Dr. Lorentz already knew that the Transform must be false, for the reason just mentioned. He already knew that his young student, Albert Einstein, using the Lorentz Transform, which Einstein had seemingly "lifted" out of his college classnotes, had produced a false "Theory of Relativity." Dr. Lorentz never accepted nor called it the "Theory of Relativity." For the rest of his life, Lorentz always referred to it, in mock derision, only as "the Einstein theory" since he knew it must be false, because it produced the obvious paradox. Clearly, Lorentz did not get to "peer review" his student's paper. That Relativity paper would never have made it through a real and proper "peer review" process.
Ok, For one thing, there are no shortages of expert opinions out there on the internet from those who claim Eistein's theory to be wrong. Again, I have to stress that it is still called a "theory of relativity". However, the predictions it makes are absolutely correct, and as I've stated, relativity has, to date, passed every scientific experiment devised to test its predictions. Experimental results, to date, leave no shadow of a doubt for scientific community. I was going to pull out some texts that I own and start citing some of the more interesting ones, but something about your post gave me a feeling, and on a hunch I cut a couple of sentences from your post and pasted them into google as an "exact phrase" search and was brought to the following page on "Brother Johnathan's Gazzette" (which I assume is where you got your post from).
http://www.brojon.org/fro ntpage/EINSTEIN...
Now, I'm not saying that it cannot be improved (in particular, consolidated with quantum theory), and it could very well be there is a mathematical error in the theory (I'm not qualified to say as I'm not a math guy) but as it pertains to your arguments for a universe that is only thousands of years old, it really is quite irrellevant anyways.
Interestingly, right below the article is another article pertaing to "Creation vs Evolution" in which the author states as fact:
"Every 1 to 2 million years, the magnetic field of the earth reverses the north and south magnetic poles."
I mention this so you'll have no choice but to agree with me when I say that just because something is on a webpage, it doesn't necessarily make it true ;)
Relativity and its predictions has passed every test thrown at it, wether an article at Brother Johnathan's Gazzette calls it "wrong" or not. There is no documented (and legitimate) practical experiment in which the predictions of relativity have been proven wrong, and there have been many in which it has been proven right.
Nasa's "Gravity Probe B" may shed further light on it once results have been finalized, but apparently the data they've analyzed so far point, once again, to it being right.
The magnetic poles change about every 50,000 years. THIS IS A FACT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I personally can't prove or disprove the theory of relativity or to prove or disprove the theory of evolution. All I'm saying is that a lot of scientists have another opinion and interpretation of an observed phenomena. They come up to different conclusions. What I'm addressing is that evolutionists/physicists/pick-your-science can be and are wrong in many of their conclusions. I'm not the one saying it, their peers are. There are two opinions in the debate in both theories. Two totally oposite interpretations. You have to decide which of the two to believe. Both can't have the truth with them, only one. And if there is a hole in a scientific theory, or as the case appears to be, there are many holes in it, why can't scientists be brave enough, honest enough, and say that they can't, at least today, prove their theory? Why are they so arrogant that no matter what other scientists point to them as flaw in their asumptions, observations or conclusions, they still insist that the theory has been proved? Just because they are the majority? 600 years ago the majority of scientists believed the Earth was flat. Until Galileo. But even Galileo was wrong in many of his asumptions. And it appears that Einstein was wrong too. But we are talking here about the Highest Priest of them all... hey, Einstein can't be wrong. He is infallible.
What I posted about Marshall Smith I received from a friend by email. It's probable he got it from that webpage you mention. But it's interesting to know that apparently Einstein's Theory of Relativity didn't get his peers review. It's a point that's worth mentioning. It's true that gifted minds have been able to deduct many phenomena by intuition and later they were proved to be right. Copernico, Galileo, Einstein. But they were not correct in all their conclusions. Who knows, it is a probability that Einstein will be proved wrong in some of his conclusions in the future. Neither you or I will live long enough to see it because science takes time to disprove theories, sometimes centuries. So knowing all this, plus what other scientists say is that I don't believe in evolution. Relativity? We are talking here about the speed of light... I have traveled 100 mph once in my life, so his theory is not that relevant in my everyday life. But evolution is, it reduces me to a mere accident. It says I'm equal to an insect, a plant, a horse or an elephant. Only slightly inteligent evolutionists say because our brain evolved a little more than theirs. This has a greater impact on a human being than Einstein theory, and knowing what for 6,000 years has been passed from generation to generation until it reached me... that we humans are the center (not physically) of the Universe, of all the Creation, is also one more reason to reject it. But the main reason for rejecting it it's because it's not true. It has failed on it's very ground: science.
But evolution is, it reduces me to a mere accident. It says I'm equal to an insect, a plant, a horse or an elephant. Only slightly inteligent evolutionists say because our brain evolved a little more than theirs. This has a greater impact on a human being than Einstein theory, and knowing what for 6,000 years has been passed from generation to generation until it reached me... that we humans are the center (not physically) of the Universe, of all the Creation, is also one more reason to reject it. But the main reason for rejecting it it's because it's not true. It has failed on it's very ground: science.
Reading this part of your post, I believe this is the point at which these kinds of debates fall apart. I could share my opinions regarding our signifigance in the universe, but I don't believe it would be productive. While I don't share your beliefs, I will respect them. Therefore, I think good taste dictates that this is the point at which we should shake hands and leave the debate where it is, agree to disagree as it were.
I do sincerely thank you for the discussion (I seldom get to talk about things like this with anyone). I must say though, that your attitude is a refreshing one. I wish all people of religious faith were as tolerant, as reasonable and above all, as tactful as you are.
Cheers Eduardo.
Thanks Old G, it has been a very produtive exchange. I wish you and your family the best.
I have to say I don't know about Hume. But independent of whether he lived before or during the time of Darwin, it seems to me that those involved in science where thinking about how to reconcile their Faith (if they believed in God), with what their field of science was telling them, or at least what they thought it was telling them. Darwin wasn't able to convince all of his peers, evolution has been rejected from the very begining not just by the faithful but more importantly by scientists. We hear only about the rejection of the faithful in the media.
Old G: Science measures the distance from the stars to our planet in light years. Their light travels at (forgive my redundancy) the speed of light and you say that at that speed "time would stand still." Then how can we be sure that their light really takes millions upon millions of years to reach us? Either time is running or time stands still, but we cannot have it both ways. I know the theory of relativity tries to explain this, but if time stops for the light coming to us, by mathematics I know that 0 ? 1,000,000.
We believers believe in an Omnipotent God, a God that is a Creator, that from nothing He created everything. To us it's not difficult to belive in Him and believe that He alone created the Universe. Science is still in its infancy, no matter all the progress it has made, of which 99% is good science. For that we have to congratulate and thank the science community. But when they try to explain how we got here they are in deep waters. They don't have the smoking gun that evolution took place. They mention the Big Bang (an explosion of nothing) as the begining of everything but we still can ask them: "Why and how did this nothing exploded? What was there before this nothing exploded... where did it come from?" Unanswerable questions. They cannot explain it. They can assume, suggest, interpret but not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Which becomes in the end a matter of believing: do we believe in them (scientists)... or do we believe in our Faith.
It's true like Old G said that scientists try very hard to discredit each other's ideas but I doubt if it's only for the benefit of science. I have a book (the spanish edition) by Federico di Trocchio titled ("Las Mentiras de la Ciencia") "The Lies of Science - 1995" and he says and proves that scientists have resorted to lies and deception forever, specially since the end of WWII when governments (the USA first, others later) started to finance scientific research. He says that Science went from a "vocation" to a "profession," a way to earn a living and make lots and lots of money. Add to the governments the private institutions: NGS, the Smithonian Institute, Discovery Channel, History Channel, BBC, etc. It's no wonder that when a scientist gets a grant form any of these institutions to go and search for ... say, dinosaurs fossils, he/she will never come back empty handed. They (scientists) get millions of dollars per year to carry on their research... they can't come back saying they didn't find a thing! And this you can see happening on all fields of science. They always find what they go out looking for. Wherever they go searching they find what they are looking for.
In the 19th century there were two competitors trying to beat each other and see who came up with finding the biggest dinosaur bones... not just for science but for pride, glory, fame, and $$$. Do you know that a T-Rex squeleton was sold a few years ago for $12 million dollars to a museum in the USA? Who knows if every single bone of that T-Rex was found pristine and intact, so it's possible that maybe 50% or more of that T-Rex is just plaster. We cannot denied the economics involved in science today.
Scientist have become the new High Priests of the day: they always say the truth, they never lie, they are free of any human weakness (ambition, greed, envy), so their work is flawless. It's no wonder that when someone questions them or their findings their reaction (and that of their supporters) is like... "Heresy!" They are untouchable. The common man is not an "expert," therefore he cannot be part of the discussion. Nuts! When I sense that someone is lying to me I don't need to have a doctorate in science to figure it out. Besides, I read their peers, and time and time again I find scientists saying that the evolution is a hoax, that the millions and millions of years is not true either. When the supossed age of the Earth, 4,500 millions of years, becomes indefensible (their peers will eventually prove it) they will add more zeros to that figure. They've being doing it for decades. First they started with 10,000 years (against the then accepted figure of 6,000). When that wasn't enough to prove their theory they went to 100,000 years, then to a million... that's how we got to today's 4,500 millions of years.
Andrew V: Regarding natural selection... within 14 years after writing Origin of the Species, Darwin confessed to a friend:
"In fact the belief in Natural Selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations [faith and theorizing] . . When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed . . nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork for the theory. Nor can we explain why some species have changed and others have not."—Charles Darwin, letter to Jeremy Bentham, in Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin, Life & Letters, Vol. 3, p. 25.
He had a difficult time trying to figure out his own theory, and frequently admitted in his writtings that it appeared impossible. He said that just to think about the eye and how it could possibly have been produced by natural selection was enough to make him ill. On that he said this:
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."—Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1909 Harvard Classics edition), p. 190.
I believe in intellegent design. Ironically once someone has accepted Christ, intellegent design is the only way the Earth could have been created.
Yet I came to believe in intellegent design because once I didn't believe in it.
Science has one large problem with it. A Philosopher who specialized in logic proved that there is no such thing as an experiment that can prove anything. Hume showed that when a scientist produced and reproduced experiments say something about sub atomic particles, no experiment could be designed that did not assume the thing that it was trying to prove. Humes logic is one of the few works that all specialists in logic agree that Hume proved his point.
But Hume (pronounced Home) also proved that no one could prove causality. No scientist could prove that one thing caused a second thing to happen. Humes proof is quite ingeneous, he observed scientists using the scientific method, the same scientific method that is used today and showed that no experiment could prove causality, for example no experiment can prove a chemical causes white cotton to turn blue -- a chemical that we would call dye. He showed that no one could create an experiment where all the "x" factors could be removed and since "x" Experiments all use equipment and occur in air or in a vacuum or in pure water etc. Because of this the chemical and cotton turning blue were unrelated because no one could remove all progenerators -- an unknown thing that may be the cause of several different things.
Hume showed that the most we could say is that you observed a bat hitting a ball, but you could not prove the swing of a bat caused the baseball to fly over a fence. Unknown progenators do exist and Hume said that being the case what we were observing were two different actions happening at the same time we don't know if there are other progenerators.
Hume was an Atheist but he did not believe in evolution or natural selection and in fact was one of the first to debunk it even though Darwin had previously been a friend of his. This fact makes evolutionists foam at the mouth when it is brought up in school board meetings. Using statistics from Humes logic it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creationism and this is a thing Hume said himself despite being an atheist, Using logic and statistical analysis the odds are that creation is more likely to be true than evolution. So creationists actually have logic and statistical analysis on their side and according to Hume, the people with "deluded faith" were actually evolutionists. I forget the exact odds but Hume's and all subsequent statistical analysis shows that creationism outsrips evolution in probability by a factor of several million.
As I mentioned it is generally accepted that Hume's logic is correct and to date no one has been able to find any fault with it, including statistical analysists whom work in evolution. Their belief in evolution is driven by an emotional reaction of not wishing to believe in God.
But most Christians avoid Hume because of a famous trial where he was tried for heresy. Hume had written that in could not be proved that God caused the human mind and it was for this he was tried for heresy. He was acquitted because he espoused at the time he was an atheist and therefore could not be convicted for heresy.
When he wrote his most famous works Hume states that his goal was to debunk science and the scientific method. Because of the trial some people assume that he wrote his most famous work with the incredibly dull title of "Essays and Treatises" to disprove God. Some Christians believe it is an atheistic book because o the Trial even today.
Regardless, "Essays and Treatises" is now called "the smart bomb that destroys evolution" as well as science and that is what Hume meant to do. In one of his Essays Hume suggests that any work about natural selection would be so full of error it would be best thrown in the fire.
So it takes far more faith to believe in Evolution than in God's creation. And because of Hume's analysis I rejecton evolution and began to believ in Creationism. My belief in God tells me He created the world and logic tells me that evolution could not be true.
One last note on David Hume his last work "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" Hume says at the end of the book he does believe in God. But the book itself tears apart with a lot of stong language the three normal theological proofs that God exists. He attacks the a posteriori agruement, the a priori agruement and the moral arguement. The moral argument is God exists because people have an innate sense of morality. Scince humans seem to be born with it then it has to come from God. Also morality often prevents people from doing things that would improve the quaility of their lieves (they do not embezzel from their emplyer even situations where the would not be caught, they return found money by actively seeking it's owner when if they did nothing according the law after thirty days the could keep it.
Yet Hume believed in God and after his death people asked Hume's nephew why he believed in God. His nephew said that Hume and his mother were very close (his father died while he was young) and his mother was a very fervent born again Christian. His nephew gave the opinion that Hume wrote the book for his mother because once you have eliminated or disproved all logical arguements, the only reason left to believe in God was blind faith, which is what his mother beleived, faith is a gift from God. Hume likened faith to a sense like sight or hearing, faith according to Hume is the sense that by which human beings can apprehend God. There is a verse in Proverbs that says something along the lines that "Raise you child in the right way of faith while he is young and when he is old he will return to it." I sometimes wonder if that is waht happened to Hume, in his old age he returned to his child hood fundamentalist faith.
Sorry for such a long post, if the petitioner finds it to be too long, let me know and I'll take it down. But I find evolution and the removal of creationism from schools a very interesting issue. Not teaching creationism I think is a tragedy for today's young people. David Hume, a debunker of science, was one of my guides along the way that helped me to find God. After reading and agreeing with what Hume wrote that we can't prove God by using theological proofs, then all that was left to me was what I used to call "crude fundamentalist salvationism." Some time after that a Jesuit Preist of all people who had accepted Christ into his life at a Billy Graham rally witnessed to me, we went through the tract "Christ my Heart's Home" and I prayed the sinners prayer.
Revelations 3
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Karl Popper, the great 20th century philosopher of science, agreed with Hume that experiments cannot prove scientific hypotheses. He argued that science actually works by setting up its hypotheses so that they can be disproved (falsified). We believe a hypothesis until it is disproved or shown to be inaccurate; then we try to formulate a better one.
Russell addressed the question of causality, successfully, I think .
You say: 'Hume was an Atheist but he did not believe in evolution or natural selection and in fact was one of the first to debunk it even though Darwin had previously been a friend of his.' Well that must have been an interesting friendship. Hume died in 1776, and Darwin was born in 1809. Or are you referring to Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather, who also proposed a theory of evolution, but did not think of attributing it to natural selection? You say: 'This fact makes evolutionists foam at the mouth when it is brought up in school board meetings.' Well it can't be a fact, because Darwin hadn't been born by the time Hume died. Modern biologists accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, because it explains all known biological data very economically. There is no way that Hume could have disproved the theory, unless he was psychic, which he wasn't (no-one is).
'Evolution' (or more specifically, the theory of evolution by natural selection), is a scientific theory, because it explains an enormous amount of data, from several fields, including biology, paleontology and geology. Its status as a science is made particularly clear by the fact that when Darwin proposed it, the principles of genetics had not been discovered, and no-one knew about DNA. When these were discovered, they explained things that had been absent from the theory, and were themselves explained by the theory. In contrast, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, as it does not explain any data in a way that scientists find acceptable. This is why papers supporting Intelligent Design are never presented at respectable biological conferences: it's not that they say things that real scientists can't handle, it's just that they say things that contradict, or fail to account for, the evidence.
It is odd that creationists (or intelligent-designists? heh heh), often portray scientists as accepting as fact that which is clearly false. They don't. Scientists, as I mentioned, try very hard to discredit their own, and eachother's ideas, and whenever there are any holes or gaps, whenever there can be any doubt, their ideas are refered to as "theories" (hence the theory of evolution). These scientists are what is responsible for the computers we use to type our messages on these boards. The concept of a laser was theorized well before any working laser was ever constructed, and we have those theories to thank for the lasers inside the cd/dvd drives in our computers. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it is unfair to paint science as bad (or in extreme cases, evil) because one finds a particular theory unappealing.
A creationist may argue that the universe has only been around as long as *recorded history according to the bible*, but then one is dismissing as nonsense all of the work astronomers and cosmologists have done, refuting out of hand the science behind estimating the age the stars and the universe, that obviously, for example, the stars and distant galaxies are incredibly close to us, or that the speed of light as calculated by science is totally wrong (you'd have a hard time explaining to nasa that the delay between sending a signal to the mars rover and recieving it's reply is a hallucination). When one argues against evolution by stating that the universe has only been around for thousands of years, one does not only deny the science behind evolution, but behind many, many, sciences. How can the universe only be thousands of years old if light takes miilions upon millions of years to reach us from other galaxies? If light from all parts of the known universe only took thousands of years to reach us, then the stars in our galaxy and all the other galaxies would have to be so close together that we would be bathed in incinerating radiation right now...assuming stars are just like our sun (balls of hydrogen gas so massive that their cores undergo nuclear fusion) and not merely dots on a cosmic dome-painting. Edwin Hubble must be rolling in his grave.
Old G: I grant you that most scientists probably don't think about the Bible when they do their research. I know about the irreducible complexity and I understand it.
But as to evolution having occurred: I stand my ground... there is no proof. What evolutionists have is an interpretation, an opinion, of what might have happened in the past by looking/studying fossils, rocks, strata. Their science is not an exact science. Therefore subjectivity enters the scene... "interpretation" of the observed phenomena is presented to the general public as scientific fact when it's not. Why do bones of creatures that lived 65 millions years ago are found on the surface of the Earth? Shouldn't they be deep in the ground after so many millions of years of dust falling on top of them? Either they are not that old or else they should be a mile deep. There are way too many exceptions to their own rules. Another example: In the lower strata, the Cambrian strata (claimed to be 120 million years long; beginning 600 million years ago), you find invertebrate (non-backbone) animals, such as trilobites and brachiopods. These are very complex little animals. In addition, many of our modern animals and plants are in that lowest level. How could such complex, multi-celled creatures be there in the bottom of the Cambrian strata? But there they are. In the very lowest fossil stratum we find complex plants and animals and lots of them, with nothing to indicate that they evolved from anything lower. In the strata below the Cambrian, the Precambrian, there is no information on living forms, with the exception of an occasional blue-green algae. Other than this, no plants, no water creatures, no animals, and no birds are to be found. The paleontologists (the fossil-hunters) call this immense problem "the Cambrian Explosion," because vast numbers of complex creatures suddenly appear in the fossil strata with no evidence that they evolved from any less complicated creatures. Another hole in the theory, and there are countless of holes, so many that this theory looks like a swiss cheese.
If like you say evolution happened thousands if not millions of times, why did it stop? Why isn't evolution ocurring now? What is so special about it that it's not repeating itself in front of our eyes? Are we humans and all the living creatures on Earth today the end product of evolution? Or will we continue to evolve? If that's the case, why haven't we or any other living creature evolve in the last 6,000 years? If on the other hand we are the end product of evolution then evolution is a scientific fact that cannot be reproduced ever, which is very unscientific. To this I say again that what evolutionist are telling us is just an interpretation of their observations. There are other scientists that have a different interpretation of the same observations. I believe these other scientists.
There is no evidence that at any time in all the history of the world even one new true species has formed from other species. Yet evolutionary teachings require that such dramatic new changes would have had to occur thousands and thousands of times like you said. Genetic scientists tell us that all variation occurs in living things only within each type, never from one type to another. Geneticists, probably more than any other group of scientists, know the truth of the matter: trans-species evolution is impossible. The genes and chromosomes, which determine inheritance, are in the DNA within each cell,and each species has its own unique DNA material. Potential variations based on the DNA material are already there, but the DNA cannot generate new structures. It is the complicated DNA code within each plant and animal type that erects the great wall which cannot be crossed.
In religious matters I don't have to "prove" to anyone that God exists. Either you believe in Him or not. It's your choice. However, in science you do have to "prove" your theory for it to be accepted as fact. This hasn't occurred with evolution. It's the only science that has been able to skip the "scientific method" and not bother to prove that evolution happened.
Another footnote: Is there anything other than the material world? Scientists and evolutionists would probably say no. I say yes, there are things that exist which science cannot prove. Love for example. Science cannot tell me how much love weights, or its shape, or its size ot its age. Yet love exist. What about thoughts? Science cannot measure your thoughts, yet they exist. Science is not the answer, is not the ruler, not the tool by which we humans can prove or deny the existence of everything in the universe. If that were the case love would be inexistent because science cannot prove it. But love exist. Science has its limits, it works in the tangible world only, but we all know there is an intangible world, don't we?
Edit: oops. I meant for this post to appear below my first reply
Oh, and I searched Youtube for "irreducable complexity" yesterday on a lark, and I came across a video (one of the first few that showed up) in which a scientist explains his views which apparently refute the concept. You might be interested enough to look for it when you feel like killing some time.
Wow. If I decide to fully address your post, I'm going to have to do some dizzying amounts of research. But there are a couple of things I can contribute right now.
I'm not sure that thoughts, love (emotions) are really things that can be considered in the same context as fossils or physical phenomena, and I'm not going to try.
However, I do have to agree with you (sort of) on a couple of points (though certainly not changing my point of view re: intelligent design).
For one, you mention things in the material world. Scientists will most certainly not deny the possibility of the existence of things that are not in the material world. Case in point; String Theory (a subject I find hard to swallow). String theorists talk about the existence of many other "dimensions" that we cannot percieve. So I don't think they are quite so closed-minded about the "material world" and the existence of things beyond.
And one thing that bugs me about science is that many scientists, specifically physisists, have an annoying tendency to talk as though they are describing reality. It could be a matter of interpretation on my part, but many seem to be of the opinion that they've got it mostly figured out. Nothing could be further from the truth. Physisists have no idea what gravity is. They can describe its effects with stunning precision, but they don't know what it is, and some will even resort to imagining some kind of particle exchange such as "gravitons" to explain why massive objects attract eachother (I find the graviton concept to be ludicrous). Same with magnetism; They tell us that magnetic fields are generated by the motion of electrons, and while they can predict with great accuracy what these fields do, they cannot tell us what they are. In fact, it is the same with electrons. Physisists will tell us "why, electrons are negative charges of course, with this or that property", but they really don't know what an electron actually is. They can only describe the effects that electrons have on other particles (and eachother). The same goes for all subatomic particles. When you boil it all down, subatomic particles are merely bound energy (electomagnetic energy if I understand it correctly) Einstein himself stated that matter and energy are really two forms of the same thing...they are interchangeable). But scientist don't even know what this energy is (light). They can predict what is does, again with stunning accuracy, and devise every manner of nifty gadgets based on the predictions, but they don't know what it is.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that all of the physics texts in all of the libraries in the world cannot tell you what any of the phenomena they describe actually are. Physics, to date, can only tell you what nature does, not what it is. So don't think that I think that science is infallible. I don't. I just feel that it's the best we've got at the moment.
And now, off on a tangent I go....Sometimes I think about relativity, I'm told that any object that approaches the speed of light, it experiences space-contraction and time-dilation...a fancy way of saying that for the object in question, the universe shrinks and time slows down (and the object does the same, from an outside observer's frame of reference), until at the actual speed of light, the universe would become a singularity (in the direction of travel at least) and time would stand still, making the object's voyage instantaneous (from the object's frame of reference...though we know that physical objects cannot travel at the speed of light).Then I consider that light, (obviously) travels at the speed of light, and that all matter is apparently made of light (bound energy). I find it hard not to imagine that on some level (quantum level?) the universe, in some ways, never stopped being a singularity, that is, from the frame of reference of this energy (which we have no idea what it actually is), the universe could almost be considered a snapshot, all there at once so to speak, from a quantum frame of reference (in whatever frame of reference light exists). I'm probably not making a lick of sense, but if I had to speculate on the existence of God, I would say that he must exist outside of our percievable existence, on a quantum level perhaps, and that he could peruse (and possibly edit) the entire multidimensional universe as a doctor would study an x-ray ,from big bang to big crunch and everything in between, all at once. I know I sound like I'm ranting, but I just figure I'd let you know that while I may not believe in a God as depicted in texts, I'm not entirely closed-minded about the existence of a being that exists outside of our own reality, one that may ideed have created our reality. I'd better shut up now, as I'm starting to sound like I'm wishy-washy, if not entirely nuts...I'm sure at this point, most scientists would imediately write me off as a "crackpot", which in all likelyhood I am, heh heh.
Just food for thought (junk food no doubt, but I try to have fun in this head of mine)
One time event: means it hasn't been observed again, it happened once. They say it took millions of years but there is no way to scientifically prove it. There is no known scientific method to date anything beyond a few thousand years, so the millions of years are thrown in in the discussion but they can't prove it... it's just a guess that has stuck as science. For decades they kept adding zeros until the last accepted age of the earth, about 4,500 millions of years.
I've heard that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in God. To believe that everything alive today comes from a single living cell that "evolved," and that this cell was created "by chance," and that from that cell now you have all the plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, vertebrate and humans, plus all the extint species... it really takes a lot of faith "to believe" that. In 6,000 plus years of humankind records no living creature has been seen "evolving." Hence the "one time event."
Someone was asked how old he was and he replied "about 2,500 millions of years." "What?" he was told. "Well," he said, "when I was young the earth was 2,000 millions years old... but now they say it's 4,500 millions years old, so I aged 2,500 years." Again, there is no scientific method to date anything beyond a few thousand years. And scientists know this fact. They never have to answer how do they date fossils, rocks, etc. because it will show that their dating system is flawed.
About the books: no book has been questioned more than the Bible. It's like the stone in the shoe of the scientists. I've seen too many documentaries in Discovery, History, NGC trying to prove that Adam, Moses, King David and Solomon... you name it... was a myth. Yes, even Jesus. You have The DaVinci Code book which has been given countless of hours in these channels. Although it's a novel, in the documentaries they present it as fact, as history. It's like if they are saying that the Bible lied... they question the veracity of the Bible. Yet when they talk about books of the egyptian kings they never question them. They don't question the history of the chinese dynasties, they accept it as fact. They don't question the greek writers... Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles... all of them never told a lie, they always said the truth. Not the Bible writers, they lied and decieved, they can't accept what Moses, King David, Solomon wrote. They are uncomfortable with their writtings.
Just a note: Kepler, Copernico, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, plus thousands of scientists more believed and still believe in God, which proves to me that science and God are not mutually exclusive.
Well, you still insist that you can't date something beyond a few thousand years, but I thought the link I gave you would provide food for thought...perhaps you didn't find it paleatable (sp?). It is with this radiometric dating that they date the fossils and constuct their evolution tables. I'm not savy enough to decide wether or not radiometric dating is a valid science, but, as mentioned at the link I provided, scientist try very hard to disprove new scientific theory (it is very difficult for a scientist to have his/her theory accepted among his/her peers as new theory is rigorously scruitinized and often discredited).
Also interesting to note is that the church sentenced Galileo to house arrest for suggesting that the earth orbited the sun, yet I'm sure even you would not try to suggest he was wrong. If I'm not mistaken, I believe it is only relatively recently that the church has conceded on that point (fact).
I hope I'm not offending. I find it rather refreshing to argue religion vs science with somone who is articulate, rational and clearly intelligent. I'm also not so incredibly arrogant as to deny the possibility that there may be a greater intelligence "out there", who may even be responsible for our existence...one only has to read a bit on quantum physics to realize that reality is far more bizzare, far more difficult to comprehend than most people realize. The particle/wave duality of light, along with concepts like heizenberg's (sp?) uncertainty principle almost suggests that nature could have been designed to foil our every attempt to truly understand it (though I think it is more likely the current scientific paradigms that are leading us down intuitive dead-ends). But if there is such an intelligent being, I seriously doubt he exists as is depicted in any humans' texts.
Make no mistake, I'm an atheist, but I do not disrespect those of faith who can coexist with and respect people who do not share their beliefs. I suspect you are one such person and I tip my hat to you sir.
Edit: Oh, I forgot to adress your other point - While I'm sure there may be exceptions, I doubt that most scientists even consider the bible a factor in their research. That is, I don't believe that most scientists concern themselves with discrediting the bible when they do what they do...nor should they. It is likely only when dealing with scientist who are religious and present theories that include religion that they must consider the bible (peer reviews).
And also, I must argue your other point...Evolution (or what we interpret as evolution...trying to be considerate to you) has occured thousands (if not millions) of times. Science has documented many, many occurences of evolution. It's just that humans have only been around for a cosmological blink of an eye (and recorded history only goes back a few thousand years), so of course we have not seen it occuring (that I'm aware of at least). Perhaps if we're still around in a few million years and recorded history remains intact, we'll be able to say that we've seen this or that animal change (evolve) throughout recorded history.
Also...I'm surprised that you didn't mention the concept of "irreducable complexity" as an argument against evolution. I can't remember where I read it and won't try to cite it, but I was impressed by the argument presented. I did find it a shame that some imediately saw it as proof of "intelligent design" though...pointing out a hole in one theory does not by axiom prove another.
Thanks... and I tip my hat to you too.
Galileo not just suggested that the Earth moved, that it orbited the Earth. He said in fact it did. So he was asked to show, to prove in a scientific way that the Earth moved. He was facing his peers, scientist of the day who happened also to be priests. They questioned him not just on religious ground but on scientific ground, to prove the Earth moved. Unfortunately he couldn't. It took more that two centuries until in the late 1700s finally a scientist was able to prove that the Earth orbited the Sun. I agree his treatment was harsh. For that John Paul II corrected the wrong done to him. Obviously too little too late.
I agree that both evolution or Creation are events that happened way in the past when no one was present. No one can prove scientifically the existence of God or the evolution. So we are left to make a personal choice: whom do we believe to, what do we believe. I'm a Catholic and it's my choice to accept the teachings of my Church, that we were created by God, and that God let Himself be known by man.
I asked in my first post how the Genesis has the right sequence of Creation: life at sea, to other animals, to culminate with man. All evolutionist adhere to that sequence. It is said Moses wrote the Genesis... who told him of this sequence? Very intriguing. I also like to point to the fact that the 10 Commandments were written when man was coming out of the caves. To me this is the first declaration of Human Rights in the history of the World. It was until the late 1940s, when the United Nations was born that a Declaration of the Human Rights was written by the civil authorities of the World, more than 4000 years after the 10 Commandments.
Again my thanks to you for your comments. I appreciate a debate with respect for the other person's point of view.
Carbon dating can go as far as a few thousands years in time, not millions of years. The fosil record is no proof of evolution. It proves that certain animals lived long time ago and became extint. It just shows that there are no living specimens of those species today. The missing link is missing in all of the living creatures today: bear, deer, felines, canines, paquiderm. All the supossed intermediate species are missing too. Fosils of the elephant are exactly to today's elephant and that can be said of all the fosils of the present living animals. They look just the same.
There are thousands of scientists from all over the world that don't believe evolution took place but they cannot be heard or seen on the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel or the History Channel. They can scientifically prove that the evolution is just a theory "that can't be proved..." if given equal time.
I wonder how the Bible writer of the Genesis got it right with the sequence of how the Universe was created and how life appeared in our planet as explained by evolutionists today. From the Big Bang ("Let there be light") to the present man ("Let us make man in our image"), the 19th and 20th century scientists copied that sequence from this writer. How on earth did he get those facts right 4000+ years ago? There were no universities teaching evolution then. How he found out life began at sea and ended with man? These are valid questions that scientists can't answer.
Both evolution and Creation happened long time ago. Evolution is a one time event that happened millions of years ago, Creation just a few thousand years ago. If that's the case we are talking about history here, not science. Evolution is a way the scientific community tries to explains how we all got here, but they fail the test of proving it really happened time and time again. No scientist questions the history books of the chinese, or the hindus, or the egyptians, romans or greek. But they question the book of the history of the chosen people because it teaches, among many things, morality and love for God, two things that are "out of date" for the 21st Century man.
The debate continues. If you are a non believer don't discredit those who believe in God just because you don't like the idea of a Supreme Being. 6000+ years of history of this people weights heavily in favor of the believers. Just for comparison, the USA has been around just 200+ years. And the evolutionist just over 150 years in which they have discovered bones of extinct species. It's not my opinion, it's the opinion of those thousands of scientists who are waiting for the Discovery Channel, NGC and the History Channel to give them the chance to voice their scientific view of this issue.
The Bible teaches morality? Could someone explain to me exactly what makes the Book of Joshua morally superior to Mein Kampf?
I stand corrected...It's "Radiometric dating"
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolutio n/benton.html
I can't imagine what you mean when you say that evolution is a one-time event. Evolution theory refers to countless changes that occur over millions of years.
When you wrote this though:
"But they question the book of the history of the chosen people because it teaches, among many things, morality and love for God, two things that are "out of date" for the 21st Century man."
.I'm sorry, but your argument loses credibility in my eyes. Not trying to be insulting, but comon...