Young Earth Creationism

[Euphorbia]

And science can't seem to make up it's mind. One day eggs are bad for you, then they're good for you, then they're bad. You can get fifty scientists in a room and ask them a theory on one subject and get fifty different ideas. And how do I know that science isn't forged by scientists so they can get their names on an important discovery and earn the big bucks? Scientists aren't corrupt?

Hi saucy, although I don't know this as fact, I believe the egg situations flip-flopping about is due to money. Some scientists claim eggs are bad for us. Then the egg industry finds (Or pays) other scientists to refute the claims of the original scientists. Back and forth it goes...

What money is to be gained through evolution? Sure there might be some fame involved, but these facts still have to be corroborated...by all of the other scientists for the particular field...

[FurthurBB]

Hi saucy, although I don't know this as fact, I believe the egg situations flip-flopping about is due to money. Some scientists claim eggs are bad for us. Then the egg industry finds (Or pays) other scientists to refute the claims of the original scientists. Back and forth it goes...

What money is to be gained through evolution? Sure there might be some fame involved, but these facts still have to be corroborated...by all of the other scientists for the particular field...

Maybe, and also, eggs are good for you in moderation and bad for you in excess. Pretty much like almost everything else.

[FlamingLiberal]

If creationism - and by that I mean the theory that the world is only 6,000 years old - is true, then can I get some actual scientific data (by a SCIENTIFIC source, not a religious one) that would corroberate that theory? I don't want to hear that the bible tells us so. I want to to see data that shows that what was written in the bible can be corroberated by the research done by whatever scientists.

[Stellar]

What's the point of a discussion if you're just going to gang up on us, laugh at us, then call us idiots?

Perhaps that wouldnt be the case if you guys didnt subscribe to idiotic ideas.

[+Sherapy]

Then let me give you a different view using the very same evidence that you accept...

All genes in every single living organism are related. Only a few are unique to a given species so if I was to create a new species in alab, i would use what was available to me. from all the available genes I could create any living thing I could possibly imagine.

Yet eh intersting thing is that the backbone of all these living things, whether they be plants or animals, would share an astounding number of the same genes with common functions.

In essence genes are akin to lego blocks and with these I can build anything. Does that mean they all have a common ancestor? or was there something that manipulated genes so that an infinite variety of species exist but all with the same building blocks of life?

We as related to a house fly or a mouse as we are to a primate and we share over a third of our genes with something like a yeast cell and sea sponges share almost 70 percent of human genes.

All life is built with "lego blocks" dear sheri, but it really doesn't mean they have common descent.

Jor el, I am gonna pass this on to Copa, he has the expertise to address this, I'll pm him.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Sherizzle

[S2F]

If creationism - and by that I mean the theory that the world is only 6,000 years old - is true, then can I get some actual scientific data (by a SCIENTIFIC source, not a religious one) that would corroberate that theory? I don't want to hear that the bible tells us so. I want to to see data that shows that what was written in the bible can be corroberated by the research done by whatever scientists.

Hey FL, mostly what I see from (young earth) creationist propaganda websites is negative evidence. In other words the creationists like to try and nitpick modern theories in an attempt to invalidate them. They look for loopholes (or at least what they believe to be loopholes) and claim 'this theory is incorrect. See, we have proof!' regardless of the validity of said proof. Then they imply (or sometimes even outright state) that their theory of a young earth is by default correct. It is intellectually dishonest, it is deceitful, it is not science and should never be presented as such. It angers me every time I see it.

On a further note, I'm not sure how the trend started with making a claim based on nothing but negative evidence but it seriously needs to stop. It is an outright mockery of the principles of science.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Slave2Fate

[angelusarcane]

I'm sorry, but I honestly can not see how some people believe the earth to only be around 6000 years old.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c012.html REALLY?

Radiometric dating overpowers fake facts and "scripture" any day, sorry.

I need some opinions on this crock of ignorance..

By reading this site, at first glance, it seems the site writer did his homework, but if you check the source materials it is clear he took

certain bits of paragraphs and chopped sentences to fit his theory. Dan Brown has done this for his ficiton concerning secret societies. He leaves out what

is not supportive of his plot line.

Young Earth Creationism would completely void out the fact that we can see billions of years into the past with the most powerful telescopes. If they say then that

expression of time and space is made up then the timeline of the bible is then made up along with it. If time is fiction then how old the earth and stars are is metaphorical.which would then

make any time mentioned in the bible to be metaphorical also and not infalible.

If you can accept that the sun's light travels to earth in light years and acknowledge that the sun is on average 93 million miles from earth [1.583086e-05 ly from earth]

then you accept time.

[Emma_Acid]

No, I don't understand science. I'm not really all that interested in the process of science.

Well you should be. Science is the process of scepticism and critical thinking. Without it we would be living in a dark age, and this is exactly why teaching kids that its OK to not try and understand things is a terrible idea.

This is why I don't necessarily "trust" science. How do I know what is being taught to me is right? Man is fallible, thus science is fallible. But to you it's 100% fact. It can't be 100% fact when the theories are constantly changing.

But that is the strength of science - that it can change when new evidence comes to light. What use is a worldview that basis itself in the writings of sexually frustrated Iron Age Jews and ignores everything thats been discovered since?

Its of no use, whatsoever.

Because I don't believe we know it all. Religion as certainly messed a lot of stuff up. Science has messed a lot of stuff up. I don't like to fight about the petty details.

Well you should fight about the petty details, because its important.

Science really is just the discovery of the world God created and CANNOT, in any way or fashion prove or disprove God.

Nope, in the same way we can't prove that there's a teapot orbiting the sun, but that doesn't mean there's any reason to believe in it.

Science is getting to the point where there simply isn't any need for god to explain what we see around us, unlike the ancients who needed gods to explain weather etc.

And science can't seem to make up it's mind. One day eggs are bad for you, then they're good for you, then they're bad.

That isn't science, thats the media - completely different. Do me a favour - don't trust any "scientific" story, whether its about health, space or history, reported in the mainstream media.

It is almost always wrong.

You can get fifty scientists in a room and ask them a theory on one subject and get fifty different ideas.

Depends what you ask about. Ask about the origin of the universe? You'll probably get about 15 ideas. Ask about the meaning of quantum physics? You might get 10. Ask about evolution? You'll get one answer - with variations on the details.

But again, this is the strength of science - if there were no dissenting voices, science - and by extension civilisation - would never progress.

And how do I know that science isn't forged by scientists so they can get their names on an important discovery and earn the big bucks?

Maybe some do, they're only human after all, but what does it matter? A discovery is a discovery. What difference does it make if Edwin Hubble discovered that distant galaxies are moving away from us for the fame or for the love of discovery?

No difference.

Oh, and scientists don't earn "big bucks". Quash that idea now.

Then you tell me what the scientific process is. I thought it was come up with a hypothesis, then you run tests to prove if your theory is correct or not. There's a little more to it than that, but that's the jest of what I learned.

A hypothesis is an explanation of a phenomena based on rough observation.

For example: the sun rises every morning. I think this could be because a giant dung beetle pushes it over the sky (as the Egyptians believed).

That is a hypothesis.

A "theory" is, unlike the common use meaning of the word, the best thing you can get in science. An idea doesn't get any more solid than when its a theory.

A theory has to be informed by observation, be back up by evidence from numerous sources, be useful in making predictions, be falsifiable (in other words, there needs to be a way of proving the theory wrong), and be repeatable by anyone with the right test conditions.

Something can be both a theory and a fact. If I hold up a pen and let it go, it falls to the table. This is the "fact" of gravity. Why this happens is the theory.

That biological processes cause living populations to adapt to their environments is a fact (that's right, evolution is a fact). How and why this happens, is the "theory".

And to put this into context for you, we understand evolution much better than we understand gravity, and yet I've never once heard anyone shouting "gravity's just a theory".

on second thoughts....

[Archangel Oger]

No, I don't understand science. I'm not really all that interested in the process of science. I like the images we get from pointing Hubble into space and I like walking around in nature and enjoying all the things God created. I certainly love the pain medications I get to take to help my chronic back pain. Science has done good, but I'm no scientist. I admit that. But they way I described science was the basic information taught to me when I was in high school. So if that process is wrong, then write a letter to the schools and blame them for teaching me false things. This is why I don't necessarily "trust" science. How do I know what is being taught to me is right? Man is fallible, thus science is fallible. But to you it's 100% fact. It can't be 100% fact when the theories are constantly changing.

I fully believe In a creator, If you do your research it will be made clear to you....I love to ask any evolutionist or a so called scientist what caused the so called big bang, That question seems to cause crickets.

[Guest]

I fully believe In a creator, If you do your research it will be made clear to you....I love to ask any evolutionist or a so called scientist what caused the so called big bang, That question seems to cause crickets.

The big bang is one of the more speculative theories in science, but that doesn't invalidate evolution in any way.

Br Cornelius

[Emma_Acid]

I fully believe In a creator, If you do your research it will be made clear to you....I love to ask any evolutionist or a so called scientist what caused the so called big bang, That question seems to cause crickets.

First off, if you think the big bang has anything to do with evolution then you haven't done your research properly.

Secondly, all you're doing is displaying the worst kind of medievel ignorance possible.

"We don't understand something, so lets throw out everything we do know!"

The fact that that there are competing theories about the big bang does nothing to invalidate any other area of science.

Or would you rather we just threw in the towel, shrugged our shoulders, mumbled "God done it" and started stoning heathens?

Probably

[Copasetic]

Then let me give you a different view using the very same evidence that you accept...

All genes in every single living organism are related. Only a few are unique to a given species so if I was to create a new species in alab, i would use what was available to me. from all the available genes I could create any living thing I could possibly imagine.

This is incorrect. There are actually only about 500 genes shared across life. Most of those genes code for enzymes and proteins which deal with energy production--Like glycolytic pathways, and genes which code for "deciphering" hereditary material.

Yet eh intersting thing is that the backbone of all these living things, whether they be plants or animals, would share an astounding number of the same genes with common functions.

Yes we do so for a simple fact you have over looked. Why is it that you "share" more genes (or better alleles) with your Mom than with your cousin? Why is it that you share more genes with your cousin than with me? Why is it that you likely share more genes with me than with a South American Pygmy? Why is it that you share more genes with a South American Pygmy than with a chimpanzee? Why is it that you share more genes with a Chimpanzee than with Gorilla? Why is it that you share more genes with a Gorilla than with a shark? Why do you share more genes with a Shark than with Oak tree? Why do you share more genes with an Oak than with Escherichia coli?

Not rhetorical, ponder on that and answer for us.

In essence genes are akin to lego blocks and with these I can build anything. Does that mean they all have a common ancestor? or was there something that manipulated genes so that an infinite variety of species exist but all with the same building blocks of life?

Please read above

We as related to a house fly or a mouse as we are to a primate and we share over a third of our genes with something like a yeast cell and sea sponges share almost 70 percent of human genes.

This is incorrect. We are more related to a primate than a mouse, more related to a mouse than a housefly, more related to a sponge than a yeast....You can't just make up information for your "argument".

Its also worthy to note that level of homology we are discussing matters. Consider these two sentences for example please;

1. The quick brown fox jumped over the sleeping dog.

2. That quick brown mox jumps over that sleeping frog.

Looking at words alone, what is the homology here? That would be to count up the number of "same" words between each sentence. Both sentences contain 9 words and share 4 in the same spots. In other words we can say that they are 44% homologous.

Is that all?

We can look at where each letter falls and see the degree of homology then?

Looking at this way, we see there are potentially a total of 42 letters (in the 2nd sentence) and they share 9 "spots", which means they are actually only 21% homologous. Or are they?

What if we compare at the level of the sentence? How homologous then? They are each one sentence which share a common origin. Therefore they share 100% homology!

All life is built with "lego blocks" dear sheri, but it really doesn't mean they have common descent.

All life is built with similar chemicals that share interact in the same ways because of the simple fact that all living beings extant to earth descend from other living beings. That is a "fact" of life.

[IamsSon]

First off, if you think the big bang has anything to do with evolution then you haven't done your research properly.

Secondly, all you're doing is displaying the worst kind of medievel ignorance possible.

"We don't understand something, so lets throw out everything we do know!"

The fact that that there are competing theories about the big bang does nothing to invalidate any other area of science.

Or would you rather we just threw in the towel, shrugged our shoulders, mumbled "God done it" and started stoning heathens?

Probably

Based on your last comment, one would assume there are no scientists who are believers, but there are plenty of scientists who believe in God. Why would that be? Maybe because knowing God did it doesn't mean we can't learn quite a bit from His handiwork. We might still be able to learn how He did it, or how one area of His creation supports another, or how to improve our technology by understanding how nature works. Your post is more of an ad hominem attack than anything else. Edited October 22, 2010 by IamsSon

[Agent. Mulder]

By reading this site, at first glance, it seems the site writer did his homework, but if you check the source materials it is clear he took

certain bits of paragraphs and chopped sentences to fit his theory. Dan Brown has done this for his ficiton concerning secret societies. He leaves out what

is not supportive of his plot line.

Young Earth Creationism would completely void out the fact that we can see billions of years into the past with the most powerful telescopes. If they say then that

expression of time and space is made up then the timeline of the bible is then made up along with it. If time is fiction then how old the earth and stars are is metaphorical.which would then

make any time mentioned in the bible to be metaphorical also and not infalible.

If you can accept that the sun's light travels to earth in light years and acknowledge that the sun is on average 93 million miles from earth [1.583086e-05 ly from earth]

then you accept time.

*Edit* Changed my mind.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Agent. Mulder

[Agent. Mulder]

No, I don't understand science. I'm not really all that interested in the process of science. I like the images we get from pointing Hubble into space and I like walking around in nature and enjoying all the things God created. I certainly love the pain medications I get to take to help my chronic back pain. Science has done good, but I'm no scientist. I admit that. But they way I described science was the basic information taught to me when I was in high school. So if that process is wrong, then write a letter to the schools and blame them for teaching me false things. This is why I don't necessarily "trust" science. How do I know what is being taught to me is right? Man is fallible, thus science is fallible. But to you it's 100% fact. It can't be 100% fact when the theories are constantly changing.

OOh, right. But the bible, written by man, thats perfect. Not fallible at all.

Pick one or the other saucy.

[Emma_Acid]

Based on your last comment, one would assume there are no scientists who are believers, but there are plenty of scientists who believe in God. Why would that be? Maybe because knowing God did it doesn't mean we can't learn quite a bit from His handiwork. We might still be able to learn how He did it, or how one area of His creation supports another, or how to improve our technology by understanding how nature works.

Um, what?

Firstly, I know plenty of scientists who are religious.

My comment was about the fact that the poster claimed that evolution and scientists are wrong, and god is real, because we don't have all the facts about the origin of the universe.

My post was valid, if annoyed in tone.

Secondly, how can believing in god improve your understanding of nature?

Sure you can say "this area of physics is the work of god" and "this type of maths is the work of god", but you can't build something like the LHC, the experiments of which reply heavily on both the fields of physics and maths, and say that all discoveries were helped by your belief in god.*

You can make the exact same discoveries with no religious belief at all. Belief in god does not help an understanding in nature, as its unpredictable, and unquantifiable, and every discovery is explainable by something that isn't "god".

*edit - before anyone picks my use of the terms "physics" and "maths" apart, I was being slightly allegorical.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Emma_Acid

[IamsSon]

Um, what?

Firstly, I know plenty of scientists who are religious.

My comment was about the fact that the poster claimed that evolution and scientists are wrong, and god is real, because we don't have all the facts about the origin of the universe.

My post was valid, if annoyed in tone.

Secondly, how can believing in god improve your understanding of nature?

Sure you can say "this area of physics is the work of god" and "this type of maths is the work of god", but you can't build something like the LHC, the experiments of which reply heavily on both the fields of physics and maths, and say that all discoveries were helped by your belief in god.*

You can make the exact same discoveries with no religious belief at all. Belief in god does not help an understanding in nature, as its unpredictable, and unquantifiable, and every discovery is explainable by something that isn't "god".

*edit - before anyone picks my use of the terms "physics" and "maths" apart, I was being slightly allegorical.

You may want to go back and re-read what I posted because I did not say belief in God helps. I merely pointed out that understanding God created nature does not in any way hamper our curiosity.

[questionmark]

Just a question: how did a thread about geoscience degenerate into the usual exchange about genetics?

[Emma_Acid]

Sure, my bad, I came at it from the wrong angle.

While I appreciate this, and have no problem with it, I do have a problem with the type of attitude that Sabbath displayed.

Look at it again:

I fully believe In a creator, If you do your research it will be made clear to you....I love to ask any evolutionist or a so called scientist what caused the so called big bang, That question seems to cause crickets.

"Science can't yet explain it, so throw out the theories and replace them with god".

It'd be hard to get less progressive than that.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Emma_Acid

[IamsSon]

Sure, my bad, I came at it from the wrong angle.

While I appreciate this, and have no problem with it, I do have a problem with the type of attitude that Sabbath displayed.

Look at it again:

"Science can't yet explain it, so throw out the theories and replace them with god".

Sure, my bad, I came at it from the wrong angle.

While I appreciate this, and have no problem with it, I do have a problem with the type of attitude that Sabbath displayed.

Look at it again:

"Science can't yet explain it, so throw out the theories and replace them with god".

It'd be hard to get less progressive than that.

Actually, he is not saying "throw out the theories and replace them with god." That's your interpretation. Like I pointed out, acknowledging a Creator God does not mean we should stop studying nature. In fact:

Many historians, of many different religious persuasions including atheistic, have shown that modern science started to flourish only in largely Christian Europe. For example, Dr Stanley Jaki has documented how the scientific method was stillborn in all cultures apart from the Judeo-Christian culture of Europe.¹⁶ These historians point out that the basis of modern science depends on the assumption that the universe was made by a rational creator. An orderly universe makes perfect sense only if it were made by an orderly Creator. But if there is no creator, or if Zeus and his gang were in charge, why should there be any order at all? So, not only is a strong Christian belief not an obstacle to science, such a belief was its very foundation. It is, therefore, fallacious to claim, as many evolutionists do, that believing in miracles means that laboratory science would be impossible. Loren Eiseley stated:

The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation … . It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.

¹⁷

Evolutionists, including Eiseley himself, have thus abandoned the only rational justification for science. But Christians can still claim to have such a justification.

It should thus not be surprising, although it is for many people, that most branches of modern science were founded by believers in creation. The list of creationist scientists is impressive.¹⁸ A sample:

Physics—Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin

Chemistry—Boyle, Dalton, Ramsay

Biology—Ray, Linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur, Virchow, Agassiz

Geology—Steno, Woodward, Brewster, Buckland, Cuvier

Astronomy—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Herschel, Maunder

Mathematics—Pascal, Leibnitz, Euler

Source

[Emma_Acid]

Actually, he is not saying "throw out the theories and replace them with god." That's your interpretation. Like I pointed out, acknowledging a Creator God does not mean we should stop studying nature.

So what is he saying then? He's saying that evolution isn't valid as we don't know the origin of the universe, and that scientists are propagators of some sham ("so-called scientists").

Its obvious he doesn't understand (or like) science, and that belief in a creator is a viable alternative.

None of what he said indicates that he thinks science can uncover wonderful things and your belief system is irrelevant (as you and I believe).

I completely agree that "acknowledging a Creator God does not mean we should stop studying nature", 100%. My problem is that there is no evidence for a creator god, it only does progress harm (due to such the prevalence of the sort of attitudes we're discussing).

[Emma_Acid]

I don't have time to argue with that article by the way, but it does your argument no favours. Christianity does not, in any way, "have the only rational justification for science".

Science is founded on the ideas of rationality and empiricism. It is not faith based, and evolution is not an ideology (as the use of the word "evolutionist" would suggest).

[saucy]

I don't have to pick sides. I'm still "on the fence" about my faith and beliefs. As I stated in other threads, I'm on a learning curve. I don't claim to know everything when I think I know something and I'm proven wrong by much brighter people than I on this forum, then it helps me to learn. I don't like spouting out "medieval" evidence, but that's all I know at the moment. I've been "taught" certain things, things which obviously isn't true, or at least, was thought to be true a long time ago.

People don't like to mix science and God together, but I do. I love discovery. I love learning. I try to think outside the box, but I am also humble enough to admit that I don't know a lot of things.

[IamsSon]

I completely agree that "acknowledging a Creator God does not mean we should stop studying nature", 100%. My problem is that there is no evidence for a creator god, it only does progress harm (due to such the prevalence of the sort of attitudes we're discussing).

You don't see evidence for god because you don't accept the reality of a god. I see everything around me as evidence of God's power and creativity.

I don't have time to argue with that article by the way, but it does your argument no favours. Christianity does not, in any way, "have the only rational justification for science".

Science is founded on the ideas of rationality and empiricism. It is not faith based, and evolution is not an ideology (as the use of the word "evolutionist" would suggest).

You apparently didn't even have time to read the quote because this does not address what it was saying at all.

[Agent. Mulder]

I don't have to pick sides. I'm still "on the fence" about my faith and beliefs. As I stated in other threads, I'm on a learning curve. I don't claim to know everything when I think I know something and I'm proven wrong by much brighter people than I on this forum, then it helps me to learn. I don't like spouting out "medieval" evidence, but that's all I know at the moment. I've been "taught" certain things, things which obviously isn't true, or at least, was thought to be true a long time ago.

People don't like to mix science and God together, but I do. I love discovery. I love learning. I try to think outside the box, but I am also humble enough to admit that I don't know a lot of things.

You can learn and discover from science. Theres no god needed for that. Science thinks outside the box, thats how it got away from god.