Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Creationism vs. Evolution Debate
Having recently watched a show on the Intelligent Design theory and the various Creationist and Evolution videos I have come to the conclusion that it's a never ending fight. This is because the entire fight is faith based. It's a fight between Religions, that's all it is, it will never be solved and it will never come to a conclusion.
Meanwhile, Science suffers because of this debate. Science is caught in the middle since both groups invoke science in order to lend credibility to their argument. Fortunately, though, both theories exists so those who really knows the truth will turn and Ask Higher Intelligence what actually happened and how life arose on this planet. The results, however, are surprising.
So, what do you do when you caught between the two? Let them fight it out and seek out your own answers, its all you can do. Oh, the Evolutionists will say that they co-opted Logic, the Scientific Method, and the History of Science. But making such a pronouncement is nothing more than the latest salvo in the debate. It really create fools to make such a proclamation. Such a statement is non-sense because it divides the scientific community: it was made in such a way that it creates a "Either you are for Science" or "You are against science" attitude. However, such a thing is foolish since the Scientific Method and Logic is pretty much owned by all.
So, really, this is getting pathetic. You guys -- both Creationists and Darwinists -- are really going to have to learn to get along with each other so that the two theories can co-exist peacefully and people can choose for themselves which theory feels right for them. This will advance science and not make it out to be a big joke. But since you are at each others intellectual throats, you are making a mockery of Science. Really, I wonder why the men in the white coats aren't carting both groups off to the Funny Farm.
The Implications of Both Theories
Evolutionists are so bent on taking Intelligence out of the equation of Life to prove that Intelligence had nothing to do with Life on Earth that they are going to have to prove that there is no Intelligence in the Universe in order to prove that their theory is valid.
Creationists will be setting Science back two hundred years since they firmly say that the World was created in six days. However, here is a newsflash for Creationists and Evolutionists.
--- The Account of Genesis was a human witnessed event. The Account of Genesis is the end of the Golden Age, the Age of Perfect Virtue and the Beginning of our World as we know it. It also accounts for a Spiritual Creation. David Talbott presents this in his thesis "Remembering the End of the World."
--- Evolutionists, you have to pretty much disprove Quantum Physics and Quantum Events and two laws governing Intelligence in the Universe: The Law of Attraction and the Law of the Harvest. This means that you have to disprove the infamous double slit experiment.
Since, however, both groups will not do the science and are clinging to theories that are over one hundred years old, you are both making Science a mockery to the World at large. Like I said, this is an argument of faith. After all, it takes faith to believe in both theories. I think Doctor Frankenstein has put it best when dealing with the two groups.
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3 comments:
I am curious about your argument that science equally supports both creationism and evolution. It seems clear to me that creationism cannot be supported by science at all, because creationism fails to adhere to the most basic tenets of scientific theory; for something to be a proper theory, it must be testable, predictive and parsimonious. Concisely, it must be entirely disprovable.
Evolution is testable. From high school students growing fast-growing plants to observations of living species to electron microscopes taking images of DNA replication to gene therapy, evolution has been tested and shown to be correct. Occasionally, some particular detail will be disproven (for example, that because introns are discarded when producing proteins, they have absolutely no effect on the organism), but the basic theory of Traits Can Affect Reproductive Success -> Some Traits Are Genetic -> Thus, Traits Which Improve Reproductive Success Are More Likely To Be More Common In The Next Generation is impervious, in the same way that getting closer to understanding gravity poses no risk to heliocentrism.
Meanwhile, intelligent design and creationism are untestable and unpredictive. How can you disprove that an intelligent designer _might_ be behind everything? What evidence could any experiment reveal in either direction? And even if you could absolutely prove it or disprove it, what use would that be? If you had absolute proof that God is The Designer and The Mechanism, what could you do with that knowledge? Would you tell the high school student that you can't tell him for sure whether the taller plants will have taller offspring, because that is God's choice? Or even if you simply want to put forth the idea that a Designer may have set evolution in motion and has not interfered since then: even that is not a proper scientific theory, because it is not parsimonious. The belief in the Designer adds nothing to the theory -- it's an untestable, non-functional, extraneous aspect.
Evolution has been tested and is tested every single day, through its functional applications. I'm not sure why it has to learn to co-exist peacefully with a "theory" that isn't even a proper theory. Your claim is that science belongs to both, and I must disagree. If you want to believe in intelligent design for those questions that evolution hasn't yet or can't answer, then sure, in that sense they can definitely co-exist. There's no contradiction in believing God set the universe into motion AND that evolution is a purely mechanical process. Sure. Fine.
But when it comes time for someone to decide whether or not to finish their antibiotic dose ("but I already feel better!"), or how to minimize a mother's chances of passing on the debilitating genetic disease that lurks in her family, or how to best manage the surviving tiger population to maximize the chances of recreating a stable population, or finding new approaches to curing cancer, there is no "what feels right to you" or "seeking your own answer". There is nothing a proponent of intelligent design can offer, not one single word that speaks to the actual nature of reality. Let him instead debate the role of altruism in society, or how a community can serve the less fortunate, or how a family can respond to hardships. These are real, honest, important (much more important, for most people on most days, than the mechanisms of reproduction) questions that belief in a higher power can try to explain, while science only nibbles away at the edges.
I apologize if this comment is disproportionate to your argument. The "middle ground" or "value in both ideas" argument is typically the precursor to far more dangerous arguments, such as "let's have science classes teach both!" I may have started by talking to you and ended up shouting at the guy behind you (or less metaphorically, the ten guys whose arguments I read before yours), and for that, I apologize.
Hello,
I am curious about your argument that science equally supports both creationism and evolution -- that science is somehow "in the middle" between the two. It seems clear to me that creationism cannot be supported by science at all, because creationism fails to adhere to the most basic tenets of scientific theory: for something to be a proper theory, it must be testable, predictive and parsimonious. It must be entirely disprovable.
Evolution is testable. From high school students growing fast-growing plants to observations of living species to electron microscopes taking images of DNA replication to gene therapy, evolution has been tested and shown to be correct. Occasionally, some particular detail will be disproven (for example, that because introns are discarded when producing proteins, they have absolutely no effect on the organism), but the basic theory of Traits Can Affect Reproductive Success -> Some Traits Are Genetic -> Thus, Traits Which Improve Reproductive Success Are More Likely To Be More Common In The Next Generation is impervious, in the same way that getting closer to understanding gravity poses no risk to heliocentrism.
Meanwhile, intelligent design and creationism are untestable and unpredictive. How can you disprove that an intelligent designer _might_ be behind everything? What evidence could any experiment reveal in either direction? And even if you could absolutely prove it or disprove it, what use would that be? If you had absolute proof that God is The Designer and The Mechanism, what could you do with that knowledge? Would you tell the high school student that you can't tell him whether the taller plants will have taller offspring, because that is God's choice? Or even if you simply want to put forth the idea that a Designer may have set evolution in motion and has not interfered since then: even that is not a proper scientific theory, because it is not parsimonious. The belief in the Designer adds nothing to the theory. It's an untestable, non-functional, extraneous aspect.
Evolution is tested every single day through its functional applications. I'm not sure why it has to learn to co-exist with a "theory" that isn't even a proper theory. Your claim is that science belongs to both, and I must disagree. If you want to believe in intelligent design for those questions that evolution hasn't yet or can't answer, then sure, in that sense they can definitely co-exist. There's no contradiction in believing God set the universe into motion AND that evolution is a purely mechanical process. Sure. Fine.
But when it comes time for someone to decide whether or not to finish their antibiotic dose ("but I already feel better!"), or how to minimize a mother's chances of passing on the debilitating genetic disease that lurks in her family, or how to best manage the surviving tiger population to maximize the chances of recreating a stable population, or finding new approaches to curing cancer, there is no "what feels right to you" or "seeking your own answer". There is nothing a proponent of intelligent design can offer, not one single word that speaks to the actual nature of reality. Let him instead debate the role of altruism in society, or how a community can serve the less fortunate, or how a family can respond to hardships. These are real, honest, important (much more important, for most people on most days, than the mechanisms of reproduction) questions that belief in a higher power can try to explain, while science only nibbles away at the edges.
I apologize if this comment is disproportionate to your argument. The "middle ground" or "value in both ideas" argument is typically the precursor to far more dangerous arguments, such as "let's have science classes teach both!" I may have started by talking to you and ended up shouting at the guy behind you (or less metaphorically, the ten guys whose arguments I read before yours), and for that, I apologize.
"the two theories can co-exist peacefully and people can choose for themselves which theory feels right for them."
???
So scientists just go with their feelings, not evidence?
"they are going to have to prove that there is no Intelligence in the Universe in order to prove that their theory is valid."
Seriously? Prove a negative?
"After all, it takes faith to believe in both theories."
I don't think you really understand evolution (or science) if you think theories are accepted or rejected based on faith. But I'm curious if you think any other scientific theories are just leaps of faith...
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