creationist vs evolutionists debate, the big one.

that brings up another point in this debate. im not 100% percent sure, i dont know the reason for life. but isn't that the question all of us as a society should strive to answer? instead of speculating who's entity is responsible for creating us. thats why religion holds us back. we should be answering lifes questions with knowledge, not tradition. the idea of an actual being, being responsible for life is an old idea we need to let go.

 

We need to have faith at least in something, because there is nothing like 'a book of all wisdom'.
Whether it's religion, evolution or something else.
We decide on our own where we put our faith.

 

no i'm not 100% sure on anything in this world as it would be ridiculous to be. but i can say that the evidence shown can make me 99% sure going against the non existent (without any corruption or blatant lying) evidence for the creation story or even god for that matter that can't even give me a 1% belief in him.

as i said i'm agnostic not atheist so my minds not closed to god or even the idea its just not probable or even likely.

and as regards to entropy i can say that if you are using that argument you show no understanding of it. you can't just go around using scientific term for your argument that don't apply.
i can safely assume that you have not learned about the second law of thermodynamics otherwise you would not have said it, i will assume again that you got that from a creationist source.
have you not noticed that they (creationists) twist stuff? they say that the law of entropy goes against evolution yet they don't explain how or why? this is because if they explained it, it would become clear that what they are arguing is bullshit.

here is and explanation of entropy (its easy to follow and describes it quite clearly), so please read it and stop using it as an argument your self as it make you look dumb.
http://www.dctech.com/physics/features/old/evolution.php

look i have no problem with anyone having a belief as it helps some people but creationists make me so mad, i actually feel really bad that you have been lied to and are dumbed down by this bullshit. every one should have the chance to learn about the world but then again i don't know how much of it is you being lied to of you just believing it (and i mean you as a creationist not you specifically) if i'm told anything i don't just believe it i make sure its correct before i do that and i require how and why before i can even ever take it seriously.

the really sad thing is, is that these people are meant to be good and honest people yet every time a word comes out of their mouth it just lies and deceit and you don't even need to look hard to see it. i could sit hear and post thousands of examples but i don't really need to do that cause you can see for your self if you research what they are saying.

again you don't need faith for evolution you just need to be able to read. it does not require faith only understanding.

 

Oh, you do need faith. We have to believe that all the things we can observe, act in the way we think.
If we're suddenly observing something different from our expectations, we have a proof we were thinking wrong.
If we don't find something contradicting, then it doesn't mean there is nothing. We have to prove there is nothing contradicting.
And if we cannot prove it, the only thing left is faith.

The theory of evolution seems to make a lot of sense, but it's still an unproven theory.
Furthermore, we have no clue how to prove it. But that's the same with everything, since there is no 'book of all wisdom'.
If someone gives us an option to disprove our theories, then we can prove that option to be false, but that's basicly all we can do.

I personally need less faith to believe in evolution than I need to believe in creation.



NOTE: I have huge faith in math, but that doesn't hold me from trying to disprove formulas.

 

I am religious, and I believe in evolution,

the two are not necessary mutually exclusive,

Everything had to come from some where, and every theory has its flaws

God: where did God come from

Big bang: where did the matter/anti matter come from?

Logic dictates that before the big bang there was nothing, but where did this matter come from? It can't just simply pop into existance


I believe in God, I have faith and I do for the most part believe that science can go hand in hand with religion (save for the extremists, Queen Elizabeth the first was NOT black )

According to the bible, the world was made in 6 days,

We have our 365.25 day, but before that was the 100 day etc

A day back then could have been 1000's of years

Just because we think of a day as a set period of time for the earth to travel round the sun, doesn't mean they did them

(search wiki for previous calenders)

so the theory of creation could still be true to some extent, the universe could be millions and billions of years old (as I believe) and the bible states the world as a few thousand old due to the perception of time

If you called a day 10 years, you could do alot in a week

Think if you called a day 100000 years



Everything needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and reason applied, everything was not the same as we believe now, in 100 years time a new calender may be made which had a day as 20 hours long with 400 days in the year, using another bench-mark (instead of earth round sun, it could be something completely different) And all scientific theories could be proved wrong

final statement: I believe in God, I am a scientist, people just need to think about the problem a bit more sensibly

Not just: oh who wrote the bible? 6 days only? who made God?

Apply logic, and a reasonable source of facts and you can find out (save for the God question, that is what faith is for )

 

Found an interesting article, which relates to this debate on many levels

From the article ->

"Claims to special privilege in society, indoctrination of belief as fact, repressive or violent acts as a means of evangelism, and the upholding of outdated worldviews on scriptural grounds – all these and many other examples of the misuse of spiritual traditions do them no favours and should be dropped."

Read the rest here -> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/11/buddhism-religion-dawkins

 

I'm interested in your definition of the following words: faith, and believe.

Thanks.

 

faith is defined as, "confidence or trust in a person or thing"

to believe is defined as, "to suppose or assume; understand"

So yes evolution takes trust... in many things... for example that the scientists aren't making up some things or distorting the truth (like they did with the Piltdown man, the Nebraska man, Archeoraptor, Haeckel's Embryos, the Cro-Magnon, and Neandrathal man)

 

@marcy, I am not picking on you here but making a general point to all who keep saying this.

Scientific theory is based on scientific law. A theory cannot become a law and vice-versa. Therories do not require proof, they can only be tested against the underlying law. Laws require proof. You can base many theories upon one law.

Rather than compare the therory of relativity to that of something like the theory of gravity perhaps you will all find it easier to consider that the theory of relativity is based upon the law of natural selection.

It has always amused me that many creationists go after the theory of relativity and attempt to undermine it with arguments that are way outside the remit of the law of natural selection. The beliefs of many creationists require the destruction of the law of natural selection and the construction of a new underlying fundemental law of nature.

Until creationists can either argue against the therory of relitivity within the constaints of the law of natural selection or until creationists can come up with a new law that can replace natural selection, then you have no science. For this reason many evolutionary biologists will not discuss the issue with creationists, as creationists have no science to discuss.

Believe what you will, but do not expect anyone to take you seriously, or for a fundemental scientific law to simply vanish. Until creationists begin to properly engage with science you will have to excuse the rest of us for sniggering in the back seats of church.

 

oh my word, scientist don't lie numb nuts that's what creationists do. scientists only go by the evidence, when new evidence comes along that challenges it they update what they are saying, they never claim anything is perfect.

also your a tit because again you've gone and read creationist arguments and not looked at what science has said.

Piltdown man: this was a HOAX way before we could test anything or even knew much about evolution, it also was never fully accepted and if you look at what science says is human species today you will not find piltdown man anywhere

nebraska man: was a mistake, it was a wrong classification and has since been updated

Archaeoraptor: again a forgery and was clear when tested we could see what it was but i guess you don't want to look at the hundreds of real transitional fossils.

Haeckel's Embryos: was a 19th century biologist i don;t think i need to say more

Cro-Magnon: i have no idea why your using this one, it was said to be a different species but now (through more research and finding other things) is now known as early modern human (early being the keyword) but shows that there is still changes in our physique even as modern human species

Neanderthal: what is your argument here? Neanderthal's are no hoax, maybe your arguing the early ideas of them (e.g. early artist impressions) but Neanderthal's are not even claimed to be part of our (modern human) evolution they are now known as a complete different species along with many other human species.


please stop just posting creationist bullshit or if you do post your explanation of why, what or how because i'm getting really pissed off now at you being an idiot.
first you show your complete lack of understanding of the second law of thermodynamics and you just used an argument without explain how the two don't work together. now you state all these things but if you had any understanding of anything you would not use these as arguments.

stop looking in the past for poor arguments made against very old or unrecognized ideas. look to what we know now with the equipment we have and the evidence now collected.

so again stop being stupid and stop getting your info from creationist sources (and i know you are because i've heard all this before and its wrong)
or if you do back up what your saying and make an explanation so you don't sound like a puppet repeating the same WRONG crap we hear all the time.

i would really like to have a decent debate here with you but you are yet to make any substantial argument and its starting to get boring

 

yeah but Haeckel's Embryos are still in my biology book (it was printed in 2007 btw) are my teachers are still teaching it as fact.

 

this is a debate, and "faith" doesnt apply. it's too speculative. why dont we continue arguing facts other than belief-based arguments. come on creationist lets see some facts.

 

its not what was understood then, Haeckel altered the drawings to support what he believed about evolution. Also my biology teacher says that the embryos actually look like what they're shown as in his drawings and that it is definitive proof that evolution is true.

 

I believe my question was for 'marcy', not you. But since you went ahead with your definitions, I'm going to point out where you are wrong:

Science is never about trust or faith; it is always a subject based on proven facts and evidence. Given that, it is impossible for scientists to 'distort the truth' as that would require forging or fabricating evidence to support a false claim or theory AND getting away with it. The latter is very difficult to pull off as there are scientific ways to disprove fabricated and forged evidence, and not to mention the majority of the scientific community is not naive or stupid.

When people present something in the scientific community, they don't ever say, "I believe that... etc" or "I have faith in... etc"; they state, "I know that... etc" or "Based on what I know and observed... etc". That is especially true when contributing something to theories, as theories are not wild guesses.

By the way, the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthals are not made up; they are simply names given to species of skeletal remains discovered which, in fact are very similar to modern day humans with slightly different features and details.

Haeckel was wrong, and your Biology teacher is a fool.

Haeckel's drawings were rightfully rejected by the scientific community as it was later discovered that Haeckal's drawings were not only "fudged", but also missing certain details.

And something for you and your textbook:

Furthermore, Charles Darwin (evolution theorist by the way) who wrote The Descent of Man has a footnote included regarding the figures of embryos which are in fact not based off of Haeckal's drawings.

[quote author=Footnote from "The Descent of Man"] Darwin's footnote to Fig. 1 in The Descent of Man (1871) reads "The human embryo (upper fig.) is from Ecker, 'Icones Phys.,' 1851–1859, tab. xxx. fig. 2. This embryo was ten lines in length, so that the drawing is much magnified. The embryo of the dog is from Bischoff, 'Entwicklungsgeschichte des Hunde-Eies,' 1845, tab. xi. fig. 42 B. This drawing is five times magnified, the embryo being 25 days old. The internal viscera have been omitted, and the uterine appendages in both drawings removed. I was directed to these figures by Prof. Huxley, from whose work, 'Man's Place in Nature,' the idea of giving them was taken. Häckel has also given analogous drawings in his 'Schöpfungsgeschichte.' " Note that Darwin mentions the scale of his drawings, whereas Haeckel has been charged with making all his embryos the same size as a deceptive move. Similarly Darwin mentions what is missing (internal viscera and uterine appendages), whereas Haeckel did not.[/quote]

 

I agree with this definition.

Facts are fine, but how you interpret these facts depends on you. Sometimes, scientists interpret their facts in the wrong way.

Example:
Expect a dog has 4 eggs and 4 sausages. The egg to sausage ratio is 50:50.
The ratio's suddendly changing to 80:20. But that doen't mean the dog's laying eggs.
(famous example in statistics)

We never know if there is more behind our observations than we think at the moment.
Sometimes we 'distort the truth' without being aware of it. And sometimes we just believe the wrong things.
Therefore we must have faith and trust in our theorie, otherwise we wouldn't be able to move forward.

If you're looking deeper into some scientific fields, you'll see that they are bases on theories or axioms.
But there no way it could be different, because there is nobody who could say for example
"Yes, you're right gravity works exactly like that, and you really didn't miss any special case".
No matter what we do, we can never exclude that we're wrong.

You don't want anyone to doubt the things you're saying, if you present something in the scientific community.
So you knowingly avoid such terms. (You even avoid the 'I' where I'm livi...umm...I mean where the author lives )
The truth is you can never be absolutely sure with the things you're saying.
Therefore, I know that I know nothing.

 

That's a statistical example, not a scientific one. But I do see how you are trying to tie this with the creationism and evolution theories as it goes into the issue of observation which is very important in Science.

I agree with you here as Science does not claim to be 100% right all the time, but nevertheless, it still is a subject that focuses on finding the truth. Science does correct itself whenever it observes a result that contradicts its theories or laws, which is part of the process of seeking the truth.

I wouldn't call it "faith" or "trust". "Assume**" would be a more appropriate term as theories (since they are not proven to be 100% true yet) are taken with some caution that they could be possibly wrong. If you were to "put faith in" or "trust" a theory, then you are investing your thoughts, along with the experiment itself, into that theory such that it cannot be wrong at all in the given experiment. However, when you "assume" a given theory, you are simply just supposing that theory along with its conditions in a given experiment.

I'm certain you came across "proof by contradictions" as a math student, right? It's a proof technique that simply assumes a given condition as the first step of the proof.


** getbuck's definition of 'believe' is incorrect as he defines it as "to suppose or assume." Webster's Dictionary defines 'believe' as "to consider to be true or honest", which is a lot stronger in degree compared to getbuck's definition. The context of both "assume" and "believe" used is based off of Webster's definitions, whereas 'assume' is defined as "to pretend to have or be."

Also, 'assume' and 'believe' are not synonyms at all.

This is just wondering off into the subject of Philosophy which is a bit off topic (even though it is relevant to what you are presenting so far.) But yes, there is no denying the possibility that we can be wrong, especially when it comes to scientific investigations. However (not directing this at you in particular), that doesn't mean that the opposing party can use that as a ticket of "supporting evidence" or reason to support their opposing theory.

 

i'm noticing a trend here (well it pretty blatant)

that those on the side of creationism have not actually given any shred of information supporting it but in stead only attacked (badly) mistakes in science or misquoted or not understood it, when i don't need to attack the creation story to argue for evolution and i can give supporting evidence.

i'm really surprised that you lot (looks at the Christians in the forum) are so rubbish at defending your own faith, i know many religious people and some of them believe in the creation story and they are able to actually give a good debate being able to defend their faith.

i am going to ask again that some one posts a substantial argument for creationism using information that supports it and not attack evolution (because to start with it will never work as we have seen) to do so

 

Statistics are build on math. Therefore, the example is directly linked to a scientific field.
Moreover, it's a good example to show how an observation could possibly go wrong.

I think you need to trust something before you can assume it, so 'assume' implies you already 'trust'.
But I actually don't care, since this is not my native language.

I totally agree. ;D
If creation is true, then evolution is false.
But not if evolution is false, then creation is true.
Thus, it's inadequate trying to find something that might disprove evolution, because it's irrelevant in order to prove creation.
(Translation: God won't appear, if you thump evolution.)


By the way:

I'm not a math student (sometimes it feels like I am), but yes, I know that technique.

 

oh for the love of (your) god shut the hell up evolution is real it happens and its not wrong we have to much to prove it (if you can actually be bothered to open your eyes) and even if the small mistakes in the past or corruption sows doubt in your head that for some reason makes magic from a fictional character make more sense your argument is poor at best not once has anyone defended their belief with anything close to a decent argument.

for Christ sake i could make a better argument for creation (not genesis that's retarded) but at least a god and i have done (i get pissed of with atheists that talk shit)
i want to debate not hear this same shit argument over and over again because not one person can talk about their faith without justifying it retardedly (not very good English i know ) trying to misquote science.

so i will quote myself and ask again that this after 11 pages actually becomes something to debate and not just the same bullshit when someone come along and goes "its just a theory" and a load of people tell them they are stupid for even using that sentence