Evolution and Creationism both have equal value and scientific evidence to support them.

[tumbleweed41]

Example of one previously given to explain my 50:50 position, evolution and creationism cancel each other out, both have equal value and scientific evidence to support them.

I have left out the posters name to avoid "calling out" another member.
But I would like to know if anyone who agrees with this statement would care to provide the scientific "Creationist" evidence that is equal to the evidence supporting the ToE.

Anyone?

 

[Valjean]

Creationism isn't science at all, it's magic. What's more, it says nothing about the mechanisms of change, (if it aknowledges change at all). It's mostly just an assertion of agency.
Evolution, on the other hand, says nothing about an agent and merely deals with the mechanisms of change.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Well that statement is obviously ridiculous and really isn't even worth taking seriously.

Science attempts to explain the facts with theory. Or, in other words, a conclusion is reached only AFTER the data is interpreted, and the conclusion itself is always left open to further scrutiny through falsifiability. Scientific method has left evolution as the most likely theory to fit the wide array of data across many different scientific disciplines, and though it is falsifiable in many different ways, has yet to be falsified despite millions and millions of manhours of research attempting to do just that.

Creationism works in reverse of science, attempting to explain a theory with the facts. Creationism begins with a conclusion and tries to figure out how to arrange the facts to fit it. Since the facts don't fit, many must be omitted or altered. It doesn't matter anyway because the conclusion is foregone.

Creationism is anti-science.

 

[Wotan]

There is no such evidence. There IS an interperation of scientific evidence that sees evidence of intelligent design and from that interperation the fact of a designer is deduced.

 

[Jose Fly]

There is no such evidence. There IS an interperation of scientific evidence that sees evidence of intelligent design and from that interperation the fact of a designer is deduced.

And there IS an interpretation of scientific evidence that sees evidence of a geocentric solar system and from that the fact of a heliocentric universe is deduced.

But then, not all interpretations are equally valid, are they?

 

[Wotan]

"But then, not all interpretations are equally valid, are they?"

Not at all. As any reader of Pop Science can attest. Or Haldane's remark, "We have been so damn sure of so many things that were just not so."

So we depend on the quantity and quality of evidence. And are always ready to abandon prior views when they can be shown to be fallacious.

And THAT is the real difference. Creation science (an oxymoron as others have noted) CS assumes what it wants to prove is true. It casts about for evidence that will support its assumptions. It ignores contradictory evidence or "interpreters" it light of its prior assumptions. What it can never do is admit to error.

As proclaimed at the AIG website.

Real science invites error and grows from confronting it.

 

[Draka]

Whoever said that is ridiculous...that statement is ridiculous. There is no such thing as scientific evidence for creationism. Anyone who really thinks there is has been so deluded and is beyond using reason and thought that they wouldn't be able to tell that a baseball bat is a hard object even if you hit them upside the head with it. Not that it would do any damage...except to maybe the bat.

 

[Man of Faith]

This has been explained countless times, but I have 5 minutes so I will try again. There isn't two sets of scientific evidence, one for evolutionists and one for creationists. There is only one set of scientific evidences, which is data, and both the evolutionists and creationists examine the same data and come to different conclusions based of their worldviews, meaning their starting points. Evolutionst's starting point is evolution, creationists starting point is creation.

Let my give an example of how the same data can be used for both sides. Look in the mirror and you will see a living being sometimes called a human, which can be broken down into scientific data but as a whole there you in the mirror. With the starting point that Darwinism is true a person could say that they are an ape came about by natural processes. I don't do that I start with creation as my starting point so I see a special being created in God's image.

 

[tumbleweed41]

This has been explained countless times, but I have 5 minutes so I will try again. There isn't two sets of scientific evidence, one for evolutionists and one for creationists. There is only one set of scientific evidences, which is data, and both the evolutionists and creationists examine the same data and come to different conclusions based of their worldviews, meaning their starting points. Evolutionst's starting point is evolution, creationists starting point is creation.

Let my give an example of how the same data can be used for both sides. Look in the mirror and you will see a living being sometimes called a human, which can be broken down into scientific data but as a whole there you in the mirror. With the starting point that Darwinism is true a person could say that they are an ape came about by natural processes. I don't do that I start with creation as my starting point so I see a special being created in God's image.

Sorry, the only "worldview" used by science is based on natural laws.
When Creationist insert supernatural into science, it no longer remains science, but is instead converted to a pseudoscience based on preconceived Biblical and supernatural means instead of natural laws.

One of the main differences being, biology does not start with a "Darwinistic" world view, it starts with the scientific method that continually and repeatedly confirms the Theory of Evolution.
Creationism, on the other hand, starts with the premise of supernatural creation, and ignores standard scientific method in favor of cherry picking data that, instead of confirming Creationism, attempts to cast doubt on the ToE.

Creationist, like ManOfFaith, imagine a "Darwinistic" world view in science only because that is how they themselves corrupt science, by taking a preconceived notion and attempting to fit the data around it.

 

[Mr Cheese]

science does not deal with truth though..it just deals with models of the truth
people in these kind of discussions tend to forget that

however, this does not make creationism any more valid

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Let my give an example of how the same data can be used for both sides. Look in the mirror and you will see a living being sometimes called a human, which can be broken down into scientific data but as a whole there you in the mirror. With the starting point that Darwinism is true a person could say that they are an ape came about by natural processes. I don't do that I start with creation as my starting point so I see a special being created in God's image.

science does not deal with truth though..it just deals with models of the truth
people in these kind of discussions tend to forget that

however, this does not make creationism any more valid

I've been thinking about it, and more and more it seems to me that this is part of the thought process that allows people to believe some wacky things.

I think that in general, we look at the world in terms of mental models. We all like to have accurate mental models, so we try to verify them. When it comes to creationism, a person could go through their whole life without encountering anything that disagreed with the model. Mainly, this is because the issues of creationism don't come up very often in the lives of most people: whether you believe in a young Earth or an old Earth, 99.9...% of the concerns in your life are going to be exactly the same. It's only if you work, say, as a geologist or a biologist (or frequent forums like this one) that you'd have creationist beliefs challenged on any sort of regular basis.

Also, creationism doesn't ever come in isolation. It's always a subset of some larger set of beliefs about God, the universe and our place in it. Because, as I mentioned, the details of creationism only actually impact a person's life in very minor ways, this means that even if you score a few points in the creationism vs. evolution debate, the creationist is still able to look at their beliefs as a whole and realize that even with that "damage" to, say, their ideas about the age of the Earth, their larger mental model still agrees with what they observe 99% of the time or more, which is still pretty accurate as models go.

 

[Willamena]

This has been explained countless times, but I have 5 minutes so I will try again. There isn't two sets of scientific evidence, one for evolutionists and one for creationists. There is only one set of scientific evidences, which is data, and both the evolutionists and creationists examine the same data and come to different conclusions based of their worldviews, meaning their starting points. Evolutionst's starting point is evolution, creationists starting point is creation.

Let my give an example of how the same data can be used for both sides. Look in the mirror and you will see a living being sometimes called a human, which can be broken down into scientific data but as a whole there you in the mirror. With the starting point that Darwinism is true a person could say that they are an ape came about by natural processes. I don't do that I start with creation as my starting point so I see a special being created in God's image.

From your example, it would seem that they start neither with Darwinism/evolution or Creationism as a beginning of reasoning. They both start with an observation in the mirror (and that's actually correct).

 

[Nepenthe]

I've been thinking about it, and more and more it seems to me that this is part of the thought process that allows people to believe some wacky things.

I think that in general, we look at the world in terms of mental models. We all like to have accurate mental models, so we try to verify them. When it comes to creationism, a person could go through their whole life without encountering anything that disagreed with the model. Mainly, this is because the issues of creationism don't come up very often in the lives of most people: whether you believe in a young Earth or an old Earth, 99.9...% of the concerns in your life are going to be exactly the same. It's only if you work, say, as a geologist or a biologist (or frequent forums like this one) that you'd have creationist beliefs challenged on any sort of regular basis.

Also, creationism doesn't ever come in isolation. It's always a subset of some larger set of beliefs about God, the universe and our place in it. Because, as I mentioned, the details of creationism only actually impact a person's life in very minor ways, this means that even if you score a few points in the creationism vs. evolution debate, the creationist is still able to look at their beliefs as a whole and realize that even with that "damage" to, say, their ideas about the age of the Earth, their larger mental model still agrees with what they observe 99% of the time or more, which is still pretty accurate as models go.

Excellent points. And even when creationists (inevitably) face absolutely incontrovertible evidence that a particular pet delusion is false they still have their interventionist God to patch up any holes. As much as they enjoy pretending to mimic actual science they are forced to fall back on divine intervention time and time again. I've mentioned in a previous post how I suspect the moral aspects of creationism are what drives them the most. No matter how definitive the evidence supporting evolution remains, anything that deviates from their literal interpretation of Genesis is unacceptable. They've invested too much emotional and moral and ethical baggage into their dogma and anything hinting at nested hierarchies is an affront to their faith. I knew a fellow student in college who was a biology major and a YEC. I was jealous at how smart she was- we had several study sessions going over the Krebs cycle in detail and she made me feel stupid. But she was a devout YEC and whenever confronted with contradictory evidence she would simply memorize and regurgitate the correct info' come blue book test time and neatly compartmentalize the facts so they didn't touch her dogma. It's like some dogmatic variation of OCD behavior where they can't let things on their intellectual plate touch for fear of ruining the entire meal. Her moral mental model simply prohibited any acceptance of evolution.

 

[Man of Faith]

From your example, it would seem that they start neither with Darwinism/evolution or Creationism as a beginning of reasoning. They both start with an observation in the mirror (and that's actually correct).

If you start with the observation in the mirror, then that is all you have is the data from an observation in the mirror. It doesn't support either position until you plug it into your mental model.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Fortunately, scientist do not stand in front of mirrors saying "well. we look like apes, ergo, we must have apelike ancestors"

 

[Man of Faith]

Fortunately, scientist do not stand in front of mirrors saying "well. we look like apes, ergo, we must have apelike ancestors"

You mean homology is not evidence used to support evolution?

 

[Nepenthe]

You mean homology is not evidence used to support evolution?

Sure it is, anatomical similarities are either homlogous or analogous. But what does molecular genome-wide association studies, gene expresssion, protein structure predictions, sequence alignment, or other biological molecular homologies have to do with looking into a mirror? Or is this some magical creationist funhouse mirror that distorts and confuses things?

 

[Willamena]

If you start with the observation in the mirror, then that is all you have is the data from an observation in the mirror. It doesn't support either position until you plug it into your mental model.

But from what was the mental model derived? (hint: looking in a mirror)

Sure it is, anatomical similarities are either homlogous or analogous. But what does molecular genome-wide association studies, gene expresssion, protein structure predictions, sequence alignment, or other biological molecular homologies have to do with looking into a mirror?

Observation. The world is a mirror, on a larger scale. Through cognition our minds have assigned it form, structure (order and laws), and meaning. Observation is what it has "to do with looking into a mirror." Our models --mental and otherwise --are built, from earliest childhood, on the observations and deductions/conclusions derived from a world "around us" (but not us).

 

[Autodidact]

This has been explained countless times, but I have 5 minutes so I will try again. There isn't two sets of scientific evidence, one for evolutionists and one for creationists. There is only one set of scientific evidences, which is data, and both the evolutionists and creationists examine the same data and come to different conclusions based of their worldviews, meaning their starting points. Evolutionst's starting point is evolution, creationists starting point is creation.

Let my give an example of how the same data can be used for both sides. Look in the mirror and you will see a living being sometimes called a human, which can be broken down into scientific data but as a whole there you in the mirror. With the starting point that Darwinism is true a person could say that they are an ape came about by natural processes. I don't do that I start with creation as my starting point so I see a special being created in God's image.

That's right, there is only nature as data. There are two possible conclusions to draw from the evidence--right and wrong. ToE is right. "Creationism" is a broad term, and creationists like to use that to exploit ambiguity. In the sense of "God created all things," it is outside the scope of science. In the sense of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) it is wrong, that is, in MoF's terminology, it is an incorrect interpretation of the evidence. Science doesn't use that terminology, and would say rather that the conclusion is not supported by the evidence.

Since MoF does not know what ToE is or why the evidence supports it, and does not want to learn, having refused many offers to do so, he is not qualified to have an educated opinion on the subject.

MoF seems unable to grasp the concept that ToE is not the assumption, it's the conclusion. Which is, of course, the opposite of an assumption.

Finally, I wish he would grasp at least the simple, uncomplicated, elementary distinction between a scientific theory completely compatible with God and creationism in the broad sense, and atheism, a philosophical position. This doesn't seem that hard to grasp to me. Why do you think he can't do it?

 

[Autodidact]

You mean homology is not evidence used to support evolution?

Just one tiny piece, consistent with all the rest. That's what we call consilience, the gold standard of scientific evidence.