some thoughts on creationism

[Valjean]

So the recurrent laryngeal never was done on purpose? How can one say that and claim "design" with a straight face?

A first-year engineering student could make a dozen major improvements to human 'design', with no problem at all.

 

[osgart]

So the recurrent laryngeal never was done on purpose? How can one say that and claim "design" with a straight face?

I don't claim design. I claim naturalistic intelligence is inherent in nature. Design would mean a level of perfection. To me natural intelligence is responsible for the trial and error method. Whatever happened had to happen in real time slowly over millions of years.

There's no room for design to come about. Design requires supernatural control over the environment.

 

[gnostic]

Do you think that you are a product of Physics , Chemistry and Neurobiology?

neurobiology?

you seemed to be only focused on human biology.

neuroscience have to with organisms that have brains and spinal cords (collectively known as central nervous system, CNS), which are made of nerve tissues, nerve cells (or neurons). The majority of animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates do have CNS, while some animals don’t have CNS, such as invertebrates of phylum Placozoa, phylum Porifera (eg sponges), and the phylum Coelenterata.

Other eukaryotes, such as plants, fungi, protists, unicellular prokaryotes from domain Bacteria & domain Archaea.

so neuroscience only animals, but all groupings. The modern theory of evolution covered all organisms, not just animals, and not just humans.

 

[PureX]

I don't know why creationism is such a big issue for people. I have known folks for years and years never realizing they were believers in creationism. It just never came up, mostly because it had no appreciable effect on their character or their behavior. So why would I ask?

Same goes for religion in general. I have friends and family that are active members of various churches and I have never discussed their beliefs with them. Again, why would I? Whatever they believe doesn't seem to significantly alter them in any way that would require a discussion about it.

 

[Agent Smith]

Did you know ... Saint Albertus Magnus is the patron saint of scientists? Saint (doubting) Thomas (patron saint of India) had to be shown hard evidence for Christian theism?

Did you also know that when a belgian priest proposed the Big Bang theory, the Pope (mis)construed it as proof (of God)?

 

[Heyo]

Did you also know that when a belgian priest proposed the Big Bang theory, the Pope (mis)construed it as proof (of God)?

Did you know that Lemaître told him not to - and the Pope listened?

 

[Agent Smith]

Did you know that Lemaître told him not to - and the Pope listened?

That was then, what about now? With the JWST threatening to rock the boat, I guess the Bishop of Rome will have to think twice about doing so.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't claim design. I claim naturalistic intelligence is inherent in nature.

What is "naturalistic intelligence"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't know why creationism is such a big issue for people.

How about because it is demonstrably incorrect and has been for several centuries now?

I have known folks for years and years never realizing they were believers in creationism. It just never came up, mostly because it had no appreciable effect on their character or their behavior. So why would I ask?

Same goes for religion in general. I have friends and family that are active members of various churches and I have never discussed their beliefs with them. Again, why would I? Whatever they believe doesn't seem to significantly alter them in any way that would require a discussion about it.

That's very short sighted of you.
Beliefs inform actions. These people also vote.

 

[PureX]

How about because it is demonstrably incorrect and has been for several centuries now?

That's very short sighted of you.
Beliefs inform actions. These people also vote.

That's just it. In a great many instances people's religious beliefs do not appreciably effect their actions. They aren't any better or worse humans than any others.

I think you're letting your ego run away with you. Who cares if they're right or wrong about creation? It changes nothing as it is. It's only the few, like you, that want to insist that those who are wrong must be humiliated and corrected that cause problems for everyone else. Everyone else manages to live together with each other's errors without all this fussing and fighting. So why can't you?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's just it. In a great many instances people's religious beliefs do not appreciably effect their actions. They aren't any better or worse humans than any others.

I disagree.
Go to the US in the bible belt and see how that pans out. In science classes in schools, for gay people, for non-believers,...

I think you're letting your ego run away with you.

Nope. Just an honest and responsible worry about the society I have to live in.

Who cares if they're right or wrong about creation?

I do.

It changes nothing as it is.

West Virginia Lawmakers are Pushing Public Schools to Teach Creationism | ACLU

Allowing teachers to present “intelligent design” in science class would jeopardize students’ educational futures and violate the Constitution.

www.aclu.org

The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom

Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientific fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever-changing guises

www.scientificamerican.com

Try to think a bit further then your nose is long (is what we say in Belgium).

Also: an educated populace is good for the future of the country while an ignorant populace is bad for the future of the country.

It's only the few, like you, that want to insist that those who are wrong must be humiliated and corrected that cause problems for everyone else.

"like you"?
In case you haven't noticed, I don't come on here creating threads trying to argue against creationists.
Instead, I'm replying in threads that creationists create in which they try to attack science.
You have it exactly backwards.


Go to the subforums of "evolution / creation". Look at the threads. Count those created by creationism vs those created by those who accept mainstream science.
Notice the difference.

Everyone else manages to live together with each other's errors without all this fussing and fighting. So why can't you?

Creationists most certaintly can't manage to live together. They feel a continuous need to attack mainstream science and try and sue schools for teaching biology.

Again you have it exactly backwards.
Again: go to the subforum. Look at who is creating the threads. Look at who is actually attacking who. Look at who is trying to dehumanize who. Look at who tries to threaten who with "hell". Look at who is accusing who of being "deceived by satan".

And you have the audacity to say such things to me?

Please boy.

 

[PureX]

I disagree.
Go to the US in the bible belt and see how that pans out. In science classes in schools, for gay people, for non-believers,...

Why would I do that? I have lived in the South, for about 7 years, and I did not encounter any of the things you seem to imagine is a constant problem, there. The problem I saw in the South was not about religion, but about class. Specifically the haves and the have-nots. Rich white privilege enforced with an iron fist. And creationism had nothing to do with any of it.

And you have the audacity to say such things to me?

Please boy.

I could have said far worse.

 

[osgart]

What is "naturalistic intelligence"?

It is that intelligence is a process and phenomenon in nature excluding the supernatural and excluding careful design. The fundamental reality is of intellect and produces intelligence in nature. Intelligence is goal oriented directedness. I believe cosmic purposes exist, yet nothing of a God like nature. I believe that body plans in life, and plants exhibit intelligence.

 

[metis]

Supposedly, there are about 180 different areas of "intelligence" according to at least some psychologists.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Why would I do that? I have lived in the South, for about 7 years, and I did not encounter any of the things you seem to imagine is a constant problem, there. The problem I saw in the South was not about religion, but about class. Specifically the haves and the have-nots. Rich white privilege enforced with an iron fist. And creationism had nothing to do with any of it.

I could have said far worse.

I gave you a couple example links, which you conveniently ignored.

 

[gnostic]

Science does not define what is possible and what is not. You're confusing it with 'scientism'.

That's all the dogma of "scientism". It's not science.

I find it rather annoying that people who don’t understand how Natural Sciences work (eg testing a hypothesis, through acquiring evidence or through experiments, are always the ones quick to throw around words (most of the times, derogatorily), like with scientism or dogma, just because people disagree with them of specific matters in science.

Just so you know, PureX.

It isn’t scientism, if people understand “the science behind” Evolution, if the evidence supported and verified the explanatory and predictive models of specific biological mechanisms.

Now, the evidence don’t just verify a model, they (“they”, I’m referring to the “evidence”, not to the “people”) can also correct, or even refute the model. Hence, the evidence are used to test the hypothesis (or existing scientific theory), to deter if the model is “PROBABLE” [thus, the hypothesis has been VERIFIED), or “NOT PROBABLE” (thus, the hypothesis has been REFUTED).

That’s the beauty of Scientific Method. It is the methodology used to weed out weak or flawed or incorrect hypotheses…by letting the evidence (or experiments, and the data) to determine whether a hypothesis “science” or “not science”.

As far as we can tell Evolutionary Biology is science. Abiogenesis isn’t science (yet), but it is still active hypothesis…and the models are testable. That’s not scientism.

What you should understand that Scientific Method is the best way to understand nature and the physical world.

Of course, Scientific Method don’t always apply, subjects like psychology, anthropology or political science that fall under the umbrella of Social Sciences, or in arts, literature, music or linguistics that fall under Humanities. Humanities studies and disciplines, require some people to think or to feel emotionally, so they can paint, draw or write, creatively, which are highly subjective…so Scientific Method wouldn’t apply at all. In art, you don’t have to like certain paintings or drawings as everyone else, as each individuals will have different tastes, preferences or opinions.

To give, you another example, where Scientific Method wouldn’t work. In studying, researching and in treating human minds and human emotions, psychologists and psychiatrists, and people who worked in similar fields, have to deal with patients with extremely wide ranges of each individual’s personality and behavioural patterns, and usually they are treating with some sorts of disorders. There are often no single cures for each of these disorders, meaning what treatment may work with certain individuals, will not for others. So not only there whole range of psychological disorders, there are also too many different ways to treat people, or some cannot be treated at all, that they must be confined and controlled, to protect the communities as well as themselves.

This is why, Social Sciences, like psychology, sociology, anthropology and other social sciences & related fields are deemed as “soft science”, because they don’t require to meet the requirements of Scientific Method.

Scientific Method work better with Physical Sciences and Natural Sciences, like physics, chemistry, biology, Earth sciences and astronomy.

On the other hand, Creationism (in whatever forms exist, eg YEC, OEC, etc) or Intelligent Design are not science…they are not even hypotheses, due to them being “unfalsifiable” (as well as unscientific, untestable, untested, unfounded, etc).

Anyway, it isn’t scientism, when we accept current knowledge (or current scientific theories) that are supported by empirical evidence & data…particularly in one of the sciences in Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences.

So, in arts, musics or anything that related to human mind or human emotions, I wouldn’t bother with Scientific Method. Does that sound scientism to you, PureX?

As to science being dogma, that’s also BS, because even in physics, accepting current factual and scientific knowledge, don’t make it dogma. I do understand that with Natural Sciences, being scientists don’t mean they KNOW EVERYTHING!

With Natural Sciences & Physical Sciences, each scientific theories, are only provisional knowledge, and they can be changed, like expanded, corrected, and even rejected, but any updates or removal must be supported by empirical evidence.

When Charles Darwin wrote On Origin, and other published works, he clearly didn’t know everything there is to know in biology. Over the decades to follow, to the present, Natural Selection have undergone many changes, as we learn more annd more about genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as taxonomy (eg clade), Darwin didn’t know anything about RNA or DNA. The theory of Evolution, had to expand beyond Natural Selection, to include other possible mechanisms, like Mutations, Genetic Drift, Gene Flow & Genetic Hitchhiking.

The theory of Evolution is constantly changing, as we find more evidence and learn more from data being gathered. Even with human evolution, biologists and palaeontologists are still correcting themselves, still updating as they learn more. Hence, accepting Evolution, doesn’t mean Evolution is dogma.

Another example, would be the physical cosmology. Currently much of evidence, points to the current model of the Big Bang theory - the ΛCDM model (Lambda Cold Dark Matter model), but it doesn’t answer everything, hence you have all these different proposed theoretical cosmologies. But these alternative models also don’t answer EVERYTHING, and lot of them only exist mathematically, not in reality, as many of the alternatives are supported by evidence, hence they are not sciences, yet.

The reason why the Big Bang cosmology is still relevant today, is because a number of predictive models, right up to the Inflationary Epoch, are supported by evidence. Everything after the first fraction of a second, have been spot on…so far. What they currently know, is how the expansion occurred in the first place.

The big bang theory, the first model started originally with 3 theoretical astrophysicists in the 1920s, with Alexander Friedmann (1922), Howard Percy Robertson (1924-25) and Georges Lemaître, including Edwin Hubble and Arthur Geoffrey Walker (who worked with Robertson) have all contributed to theory. Even Albert Einstein has a hand in it, as they were using his field equations from General Relativity as framework for the expanding universe model.

But since 20s & 30s, 3 more models would be developed:

• 1948: George Gamow, Ralph Alpher & Robert Herman would together, write about the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) & Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), which would be later discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson.
• Early 1980s: Alan Guth, Andrei Linde & Alexei Starobinsky, would each develop independently, the Cosmic Inflationary model (Inflationary model or Inflationary Cosmology), to solve the Horizon problem and Flatness problem that existed the previous earlier models.
• Late 1990s: ΛCDM model was developed, provided more explanation as to the how & why the universe is still expanding, and even accelerating, as well as about formation of large structures (eg galaxies).

While the Big Bang theory is still accepted, it doesn’t mean it is dogma, as it is continually changing, and may one day even be replaced by better alternative…it is just that, none of current theoretical alternatives come even close to be scientifically tested.

So until evidence support alternative to Evolution or alternative to the Big Bang theory, these are “currently“ our best answers. It doesn’t make them dogma.

you are just being as unreasonable as any creationists, because you want people to accept untested woo, like the pseudoscience, like Intelligent Design. ID isn’t even a hypothesis, as it failed to provide falsifiable model (prediction & explanation). What make it “woo“, is the Designer itself, is nothing more than the same silly and outdated superstition as the God did it.

 

[Pogo]

I find it rather annoying that people who don’t understand how Natural Sciences work (eg testing a hypothesis, through acquiring evidence or through experiments, are always the ones quick to throw around words (most of the times, derogatorily), like with scientism or dogma, just because people disagree with them of specific matters in science.

Just so you know, PureX.

It isn’t scientism, if people understand “the science behind” Evolution, if the evidence supported and verified the explanatory and predictive models of specific biological mechanisms.

Now, the evidence don’t just verify a model, they (“they”, I’m referring to the “evidence”, not to the “people”) can also correct, or even refute the model. Hence, the evidence are used to test the hypothesis (or existing scientific theory), to deter if the model is “PROBABLE” [thus, the hypothesis has been VERIFIED), or “NOT PROBABLE” (thus, the hypothesis has been REFUTED).

That’s the beauty of Scientific Method. It is the methodology used to weed out weak or flawed or incorrect hypotheses…by letting the evidence (or experiments, and the data) to determine whether a hypothesis “science” or “not science”.

As far as we can tell Evolutionary Biology is science. Abiogenesis isn’t science (yet), but it is still active hypothesis…and the models are testable. That’s not scientism.

What you should understand that Scientific Method is the best way to understand nature and the physical world.

Of course, Scientific Method don’t always apply, subjects like psychology, anthropology or political science that fall under the umbrella of Social Sciences, or in arts, literature, music or linguistics that fall under Humanities. Humanities studies and disciplines, require some people to think or to feel emotionally, so they can paint, draw or write, creatively, which are highly subjective…so Scientific Method wouldn’t apply at all. In art, you don’t have to like certain paintings or drawings as everyone else, as each individuals will have different tastes, preferences or opinions.

To give, you another example, where Scientific Method wouldn’t work. In studying, researching and in treating human minds and human emotions, psychologists and psychiatrists, and people who worked in similar fields, have to deal with patients with extremely wide ranges of each individual’s personality and behavioural patterns, and usually they are treating with some sorts of disorders. There are often no single cures for each of these disorders, meaning what treatment may work with certain individuals, will not for others. So not only there whole range of psychological disorders, there are also too many different ways to treat people, or some cannot be treated at all, that they must be confined and controlled, to protect the communities as well as themselves.

This is why, Social Sciences, like psychology, sociology, anthropology and other social sciences & related fields are deemed as “soft science”, because they don’t require to meet the requirements of Scientific Method.

Scientific Method work better with Physical Sciences and Natural Sciences, like physics, chemistry, biology, Earth sciences and astronomy.

On the other hand, Creationism (in whatever forms exist, eg YEC, OEC, etc) or Intelligent Design are not science…they are not even hypotheses, due to them being “unfalsifiable” (as well as unscientific, untestable, untested, unfounded, etc).

Anyway, it isn’t scientism, when we accept current knowledge (or current scientific theories) that are supported by empirical evidence & data…particularly in one of the sciences in Natural Sciences or Physical Sciences.

So, in arts, musics or anything that related to human mind or human emotions, I wouldn’t bother with Scientific Method. Does that sound scientism to you, PureX?

As to science being dogma, that’s also BS, because even in physics, accepting current factual and scientific knowledge, don’t make it dogma. I do understand that with Natural Sciences, being scientists don’t mean they KNOW EVERYTHING!

With Natural Sciences & Physical Sciences, each scientific theories, are only provisional knowledge, and they can be changed, like expanded, corrected, and even rejected, but any updates or removal must be supported by empirical evidence.

When Charles Darwin wrote On Origin, and other published works, he clearly didn’t know everything there is to know in biology. Over the decades to follow, to the present, Natural Selection have undergone many changes, as we learn more annd more about genetics, biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as taxonomy (eg clade), Darwin didn’t know anything about RNA or DNA. The theory of Evolution, had to expand beyond Natural Selection, to include other possible mechanisms, like Mutations, Genetic Drift, Gene Flow & Genetic Hitchhiking.

The theory of Evolution is constantly changing, as we find more evidence and learn more from data being gathered. Even with human evolution, biologists and palaeontologists are still correcting themselves, still updating as they learn more. Hence, accepting Evolution, doesn’t mean Evolution is dogma.

Another example, would be the physical cosmology. Currently much of evidence, points to the current model of the Big Bang theory - the ΛCDM model (Lambda Cold Dark Matter model), but it doesn’t answer everything, hence you have all these different proposed theoretical cosmologies. But these alternative models also don’t answer EVERYTHING, and lot of them only exist mathematically, not in reality, as many of the alternatives are supported by evidence, hence they are not sciences, yet.

The reason why the Big Bang cosmology is still relevant today, is because a number of predictive models, right up to the Inflationary Epoch, are supported by evidence. Everything after the first fraction of a second, have been spot on…so far. What they currently know, is how the expansion occurred in the first place.

The big bang theory, the first model started originally with 3 theoretical astrophysicists in the 1920s, with Alexander Friedmann (1922), Howard Percy Robertson (1924-25) and Georges Lemaître, including Edwin Hubble and Arthur Geoffrey Walker (who worked with Robertson) have all contributed to theory. Even Albert Einstein has a hand in it, as they were using his field equations from General Relativity as framework for the expanding universe model.

But since 20s & 30s, 3 more models would be developed:

• 1948: George Gamow, Ralph Alpher & Robert Herman would together, write about the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) & Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), which would be later discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson.
• Early 1980s: Alan Guth, Andrei Linde & Alexei Starobinsky, would each develop independently, the Cosmic Inflationary model (Inflationary model or Inflationary Cosmology), to solve the Horizon problem and Flatness problem that existed the previous earlier models.
• Late 1990s: ΛCDM model was developed, provided more explanation as to the how & why the universe is still expanding, and even accelerating, as well as about formation of large structures (eg galaxies).

While the Big Bang theory is still accepted, it doesn’t mean it is dogma, as it is continually changing, and may one day even be replaced by better alternative…it is just that, none of current theoretical alternatives come even close to be scientifically tested.

So until evidence support alternative to Evolution or alternative to the Big Bang theory, these are “currently“ our best answers. It doesn’t make them dogma.

you are just being as unreasonable as any creationists, because you want people to accept untested woo, like the pseudoscience, like Intelligent Design. ID isn’t even a hypothesis, as it failed to provide falsifiable model (prediction & explanation). What make it “woo“, is the Designer itself, is nothing more than the same silly and outdated superstition as the God did it.

Two comments,
You are a little hard on the soft sciences, they are trying and getting better.
Also, You can believe in an unproveable entity if you want and that what we discovering is all part of some in f able plan, just remember that in science that is a worthless hypothesis if part of your belief is that this entity is all powerful. So go ahead and believe if that is all that gets you through the night.

 

[gnostic]

No. The laws governing the complex event that we call "nature" are designing the existential result.

I don't. YOU are the one that keeps insisting on an "intelligent designer". I am trying to explain to you why this is not a logical necessity.

An implication does not equal a logical conclusion. Design may imply a designer, to we humans. But as we have no information whatever about this implied designer it is not logical to conclude that it exists. We can speculate, of course. Even hope if we want to. But that's as far as we can get.

The majority of people who followed the "Intelligent Design", are following the ID of Phillip E Johnson and Stephen C Meyer, who created this movement with the Discovery Institute, and co-wrote the manifesto Wedge Document, which hide their creationist agendas.

In the Discovery Institute’s case, the “intelligent design“ of life, explicitly require the “DESIGNER“.

Now, you may have your own version Intelligent Design that doesn’t require the ”designer”, you are among the tiny minority.

The fact is that there are more people who believed there is a Designer - a conscious and intelligent entity who supposedly “design” life, “design” every cells, “design” every biological molecules (eg proteins, DNA, lipids, etc) that make up all these cells.

What you are proposing ”designs” without the “designer”, but still to be “INTELLIGENT“ and “CONSCIOUS“, would required “you” to clearly define what you means by these terminologies - ”design”, “intelligent“, “conscious”, which must then support with physical evidence.

You have done neither, PureX. All you have been doing is blame everyone who have disagreed with you, of being “scientism”…that’s just cheap shots. You are refusing to play ball, to clearly state what you mean by “designs”, by ”intelligent”, and by “consciousness”.

How many times have others ask for your definitions to these terms?

you clearly have different meanings to those words, but you refused to clarify.

 

[gnostic]

Two comments,
You are a little hard on the soft sciences, they are trying and getting better.

I am not being hard…I am being realistic.

@PureX has been hitting out at everyone who disagreed with him (or her), by throwing around “scientism” this or “dogma” that.

The only people I have seen using those words, are creationists, science illiterates and whatever else that PureX happened to be. I don’t know where PureX fit in.

let’s just say that the accusation of scientism is baseless, and unwarranted.

The main reasons why anyone would use the scientism, is that they (the accusers), mostly have misplaced idea, that “science must have all the answers” or all scientists “must use Scientific Method for everything” - whether it be “natural” or “man-made”. They are wrong on both accounts.

As I said in my previous post, Scientific Method are mainly required and enforced in Physical Sciences and in Natural Sciences...but not in Social Sciences or in Formal Sciences (eg logic, mathematics).

Not every science concerned itself with nature - the science of natural phenomena and natural processes (which is another word for mechanisms). For nature, the studies would fall under Natural Sciences. Most of the knowledge or the questions they want answered, are usually about the WHAT & the HOW.

Scientific Method wouldn’t work in most Social Sciences, because social sciences is all about humans, such as how they think or behave (hence psychology), how they want to live their lives (socially, politically, legally, etc). The answers here, to the questions, are usually about the WHO & the WHY.

The points with Social Sciences being “soft science“, is because people as individuals or as in groups, will have different opinions, different experiences, different personalities, etc, humans with how they think and behave, are varied, for Scientific Method to be useful. So in psychology, how patients think and behave, their testimonies and opinions, all matter, hence soft science.

in natural sciences , opinions and testimonials are considered unreliable and biased, and therefore of no use when testing hypotheses. Even a scientist’s pers opinion is of no use.

 

[gnostic]

Also, You can believe in an unproveable entity if you want and that what we discovering is all part of some in f able plan, just remember that in science that is a worthless hypothesis if part of your belief is that this entity is all powerful. So go ahead and believe if that is all that gets you through the night.

Excuse me, but I think there are some confusion.

I don’t think I said anything about me believing in any entity. Where did you get that?