15 answers to creationist bullsh!t acusations

[xirtam]

"Hmm, do creationists think God has a wicked sense of humor? Or that DNA research is all a lie? Otherwise I'd like to see an explanation for humans to have so much (DNA-wise) in common with for example rats, while we have far less in common with other mammals. Would indicate some link between the races. Or should the rat be seen as almost human?"

Which humans had DNA in common with rats? Lawyers?

And no, I don't think creationists think God has a wicked sense of humor. I think they believe that there's more to life than just DNA.

And while interpretting similarities in DNA as a link between the races might seem logical, if you've got a common creator, it's not all that improbable for him to have created the two races separately with minor differences in the DNA.

This goes back to what I was talking about earlier. You can interpret the evidence to fit whatever story you want to come up with... including the Elledan Alien Theory, which I will heretofore call E.A.T.

And with that in mind, it's time for breakfast.

 

[MadRat]

<<Your thread is misnamed.
Please rephrase:
"15 bullsh!t answers to creationist bullsh!t acusations">>



<<The definitions of things like "species" and "evolution" are themselves evolving.>>

They've never been concretely defined anyhow because the science to discern them is lacking.

<<Both "creationism" and "evolutionism" have a strange feature about them -- they can both take the same evidence and twist them to provide support toward their own view. Don't get trapped into thinking that evidentialism in itself is a valid test for a worldview... somebody's bound to come up to you and interpret things a completely different way.>>

Your statement may hold some water, but its very vague. Christians believe that God is the truth and he is revealed in time. Creationists are believers that the belief that the designs are by God is more important than the actual process he took to get to their state of existence, and since God is omnipotent than their is no limit to his designs. Evolutionists propose to define the designs and their origins, and is seeks to define limits of the designs. They are differences in perspective.

<<Haven't met a creationist yet who has a problem with microevolution.>>

Raises hand. Microevolution may be nothing more than a series of random exchanges of DNA between hosts. Since both hosts held the potential then the change was predisposed, not microevolution. Even identical twins and triplets have minor differences in their DNA, regardless of how close they are to one another their are ever so slight differences. That is because you'll never have an exact clone until you can control the randomness of nature, something impossible with current technology.

<<Hmm, do creationists think God has a wicked sense of humor? Or that DNA research is all a lie? Otherwise I'd like to see an explanation for humans to have so much (DNA-wise) in common with for example rats, while we have far less in common with other mammals. Would indicate some link between the races. Or should the rat be seen as almost human? >>

God does have a sense of humour, not in any way is it wicked. DNA research is not farsical, it does exist. No current DNA research can either prove or disprove intelligent design because its based on observable outcomes and hypothesis, not concrete laws.

 

[xirtam]

Madrat!

<wave> </wave>

What's up?

Microevolution may be nothing more than a series of random exchanges of DNA between hosts. I'm calling that microevolution. There's no problem with this -- this is why we have different kinds of dogs. Or do you think God created every kind of laborador mix out there? When Noah called the animals two-by-two onto the ark, did he have to take in each kind of dog? Microevolution=genetic variation, not producing new forms of organisms.

Microevolution accounts for variation within a species, as I understand it. These "differences in DNA" as you call it are called microevolution in the newer science textbooks, perhaps in an attempt to get you to accept macroevolution as a rational next step. The logic jump between the two kinds, is, of course, rarely pointed out.

Your statement may hold some water, but its very vague.

Great for postcount+=1; but not good for clarification. My bad. The way I interpret it is that evolutionists look at what we have and extrapolate to the future, whereas the creationists look at the past and interpolate to the present. Both forms imply making unscientific guesses, and both of them start with the unscientific premise as to how the universe came into being. This is a question that scientific thinking can lead to, but it's not one that science can answer. Literally, at least. That's kind of what I was getting at. The creation-evolution argument is one which usually winds up leading away from science and into philosophy -- unless people start rattling off garbage about exotic bird forms like archaeopterix. Or the duckbill platypus. Or how bombardier beetles would have had to blow themselves up for billions of years trying to develop an inhibitor.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak

Originally posted by: LordJezo
Nope.

God rocks.

I wish I could dispute the arguments but I am going to have to do some more research into it before I can.

Until then I will just say I don't belive any of it.

I'm sure you wish you could.


I especially liked the conclusion:

"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions
A broadcast version of this article will air June 26 on National Geographic Today, a program on the National Geographic Channel. Please check your local listings
experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.

In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.

Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.

Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.

omg! This is the point I tried to make in every freaking religious thread EVER! The fact that things such as creationism do not help EXPLAIN anything. They simply work to find a half-ass answer that will never be built upon or used to uncover more of an understanding. If the theory of evolution was flowing water, creationism would be a frozen river.

 

[xirtam]

Nice metaphor. You drown in flowing water. You skate on frozen rivers.

I agree with you about "Creationism" in and of itself. But I don't see how you think evolution leaves you with any less holes, any more explanations, or any more flowing water.

The gaps abound... just because when it's all said and done, you still don't have the answer because you weren't there.

I would also argue that evolutionism fits the same "unrestrained" category described of creationism. It doesn't matter what difficulty arises for evolutionists -- they'll always find a way to mold it to fit the model, or the current model will evolve, but do you know what it would take to get rid of the theory entirely?

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: Nefrodite

And I don't think busmaster's magical "God" is "oh so different" from the evolutionist's magical "Mother Natural Selection." I swear, it's almost like they went out and personified this wizard capable of "poofing" organisms from one form to another with this magical wand named "Natural Selection."


your kidding right? natural selection is demostrated observably in nature. a "magical god"" isn't.

So how would the fossil record look if a magical God" was to have done it? Should He have gone out of his way to make it patently obvious he used unique blueprints for every varying pecies that he "poofed"? Why?

Why would He chose not to use evolution as the means for diversifying life?

 

[LordJezo]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak

Originally posted by: LordJezo
Nope.

God rocks.

I wish I could dispute the arguments but I am going to have to do some more research into it before I can.

Until then I will just say I don't belive any of it.

I'm sure you wish you could.


I especially liked the conclusion:

"Creation science" is a contradiction in terms. A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism--it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms. Thus, physics describes the atomic nucleus with specific concepts governing matter and energy, and it tests those descriptions
A broadcast version of this article will air June 26 on National Geographic Today, a program on the National Geographic Channel. Please check your local listings
experimentally. Physicists introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena. The new particles do not have arbitrary properties, moreover--their definitions are tightly constrained, because the new particles must fit within the existing framework of physics.

In contrast, intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand. Rather than expanding scientific inquiry, such answers shut it down. (How does one disprove the existence of omnipotent intelligences?)

Intelligent design offers few answers. For instance, when and how did a designing intelligence intervene in life's history? By creating the first DNA? The first cell? The first human? Was every species designed, or just a few early ones? Proponents of intelligent-design theory frequently decline to be pinned down on these points. They do not even make real attempts to reconcile their disparate ideas about intelligent design. Instead they pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain.

Logically, this is misleading: even if one naturalistic explanation is flawed, it does not mean that all are. Moreover, it does not make one intelligent-design theory more reasonable than another. Listeners are essentially left to fill in the blanks for themselves, and some will undoubtedly do so by substituting their religious beliefs for scientific ideas.

Time and again, science has shown that methodological naturalism can push back ignorance, finding increasingly detailed and informative answers to mysteries that once seemed impenetrable: the nature of light, the causes of disease, how the brain works. Evolution is doing the same with the riddle of how the living world took shape. Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.

omg! This is the point I tried to make in every freaking religious thread EVER! The fact that things such as creationism do not help EXPLAIN anything. They simply work to find a half-ass answer that will never be built upon or used to uncover more of an understanding. If the theory of evolution was flowing water, creationism would be a frozen river.

That statement just shows your ignorance towards creation science.

The arguments made on that site are the ones evolutonists have been trying to use for years in debates yet constantly lose. These arguments are nothing new and have been proven wrong time and time again.

The first example they give is totally misleading in what it is trying to say. Different sized beaks on a bird means absolutely nothing. If this were in fact a case of adaptave evolution then the fact that I have a different sized nose then my brother, and the fact that my mother is 5'2'' while here brother is 6'5'' would be an example of what they are speaking of.

I know I can never win in this thread as I am hopelessly outnumbered, but hey, dosen't bother me much.

 

[Ramsnake]

"I know I can never win in this thread as I am hopelessly outnumbered, but hey, dosen't bother me much."

may "your" lord have mercy on " your" soul

 

[xirtam]

LordJero: That's exactly why it's important to distinguish between microevolution and macroevolution. Evolutionists think they score a big victory when they point to genetic variation within species and call it examples of evolution and why creationists are wrong. But look closer -- not all the arguments presented here are solely based on microevolution vs. macroevolution semantics.

 

[LordJezo]

Originally posted by: busmaster11

Originally posted by: Nefrodite

And I don't think busmaster's magical "God" is "oh so different" from the evolutionist's magical "Mother Natural Selection." I swear, it's almost like they went out and personified this wizard capable of "poofing" organisms from one form to another with this magical wand named "Natural Selection."


your kidding right? natural selection is demostrated observably in nature. a "magical god"" isn't.

So how would the fossil record look if a magical God" was to have done it? Should He have gone out of his way to make it patently obvious he used unique blueprints for every varying pecies that he "poofed"? Why?

Why would He chose not to use evolution as the means for diversifying life?

Whoever posted that first quote is right you know. The record of transitional fossils is pretty much nonexistant. If there were millions of years of evolution then there should be millions of years of transitional fossils. But, if you go look for them you will find nothing of the sort. If you go by the way to fossil record tells things to be HUGE jumps occured in the timetable of the evolution of the species. What it should look like is lots of little microevolutions pushing one species to the nest.

This is just one of the examples of evoultionists explaining a lack of evidence to "we don't know"

 

[SagaLore]

That article is fluff. It's the same bullsh!t counter-argument that's been used for awhile. Nothing new there.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
I have an argument against evolution:
If it's survival of the fittest, how come heros (read: the fittest) have a tendancy to place themselves in situations where they're most likely to get creamed?
How come the amount of stupid people is on the rise?

Because belief in evolution is on the rise? Coincidence?

 

[Ramsnake]

Lordjezo:

i agree with your points( against evolution),most of them are well thought out, but the way i see it now, proponets of creation science look to give credibility to their science by trashing evolutionary theory. creation science by itself is very hard to be taken as the truth.


my like for evolutionary theory comes out of my absolute disdain for the creationists version, i agree there are flaws in the theory of evolution, but my "personal" opinion is that evolution theory may or may not be true, but the theory of the world being created by god as mentioned in the bible according to me is absolute B$.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Samsonid
BigJohnKC wrote:

Aliens, huh?

I think a lot of people here would argue that since we don't know how God works (for those of us who acknowledge that he exists), we don't know if maybe he used evolution to create. Nowhere does the Bible describe how He created, only that he created. The Bible doesn't say that he uttered some magic phrase and suddenly life as we know it sprang into being. Evolution takes a lot of time, but it's human time. God is timeless. Maybe we can say that instead of where this article says aliens that we say God.

I think it would take more faith to believe that aliens of a superior, benevolent race transplanted cells into our solar system so many millions of years ago so as to develop a future civilzation than it takes to believe that a loving God created the world.

That's a plausible idea.

An advanced species "seeding" the first proteins. These first proteins were embeded with instructions to propagate in an evolutional fashion.
It is also possible that this "advanced species" has been constantly overseeing the process thoughout the course of the "experiment".
At specifyed key time-intervals the advanced species induces calculated spondaneous mutations (generating or deleting species) to alter the course of the experiment in a predictable way.

If that is the case then this advanced species did not create life on earth just for the kicks of it, but it probably for the purpose of advancing its own knowledge of the universe; in much the same way that a computer algorithm serves to assist a computer scientist to solve a problem that the scientist couldn't solve by hand.

-It is possible that life on earth is an iteration prosess which is meant to solve a complex problem for the "advanced species" that set it in motion.

Or maybe not.
The possibilities on such a normative matter are endless.

If we are part of a "computational" meachanism, then it is also possible that OUR computational power exceeds that of our creator (in the same way that our computers process numerical data astonishingly faster than we (the designers) can).

So then where did this advanced species come from, another advanced species from another advanced species from another advanced species from another advanced species???

 

[rahvin]

Scientific American: Look a spade is a spade.

Members of ATOT: It's not spades, look we have bumps we are obviously clubs. Science doesn't know anything. Everyone is out to get us.

I think it's about time a legitimate scientific publication published a hard edge article like this. The american public is profoundly ignorant.

 

[Ramsnake]

The american public is profoundly ignorant.

bad bad generalization.....the majority is fine

 

[EXman]

I'd hate to call you immature but do you really think a creationist gives 2 squirts about that artical?

Let you in on the obvious... People don't change their minds after reading threads like this... really.

It is just bashing pure and simple. Bash on and waste your time here

 

[rahvin]

bad bad generalization.....the majority is fine

Oh please. Provide examples of a general lack of ignorance in american society. 80% of american's are ignorant of how to set the time on their VCR, asking them to define evolutionary theory and complex molecular biology concept is liking asking a 5 year old to explain relativity.

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: rahvin

bad bad generalization.....the majority is fine

Oh please. Provide examples of a general lack of ignorance in american society. 80% of american's are ignorant of how to set the time on their VCR, asking them to define evolutionary theory and complex molecular biology concept is liking asking a 5 year old to explain relativity.

Uhhh right....80% of Americans can't set their VCR? I know we use the "flashing twelves" as a canonical joke example of techno-idiots, but I seriously doubt that number. I don't know a single person who doesn't know how to set their VCR.

As for asking 99% of Americans or ANY population for that matter to define evolutionary theory or "complex molecular biology concept" whatever that is supposed to be, why should you expect anything other than a cursory answer?

I am a computer security specialist. My education is in computer science. The last Biology course I took was in 1993, and I opted to take chemistry and astronomy because I don't really care a rat's ass about biology. It's boring.
So why should you expect me to be able to give you more than a cursory definition of evolution any more than I expect you to give me a more than cursory definition of how public-key encryption works?

If you want to learn about "complex molecular biology concepts" then go ask my girlfriend--the molecular biologist.

Just because 90% of the population doesn't know more than the basic idea of what evolution is, doesn't mean 90% of the population is stupid....

 

[Mani]

Hey, you guys can delude yourselves into believing in elves and dwarves for all I care - just don't think that this crap should be taught in schools.

 

[skace]

I simply quoted what I did because the biggest reason I like science is the pursuit of knowledge. The humble acknowledgement that we do not know everything and only through questioning what is out there, will we ever be able to know more. Our entire religions could be off base, our entire sciences could be off base, but the difference is that to the sciences it would just be another challenge. In the science world, the one who disproved everything correctly would be given incredible merit. In the religious world, the one who disproved everything correctly would be a heretic.

 

[Pennstate]

Just because 90% of the population doesn't know more than the basic idea of what evolution is, doesn't mean 90% of the population is stupid....


But 90% of the population is stupid when it comes to really understanding evolution. To truly understand evolution, you also need a SOLID understanding in the second law. Most people may "know" about evolution, but few understands it. I've not yet seen a "creation scientist" who truly understand evolution.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: LordJezo

Originally posted by: busmaster11

Originally posted by: Nefrodite

And I don't think busmaster's magical "God" is "oh so different" from the evolutionist's magical "Mother Natural Selection." I swear, it's almost like they went out and personified this wizard capable of "poofing" organisms from one form to another with this magical wand named "Natural Selection."


your kidding right? natural selection is demostrated observably in nature. a "magical god"" isn't.

So how would the fossil record look if a magical God" was to have done it? Should He have gone out of his way to make it patently obvious he used unique blueprints for every varying pecies that he "poofed"? Why?

Why would He chose not to use evolution as the means for diversifying life?

Whoever posted that first quote is right you know. The record of transitional fossils is pretty much nonexistant. If there were millions of years of evolution then there should be millions of years of transitional fossils. But, if you go look for them you will find nothing of the sort. If you go by the way to fossil record tells things to be HUGE jumps occured in the timetable of the evolution of the species. What it should look like is lots of little microevolutions pushing one species to the nest.

This is just one of the examples of evoultionists explaining a lack of evidence to "we don't know"

actually its called punctuated equilibrium but it still coincides with the natural selection theory.

 

[Jzero]

But 90% of the population is stupid when it comes to really understanding evolution. To truly understand evolution, you also need a SOLID understanding in the second law. Most people may "know" about evolution, but few understands it. I've not yet seen a "creation scientist" who truly understand evolution.

My point was that the statement that "The American public is profoundly ignorant" is a baseless, unproductive generalization. For one thing, the same could be said about ANY population.
For another thing, it is foolish to expect the entire population to be knowledgeable about EVERYTHING.

 

[LordJezo]

actually its called punctuated equilibrium but it still coincides with the natural selection theory.

Care to expand?