What's the Matter With Creationism?

Akkarin wrote: Just so you were aware, I was referring my comment:

Akkarin wrote: I'm afraid, completely and utterly wrong in every respect

to be in truest factual and historically accurate sense

How so? Remember I was talking about people's upbringing. Specifically "Given the US is based on Christianity and Christianity was/is responsible for so much schooling then I guess it has a wide exposure in the US." I'm guessing there is a lot of religious schools, and religion even in non-religious schools in the US - probably more so in the past.

Akkarin wrote: There is a difference between the founders of America being Christians and America being founded as a Christian country. The founding fathers were Christians (Thomas Jefferson believed in God) but even so when they wrote the constitution they specifically included, as the first thing they wrote:

American Constitution wrote: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

I didn't mention the word founders or founded so what does government policy have to do with what I said? I don't know how you can think US culture isn't heavily influenced by Christianity throughout its history for me to be "completely and utterly wrong in every respect" and you to be "in truest factual and historically accurate sense".

Adder wrote: Given the US is based on Christianity and Christianity was/is responsible for so much schooling then I guess it has a wide exposure in the US.

I may have taken what you said too literally and for that I apologise

Akkarin said: "There is a difference between the founders of America being Christians and America being founded as a Christian country."

This is so very true! As a matter of fact, did you know that several of the founding fathers were actually Deists?

And on another note, I still think that it is unfair for a particular view you have to keep you from learning about other views, which I why I'm quite grateful for the links and comments all of you are providing! I was not allowed to learn almost anything about evolution because of my mother, as well as the kids in school pitching a fit! Thanks for broadening my mind with this discussion.

(I had never heard of the dinosaur feather theory, besides Raptors, or the boy born with three sets of genes!)

I do believe that interracial children are a form of evolution, due to a mixing of the DNA carried by the couple, along with issues involving blood transfusions.

Please please keep this going. I wanna hear your views on all of this!!!

hellisforhorses wrote: along with issues involving blood transfusions

I was wondering if you might expand on this

"There is no evidence anywhere of evolution. No creatures DNA structure has ever changed before. They have never and will never prove that.
There is metamorphosis; such as a tadpole to a frog, a caterpillar to a butterfly, etc. but the genetic makeup never changes.

Evolution, adaptation, and metamorphosis are not the same things."


Reliah, explain to me then how when I took my Insectoid Biology Class that we managed to change the DNA of several small beetles by applying constraints to them (heat, acidity, water) and that we have plenty of fossils. What's ironic is that genetics coincides with the tree of evolution (98% Chimpanzees, 97% Balobos, 94% Gorillas, 93% Ouranoutans, 91$ Tree Shrews, etc.). Also, explain to me how Mediterranean lizards evolved as a completely different omnivorous species, compared to the original ones who were herbivorous. That's not adaptation, since changing diet is vertical evolution.

Metamorphosis isn't evolution, it was part of evolution. A frog turning from a tadpole to an adult isn't evolution. A baby growing up is not evolution (unlike Ray Dumbass Comfort would have you believe), nor is a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

There is plenty of proof of evolution. Believing in adaptation but not in evolution is like believing in seconds but not minutes.

Reliah wrote: I suppose this is going to come down to another word definition issue as it usually does.
"A mutation is caused when a DNA gene is damaged." - cancer is a mutation - they're normally things that weaken the DNA structure and don't last a significant amount of time within a species, because they are negative things that shouldn't have happened to begin with. I will agree that there can be mutations that are beneficial, but they still don't normally last a very long time, anyway.

"Noun 1. scientific theory - a theory that explains scientific observations; 'scientific theories must be falsifiable'"
It's still a theory, by this definition, and not a law. A law is something proven, evolution has not been proven, otherwise.. Scientific Law would be the word for it.

"ev·o·lu·tion
a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species."

I've learned about evolution, studied it a bit, I don't think I have an issue with understanding what it is or means - all I want is an example of it on a bit of a larger scale. If everything is made under this theory, there should be something someone can give me to look at.

I need to get Tripp in here lol
He's been reading about this stuff for the last week.
Perhaps I should step down and let him take over. He's more articulate than I am anyway

Here is an extract I took from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Theory (thee-oh-ree) Plural: Theories

1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another

2: In the case of philosophy, abstract thought : speculation

3: In the case of science, the general or abstract principles of a body of FACTS, a science, or an art <music theory, theory of evolution>

The United States is steeped in Christianity. It's first settlers were Puritan Fundamentalists who fled England to practice their religion. They were believers in freedom of religion. Most of them would be spinning in their grave right now. This is mostly why I don't annoy myself with creationists, except this one time.

The United States' settlers were almost all Judeo-Christian, so I won't blame them if they want to practice their religion almost to a fanatical and hyperzealous level. I just don't accept them stuffing creationism into science class.

Here's an excerpt from a Yahoo Science Article:

"The vast majority of the scientific community and academia supports evolutionary theory as the only explanation that can fully account for observations in the fields of biology, paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, anthropology, and others. One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science". An expert in the evolution-creationism controversy, professor and author Brian Alters, states that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution". A 1991 Gallup poll of Americans found that about 5% of scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.

Additionally, the scientific community considers intelligent design, a neo-creationist offshoot, to be unscientific, pseudoscience, or junk science. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own. In September 2005, 38 Nobel laureates issued a statement saying "Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." In October 2005, a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and calling on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory".

So Reliah, explain to me how only 700 out of 480000 trained biologists, biomedical scientists, surgeons and physicians attempt to "refute" evolution?

The only reason the ID movement is gaining credibility is because lots of people, mostly low educated (the US being quite low-educated due to the poor school system). Also, the US is rabidly religious, giving it nice warm soil to grow in.

Akkarin wrote:

hellisforhorses wrote: along with issues involving blood transfusions

I was wondering if you might expand on this

No problem,

I learned in my humanities class about issues with transfusions and organ transplants. This quote puts it better terms.

"Children of interracial couples have difficultly finding matches for organ donation. Similar to how mating a person with type A blood with a person who has type B, creates a sort of hybrid AB blood type. But rather than being able to accept both the parent’s blood types as well as their own, in the example, the interracial person is only compatible with organs similar to theirs. And to find specific matches for organs that fit a person’s lineage is quite difficult."

It's off of a tumblr, but it's exactly how my professor put it.

What is interesting is we can see the process of evolution beginning right here!! Now if the human race survives into the next millinia,we as a species might have evolved into some completely different animal, maybe 2 to 3 times more intelligent than a genius! Of course, on the flip side, everything could be dead...but let's be positive, shall we?!

I was given quite a few links. Allow me some time to look over them for a proper reply, please. I hope the link I, myself, provided will not be entirely overlooked, either.

The first thing I want to respond to is the example of changing beetles DNA: let me ask you a question..
What were the beetles when you were finished? I'm imagining they remained beetles.
Having nature do it and having humans force it are slightly different an yield the same results: a fruit fly is still a fruit fly and a beetle is still a beetle.

Secondly, I don't think my rebuttals have come across as uneducated or ignorant? Am I challenging something many people believe in and that there stand proof for? Yes! Of course I am! I think my motive might not be clearly understood, because it's not all black and white with me on anything. The creationism I was speaking of has nothing to do with religion and God, had you looked at the link you would know that. The point I'm trying to make is: no one knows. Period. Neither side can say its facts are complete and the only facts out there: that seems like an ignorant stand to take. One shouldn't ignore ideas to ridicule anything they decided to believe in... Religious or not.

Again, for a proper response I will need time to actually read the links I was given.

I would like to add another link: http://www.newgeology.us/presentation32.html