I am a Christian with some Questions.

[Will]

Greetings Kels. I am also a Christian with some of the same questions as you. I also once believed in evolution, as well as the gap theory, but now am a young Earth Creationist. I went to college for a long time and my degree (finally) is in Wildlife Science.

I mean no offense at all by this, but I find a creationist who is actually educated in science to be a bit of an enigma. If you are comfortable with it, would you mind sharing your degree and the institution you attended to attain your degree? The only reason I ask is I'd like to make sure that you attended an accredited and unbiased school. If you went to a fundamentalist college, which teaches science and facts that aren't verifiable through evidence and testable through the scientific method, I would have to respond in a much different manner (not assuming you were familiar at all with the inner workings of abiogenesis, evolution, physics, geology, and the other sciences necessary to remove all of the arguments from creationism).

I don't believe it is possible to consider Evolution in this category, because the beginnings of everything according to Evolutionary thought cannot be explained through the scientific method.

Oh dear. One who had been educated in biology would probably be aware that evolution does not even touch the origin of life. It only explains what occurs after life is introduced or comes into being. The area of study which deals with how life may have developed on Earth is called abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is not yet an established theory (in the same way evolution is a theory), precisely because it's still being tweaked and prodded by the scientific method. Still, there is much evidence, which has been established for decades, regarding how life developed on our planet.

I'd recommend reading this page for an introduction to abiogenesis:
http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-def ... iogenesis/

Of course, neither can Creation. No one observed or can test or re-test theories such as the Creation, the Big Bang, stellar evolution, elemental evolution, abiogenesis, or macroevolution.  Microevolution is readily available, observable and testable, and is supported by both Creation and Evolution. I believe microevolution (speciation) is a good scientific topic for either a Creationist or Evolutionist to study.

Using the scientific method in this way is a bit of a fallacy. What experiments have been performed to test the theory that the Sun isn't the center of the universe? None, actually. But I'm sure that you understand as well as I do that the Sun is just one random point in space. There is no center, and the only way to explain that the universe revolves around our sun is to use extreme relativism. In other words, we use the mountains of evidence and combine it with Occam's Razor.

The same methodsâ€"gathering/testing evidence, Occam's Razorâ€"have been used on what you describe above (except Creationism, for which there is no evidence).

I don't believe either idea in itself can be considered a science.  However, I believe that the way we practice science will be determined on how we view Creation or Evolution.  Basically, what I mean is that if you are a Creationist, your scientific approaches will be based on Intelligent Design.  If you are an Evolutionist, your approaches will be directed towards abiogenesis and proving the theory to be true.

This suggests that all evidence is subjective. Universe expansion, background radiation and such are all evidence of the Big Bang. None of those things is evidence for Creationism. Likewise fossils showing the development which is described in macroevolution cannot be considered evidence for intelligent design.

The only problem with this is the pre-assumption of one or the other to be true.  For example, let's take radiometric dating. Any scientist, (Creationist or Evolutionist) will admit that the acceptable scientific limit of dating is a total 10 half-lives.  Carbon dating then, can date to around 57000 years (half-life 5730 years).  So, say a scientist goes out to date a mammoth specimen.  If he is an Evolutionist, he automatically assumes the Earth to be millions of years old and cannot accept a date of 7000 years for the mammoth. If the results from his test do not support millions of years, then the results are discarded as anomalies.  A Creationist (young Earth) views the Earth as only 6-7 thousand years old, and will keep the same results and the anomalies are considered fact.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that radiocarbon dating is incorrect or imprecise? We've used radiocarbon dating on mummified kings, and the date provided matches exactly with historical records. I'd call that rather conclusive evidence. Not only that, but carbon decay measured in radiocarbon dating is mathematically constant. These pieces of evidence would be terribly difficult to refute, short of "God is testing us", which is an example of the bias of which you speak.

I personally believe in Creation and a young Earth and a global flood. There is no scientific evidence to refute Creation and there is ample evidence to support it.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like the opportunity to refute said evidence. Would you mind sharing some of it?

Creation is based on faith, or believing things you cannot see.  The same can be said about the beginnings of the universe according to evolution. No one saw the Big Bang, but some still believe it.

The Big Bang theory is supported by a mountain of evidence. I have yet to see a single piece of evidence for Creationism.

I see your point on this.  You can also explain things such as vestigal organs in the same sense. We assume some organs vestigal because we have not studied them enough. The more we learn about them, the more we realize that there are no vestigal organs, only a lack of study to understand them. This leads me personally to believe in Intelligent Design. Just because we don't understand it yet, doesn't mean that it is useless. There are too many things in this world with unique similarities and differences that are easily explained with ID. It is a little more difficult to do the same with evolution.

I eagerly await the explanation for male nipples. And the dormant genes in humans which, if activated, would mean that humans would be burn with tails.

[jcm]

Appendix? Tonsils? Wisdom teeth?

Appendix â€" A self-destruct feature. When god hits the button, you better get it out of there before it goes off.

Tonsils â€" I’ve heard they help fight illness, maybe? My wife has the largest tonsils in the world. She cannot swallow pills. She is thinking of having them out one day.

Wisdom teeth â€" I think they are there just to piss you off!!!! I had them out the first of this year. That sucked!!

As far as a design standpoint, if you can live just fine with out these parts, why were they put there? What function do you lose, when you remove these parts?

More stuff that we can live without:
Soft palate
Allergies
Cancer
Retards
Arthritis
Heart disease
Sweat & urine
Bad breath
Baldness
Spinal bifida
Sids
etc

[Evolved]

Hi Hunter.  Welcome to the forum!  Your post is long, so I will only address a small portion of it.

The only problem with this is the pre-assumption of one or the other to be true.  For example, let's take radiometric dating. Any scientist, (Creationist or Evolutionist) will admit that the acceptable scientific limit of dating is a total 10 half-lives.  Carbon dating then, can date to around 57000 years (half-life 5730 years).  So, say a scientist goes out to date a mammoth specimen.  If he is an Evolutionist, he automatically assumes the Earth to be millions of years old and cannot accept a date of 7000 years for the mammoth.

I am not sure what your point is here.  You might want to get your facts straight.  It is well understood through various forms of dating (not just carbon - other isotopes are used to provide deeper insight into Earth history, such as potassium, uranium, and thorium) that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old.  Mammoths lived from the Pliocene through to about 4,500 years ago, which would make your 7000 year old mammoth right at home.

If the results from his test do not support millions of years, then the results are discarded as anomalies.  A Creationist (young Earth) views the Earth as only 6-7 thousand years old, and will keep the same results and the anomalies are considered fact.

If indeed anomalies are considered fact by a creationist, then why wouldn't you accept radio-dating results as fact?  Aren't they anomalies according to your view?

I think that you do a good job here of illustrating a fundamental flaw in creationist thinking and a fundamental weapon used by creationists.  Your flaw is that you are assigning rigid inflexibility to the scientist (the true scientist - the one you call the evolutionist) and plasticity to the creationist.  True science by definition is flexible and readily open to new evidence.  Creationist thinking is just the opposite - if it doesn't fit, we'll make it fit, and if we can't make it fit, it must be wrong.  This is analogous to the square peg in the round hole.  The creationist cuts that peg or that hole to make things fit.

The weapon that I am referring to is the misuse of science.  It may be intimidating to someone who is not well versed in science to hear a bunch of scientific-sounding arguments in favor of creationism, but your grasp of the concepts is lacking.  You illustrate it well when you speak of the giraffe-sponge nonsense.  You clearly illustrate that you don't understand the very basics behind the exceedingly slow and gradual process of evolution and adaptation.

[thehunter325]

[thehunter325]

Don't mean to be rude, that last response was super long too. I'll try and keep this one shorter. Hate to not answer everyone.

From Evolved:

I am not sure what your point is here. You might want to get your facts straight. It is well understood through various forms of dating (not just carbon - other isotopes are used to provide deeper insight into Earth history, such as potassium, uranium, and thorium) that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Mammoths lived from the Pliocene through to about 4,500 years ago, which would make your 7000 year old mammoth right at home.

Carbon Dating itself is flawed. Scientifically speaking, the amount of C14 entering the atmosphere exceeds the amount of C14 leaving the atmosphere to this day. Given that, we cannot use carbon dating because any specimen is inherently flawed due to the fact that the Earth has not reached equilibrium in respect to the amount of C14.

As for other dating methods, several assumptions are already made. We assume the Earth billions of years old. Hence, any data not supporting this theory is discarded. K-Ar, UR-Pb, Rb-Sr, and He dating is also assuming that the parent material had a certain amount of either isotope. Also, this is assuming the decay rates have remained constant (probable). And you are also assuming no leaching of any isotope has taken place. Scientifically and mathematically speaking, this probablitly is basically zero. If there was no rainfall over a 4.5 billion year period, no water leaching had taken place. If that is true, then abiogenesis could not have happened and the entire theory is null. If there was no heat increase, the rate would remain constant as well as the amount of leaching. Again, zero chance.

I'm not a quote miner, but anyway if you want:

http://www.earthage.org/EarthOldorYoung ... 0Earth.htm

Specimens today are dated, and there are no consistent data. Mt St. Helens is dated at 2.1m - 20k years old. The eruption happened in the 1980's. Mammoth specimens are still dated at over 20k years which still holds to the Pleiocene era, but there are still anomalies. Mammoths are unearthed today completely frozen, standing upright with food in their mouths. Even blood is frozen. Scientifically speaking this is hardly a chance for this to be probable over a 5mil to 20k period of time.

If indeed anomalies are considered fact by a creationist, then why wouldn't you accept radio-dating results as fact? Aren't they anomalies according to your view?

I think that you do a good job here of illustrating a fundamental flaw in creationist thinking and a fundamental weapon used by creationists. Your flaw is that you are assigning rigid inflexibility to the scientist (the true scientist - the one you call the evolutionist) and plasticity to the creationist. True science by definition is flexible and readily open to new evidence. Creationist thinking is just the opposite - if it doesn't fit, we'll make it fit, and if we can't make it fit, it must be wrong. This is analogous to the square peg in the round hole. The creationist cuts that peg or that hole to make things fit.

Radiometric dating explained above. It's not that I would accept anomalies as a Creationist. I would accept merely factual scientific data, unbiased, which Evolutionary theories cannot explain or prove.

Earlier I spoke of the flaws in Creation and Evolutionary thinking. Although it may seem as a flaw, the difference is that Creation is indeed inflexibile, but not to the negative extent that is assumed. Creationist thinking involves the search for truth (as does Evolution), however, Creation has yet to be proven invalid. Evolution has several instances explained earlier that refute the current theory. Even though these scientific refutes are there, Evolution in the same sense is also inflexible. Most believe that it is inexplainable either because we have not evolved enough yet to explain it or that there has not been enough research on the particular issue. It's not that Creationists need to 'make it fit', merely that it already fits and most are hesistant to accept any alternative to Evolution.

From JCM:

Appendix? Tonsils? Wisdom teeth?

Appendix â€" A self-destruct feature. When god hits the button, you better get it out of there before it goes off.

Tonsils â€" I’ve heard they help fight illness, maybe? My wife has the largest tonsils in the world. She cannot swallow pills. She is thinking of having them out one day.

Wisdom teeth â€" I think they are there just to piss you off!!!! I had them out the first of this year. That sucked!!

As far as a design standpoint, if you can live just fine with out these parts, why were they put there? What function do you lose, when you remove these parts?

More stuff that we can live without:
Soft palate
Allergies
Cancer
Retards
Arthritis
Heart disease
Sweat & urine
Bad breath
Baldness
Spinal bifida
Sids
etc

It'll take days to tackle one at a time so I'll just hit them quick. The appendix is already scientifically proven to be important in immunity in the unborn. Wisdom teeth are cultural differences. I live in Alaska and Inuits keep their wisdom teeth due to a larger jaw. They are not less evolved, just use their jaw muscles more. Other tribes do the same as in carrying toolboxes with their teeth, strengthening their jaws and extending their jaw line. Tonsils/soft palate aid in the deterrent of infection as well as taste. Some have them removed, but they still serve a scientific function. Sadly, most do not see this as genius design (like the extra rib that grows back), rather as flawed evolution. The fact that we can live without these clearly points to ID depending on your viewpoint. Sweat is a way to cool the body. Urine expels poisons and waste. Cancer/Heart Disease develop over time due to bad diet/exercise/habits as does bad breath. Mental retardation/Spinal bifida/SIDS is a birth defect, and can be attributed to incorrect prenatal child rearing or other environmental influences - all documented scientifically. Whether you want to hear it or not, all can be attributed (from a Creationist sense) to a worldview or lack of faith. Many of the things of this world are not of our doing, nor of God's judgment. He does not punish us with disease in this world, but will heal it if we ask. Other forces are at work there.  I'm walking on eggshells not to offend, but it is my belief that due to sin, our punishment is death. Disease, famine, plague etc. not of God's desire to see us suffer, but in the hope that even though it happens, we will ask for help from Him.  Baldness/allergies are another gene just the same as red hair/facial hair/dark skin/food likes and dislikes.

[Will]

No offense taken. Tennessee Technological University followed by The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. By no means unbiased and officially accredited. Master's through Embry Riddle and the American Military University. Biased in the fact that the Master's is based mostly on Aeronautics and used mostly for promotion rather than research. My Bachelor's is in Wildlife and FIsheries Science. I took many classes in biologic science: Ecology/Oceanography/Ornithology/Mammology, etc. and all were enough to make me doubt Creation or at least believe in Progressive Creation/Gap Theory. One of my 300 series classes in Mammology was actually titled "Evolution". Anyway, I was wavering back and forth as to what to expect. I did my research project on the recreation of the woolly mammoth. You've probably seen the Discovery channel special "Raising the Mammoth".  Anyway, my professor did not agree with my viewpoint, which was only slightly Creationist based. My grade reflected thus, and I decided then to doubt Evolution. Partly just to flip him off professionally, but I matured (eventually and ongoing) and kept on researching the entire debate on my own.

I can kinda see why it would piss him off. Anything creationist based is lacking in credible evidence, which tends to fly in the face of science. I wouldn't have gotten pissed off (I can't imagine that contributes to a good environment for learning), but I likely would have debated you openly in class and invited the other students to chime in.

I've found that both Creationists and Evolutionists tend to get passionate about their beliefs. I see that no matter what you believe, both sides have their own set of evidence to support their theories. As I studied more, it was more difficult to accept Evolution based solely on the fact that people have tried so convincingly to lie about it merely to prove Creation false. The ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny fiasco, (which I learned as a third grader), Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Grand Canyon, Lucy ... Point being, why is it so important when an archaeological find is made to automatically try and refute Creation? Even to the point of falsifying your argument? Honestly, there is not a case in history when someone morphs the truth to try and prove Creation. Of course, you really can't disprove Creation, but that's not the real point. Why even try so hard to do so? If there is some scientific evidence to actually point out that there is no possibility of Creation, I will accept it. But, there are scientific facts out there that cannot be explained by Evolution only by Creation.

You keep mentioning these facts.

Evolution, like 99% of other science, isn't 100% complete. It cannot yet explain every facet of everything. It can, however, explain a vast majority of phenomena it claims to explain. It should be noted that holes in evolution are not evidence for Judeo-Christian Creationism (the most common flavor).

From my education in biology, Evolution is a 6-part theory - Universal Evolution (creation of the universe i.e. Big Bang), Cosmic Evolution (stars/planets), Elemental Evolution (Hydrogen thru Uranium and so on), Abiogenesis (Life from Non-Carbon based Life), Macro-Evolution (changing from one class to another i.e. reptile to bird), and Micro-Evolution (or Speciation). It is not scientific to explain Evolution without inculding all parts of it. Abiogenesis in itself is a subcategory of the Evolutionary Theory, not just a science in itself. In any case, if you would prefer it to be a stand alone science, it would be even more difficult to explain with any evidence. If the Miller-Urey experiment is the only basis, than not only is it poor, but impossible. If we can only explain the idea of abiogenesis with an experiment in a non-oxygenated atmosphere, the theory of Evolution itself is refuted. Life cannot be created in a non-oxygenated atmosphere because in the beginning, there had to be rain to cool off the planet which lead to the organic soup. However, with oxygen present, anything introduced to this atmosphere would be completely oxygenated (rusted/destroyed i.e Iron Oxide) so life could not begin in an oxygenated environment. Hence the reason that the Miller-Urey experiment was performed in an atmosphere depleted of oxygen. Scientifically they knew this fact, but purposely ignored the presence of water (oxygen) on the planet as explained by Evolution. Again, there are few, if any, hard factual evidences to support abiogenesis. All are left to interpretation. And again, all evidences to support Creation are interpreted as well. Back to the conundrum that neither theory will ever be 'proven' true.

Biological evolution begins after life has developed or has been created, thus abogenesis is a different area of biological study. Look at it this way: biological evolution includes mutation as it's first step. Non-life cannot mutate. Evolution requires reproduction to pass along mutations. Non-life cannot procreate. Evolution requires a system of natural selection, where the better mutations survive. Non-life cannot be naturally selected based on mutated traits.

What I suspect happened was your school decided to lump as much information as possible in the class you took, and included the what likely lead into evolution: abiogenesis. Imagine you were taking a class on the various functions of a solar system. At the beginning of the class, they may briefly cover the various hypothesis about how some solar systems formed. I see that as simply connecting what you've hopefully learned before with what you are to learn for the class. I taught music for a while, and I'd most certainly cover Classical before moving onto Romantic. The class would still be about the Romantic period of music, though.

If you're uncertain about this information, I strongly suggest either picking up books about evolution in the library or contacting a local college. My particular source of information on this comes from extensive reading combined with quite a bit of schooling on biology from Santa Clara U.

Occam's Razor is not exactly the best approach to science in any case.

Forgive me, but you're focusing on the wrong part of what I posted. Evidence should be what one takes into account when comparing various hypothesis. The stronger and more abundant the evidence is for a hypothesis, the more reasonable it is to believe it may be true. That's when Occam's Razor comes into play. To paraphrase: all things being equal, the most simple or obvious solution is often the best.

Big-Bang: In the history of mankind as we know it and can see/study it, has there ever been any type of explosion that creates order/organization? We can see the order and organization of our own galaxy - scientifically

I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree. Imagine you have a perfect piece of dynamite. It will produce equal force on all sides when detonated. Imagine you place a stainless steel ball bearing on each side of the dynamite and ignite it. Each bearing, baring outside variables, will travel the same distance in a straight line. Imagine that there are 1000 ball bearings, all equidistant from the dynamite. Ignite the explosive and each ball bearing would move out in a perfect circle. That is order from an explosion.

How can this be applied to that which we have seen demonstrated? A supernova. The release of materials from a supernova moves in all directions, creating a sphere effect of distribution. Here is an image of Keppler's Supernova:

Note that X-Ray and Infrared have each demonstrated visual evidence that the distribution is spherical.

Cosmic Evolution: No one in the history of mankind has witnessed the evolution or 'birth' of a star. You've heard ideas and theories based solely on novas/super-novas. But no one has ever seen it happen. Why? Because it takes millions of years for the star to form and break the laws of thermodynamics. It's not a biased opinion. This is the current belief. Although you may see some websites claiming they've seen a star form, read a little closer. I did the same thing. I tried my best to say, 'Look, there is no way you can deny there have been millions of years with star formation'. But, the actual formation has never been documented. Only an idea/interpretation/guess that a star 'may' form from the nova.

This is because the formation of stars is not particularly bright until ignition. We simply don't have the technology to see it happen yet. That's not evidence of anything.

Elemental Evolution: From the periodic table, past Iron, nuclear fusion does not work. How then do we have elements heavier than Iron?

Sorry, I have to break this one in two, as it addresses wholly different subjects. You are referring to the  binding energy curve. Are you familiar with neutron capture? Basically (and I'm really simplifying this), there are free neutrons in stars that combine with whatever they run into. Eventually, through this process, some nuclei are able to get a mass of over 56. It explains perfectly the nucleosynthesis of elements heavier than iron.

Not only that, but is it random chance that we have the specific amount of each element as to not destroy our very ability to live? Too much of many elements will equal death for most organic life forms.

This reminds me of the Anthropic Principle. What are the exact odds of this balance of elemental distribution? I need it accurate to .001%, and I'll need proofs. Until you can demonstrate that, it's irresponsible to pretend that it's impossible or highly improbable. Moreover, the distribution of elements on Earth makes perfect sense. Most of the heavy elements (iron) are at the core and established gravity, which pulled in all the other heavy elements in the area first, establishing the inner and outer core. Once all the heavy elements were pulled in, it began pulling in lighter elements.

Abiogenesis: Never documented, or reproduced. Life cannot evolve with an Oxygenated atmosphere, or without it. But, less than scientifically,suppose life started as a simple, unicellular organism. The greatest misnomer is 'simple'. Any scientist on the planet will tell you that if you were to compare the most complex design on our planet (i.e. space shuttle) to a singular microscopic cell, that by far the cell is more complex. All the different mechanisms must be in place at the same time for the cell to function. Cell membrane, nucleus (DNA, RNA), ribosomes, mitochondria, all has to be there at the same time in order for the cell to survive. Abiogenesis requires this complete cell to actually function, survive, mutate, and reproduce to create the next generation.    On a side note, if abiogenesis is true, what did the first cell mate with? Asexual reproduction cannot work for the lack of mutation. Even if it did work, what did the first cell eat? There's nothing on the planet at this time. Occam's Razor in full effect. Simplicity speaking, we need a cell to survive, eat, reproduce, and mutate. Sounds easy studying what we can see now, but if the world developed in an evolutionary sense, this makes things harder to accept.

Abiogenesis is just a collection of hypothesis, but there is evidence to support each of those hypothesis. There is no evidence for creationism. There's your Occam's Razor. Which is simpler and more reasonable, that which has evidence or that which has no evidence?

Macro-Evolution: Again, not seen or documented on our planet. It is assumed to be true seeing what we see now, but that isn't science. We need cold, hard evidence for this to be proven true. The ongoing search for the 'Missing Link" is by far the most prominent idea to support this hypothesis. Using Occam's Razor again, there is not a 'Missing Link', but hundreds of 'Missing Links'. Just because Evolution attempts to explain human from chimpanzee, it does not explain the rest of life on the planet. Amphibian from fish, reptile from amphibian, bird from reptile, mammal from bird? Why aren't these 'Missing Links' addressed? Before you jump to Lucy/Archaeopteryx, research it for yourself just as I did.

I sincerely hope you're familiar with how rare the fossilization process actually is. That said, there is a nearly complete set of transitional fossils showing the development of earlier primates to humans:

If you combine the mathematical probabilty of the Big Bang creating order from an explosion, combined with Stellar Evolution unseen today, combined with Elemental Evolution unreproducable, combined with Abiogenesis, combined with Macro-Evolution undocumented and falsified, than anyone thinking with a non-biased opinion will see that the overall probability is less than impossible. The Big Bang itself is practically impossible (mathematically speaking), but then multiply that small probablitly with even one of the remaining probablilities, and the result is well below absolute zero.

I'm glad I was able to address each of these points so you'll no longer be under so many mistake impressions.

All evidence is of course subjective. You cannot assume that just because the leading group of people assumed it to be correct correlates to the absolute truth. As explained earlier. Universe expansion is not a science. It is a collection of estimates. None of the data collected from the Hubble can yet be used as scientific proof. Yet again it is interpretation. Stars are seen some distance away, which cannot be accurately calculated, and then an interpretation is made based on red-shift. Red-shift is based on the idea that the speed of light is a constant. We have already scientifically proven that not only can the speed of light be increased, but it can be slowed and even stopped. The entire re-shift theorum is proven inaccurate based on the results that we have actually proven scientifically. We cannot assume any longer that light is not changed through space, and on that note, we still don't even know what light really is!?

As for fossils showing macroevolutionary develpment, please reply with an example. I have not yet studied any fossil that shows a shift in 'design'. There is no trend towards development, and any fossil we have has been fully identified as a legitimate and fully unique species, and has no transition whatsoever.

It's an old addage (relatively speaking), but if we are to assume evolution to be true then where are the billions of transitional species that should be present? You cannot take one partial specimen and hold that as the paramount for all species to follow. If there is an anomaly, then it can still be attributed to mutation (not necessarily beneficial), wear over time, predation, environment, etc. One needle in a provebial haystack does not scientifically prove the entire genre to be true - even though the needle is still buried.

I will request this again: post the evidence you claim to have supporting creationism.

[Asmodean]

In the case of scientific theory, I believe that all forms of science should follow the scientific method in order to actually be considered a 'science'. We developed the scientific method specifically to practice science. These would be things we can observe, test, experiment, document, re-test, etc. and anyone who uses our documentation should be able to complete the same experiment and gain the same results.  I don't believe it is possible to consider Evolution in this category, because the beginnings of everything according to Evolutionary thought cannot be explained through the scientific method.

True. But the observations made today can be applied to the past with near certainty.

Of course, neither can Creation.

Creation is not a scientific theory.

No one observed or can test or re-test theories such as the Creation, the Big Bang, stellar evolution, elemental evolution, abiogenesis, or macroevolution.  Microevolution is readily available, observable and testable, and is supported by both Creation and Evolution. I believe microevolution (speciation) is a good scientific topic for either a Creationist or Evolutionist to study.

We can make observations and calculations to explain many such things. Then we can test our conclusions for fallacies.

I don't believe either idea in itself can be considered a science.  However, I believe that the way we practice science will be determined on how we view Creation or Evolution.  Basically, what I mean is that if you are a Creationist, your scientific approaches will be based on Intelligent Design.  If you are an Evolutionist, your approaches will be directed towards abiogenesis and proving the theory to be true.

Scientific approaches based on ID? How does that work? ID has no scientific background.

The only problem with this is the pre-assumption of one or the other to be true.  For example, let's take radiometric dating. Any scientist, (Creationist or Evolutionist) will admit that the acceptable scientific limit of dating is a total 10 half-lives.  Carbon dating then, can date to around 57000 years (half-life 5730 years).  So, say a scientist goes out to date a mammoth specimen.  If he is an Evolutionist, he automatically assumes the Earth to be millions of years old and cannot accept a date of 7000 years for the mammoth. If the results from his test do not support millions of years, then the results are discarded as anomalies.  A Creationist (young Earth) views the Earth as only 6-7 thousand years old, and will keep the same results and the anomalies are considered fact.

So what does the good creationist scientist say about civilisations that existed before "young Earth"?

I personally believe in Creation and a young Earth and a global flood. There is no scientific evidence to refute Creation and there is ample evidence to support it.

Are you capable of prviding one shred of evidence to support Creation/ID?

On the other hand, there are several holes in the evolutionary theory that cannot be explained with a scientific approach. This is why I went from being a Creationist to Evolutionist to Gap Theorist back to Creationist. I know you'll want examples, so I'll try some short ones. One would be the migratory path of the Pacific Golden Plover (I live in Alaska and like this bird) - flies from Alaska to Hawaii non-stop. It cannot have evolved this trait, because there are no stopover points between AK and HI. Also, the bird cannot ingest enough fuel to make the trip solo. It has to fly in a V-formation with a group for wind resistance. If it evolved over time, each successive generation hits the water, runs out of gas, or is not aware of the V-formation.  It cannot pass on the necessary adaptation or mutation since it would be dead.  Another quick one would be the giraffe drinking water. It's neck is long and it has a sponge in the base of its brain to slow blood flow. If it stoops to drink, without the sponge there is too much blood flow to the brain and it dies. If it is spooked and raises up fast, too much blood flows from the brain and it dies.  It cannot pass on this trait if it is dead so the sponge cannot have evolved over time.  Lastly is ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Sadly, this is still taught as fact, even though its facilitator admitted to falsifying the information long ago. It is difficult for me to believe in evolution because people still have to create false concepts to support it.

I don't see how these examples are relevant. Sorry. In the first case, you say "it could not have evolved this trait" - I ask: "Why not?" And there's been years since ORP was taught as fact. The theory that every living organism repeats its evolutionary process in gestation was based on some pretty dirty data. Basically, fake original research. However, there is merit to the theory in general, but ORP today is not what it was when ORP was ORP.

Using the scientific method, we test theories to see if they withstand our experiments. If they cannot support the results, the theory is discarded or remains hypothesis. If the results prove accurate, new tests are done over and over until the theory is accepted as law. I don't believe Evolution can ever be 'proven' with modern science, but just to be fair, neither can Creation. Creation is based on faith, or believing things you cannot see.  The same can be said about the beginnings of the universe according to evolution. No one saw the Big Bang, but some still believe it.

There is a huge difference. Big Bang fits nicely (sort of) in to the calculations and observations we have at hand. Creation does not.

I see your point on this.  You can also explain things such as vestigal organs in the same sense. We assume some organs vestigal because we have not studied them enough. The more we learn about them, the more we realize that there are no vestigal organs, only a lack of study to understand them. This leads me personally to believe in Intelligent Design. Just because we don't understand it yet, doesn't mean that it is useless. There are too many things in this world with unique similarities and differences that are easily explained with ID. It is a little more difficult to do the same with evolution.

I agree. If it's there, it probably is supposed to be there. However, how it advocates ID over evolution, I can not see. ID begins with a huge assumption and carries on assuming without providing any sold evidence. Ockham's Razor.

Sorry this is a long response.  I'll cut it short here and continue later.  Again, thanks for the opportunity to discuss these topics in a civilized forum.

I think it was an overall good post. In turn, sorry for making short and maybe sometimes half-hearted responses, but I'm kind of late for work :-P

[Squid]

If only I had much more time...one week until the end of the school year but only one week until I start labwork...all well.  Here's a tidbit of information for the parties concerned in reference to radiocarbon dating:

Scott et al. (2004). Precision and accuracy in applied 14C dating: some findings from the Fourth International Radiocarbon Inter-comparison.  Journal of Archaeological Science, 31, 1209-1213.

Also the journal Radiocarbon might be useful in these discussions:

Radiocarbon

You can even have a look at the data files for the IntCal04 calibration issue:

http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal04.htm

And a copy of that issue:

http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal04_TOC.pdf

And the lab list:

http://www.radiocarbon.org/Info/lablist.html

[jcm]

It'll take days to tackle one at a time so I'll just hit them quick. The appendix is already scientifically proven to be important in immunity in the unborn. Wisdom teeth are cultural differences. I live in Alaska and Inuits keep their wisdom teeth due to a larger jaw. They are not less evolved, just use their jaw muscles more. Other tribes do the same as in carrying toolboxes with their teeth, strengthening their jaws and extending their jaw line. Tonsils/soft palate aid in the deterrent of infection as well as taste. Some have them removed, but they still serve a scientific function. Sadly, most do not see this as genius design (like the extra rib that grows back), rather as flawed evolution. The fact that we can live without these clearly points to ID depending on your viewpoint. Sweat is a way to cool the body. Urine expels poisons and waste. Cancer/Heart Disease develop over time due to bad diet/exercise/habits as does bad breath. Mental retardation/Spinal bifida/SIDS is a birth defect, and can be attributed to incorrect prenatal child rearing or other environmental influences - all documented scientifically. Whether you want to hear it or not, all can be attributed (from a Creationist sense) to a worldview or lack of faith. Many of the things of this world are not of our doing, nor of God's judgment. He does not punish us with disease in this world, but will heal it if we ask. Other forces are at work there. I'm walking on eggshells not to offend, but it is my belief that due to sin, our punishment is death. Disease, famine, plague etc. not of God's desire to see us suffer, but in the hope that even though it happens, we will ask for help from Him. Baldness/allergies are another gene just the same as red hair/facial hair/dark skin/food likes and dislikes.

So with this way of thinking, you mean to tell that if someone prays “please lord, help me win the lottery” and that person wins, then that is god doing? How do you know if it was in fact god or just luck? I doubt you would believe that it was god's doing, but why not? If you pray long enough and for enough things, some of your prayers will get answered, right?

Let me ask you this, why has god never helped those who prayed for their limbs to grow back? What a miracle â€" go to sleep with missing legs, wake up and poof you got your legs back. Sorry hasn't happen and not out of lack of praying I'm sure.
 
Do this for me â€" pray to “yellow-feather”, yes “yellow-feather”. I pray to him when I need a parking space. He doesn't help me every time, but he is pretty good. When ever I am in a full parking lot I pray to yellow feather and some how after a while a space will open up. So over the next year, instead pray to “yellow-feather” and see how many prayers get answered, I'm sure your rate of return will be the same.  

As far as the other stuff, I was not in need of education, I was simply pointing out the failed design. Yes failed design, if indeed the universe was designed with us human in mind. Many of the examples were tongue in cheek. But try and look at the universe from the bottom up and not the top down. If the universe was designed, it would be a different looking universe.

If god created a system that functions on its own why would he need to override the laws of physics to fix problems based on prayer. I have never seen evidence that laws of physics are violated, so god would need foreknowledge of your actions which trumps the idea of free will. If god's hands are tied when it comes to laws of nature and free will does not allow god to know the outcome of your actions, how is it possible for god to have direct or indirect affect on your life because of prayer? And if god can do what ever the heck he wants, then he is allowing others to suffer with the foreknowledge and power to stop it from happening. So when a 6 month old baby is microwaved to death this was the wonderful life that god intended for both the murder and the victim. If god's hands are tied, then chances are you're not going to get your baby back no matter how much praying you do. Poof your  cancer is gone or poof your baby is back from the dead â€" either one is a small feat for god but both violate either the laws of physics or free will.

[Evolved]

From Evolved:

I am not sure what your point is here. You might want to get your facts straight. It is well understood through various forms of dating (not just carbon - other isotopes are used to provide deeper insight into Earth history, such as potassium, uranium, and thorium) that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Mammoths lived from the Pliocene through to about 4,500 years ago, which would make your 7000 year old mammoth right at home.

Carbon Dating itself is flawed. Scientifically speaking, the amount of C14 entering the atmosphere exceeds the amount of C14 leaving the atmosphere to this day. Given that, we cannot use carbon dating because any specimen is inherently flawed due to the fact that the Earth has not reached equilibrium in respect to the amount of C14.

As for other dating methods, several assumptions are already made. We assume the Earth billions of years old. Hence, any data not supporting this theory is discarded. K-Ar, UR-Pb, Rb-Sr, and He dating is also assuming that the parent material had a certain amount of either isotope. Also, this is assuming the decay rates have remained constant (probable). And you are also assuming no leaching of any isotope has taken place. Scientifically and mathematically speaking, this probablitly is basically zero. If there was no rainfall over a 4.5 billion year period, no water leaching had taken place. If that is true, then abiogenesis could not have happened and the entire theory is null. If there was no heat increase, the rate would remain constant as well as the amount of leaching. Again, zero chance.

I'm not a quote miner, but anyway if you want:

http://www.earthage.org/EarthOldorYoung ... 0Earth.htm

I read through your link - you did a very good job parroting the misinformation on this page.  I also took a gander at http://www.earthage.org - and if I were you, I wouldn't be citing this website if I wanted any credibility at all.  Sites like this have done a good job training you how to refute scientific evidence with nonsense disguised in scientific terms.  The site to which you provided a link is just plain nutty.

Since creationists constantly attempt to hammer away at radiometric dating, let's step away from this for a bit.  Let's look at galactic distance for a moment; the galaxy designated as NGC 4258 (M106).  International teams have used various instruments to measure NGC 4258's distance (including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Long Baseline Array), and have come up with estimates around 21-25 million light years.  I have seen M106 in my Newtonian reflector, and it's quite a sight.  When I took a gander at it, the light rays that were hitting my retina had traveled about 21-25 million years.  I don't recall the Bible saying in Genesis 1:1 that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and then about 25 million years later he created the Earth".

My point is that the age of the universe and the age of the Earth have been flushed out as a natural consequence of scientific investigation, and whether the methods involve stellar distances, radiometric dating, molecular clocks, or something else, they all point to an Earth that is much older than you think.  I didn't see that on your website.

Cancer/Heart Disease develop over time due to bad diet/exercise/habits as does bad breath.

Wrong.  There are strong genetic components to both cancer and heart disease.  Working in health care I know very well that it makes some people feel better if they believe that a person's disease is their own fault.  You are making yourself feel better.  If this is the work of intelligent design, someone needs an IQ test.

Mental retardation/Spinal bifida/SIDS is a birth defect, and can be attributed to incorrect prenatal child rearing or other environmental influences - all documented scientifically. Whether you want to hear it or not, all can be attributed (from a Creationist sense) to a worldview or lack of faith.

Wrong times two.  Mental defects often have genetic components.  Spina Bifida cannot always be avoided with folic acid.  The list of things that can go wrong with genes is mind boggling.  Again, this design doesn't seem so intelligent to me.  One more thing - the faithful get sick, too.

[thehunter325]

Sorry about the long pause. The Air Force keeps us busy in Alaska during the summer. I'll answer the replies as fast as possible so I'm not taking up too much space. No indignation or bias, just matter-of-fact.

From Willravel:

I sincerely hope you're familiar with how rare the fossilization process actually is. That said, there is a nearly complete set of transitional fossils showing the development of earlier primates to humans:

Fossilization is not rare and is a quick process with the correct environment. In fact, less than one year is necessary to fossilize anything carbon based. As far as transitional species go, if there were in fact transitions, there should be billions. According to evolution, in the 3 billion year history of life on Earth, there should be numerous transitional species, clearly definable. However, over 200 years of intense study has revealed none, merely complete and unique species. If there were billions of years, mathematically and scientifically, there would be billions of fossils, no matter if the process was rare or not. We do not see this.

On the subject of transitional species, suprisingly, natural selection tends to jump in the face of the evolutionary mindset. If you think logically, a half reptile/half bird would have no chance of living in a reptilian or avian dominated environment. If everything evolved, it would have had to have gotten to the halfway point without a doubt. A fully developed reptile or bird would have no problem destroying a species that was halfway evolved. The gene code is then terminated. Not to mention in order to get to the halfway point, it would have to develop a 'beneficial mutation' - none of which have ever been seen or recorded. And it would have to not only develop one mutation, but millions to completely translate the DNA to a fully developed separate class of animal. It would need the correct code for respiratory, circulatory, nervous, digesitive systems, etc. instantly. No matter how much time you want to add, if you are thinking with a logical and reasoning mind, you know it can't happen. Even with one system, reptile to bird is difficult. It still has to learn to fly. Who does it learn that from?

Abiogenesis is just a collection of hypothesis, but there is evidence to support each of those hypothesis. There is no evidence for creationism. There's your Occam's Razor. Which is simpler and more reasonable, that which has evidence or that which has no evidence?

I agree on the lack of evidence. Neither Creation nor evolutinism has any credible scientific evidence to fully explain the presence of life. Of course this neither confirms nor denies either. However, you cannot disprove Creation because, in point of fact, we are here. But, you can disprove evolution with the examples from the previous posts, i.e. Pacific Golden Plover, giraffe, common chicken egg, abiogenesis, etc. I'll disseminate more if we need.

This reminds me of the Anthropic Principle. What are the exact odds of this balance of elemental distribution? I need it accurate to .001%, and I'll need proofs. Until you can demonstrate that, it's irresponsible to pretend that it's impossible or highly improbable. Moreover, the distribution of elements on Earth makes perfect sense. Most of the heavy elements (iron) are at the core and established gravity, which pulled in all the other heavy elements in the area first, establishing the inner and outer core. Once all the heavy elements were pulled in, it began pulling in lighter elements.

A little confused by the actual question. Are you asking to prove that if any the elements were present with enough distribution, and then with at least .001% accuracy, would destroy life? If so, then Earth with an atmosphere of 99.001% H/He/Ni/Me/Fe/etc. would not allow life to evolve. We really don't need proof for that. If we were lucky enough to get just the right amount of elements on this one planet of the 9 present in this cluster, then why us? I agree that ,magnetically, heavy elements are pulled in. Then why doesn't Mercury -thru- Pluto have more Hydrogen/He/O/C/Ni/etc? We're basically in the same place. Scientifically and matematically, if it happened here, it would have happened everywhere else. Why would the third planet in a series of nine develop just the right amount of elements? If it were magnetic, why then do the rest of the planets not have a strong/weak enough magnetic field? Why do we have a magnetic field at all? It serves no evolutionary purpose except to try and explain a 150 year old hypothesis.

I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree. Imagine you have a perfect piece of dynamite. It will produce equal force on all sides when detonated. Imagine you place a stainless steel ball bearing on each side of the dynamite and ignite it. Each bearing, baring outside variables, will travel the same distance in a straight line. Imagine that there are 1000 ball bearings, all equidistant from the dynamite. Ignite the explosive and each ball bearing would move out in a perfect circle. That is order from an explosion

If you placed the ball bearings there, this would indeed happen. But you would have to place the ball bearings there. Also, you'd have to place the dynamite there. Also, you'd have to find a perfect piece of dynamite, and perfect ball bearings. And you would have to light the fuse. In other words, you would have to design the experiment. I.E. Intelligent Design. If all the matter condensed in the universe, (which it cannot) and then exploded, where did the matter come from, what caused it to compress, and what caused it to explode? And then, what caused it to explode in an organized manner (of which no scientific evidence has proved or can prove)?

Biological evolution begins after life has developed or has been created, thus abogenesis is a different area of biological study. Look at it this way: biological evolution includes mutation as it's first step. Non-life cannot mutate. Evolution requires reproduction to pass along mutations. Non-life cannot procreate. Evolution requires a system of natural selection, where the better mutations survive. Non-life cannot be naturally selected based on mutated traits.

What I suspect happened was your school decided to lump as much information as possible in the class you took, and included the what likely lead into evolution: abiogenesis. Imagine you were taking a class on the various functions of a solar system. At the beginning of the class, they may briefly cover the various hypothesis about how some solar systems formed. I see that as simply connecting what you've hopefully learned before with what you are to learn for the class. I taught music for a while, and I'd most certainly cover Classical before moving onto Romantic. The class would still be about the Romantic period of music, though.

If you're uncertain about this information, I strongly suggest either picking up books about evolution in the library or contacting a local college. My particular source of information on this comes from extensive reading combined with quite a bit of schooling on biology from Santa Clara U.

I agree that evolution must begin after life had been created. The problem is how did life 'create'? Whether or not abiogenesis is a different area of biological study does not matter at all. Evolution depends on abiogenesis no matter what. Abiogenesis cannot have happened for the following two reasons (that are scientifically proven already):

Life cannot be created in an oxygenated atmosphere. The cell would be oxygenated and destroyed instantly. Oxidizing is proven scientifically.

Life cannot be created in a non-oxygenated atmosphere. The Earth must have been cooled off for 1.5 billion years (so the textbooks say) with rain. Rain is water. Scientifically speaking, water contains oxygen.

Evoultion cannot progress without abiogenesis. It doesn't matter what was lumped together at school. Abiogenesis is impossible from the above. These are not randomly thrown out ideas. Science has proven what oxygen does. Whether or not it is a different field, evolution cannot happen without abiogenesis. Just from this knowledge alone, the theory is scientifically proven false.

Now then, if the idea that things in the past may have been different arises, think of this: The idea of evolution in general is based on uniformitarianism. In other words, things continue now just as they've always continued. Long, slow, gradual, unchanging processes. If so, then what we study today will inherently describe what happened in the past. Inherently, then our research today completely disproves abiogenesis and therefore evolution. If you want to say processes were different in the past, you are automatically debunking the theory completely. Trying to mold something like that just to fit your own agenda is not real science. We can study what happens today and try and apply it to the ways things used to be billions of years ago. Or we can study what happens today and assume that things were different billions of years ago. That's not science. That's merely trying to win an argument.

I'll answer some more later I can feel this getting too long. I'm not trying to come in here and disrupt any relative happiness. I have no problem with anyone's belief or non-belief in anything. It's merely an opportunity to discuss things in an open forum with the hope that everyone will be open-minded enough to accept any ideas or thoughts. Again, I cannot force any belief just as you cannot. I'll present my case as scientifically,mathematically, logically and with as much reasoning as possible. From there, all I can do is hope you do the same.

[Will]

I agree on the lack of evidence. Neither Creation nor evolutinism has any credible scientific evidence to fully explain the presence of life. Of course this neither confirms nor denies either. However, you cannot disprove Creation because, in point of fact, we are here. But, you can disprove evolution with the examples from the previous posts, i.e. Pacific Golden Plover, giraffe, common chicken egg, abiogenesis, etc. I'll disseminate more if we need.

Evolution has fossil evidence, chemical and anatomical similarities, geographic distribution of related species, genetic changes over generations, and more. Creationism has the Bible, an ancient book of myths. You cannot disprove evolution without disproving it's evidence. And abiogenesis isn't evidence of evolution.

A little confused by the actual question. Are you asking to prove that if any the elements were present with enough distribution, and then with at least .001% accuracy, would destroy life? If so, then Earth with an atmosphere of 99.001% H/He/Ni/Me/Fe/etc. would not allow life to evolve. We really don't need proof for that. If we were lucky enough to get just the right amount of elements on this one planet of the 9 present in this cluster, then why us? I agree that ,magnetically, heavy elements are pulled in. Then why doesn't Mercury -thru- Pluto have more Hydrogen/He/O/C/Ni/etc? We're basically in the same place. Scientifically and matematically, if it happened here, it would have happened everywhere else. Why would the third planet in a series of nine develop just the right amount of elements? If it were magnetic, why then do the rest of the planets not have a strong/weak enough magnetic field? Why do we have a magnetic field at all? It serves no evolutionary purpose except to try and explain a 150 year old hypothesis.

"Why us?" This is a philosophical question, not a scientific question. The scientific question would be "How did it happen?" and there are plenty of very reasonable explanations supported by evidence.

If you placed the ball bearings there, this would indeed happen. But you would have to place the ball bearings there. Also, you'd have to place the dynamite there. Also, you'd have to find a perfect piece of dynamite, and perfect ball bearings. And you would have to light the fuse. In other words, you would have to design the experiment. I.E. Intelligent Design. If all the matter condensed in the universe, (which it cannot) and then exploded, where did the matter come from, what caused it to compress, and what caused it to explode? And then, what caused it to explode in an organized manner (of which no scientific evidence has proved or can prove)?

This is the quintessential creationist fallacy: if science can't explain it perfectly, the answer automatically becomes biblical. Well no, it doesn't. There has never been nor is now any evidence whatsoever for a creator or creators, therefore making that the default answer is a fallacy.

We don't know what caused the big nag yet, but we will eventually.

I agree that evolution must begin after life had been created. The problem is how did life 'create'? Whether or not abiogenesis is a different area of biological study does not matter at all. Evolution depends on abiogenesis no matter what. Abiogenesis cannot have happened for the following two reasons (that are scientifically proven already):

But do you agree that evolution is by far the most likely explanation?

Life cannot be created in an oxygenated atmosphere. The cell would be oxygenated and destroyed instantly. Oxidizing is proven scientifically.

Life cannot be created in a non-oxygenated atmosphere. The Earth must have been cooled off for 1.5 billion years (so the textbooks say) with rain. Rain is water. Scientifically speaking, water contains oxygen.

Life of course can be created in each of these conditions, but life on Earth probably started in an environment with little or no oxygen., The atmosphere and environment included Methane (CH4), Ammonia (NH3), Water (H2O), Hydrogen sulfide (H2S), Carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO), and Phosphate (PO43-) (and there's evidence of this). Monomers can be created under these conditions. The Miller-Urey experiment proved conclusively that amino acids can form on their own in this environment. Amino acids were discovered in space back in 2002, btw. As I'm sure you are aware, amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins and are present in all life. What you may not know is that amino acids are the key to abiogenesis. They are the "spark of life". Once the spark is struck, life forms easily. Monomers become polymers, and polymers become cells. How? Evolution, oddly enough.

[rdm]

Greetings Kels. I am also a Christian with some of the same questions as you. I also once believed in evolution, as well as the gap theory, but now am a young Earth Creationist.

Were you a theist when you believed in evolution?

[Asmodean]

Were you a theist when you believed in evolution?

And if you were not, who tempted you to convert?!  

[thehunter325]

Hello again. Trying to post a little at work so sorry if it's a little spacy.

From Willravel:

Evolution, like 99% of other science, isn't 100% complete. It cannot yet explain every facet of everything. It can, however, explain a vast majority of phenomena it claims to explain. It should be noted that holes in evolution are not evidence for Judeo-Christian Creationism (the most common flavor).

I agree that holes in evolution are not evidence for Creation. But there are in fact, holes in evoultion. And it's not just unanswered questions that require more research. There are specific scientific examples that completely refute the theory. The inability for life to evolve from non-life as explained above for example. It is not 100% complete, and cannot possibly be 100% because we can never scientifically prove the big bang, stellar evolution, elemental evolution, abiogenesis, or macro evolution. In contrast, Creation is 100% complete. The entire story is written, with no holes. Everything everywhere had to have come about in some fashion. Creation explains this just as easily. Of course, it cannot be proven scientifically either.

I can kinda see why it would piss him off. Anything creationist based is lacking in credible evidence, which tends to fly in the face of science. I wouldn't have gotten pissed off (I can't imagine that contributes to a good environment for learning), but I likely would have debated you openly in class and invited the other students to chime in.

I used the word 'design' twice in my paper and he failed me for it. I asked him why and he vehemently wanted to dissuade me from any belief in Christianity. I didn't see this as a professional attitude for a professor so I researched it on my own. The more I learn, the more I realize that the evolutionary theory is not based on science at all, but on faith. The only real science that can be involved with evolution is speciation. But microevolution does not equate to macro evolution.

'Scientists can only look at life as it exists today, and try to determine how life originated in the past. They look at the end result and try to determine the process by which it was formed. Imagine looking at a photograph and trying to determine the brand of camera that was used to take the picture. Could you do it? Evolutionists have the same problem when they claim that life comes from chemicals. They look at the end result and propose a theory without ever observing the process. Scientists cannot study the past. Scientists can only look at the present and make theories about what happened in the past that would make the present the way it is today. When evolutionary scientists study the origins of life, they propose that all life resulted from chemical reactions by natural processes, overlooking the fact that chemical processes do not "naturally" behave in this manner. If you accepted chemical reactions as they occur, you would not believe that life came solely from chemicals. Is it legitimate to propose that evolution started in some primordial soup, when the long chain polymers that are present in proteins and DNA are so complicated that the level of chemical control needed during the chain building process is beyond the realm of natural chemistry? '

From Asmodean

True. But the observations made today can be applied to the past with near certainty.

Observations made today have certainty over what we see today. You cannot apply today's observations to past events and deem that as science. We're then automatically assuming all processes we see today exist the same way as they did in the beginning of the universe. The conundrum in this is that evolution cannot use today's observations as fact for the past's events because it depends on all processes behaving differently in the past than they do today. If things continued today as they used to, why then is the Earth not a molten ball of rock? There was a different process going on that we don't see today. It rained for a billion years. A different process we don't see today. Stars were born. A different process we don't see today. Beneficial mutations on a gigantic scale. A different process we don't see today. The number of different processes to support evolution is staggering. And then evolution teaches that all things continue today just as they used to - long slow gradual processes. A clear contradiction.

If we are going to use today's evidences to prove yesterday's processes, we aren't using good science.

Creation is not a scientific theory.

I agree. I've never said Creation is a scientific theory. I've said Creation cannot be proven scientifically, but neither can evolution. Both are faith based systems. I said our approach to science will differ if we believe in Creation or evolution.

We can make observations and calculations to explain many such things. Then we can test our conclusions for fallacies.

But many of our conclusions fly in the face of evolutionary thought. The Earth's layers are more consistent with a global flood than millions of years. Soil layers are sorted quickly in water and lay down based on sediment size/weight. Layers are even seen with petrified trees standing vertical through several different geologic layers. That clearly debunks any thought of millions of years to lay down the layers. This also is evidence of a global flood, because today we can see why those trees became petrified standing vertically through several layers. Spirit Lake near Mt St Helen's is full of trees standing upright in the sediment after being blown into the lake.  Or take the coelacanth. 600 million years automatically erased and a complete fossil record changed completely. Any coelacanth fossil found in any layer now changes the age of that layer completely, as well as any layer above it.

Scientific approaches based on ID? How does that work? ID has no scientific background.

Practicing science based on observation, testing, recording, re-testing etc. Instead of getting a result and automatically reverting it into some evolutionary sense, instead the credit is given to an Intelligent Designer. Any person actually practicing good science will look at a cell and see the most complex machine ever designed. The giant chains of DNA/RNA, mitochondria, cell membrane, ribosomes, etc. Again, all needed to be present at exactly the same time for the cell to function or live. Much easier to explain by an Intelligent Designer. Evolution cannot explain the complexities of a cell. The entire cell being created with one spark in a chemical broth? Impossible. Not only do we not see spontaneous life generating today, but have no idea how it could have possibly began in that matter. The proteins required are huge trains of amino acids, all of which must be facing the correct way. And then that is just one protein. Millions of proteins then even in a small strand of DNA. And then that's just the DNA. Those proteins also had to form RNA correctly. And then, those are just proteins. That isn't life yet. A collection of proteins in a strand of DNA isn't alive. Life from this collection requires such amazing processes that we can't begin to fathom how it works. That is an example of scientific evidence pointing towards Intelligent Design. The most complex supercomputers on our planet were designed by man. The most complex supercomputers cannot compare to the complexities in one single cell. Yet we are led to believe that somehow this happened randomly? With processes we don't see or record today and only have faith existed in the past.

So what does the good creationist scientist say about civilisations that existed before "young Earth"?

Not sure which ones you're referring to.

I don't see how these examples are relevant. Sorry. In the first case, you say "it could not have evolved this trait" - I ask: "Why not?" And there's been years since ORP was taught as fact. The theory that every living organism repeats its evolutionary process in gestation was based on some pretty dirty data. Basically, fake original research. However, there is merit to the theory in general, but ORP today is not what it was when ORP was ORP.

Textbooks from 2002 in public schools still have ORP in them. That's just one I saw from a friend's kid. What merit is there in a theory that is a complete lie - and was purposely created, not by ignorance or lack of evidence, but on purpose specifically to try and prove evolution? The reasons that the examples cannot have evolved is that they would need to pass on information of learned traits. In the case of the bird - it can't tell its unborn chick how to fly to Hawaii or to fly in a V-formation. And there are no stopover points to return and pass on the information. It is born with the knowledge - but how can it have evolved that knowledge? You'd need successive generations adapting slowly and passing on information genetically. If they adapt slowly, they don't make the trip and end up dead.

There is a huge difference. Big Bang fits nicely (sort of) in to the calculations and observations we have at hand. Creation does not.

That's assuming the things we can see here apply to space and time outside of Earth. Obviously things here are different than in space, and have to be in order for evolution to be true. How can we calculate the big bang? We can see stars, and guess how far away they are, and watch them blow up, but that's it. We don't see them form, and really can't calculate the distance to any good accuracy. The triangle formed from the two viewpoints to try and calculate light years is too skinny outside 100 light years.

Are you capable of prviding one shred of evidence to support Creation/ID?

From above, the petrified trees standing upright. According to the Bible, God stretched out the heavens - the stars are a long way away, which also accounts for the red shift. The authors of the Bible had no idea of star distance, but still wrote about it. God divided the waters from the waters - sounds strange, but it really means that there is a layer of water, a layer of earth, and a layer of water. Thermal vents in the ocean floor account for the water below the earth. The authors of the Bible didn't deep sea dive, but they wrote about it. God said let there be light - we don't even know what light is to this day, but it's here. The light being here can be used to support Creation. Why would evolution need light? And then what is it and where did it come from? How would the earliest forms of life know they needed light - and how did the light happen to get here? Does light think on its own or was it designed specifically for the purpose of supporting life ...

From jcm

So with this way of thinking, you mean to tell that if someone prays “please lord, help me win the lottery” and that person wins, then that is god doing? How do you know if it was in fact god or just luck? I doubt you would believe that it was god's doing, but why not? If you pray long enough and for enough things, some of your prayers will get answered, right?

Let me ask you this, why has god never helped those who prayed for their limbs to grow back? What a miracle â€" go to sleep with missing legs, wake up and poof you got your legs back. Sorry hasn't happen and not out of lack of praying I'm sure.

You're not describing the God of the Bible. You're describing a magic trick. God doesn't pull rabbits out of hats or win the lottery or grow back limbs. If He wanted to He could, as long as it didn't interfere with His nature as God. If a person lost a limb, there was a reason for it. God doesn't just magically grow it back for you. But He will support you if you ask. We need stress in our lives to grow physically, mentally and spiritually. If God just gave us everything all the time, we'd never learn any responsibility or grow as a person. Even as an evolutionist, you'd still want to grow and mature. You'd still want to appreciate life and not take it for granted. The best stories in life are usually overcoming adversity. If God just poofed all the adversity away, what would we learn?

If god created a system that functions on its own why would he need to override the laws of physics to fix problems based on prayer. I have never seen evidence that laws of physics are violated, so god would need foreknowledge of your actions which trumps the idea of free will. .

The big bang directly violates the laws of physics. Star formation as well. You'd have to create matter for the big bang. You'd have to create energy to run the big bang. You'd have to overcome magnetic attraction to compact the matter you just created to begin the big bang. And then it would all have to fall into order. You'd have to overcome the law of entropy - everything continues toward disorder. God works outside the bounds of what we can see/hear/touch etc. We don't have the capacity to understand how He works, but we don't need to. He just asks for certain things, and we are bound to follow them. He gave us commandments and morals and peace. Where did all the ideas of morality in the world come from anyway - according to evolution? Evolution doesn't need morality - it needs death and overcoming the laws from above. Why do we even care about following rules? Evolution doesn't need that.

If god's hands are tied when it comes to laws of nature and free will does not allow god to know the outcome of your actions, how is it possible for god to have direct or indirect affect on your life because of prayer? And if god can do what ever the heck he wants, then he is allowing others to suffer with the foreknowledge and power to stop it from happening. So when a 6 month old baby is microwaved to death this was the wonderful life that god intended for both the murder and the victim. If god's hands are tied, then chances are you're not going to get your baby back no matter how much praying you do. Poof your cancer is gone or poof your baby is back from the dead â€" either one is a small feat for god but both violate either the laws of physics or free will.

Again, God is not the poofer you're looking for. God didn't microwave the baby - a person did. Could God have stopped it? Of course. Why didn't He? Only He knows. There is a purpose not yet seen. The only good thing from that is God will allow an innocent baby into His heaven. Then it wouldn't have to deal with the struggles and pains and evils of this world. An evolutionary mindset doesn't provide much hope. The murderer will be punished in God's time, but can also be forgiven and allowed the same heaven. In an evolutionary sense, what do we have to look forward to? It's a bleak outlook and nothing we do here matters anyway. Personally, I like the idea that my life matters and the endgame isn't too bad either. The peace like a river is good and the personal touch of an omnipotent creator isn't too shabby either. In comparison, an evolutionary ending doesn't really sound appealing.

As far as the other stuff, I was not in need of education, I was simply pointing out the failed design. Yes failed design, if indeed the universe was designed with us human in mind. Many of the examples were tongue in cheek. But try and look at the universe from the bottom up and not the top down. If the universe was designed, it would be a different looking universe.

Which failure are you referring to? I presented scientific data to explain each example you gave. Where is the failure? And why would the universe need to look different? It shows complete order and balance. Even though that is in direct contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics it had to overcome to evolve, the design of the universe fits nicely into a created blueprint. A designed universe doesn't really need to look any different from the one we have. Basically because it is the one we have. A randomly big banged universe would probably look a little different - with much less order and balance.

I'll hit some more later.