|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: The Death of Darwinism
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
If you start from the assumption that either we have to accept the neo-Darwinian model as it currently is, or some form of ID, then anything that weakens the neo-Darwinian position strengthens the ID position.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting that the null hypothesis approach applies to ID vs Darwin vs nothing as a whole - rather that it applies to the steps along the way.
If someone hypothesises a particular progression of species through the ages - that is a testable hypothesis. One can make a prediction that the distribution of fossils will not be random as one proceeds through geological layers. If it isn't random, you've rejected the null hypothesis that it would be random.
Similarly, one can make a hypothesis that phylogenetic trees are constructable - and reject the null hypothesis that they aren't.
And those hundreds of steps can imply a unifying theory regarding evolution.
Each can be written in a tightly focused enough way to not require a priori considerations of theory in order to test.
I don't know what those are for ID. It would need to be something along the lines of "In a certain setup, the impact of intelligent input will not be determined in that x/y/z will be random, having controlled for all other factors that might generate order".
It's not going to happen, though. And it would be rather akin to the kind of studies medics do to measure the efficacy of prayer.
A modern day Tower of Babel.
But perhaps ID works rather better as an argued philosophy, rather than a science?
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
andyjoneszz
Shipmate
# 11045
|
Posted
Jumping back into the chemistry bit of the discussion, I'm not so sure that it is all necessarily a Chicken & Egg Show.
Just because ribosomes are the only things catalysing a particular reaction nowadays (and I shouldn't have been so lazy as to omit to mention the need for a catalyst), doesn't mean that something else, say off-hand a clay mineral, couldn't have been doing something similar at a crucial time in the past.
This is still very much at the testing stage, as far as I know. However, it's something of a challenge to the sort of argument that claims that it is in principle impossible to conceive of the ingredients of biological systems arising other than from already extant life forms.
Ideas based on tholins are another version of the same challenge, really.
P.S. Can't remember who mentioned sugars, but yes, they would be the weakest evidential link in my hypothetical soup brew.
Posts: 83 | From: Durham, UK | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andyjoneszz:
Just because ribosomes are the only things catalysing a particular reaction nowadays (and I shouldn't have been so lazy as to omit to mention the need for a catalyst), doesn't mean that something else, say off-hand a clay mineral, couldn't have been doing something similar at a crucial time in the past.
Except that last week's New Scientist noted that clay particles form through the degradative action of bacteria on soil - but I get the principle.
Incidentally, I think it's generally held that RNA came first, acting as both a catalyst and hereditary material, perhaps assisted by short chains of amino acids or phosphorylated cofactors, and both proteins and DNA turned up later. So possibly you only have to account for the emergence of one group of self-replicating molecules.
--------------------
Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andyjoneszz:
Jumping back into the chemistry bit of the discussion, I'm not so sure that it is all necessarily a Chicken & Egg Show.
Just because ribosomes are the only things catalysing a particular reaction nowadays (and I shouldn't have been so lazy as to omit to mention the need for a catalyst), doesn't mean that something else, say off-hand a clay mineral, couldn't have been doing something similar at a crucial time in the past.
It's still a chicken and egg - you're suggesting an egg substitute to get the show of the ground.
Of course, to synthesise protein you need more than just the ribosome - you need transfer RNA to tag the amino acids as well. So it's not so much chicken and egg - more like two chickens and an egg.
But granted, if someone could show that clay - or metallic ions - or some other inert substance could substitute for ribosomal RNA, that would be a big leap forward.
Given how specialised ribosomes are (encoded protein as well as RNA) I think it would be a push... but stranger things have happened, I guess.
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
So possibly you only have to account for the emergence of one group of self-replicating molecules.
Except RNA isn't self-replicating.
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But granted, if someone could show that clay - or metallic ions - or some other inert substance could substitute for ribosomal RNA, that would be a big leap forward.
If some (fairly common) ion on a mineral surface, or similar, could be shown to catalyse (or in some other manner enable) some part of the pathways necessary for life as we know it that would be a major step forward. Even if that mechanism was very inefficient compared to the ribosomal RNA, as long as the process that would incorporate it could eventually generate ribosomal RNA it would be OK. It would allow the rest of the chicken to start to form without the egg, or is that egg without a chicken? Just because the system currently uses a highly efficient system of ribosomal RNA, that doesn't mean that that's the only way it could work. Which is part of the trap that the ID concept of irreducible complexity falls into - just because a system currently requires several specialised components doesn't mean that a similar (though less efficient) system couldn't have used something else in place of one or more of those components; so long as it's possible for a new mechanism to develop that a) replaces a component and b) is more efficient then evolution will do the rest.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
So possibly you only have to account for the emergence of one group of self-replicating molecules.
Except RNA isn't self-replicating.
Doesn't have to be RNA, though, there are various plausible scaffolds of other, simpler self-replicating molecules which could kick the whole thing off. They wouldn't be here now, any more than London runs on a collection of dirt tracks and wooden boats.
It's audacious of us to think we can work out what happened four billion years ago, but not so long ago people thought starlight could tell us nothing.
R
--------------------
I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Questioning Sophia
Apprentice
# 11085
|
Posted
Hi Andyjonezz ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by andyjoneszz:
Just because ribosomes are the only things catalysing a particular reaction nowadays (and I shouldn't have been so lazy as to omit to mention the need for a catalyst), doesn't mean that something else, say off-hand a clay mineral, couldn't have been doing something similar at a crucial time in the past.
This is still very much at the testing stage, as far as I know. However, it's something of a challenge to the sort of argument that claims that it is in principle impossible to conceive of the ingredients of biological systems arising other than from already extant life forms.
Ideas based on tholins are another version of the same challenge, really.
P.S. Can't remember who mentioned sugars, but yes, they would be the weakest evidential link in my hypothetical soup brew. [/QB]
I mentioned chicken and egg in the context of how it looks at present, I would love to know how this little paradox is resolved. that's the challenge I think, trying to figure it out.
shalom
Sophie
Posts: 11 | From: Hove | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
It's audacious of us to think we can work out what happened four billion years ago
Perhaps, but that didn't stop the big bang theorists.
I'm not sure what kind of self-replicating molecules you are thinking of that might start the thing off - they would need to interact with RNA/DNA/protein synthesis in some way to "start the thing off" in any sense.
And I don't see why they wouldn't be around today - much of the evolutionary tree is, in some form or other.
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Even if that mechanism was very inefficient compared to the ribosomal RNA, as long as the process that would incorporate it could eventually generate ribosomal RNA it would be OK.
I think that's right. I'm suggesting it's a real impasse though even thinking of a fairly inefficient mechanism - but it's not my area and for all I know someone may have a good experimental window on this in the last few years.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:
So possibly you only have to account for the emergence of one group of self-replicating molecules.
Except RNA isn't self-replicating.
But it could be, unlike (as far as we know) protein or DNA
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
They don't behave like self-replicating evolution driving particles unless they first start to make up a biological life form.
That might be a tautology depending on how we define "life"
quote:
If you leave amino-acids in solution, peptides will never form. Not even in small concentrations.
Actually that's not true. Amino acids can spontaneously form small peptides. Though not very interesting ones. Personally I'm pretty convinced that proteins are NOT the basic molecules of life, nucleotides are. Proteins were, I think, added later.
Amino acids and small peptides would have been around from the begining probably, but not as large proteins, and certainly not as information carrying molecules.
quote:
On the other hand, DNA does spontaneously polymerise - up to a point - and so I think most theories on this argue that DNA came first.
Most people think RNA was first now.
quote:
If there's no space, Ken, a link might be good?
Well, its the plain old RNA-world idea really which I suspect you are all already familiar with.
And it doesn't, of course, provide an explanation fotr the emergence of the first life from non-living molecules - it is rather a model of a kind of life that could have preceded what we have now.
But when I get back to my other computer I can look up some essays I did last year & see if any of the references are worth dumping on you all!
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
|
Posted
Interesting to see the creationists feuding. Seems that the international branch of Creation Ministries International is actually honest (if misguided). Not only have they changed their name from the Creation Science Foundation (because they didn't do science), and not only did they correct Hovind, but Ken Ham (and Answers in Genesis) have fissioned away because they did not want to be "subject to an international representative system of checks/balances/peer review involving all the other offices bearing the same 'brand name'". In short, Ken Ham appears to want to say whatever he wants to advance the cause of evolution...
Answers in Genesis appear to have removed the reply to Hovind - but Creation Ministries International have kept their copy.
--------------------
My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ann
Curious
# 94
|
Posted
What the .... !!!
I trust they'll be giving equal time to elephants and turtles!
--------------------
Ann
Posts: 3271 | From: IO 91 PI | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Louise
Shipmate
# 30
|
Posted
It seems to be a false alarm due to bad reporting. It's one exam board OCR and their press release says
quote:
Creationism and 'intelligent design' are not regarded by OCR as scientific theories. They are beliefs that do not lie within scientific understanding.
and their syllabus (relevant bit in PDF p.35) seems to bear this out
quote:
Explain the main steps in Darwin's theory of natural
selection leading to the evolution or extinction of
organisms:
• presence of natural variation;
• competition for limited resources;
• 'survival of the fittest';
• inheritance of 'successful' adaptations;
• extinction of species unable to compete.
Explain the reasons why the theory of evolution by
natural selection met with an initially hostile
response (social and historical context).
Explain how Lamarck's idea of evolution by the
inheritance of acquired characteristics was
different from Darwin's theory and why it was
discredited:
• acquired characteristics do not have a
genetic basis.
Explain that over long periods of time the changes
brought about by natural selection may result in the
formation of new species.
Not time to break out the 'Angry Mob Supplies'* yet. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
cheers,
Louise
*Wallace and Gromit reference
--------------------
Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
Indeed - the curriculum places creationism extactly where it belongs - as an old, falsified, discredited theory that the intellectually honest should admit that they can only accept as a religious belief, not a scientific one.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
andyjoneszz
Shipmate
# 11045
|
Posted
Creationism is, I take it, an umbrella term for scientific theories which try to explain the mechanism by which God created the universe.
If a particular set of such theories is falsified and discredited, surely no-one at all should accept them? Such falsification has no necessary bearing on the faith position that God did indeed create the universe — somehow.
Posts: 83 | From: Durham, UK | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andyjoneszz:
Creationism is, I take it, an umbrella term for scientific theories which try to explain the mechanism by which God created the universe.
Specifically, how God supernaturally created the universe.
quote:
If a particular set of such theories is falsified and discredited, surely no-one at all should accept them?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But IME, very few creationists accept that it has been scientifically falsified. This is for two reasons:
1) Listening to LCWs (Lying Creationist Weasels) who twist, manipulate, bend and generally misrepresent the scientific evidence.
2) Not listening at all.
quote:
Such falsification has no necessary bearing on the faith position that God did indeed create the universe — somehow.
I find that most creationists can't cope with this. For them, if God didn't create supernaturally, then He didn't create at all.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
There's an interesting article in todays Guardian, Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins.
quote:
Anti-religious Darwinists are promulgating a false dichotomy between faith and science that gives succour to creationists
quote:
William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"
Assuming they haven't quoted people in such a way as to totally twist the meaning of what they actually said ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
Did we yet have this Doonesbury cartoon about Dead Horses? Whoops! I mean about "Intelligent Design"?
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
lightanddark
Apprentice
# 11020
|
Posted
Re the OCR GCSE syllabus: I wouldn't let OCR off the hook so easily. I suspect that this is being used as the thin end of the wedge by the creationist movement. They want to get recognition that creationism is science - so allowing it in science classes is dangerous*. The problem is that having it in the syllabus makes it much easier to misuse. There will be a few teachers and pupils who will try to make propaganda for creationism in class. Some teachers will be put under discrete pressure to cast doubt on Darwin's theory, and some pupils will be told what to say in class.
This idea presumably has some grounding in an idea of scientific debate. But you cannot argue against creationism on scientific grounds - it is a belief, not based on evidence. You can only effectively argue against creationism on religous grounds, by showing that it is both unnecessary and dangerous.
The whole idea is at best pointless, and at worse prone to misuse. So why is it there? Who was pushing the idea? Can anyone provide information on what was really going on?
*Of course, since creationism is not christianity, it should have no use in RE classes either, unless it is put forward as a religion in its own right? How about creative fiction classes?
Posts: 1 | From: Swansea | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lightanddark:
Re the OCR GCSE syllabus: I wouldn't let OCR off the hook so easily.
Well, if the OCR are serious about doing this right then they really do need to do it right. That is, make sure that the syllabus covers the whole issue - so not just Creationism/ID and Evolution as just an either/or scenario. But, the fact that a very large number of practicing scientist who are Christians (not to forget Christians who aren't practicing scientists, and the equally strong groupings among Islamic and Jewish scholars) that see no conflict at all between science and religion. Teach the whole lot, and in the process make it clear that this idea of a conflict is one that is only really held by the minority on the extremes - both the ID Creationists and the Dawkinesque Atheists.
quote:
I suspect that this is being used as the thin end of the wedge by the creationist movement.
I don't know whether the ID Creationist movement in the UK is strong enough to be a source for such an idea. But, they'll certainly try and take advantage of it. If the OCR go ahead with the idea, then it's beholden to the rest of us to make sure that the result is well balanced. It doesn't help our childrens education for us to do anything else.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
|
Posted
What OCR is intending to do is to give the IDers what they claim to want - teaching the controversy. In other words, including on the curriculum why creationism is wrong and stupid - and approximately comparable to the Flat Earth theory.
If teaching people that creationism is discredited gibberish and here's why it's gibberish is the thin end of the wedge, I don't think it's a creationist wedge.
--------------------
My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
I would have thought the way to teach about ID would be to teach about Paley's watch, and then show how since then we've discovered how natural processes give rise to apparent design.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
News from Canada:
University questions federal refusal of intelligent-design grant
It probably isn't as bad as it looks - seems to be more a case of a very poorly-written rejection letter. Note that the granting agency is not Canada's natural sciences and engineering granting agency (NSERC), but social studies and humanities (SSHRC). Cheers, OliviaG
--------------------
"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
quote:
citing among its reasons that he did not prove scientifically accepted evolutionary theory in his proposal.
Silly people. Proof is for whisky and maths, not science.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
Mathematics is the queen of the sciences. -Pascal
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
Queen or not, I would think the point remains that one can speak of "proofs" as being absolute in maths but not quite so easily in science.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
The Royal Society today issued a statement on evolution, creationism and intelligent design. It can be found here with an accompanying press release. It's good to see they got this point in quote:
Many people both believe in a creator and accept the scientific evidence for how the universe, and life on Earth, developed.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Queen or not, I would think the point remains that one can speak of "proofs" as being absolute in maths but not quite so easily in science.
Depends on the level of maths. Lower maths, yes. Transfinite maths, much less so.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
Never heard of it. Is it interesting?
So Karl could restate;
"Proof is for whisky and finite maths, not science"?
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
Question - if there infinite number whole numbers and an infinite number of fractions between whole numbers, how many fractions are there? And no matter how big your whole numbers, isn't it always going to be smaller - by a factor of infinity - than the total number of fractions?
In which case, isn't infinity an entirely useless concept?
C
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
There are indeed different infinities. The set of integers is infinite, as is the set of real numbers between any two integers. So the set of real numbers is an infinity of infinities.
Infinity is still a useful concept. Mathematicians will have to explain why.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
Just because I spent a while composing my reply, only to have the thread closed ... this is what I was about to add to a thread in Purgatory.
quote:
Originally posted by Panda:
He is trying to be cool and trendy, but his main point is that discussion on creationism seems to be pointless and entirely ignored by those who belive in evolution, and compares the suppression of debate on the subject to living under the Taliban.
Well, he has a point that the findings of "creation science" (or, indeed, Intelligent Design) are ignored by mainstream science. The vast majority of scientists, by necessity, concentrate on their own fields. Very few have time to engage with other fields, let alone areas of study that aren't even science (but try and pretend like they are). At least professionally. You'll always find plenty of scientists to engage in discussion of other stuff over a beer in the pub.
quote:
I don't want to get into an evolutionary wrangle, but I have a lot of trouble reconciling creationism with ordinary rational thought.
Creationism starts from a particular position. Namely that the Bible is the inerrant, directly inspired Word of God and that as such it cannot lie nor decieve. Creationists read the opening chapters of Genesis as literal history, and consider that any other reading casts into doubt the trustworthiness of the Bible to reveal the truth about God, and hence undermines the entire Christian faith. That is, in fact, a rational position to take; though not the only rational approach to Scripture.
From that starting point you're stuck with a very narrow range of rational options:
- The Earth was created in 6 days approximately 6000 years ago as recorded in Genesis, but in such a way as to appear very much older to scientific enquiry. Thus, belief in God and the truth of the Bible is a matter entirely of faith.
- The Earth was created in 6 days approximately 6000 years ago as recorded in Genesis, and contemporary science is in error. This is the view of most Young Earth Creationists, and the primary purpose of Creation Science is to point out the errors in conventional science and work towards correcting them.
- The Genesis account is of some form of recreation or reworking of a much older earth that somehow became void for God to work on. Scientific evidence of an old earth and evolution relates to this earlier earth. This is primarily supported by a hypothetical "gap" slipped into the opening verse, which is translated "the earth became formless and void".
- The "days" in Genesis are actually very much longer periods of time. So, although Creation was completed 6000 years ago, it took the billions of years science reveals. The biggest problems are that a) the sequence is wrong (according to contemporary science, and logic) and b) there's no evidence of a change such that the processes of creation stopped 6000 years ago.
Though I'd disagree with all of these views, they are rational developments of the starting premise of the reliability of Scripture. But, then again, I disagree with the starting premise too.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Virginia Woolf
Shipmate
# 11112
|
Posted
Alan, I've seen more than one fundamentalist Christian and a few Jewish creationists talk about a variation on #4, that the days of creation ('yeom', iirc) can be translated as "indefinite period of time", such as we might say, "in his day he was a gifted pianist". As with any language there can be many legitimate translations of a word.
At any rate, the idea these individuals had is not that creation finished 6000 years ago, but that Genesis is completely compatible with the modern scientific view ... but there are problems with translating such an old text wherein God was stating truth about the creation - but worded so simply it would be relevant even to the most unsophisticated.
I once watched as a fundamentalist geologist used this argument to completely demolish the positions of simpler Young Earth Creationists, but they didn't seem to notice and kept repeating their positions slightly re-worded.
I can't really subscribe to this view because there's just too much difference in the order of creation between the scientific and Genesis, but on the other hand it does seem closer to the scientific view than other creation myths from around the world.
For example you see the basic progression of Light (big bang?), waters, dry land "gathered into one place (Pangaea?) - the waters have the fish and the land starts with vegetation, then birds, then mammals, then Man.
So there are many variations of fundamentalist creationist beliefs, some of them quite rational as you noted, and some less divorced from evidence than YEC.
--------------------
Jesus saves.
Buddha empties.
Krishna recycles.
Posts: 150 | From: State of Jefferson, California | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanc
Shipmate
# 6355
|
Posted
quote:
by Alan Cresswell:
3. The Genesis account is of some form of recreation or reworking of a much older earth that somehow became void for God to work on. Scientific evidence of an old earth and evolution relates to this earlier earth. This is primarily supported by a hypothetical "gap" slipped into the opening verse, which is translated "the earth became formless and void".
quote:
by Virginia Woolf:
So there are many variations of fundamentalist creationist beliefs, some of them quite rational as you noted, and some less divorced from evidence than YEC.
Am one of those who believe in the 6 literal days of creation of "LIFE" on an already existing "without form and void" earth 6000 years or so ago.
I find it offensive that people who believe otherwise dismiss us as crakpots as if their belief about origin is airtight. They come on the table with a prejudice that my origin science is correct what ever may your theory be.
So what do shipmates think about us who has the position as I have stated above? Are we doing science when we gird ourselves with spades to verify that claim?
--------------------
I am, therefore I think.
Posts: 358 | From: Philippines | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
I just find it bizarre. We have plenty of fossils and other evidence of a world far more than 6000 years old that was not without form or void. Life has been around for millions of years. It's incontravertable.
I don't think you're doing science when you go off with a spade with the stated intention of resurrecting a model that was falsified hundreds of years ago, no.
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanc:
Am one of those who believe in the 6 literal days of creation of "LIFE" on an already existing "without form and void" earth 6000 years or so ago.
I find it offensive that people who believe otherwise dismiss us as crakpots as if their belief about origin is airtight. They come on the table with a prejudice that my origin science is correct what ever may your theory be.
So what do shipmates think about us who has the position as I have stated above? Are we doing science when we gird ourselves with spades to verify that claim?
I find it blasphemous as it makes God into a liar when he made his creation (or arguably makes him genocidal to re-make the world). The evidence that there has been life on this world for more than 6000 years is overwhelming.
You are only doing science if David Irving is doing history when he looks for evidence that the Holocaust didn't happen...
--------------------
My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
sanc said:
quote:
So what do shipmates think about us who has the position as I have stated above? Are we doing science when we gird ourselves with spades to verify that claim?
(pre-emptive apologies for what I fear is a long and somewhat rambling post)
As long as these spades you're girding yourself with are based on real scientific research and not selective use of information to back up what you already believe to be true, I'm interested. Sadly, I haven't seen any.
For instance...
There was once a non-denominational preacher who would set himself up on the public square at my (yes, liberal) college. He would stand there for several hours proclaiming, in a nutshell, that the entire campus was going ad infernum en masse because of our heretical belief in such things as gay marriage, legal access to abortion, women in the workplace, smoking, drinking, pornography, and yes, evolution. Needless to say, we all found this highly entertaining.
One of his arguments was that archaelogists had found fossilized seashells on the top of Mt Everest. Thus, we now know that the flood must have happened exactly as described in the bible, because clearly Mt Everest must have, at one time, been submerged.
This makes a lot of sense, if you assume a priori that Mt Everest was always standing exactly as it is today.
The trouble is that (to make a long story short) plate tectonics theory explains how the Himalayan mountains probably rose over a period of millions of years as the Indian and Asian continentaly plates collided with each other. Before that collision, there had been a seabed between them. Hence, the seashells.
Of course, to think about this theory requires that you think of time on a geological scale, and requires that you look at a large quantity of scientific evidence that has been collected and studied over decades; satellite images of the earth, measurements based on those images, rock samples, carbon dating, etc. Whatever you want to say about evolution, there is no shortage of evidence. And it all points roughly in the same direction.
The trouble with the fundamentalist argument about creation is that it only looks at one tiny part of the big picture and then generalizes from that to the entire creation.
It's kinda like a car salesman who tells you that the car is in great condition based on the fact that the ignition system works (conveniently ignoring the fact that the transmission's on the verge of failure, or that the fuel tank leaks, the back door doesn't open, etc).
I'll admit fallibility on this, but I have never seen any case for strict biblical creationism that wasn't like the one above, creatively using a few tiny motes of scientific data to make a sweeping generalization about the entire world.
If someone can come up with an argument for creationism that looks, sounds, smells, and feels like rigorous scientific research, I'd be interested. I just haven't heard one yet.
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Virginia Woolf
Shipmate
# 11112
|
Posted
quote:
I find it offensive that people who believe otherwise dismiss us as crakpots as if their belief about origin is airtight. They come on the table with a prejudice that my origin science is correct what ever may your theory be.
I don't think Young Earth Creationists are crackpots - they're not crazy, they simply haven't spent much time studying the scientific viewpoint vs the YEC. You may have read Christian tracts that criticized the standard scientific models, but you haven't spent any similar time reading and carefully considering the rebuttals of scientists .... or even what the scientists are actually saying. For example, among individuals like yourself I commonly hear the statement that "Darwin said we are all descended from apes" which isn't accurate and bears little relationship to what paleontologists actually teach.
YECs base their belief on authority, the authority of one of many literal interpreters of the Bible - often based on a particular translation such as ye olde King James. Evidence of any physical kind isn't seriously considered because the Bible is thought to trump any evidence outside it - they pick and choose geological evidence to support the Bible - if a fact contradicts Genesis it is simply discarded.
Scientists aren't slaves to authority, not even Darwin's, so much as they try to make sense of the considerable amount of evidence around us.
If you were to take a beginning geology and paleontology course at a local college, Sync, and then used that knowledge to carefully consider the debates between YECs and mainstream scientists, you might be very surprised.
Oh, I just noticed Mirrizin's post popping up, it's quite good.
--------------------
Jesus saves.
Buddha empties.
Krishna recycles.
Posts: 150 | From: State of Jefferson, California | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Virginia Woolf
Shipmate
# 11112
|
Posted
I apologize for misspelling your name, Sanc, but I only get about 5 seconds to edit my posts on this slow connection!
--------------------
Jesus saves.
Buddha empties.
Krishna recycles.
Posts: 150 | From: State of Jefferson, California | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Kepler's Puppet
Shipmate
# 4011
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Virginia Woolf:
I don't think Young Earth Creationists are crackpots - they're not crazy, they simply haven't spent much time studying the scientific viewpoint vs the YEC. You may have read Christian tracts that criticized the standard scientific models, but you haven't spent any similar time reading and carefully considering the rebuttals of scientists .... or even what the scientists are actually saying.
I can't speak for sanc's experience with the literature, but as a former YEC this is exactly how I ended up "changing sides" (or whatever more appropriate term one should use).
In the beginning I read only YEC stuff on origins, and as much as I could get my hands on. I found, though, that the YEC position was completely self contained and I was dissatisfied about the level of generalization-to-absurdity that I could identify even as a YEC myself. Then I started looking at not only what the creationists said about evolution but what the evolutionists said about creationism. Then I found that it wasn't as simple as two sides I was presented for a long time and there are many more nuanced views that were not even represented in what I had been reading and studying. I also identified a lot of questions that I had never thought to ask before and found answers from every direction that I did not expect when I set out. One day it all went Bang! and I settled to where I am now.
Reading about alternative ideas from the supporters of the ideas as well as from the dissenters taught me a whole lot that I would never have seen had I only read YEC literature. Even if everythign I read hadn't changed my mind (I know some intelligent, well meaning people who have done what I did without changing their ideas) it was still only fair to learn about people's ideas from the people who held those ideas rather than only from people with different ideas.
--------------------
Most Likely Lurking
Posts: 1447 | From: Dixie Land | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
JimS
Shipmate
# 10766
|
Posted
I think that it is a mistake to think that it is the fossil evidence which points to the Earth being ancient. Most fossils are dated by their relative position in the sequence, so Carboniferous fossils are presumably older than Jurassic fossils because they are always found below them.
At the beginning of the 20th century geologists wanted the Earth to be ancient so that all the processes which can be observed could be fitted in to the sequence, but it was only the discovery of radioactivity which allowed the sun to be more than 100,000 years old. Now all of physics points to the universe being ancient, and points to the Earth being 4.5 billion years old. It's not the fossils which say the Earth is old, it's the same physics which drives computers, watches etc. etc.
--------------------
Jim:Confused of Crewe
Posts: 137 | From: uk | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimS:
I think that it is a mistake to think that it is the fossil evidence which points to the Earth being ancient. Most fossils are dated by their relative position in the sequence, so Carboniferous fossils are presumably older than Jurassic fossils because they are always found below them.
Which gives me an opportunity to expose the sort of lies the LCWs (Lying Creationist Weasels) use to promote their bullshit.
Go to any LCW website and you will be told that:
"The fossils date the rocks and the rocks date the fossils. This is circular reasoning, therefore the dates are meaningless, the earth is young, Darwin was Satanically possessed, yada, yada, yada"
But the truth is rather different. The process happens like this:
1. Fossil FA is dated at between X million years and Y million years because it is always found in strata between volcanic intrusion VX and VY, radioisotope dated to X million years and Y million years.
2. Stratum SC is dated at between X million years and Y million years because it's between the two volcanic intrusions VX and VY.
3. Fossil FB is dated at between X million years and Y million years because it is found in the same strata as fossil FA
Spot the difference? This, folks, is the sort of lying the creationists use to promote their nonsense. The strongest evidence that YEC is a load of cobblers is the sheer volume of lies, misrepresentations and straight invention required to support it.
[ 25. April 2006, 08:58: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
I suppose I'm not really adding to the discussion, but this is pretty impressive: creationists spending $25 million on a creationist "museum."
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
|
Posted
I just have no suitable words for AiG. Not even words I could only post in Hell. Because of the sort of blatant dishonesty I described in my last post, frankly I find the YEC machine to be a disgusting bunch. I often wonder if they know it's bullshit and are just conning the gullible.
[ 26. April 2006, 09:04: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
--------------------
Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
|
Posted
I have to agree. I think it's as much about power as it is about theology. The belief in that sort of biblical interpretation is so freqently tied up with lockstep agreement on so many other political and social issues...it's kinda creepy. I've met people who talk that talk and I don't doubt their personal sincerity, but I wonder how deeply someone has to delude him or herself to really believe it. The leaps of faith some people put themselves through are astronomical. One wonders what the benefit is.
--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Callan
Shipmate
# 525
|
Posted
It's all a bit like 1984 where everyone effortlessly convinces themselves that the chocolate ration has gone up to 20g per month, rather than down from 30g per month. Orwell derived his observations from the way that Communists in the UK effortlessly went from an anti-Nazi position to a defence of Nazism in the aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet pact. If one thinks of creationism - whatever its guise - as being a political position then it is no more incomprehensible than the fibs politicians invariably tell in order to defend the party line.
Of course, if one regards it as theology or science it is incomprehensible as both are supposed to have higher standards of truth. But if one regards it not as a disinterested investigation as to how the world works but a piece of specious political opportunism, it all makes sense. Hovind, Gish, Dembski and their ilk are laughable as guides to the cosmos. But they are entirely successful as hacks.
--------------------
How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
|
Posted
Meanwhile, Kitzmiller rumbles on - Judge Jones has made it to the cover of Time!
From the AP report
"...[he] was named to Time's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century, published Monday.
Jones' likeness is on the cover along with those of President Bush, Pope Benedict XVI and Oprah Winfrey. "I was dumbstruck," he said, but he kept the honor in perspective.
"This will pass and I will be back to the more mundane things," Jones said. "Andy Warhol said everybody gets 15 minutes of fame. ...I may be in minute 14."
In other Kitzmiller news: Of Pandas and People is going to be reissued under another title, by the way, as "The Design Of Life", although whether this will do it any good following the mauling it got in the court case is an interesting question. Dembski has changed jobs and is moving to Texas, and Behe's statements about the evolvability of the immune system have provoked fascinating responses.
The gift that keeps on giving...
R
--------------------
I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Petaflop
Shipmate
# 9804
|
Posted
I was doing a little thinking about protein sequences the other day, and their relationship to evolution. (I am in the fortunate position of being able to check them against deposited experimental data).
In the course of this I came across this site, where you can select a few haemoglobin sequences and have a program calculate a phylogenetic trees from their similarities. But haemoglobin is just one protein among milltions. There are gigbytes of publicly available protein sequence data and it is growing at an alarming rate. That is a lot of information, which any lay person can pick up and investigate with the most basic computational tools, or even by hand. We are at a potential 'Gutenbergisation' of evolutionary research.
So the question I arrived at is: What assumptions are made in going from protein sequence data to a theory of evolution? Or in other terms, if we didn't have the work of Darwin and fossils and just had protein sequence data, would we arrive at the same model, and how quickly?
As a starting point, I found this at Berkley
quote:
There are three basic assumptions in cladistics:
- Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor.
- There is a bifurcating pattern of cladogenesis.
- Change in characteristics occurs in lineages over time.
The first assumption seems undesirable to me: I would prefer to look at the data and infer a common ancestor on the basis of similarity, however this would depend on being able to demonstrate the possibility of a completely unrelated sequence with gives rise to a functionally equivalent protein - a difficult argument to make.
The third point is a question of mutation. There are lots of obvious illustrations of mutations (e.g. eye colour), but they are obfuscated by the competing effects of recessive genes and so on. It would be nice to be able to illustrate this more clearly.
And the second point is the old question of speciation. Seagulls have an interesting contribution to make here, but I need to read up on that.
So how big a leap does each of these assumptions involve? And what other assumptions have I made and overlooked?
Posts: 650 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
