Creationism and the Presidency
Creationism is its pure form is the belief that the word was created about 10,000 years ago and the fossil record exists only because of the great flood during Noah’s era. The question that I would personally like to have answered is whether the President of the United States is, or is not, a subscriber to this notion. In an age of scientific discoveries and daily breakthroughs can we afford to have leaders who think that scientific method itself is a hoax? This particular webpage tries to examine the issue and includes some of the primary pro-creationist information.
Since Bush is a born-again Christian of the new style, the liklihood that he is a creationist is quite high. In fact, I’d be shocked if he was not. But except for a Frontline documentary on Bush’s beliefs, we know very little. This is something I’d like to know. I think it’s important. Has he ever come out and told anyone? If he thinks the whole thing is bogus it might offend his flock. So is he misleading them? Or does he believe in creationism and is ashamed of his belief? It just seems strange to me that a man so religious never lets on about the basics. I want to know. And while we’re at it can we find out whether he subscribes to “talking in tongues” too.
related links:
Bad Science
Adam and Eve Toast?
In an effort to respect John’s request for succinctness, to get back to basics here, and to determine whether or not belief in a creator is cause for a President to deemed unfit for the position, I’d like to ask one simple question: Can someone tell me how science can prove that someone like God doesn’t exist?
Jeff said:
I see no need for the earth after creation to have been completely devoid of fossils underground.
Jeff, I appreciate your support for creationism… and I especially liked your links to some very good and relevant web sites (like the Discovery Institute). However, for the record, I loathe statements like this. 1st, you will find that these types of wishy-washy, compromise in silly places type of beliefs are very representative of those creationists who have very little depth and haven’t spent much time researching or thinking this through. Ironically, you will never find such ludicrous positions/beliefs from any of the scholars at the Discovery Institute, for example.
Consider that in John 3:12, Jesus says: “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”
Or, to quote Hugh Ross (btw, I’m a fan of his, but I differ sharply with some of his views)”
To put it another way, if the Church demonstrates itself to be unreliable in the interpretation of scientific matters which are subject to verification by unbelievers, it undermines, by association, the credibility of our claims that unbelievers need to pay attention to the Bible’s statements about spiritual matters which are not empirically verifiable by unbelievers. If Christians’ claims about physical reality cannot be trusted, what grounds do unbelievers have to trust our claims about spiritual realities? Demonstrably false “science” gives the lost “reasons to reject” the Gospel — “reasons to disbelieve” rather than “reasons to believe.”
I think that when creationists (1) make facts fit how they think they should fit ..or.. (2) do silly and preposterous reconciliations between evolution and creationism… they end up doing more damage to the cause of creationism (and the gospel) than good.
That is one reason that I carefully support all my assertions in this thread with evidence that is either irrefutable or that the evolutionist cannot answer very well, if at all.
John asked:
I’ve seen some of these folks promote something like 4000-6000 years? Who is doing these calculations?
Answer: Bishop Ussher, and his contemporary, Sir John Lightfoot. Apparently, Lightfoot published his calculation of 4004-years in 1644, while Ussher didn’t publish his calculation of 4004-years until 1658 – but Ussher’s calculations reached a wider audience, and became “canon” – or nearly so.
one link: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ussher.htm
Most “young earthers” seem to use these numbers – or similar ones, based on modern biblical scholarship.
Wait, Rob, about your statement and the link you provided:How did ancient civilizations in Mexico know how to make structually correct dinosaur figurines which were discovered in the 1940s when our scientists were not nearly as accurate about this in the 1940s?
Do you REALLY think that dinosaurs were alive 2500 years ago?
I want to know, because that way I can save some time, and completely skip reading your nonsensical posts and links.
Still trying to rest…
Rob McEwen wrote:
I think that when creationists (1) make facts fit how they think they should fit ..or.. (2) do silly and preposterous reconciliations between evolution and creationism… they end up doing more damage to the cause of creationism (and the gospel) than good.
Well stated. That is the main reason I don’t take most “creationists” seriously – they are acting in defense of their faith, and often in seemingly desperate defense of their faith. They are not trying to argue for the “abstract” idea of a creator involved in developing life on earth, they are championing the Biblical creator. As I am – best guess of a label that fits – Agnostic, using the Bible as a reference in a scientific argument does not carry much weight with me.
Rob goes on to state:
That is one reason that I carefully support all my assertions in this thread with evidence that is either irrefutable or that the evolutionist cannot answer very well, if at all.
Which is why I have enjoyed reading Rob’s comments and links. I’m always interested in reviewing evidence that is “irrefutable”.
Thomas,
First, the particular times that I lean on probability as evidence strongly correlate with those times where Evolutionary theory is devoid of proof or “laboratory examples” and instead provides highly speculative, hypothetical, and sketchy models.
Also, most of the really good critiques of Irreducible Complexity give Behe much more respect and acknowledge that he has made some genuinely good points. Still, Behe’s critics’s responses require evolution to do more and, thus, to work faster. Spetner proved that experiments/observations in the lab practically never (if ever) yield mutations which add complexity. Therefore, at the least, “irreducible complexity” ends up strengthening Dr. Spetner’s already rock solid case. How? This is analogous to a car which already has no engine and which now has an even more distant destination.
The kind of science you describe is not interested in the truth, but rather attempts to rubber-stamp naturalist philosophy, at all costs and despite the scientific evidence.
This is where you lose me. I see this so-called refutation with the following moniker:
Jonathan Wells, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular & Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
This clearly implies that this guy (a Christian conservative) is associated with Cal. He’s not. He went there and got a degree like the hundreds of thousands of others, myself included. He’s not in the department as implied by this. He taught some during a postdoctoral stint, that probably meant he was a TA or teaching assistant at Cal. This sort of misleading attribution is only used to bolster credibility and doing it this way is highly dishonest. I suspect research into any of this will show a lot more dishonesty than honesty which is ironic since these folks are so holier-than-thou about all this.
John,
I think that trueorigin.org was trying to explain, as stated in Wells’s bio, that he “has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley”. However, you do make a good point that the heading at trueorigin.org implies more. However, it is very likely that this was a much more innocent mistake than you suggest. In fact, I’ll even extend your point by admitting that Wells’s went into his studies with a pre-bias towards proving creationism. Nevertheless, Well does have a knack for explaining the best creationists arguments and evidence very well and that is why I reference him… and I’ll let his arguments and evidence stand on their own apart from his biography… (which, BTW, “ain’t nothing to be ashamed of”)
But… to be sure, many other creationists that are respected scientists (particularly Spetner and Behe), were very committed and convinced Evolutionists (with no particular “axe to gind”) who only became Creationists when the evidence (eventually) pointed them in that direction. For example, read this about Behe.
Homology is another corroborate piece of evidence. It is another field of study for which creationism has no explanation. Creationism has no explanation for vestigial organs. Your famed professor completely overlooked the fact there must be a reason the DNA of vastly different animals produces similar structures. The only explanation is that all organisms are related by decent.
Perhaps we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do you believe that species can adapt and change?
Let’s take an example of that adaptation. In 1859, 12 European wild rabbits were imported to Australia. By 1886, their decedents were colonizing new areas of southeastern Australia at a rate of 66 miles a year in all directions. By 1907, they had reached the west coast. So, sometime in the 1940’s biologists came up with the idea of using myxomatosis, a viral disease normally carried by mosquitoes. This disease was non-lethal to South American rabbits but was fatal for European rabbits and harmless to all other lifeforms. By the 1950’s it had wiped out most of the rabbit population. Now, what would creationism theorize would come next? How would creationism scientifically postulate what would happen? Evolution, as it turns out, as a very simple explanation. The rabbits would adapt and a variant of the rabbit would take over that was resistant to the disease. Indeed that is exactly what happened. Creationism has no scientific explanation for this phenomenon. It has no predictive ability to determine what would happen.
Your arguments against Darwinism are completely irrelevant. Darwinism is simply an explanation for *how* evolution might have occured. It says nothing about *whether* it occured or not. Your link only shows an example of why Darwinism might not be true. Thus, you have provided no evidence that refutes the claim that evolution happened.
As I said, evidence of evolution can be established and tested in today’s world. We can take two groups of animals of the same species, separate them into areas of different environmental influence and they will eventually evolve differently and some cases into different species. The only explanation is that they adapted and changed.
>“Older forms of life are less complex that more recent forms.”
That is not a tautology. Perhaps you don’t understand what it means for a statement to be tautology. “Tomorrow is another day.” That is a tautology. It is a self-evident statement. If you accept that older forms of life are less complex than more recent forms of life, then you are accepting that evolution happened.
Creationism as a hypothesis has no scientific means to establish its authenticity as a scientific theory. This is in part because it cannot be falsified and thus is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Creationism is not science. Regardless of whether you believe in evolution, this is a cold, hard fact. It should not be taught as science. It should not be accepted as science.
Evolution does have mountains of evidence from a variety of fields of study that all substantiate the theory that species adapt and change based on environmental changes and, in general, variants that are best suited to their environment survive. Numerous fields substantiate evolution’s predictive value including Homology, Paleontology, Paleonanthropology, Biology, Genetics, Cosomology, Chemistry, Stratigraphy, Biogeography, Embryology the list goes on.
DEBATES OVER THE VALIDITY OF CREATIONISM IS OVER. It’s idiotic. Unless the conversation is about BUSH and creationism all posts will be rejected at the moderation level.
I did find an interesting and recent article at Wired.com about how scientists view Bush (Election: Science Plays Politics”). But, admittedly, the article doesn’t portray Bush very well (no surprises, when has academia every liked Conservatives?). But most interesting is that I didn’t see anything about creationism/Evolution anywhere in that article. As others have said, there is too much to lose and not enough to gain for either presidential candidate to “show their cards” on this one.
BTW, I’m sad our side-bar debate has been cut short, but I understand and most of Thomas’s last two posts were already answered in my previous posts: #50, #58, see links in post #55, and especially post #18.