N1029676's List: Evolution V Creationism

• Simply stated, the idea of "creation with appearance of age" means that when God created, those things which He created might superficially have looked as if they had a history

• IF there was a recent creation, then to produce immediate functionality — with  mature humans (not helpless infants), complete ecosystems, and our energy-giving  sun — some appearance of age would  be necessary, because some   features of the world would necessarily appear to be older than  their actual age.

• Macro-evolution is what Darwin claimed, and it never happens. Here comes the deception part. Evolutionists fill our textbooks, news reports and peer review publications with legitimate examples of observed Micro-evolution and no examples of observed Darwinian.....or Macro-evolution.
• animal would have to produce offspring with NEW, ADDITIONAL genetic information. That has never been observed in the history of mankind.
• there has never once been an example of even one animal giving birth to an offspring with new, additional genetic information.
• What's so dishonest though about this whole debate is that evolutionists fill our textbooks and science journals with “examples” of evolution occurring all the time, but if you read what the actual examples are, you see that they are all the “Micro-evolution” examples from earlier.

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• Creationism is the religious belief^[1] that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic God.
• To a large extent, the early Christian Church Fathers read creation history as an allegory, and followed Philo's ideas of time beginning with an instantaneous creation, with days not meant literally. Christian orthodoxy rejected the second century Gnostic belief that Genesis was purely allegorical, but without taking a purely literal view of the texts. Thus Origen believed that the physical world is ‘literally’ a creation of God, but did not take the chronology or the days as ‘literal’. Similarly, Saint Basil in the fourth century while literal in many ways, described creation as instantaneous and timeless, being immeasurable and indivisible.^[31]
• Augustine of Hippo in The Literal Meaning of Genesis was insistent that Genesis describes the creation of physical objects, but also shows creation occurring simultaneously, with the days of creation being categories for didactic reasons, a logical framework which has nothing to do with time. For him, light was the illumination of angels rather than visible light, and spiritual light was just as literal as physical light. Augustine emphasized that the text was difficult to understand and should be reinterpreted as new knowledge became available. In particular, Christians should not make absurd dogmatic interpretations of scripture which contradict what people know from physical evidence.^[32]
• Theistic evolution, or evolutionary creation, asserts that "the personal God of the Bible created the universe and life through evolutionary processes."^[144]

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• Science is not determined by popular vote, public opinion, or religious beliefs. Opting-out of learning specific scientific theories such as evolution is not an appropriate accommodation of a student’s religious beliefs.

• The first statement implies that a theory should be interpreted as just a guess or a hunch, whereas in science, the term theory is used very differently.
• The second statement implies that theories become facts, in some sort of linear progression. In science, theories never become facts. Rather, theories explain facts.
• The third misconception is that scientific research provides proof in the sense of attaining the absolute truth. Scientific knowledge is always tentative and subject to revision should new evidence come to light.

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• Evolution is not disputed within the scientific community and academia, where the level of support for evolution is essentially universal,^{[12][13][14][15][16][17]}
• Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.

   

  —National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism^[19]
• More recently, the intelligent design movement has taken an anti-evolution position which avoids any direct appeal to religion. Scientists argue that intelligent design does not represent any research program within the mainstream scientific community, and is essentially creationism.^[65][66] Its leading proponent, the Discovery Institute, made widely publicised claims that it was a new science, though the only paper arguing for it published in a scientific journal was accepted in questionable circumstances and quickly disavowed in the Sternberg peer review controversy, with the Biological Society of Washington stating that it did not meet the journal's scientific standards, was a "significant departure" from the journal's normal subject area and was published at the former editor's sole discretion, "contrary to typical editorial practices".^[67]
• President Bush commented endorsing the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution "I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught … so people can understand what the debate is about."^[68][69]
• This effort resulted in intelligent design, which sought to avoid legal prohibitions by leaving the source of creation to an unnamed and undefined intelligent designer, as opposed to God.^[73]
• In science, explanations are limited to those based on observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not a part of science.

   

  —National Academy of Sciences, Science and Creationism^[82]
• The argument that evolution is a theory, not a fact, has often been made against the exclusive teaching of evolution.^[83] The argument is related to a common misconception about the technical meaning of "theory" that is used by scientists. In common usage, "theory" often refers to conjectures, hypotheses, and unproven assumptions. However, in science, "theory" usually means "a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena."^[84]

• Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

   

  —Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory^[85]

   

   

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• This is generally argued by analogy, by arguing that evolution and religion have one or more things in common, and that therefore evolution is a religion.
• Creationists also dispute science's interpretation of genetic evidence in the study of human evolution. They argue that it is a "dubious assumption" that genetic similarities between various animals imply a common ancestral relationship, and that scientists are coming to this interpretation only because they have preconceived notions that such shared relationships exist. Creationists also argue that genetic mutations are strong evidence against evolutionary theory because the mutations required for major changes to occur would almost certainly be detrimental.^[45]
• The evolution of whales has, however, been documented in considerable detail, with Ambulocetus, described as looking like a three-metre long mammalian crocodile, as one of the transitional fossils.
• The scientific community points to numerous flaws in these experiments, to the fact that their results have not been accepted for publication by any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and to the fact that the creationist scientists conducting them were untrained in experimental geochronology.^[132][133]
• Opponents, being the overwhelming majority of the scientific community and science education organizations,^[142] reply that there is no scientific controversy and that the controversy exists solely in terms of religion and politics.^[139][141]

  • Check the stats on the 'overwhelming majority'. Check consistency with previous Gallup Poll.
• On March 27, 2009, the Texas Board of Education, by a vote of 13 to 2, voted that at least in Texas, textbooks must teach intelligent design alongside evolution, and question the validity of the fossil record. Don McLeroy, a dentist and chair of the board, said, "I think the new standards are wonderful … dogmatism about evolution" has sapped "America's scientific soul." According to Science magazine, "Because Texas is the second-largest textbook market in the United States, publishers have a strong incentive to be certified by the board as 'conforming 100% to the state's standards'."^[150]
• In Shermer's online reflection while he was explaining that he won the debate with intellectual and scientific evidence he felt it was "not an intellectual exercise," but rather it was "an emotional drama", with scientists arguing from "an impregnable fortress of evidence that converges to an unmistakable conclusion", whilst for creationists it is "a spiritual war".^[158]
• Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact — which [creationists] are very good at. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief.

   

  —Stephen Jay Gould, lecture 1985^[160]

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