branwen@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Karen) writes:
>Many people have posted in strong reaction against my claim that creation is a
>viable theory.  In analogy, they show state that there are still those who
>claim the Earth is flat.  This analogy is invalid.

What is this theory of creation?

>The Earth can be shown, through photographs and a fully fueled airplane that
>the world is in fact round.  The Earth is round.  This is not a theory.  It is
>a fact that has been shown to be true.  It cannot be disproven because it has
>been unrefutably proven.  A round Earth is no longer a theory.

It was used as an analogy because the uneducated, ignorant masses only
reason for believing it to be flat was because that was what the church
taught.

>Evolution has not been proven, and the evidence of evolution has not disproven
>the basic tenets of creationism.

Evolution exists because it was the name given to the observations
that things change over time.

And evolution WORKS dammit. For example petroleum geologists use the
principles of evolution to locate the oil that you burn in your car.
Modern medicine assumes evolution to develop vaccines etc.

There is enough independent corroborating evidence for evolution, from
other fields to make it widely accepted.

You don't need evolution to disprove creationism. I don't care how the
universe started. I have read enough creation myths from long-gone
cultures to recognise that the stories in Genesis are just that:
creation myths.

In fact there are two separate, intertwined stories in Genesis for both
the Eden and flood myths. These are based on earlier Sumerian and
Babylonian stories. The Gilgamesh epic makes fascinating reading.

But if you believe that these stories are somehow true in spite of all
their internal contradictions, let alone the evidence against them,
you have many awkward questions to answer, like:

Where did all the water come from, and where did it go after the flood?

Why do other civilisations that existed at the time not record this flood,
and why do their records continue through the time of the alleged flood,
indicating that they were not destroyed?

Why do Egyptian pyramids that are older than the flood not show signs of
having been immersed?

Need I go on?

>                                  These tenets are that God created the
>Earth and heavens and populated the planet.

Which "God"? Krishna? Zeus?

How?

>                            Evolution does not disprove these
>statements.

I agree. Nothing disproves them. Can you prove that the universe and
everything in it were not created last Thursday by a god that faked
all the evidence to make it look much older?

This raises an interesting theological problem. Why would a god who
created a young earth make it look old? This would make it a liar,
which is no concern of mine, because I have no reason to believe in
any god, let alone yours. How do you reconcile this?

>             Evolution is a theory.

But it is a theory which is supported by all the evidence, and it makes
predictions which work. The answers it provides make almost all of modern
science work.

If it is ever replaced (which I doubt), the alternative will have to
explain everything that evolution currently explains, and explain why
unrelated fields that RELY ON IT, still work.

>                                     Some of the conclusions drawn by
>evolutionists are held as incorrect by creationists.

What's an evolutionist? I'd never heard the word before I moved to the
US, where it is used by certain religious groups to describe anybody who
doesn't agree with their literal interpretation of part of the bible.

Incidentally, how do you know which parts of the Bible to believe, and
why?

For instance, did God (2 Samuel 24:1) or Satan (1 Chron 21:1) move David
to number Israel?

>                                                      Creationists do not
>accept that man decended from apes.

Well, the evidence is that they had a common ancestor. But fundamentalists
of all religions have never let evidence stand in the way of their
religious beliefs.

>                                     The fact that evolutionists conclude that
>man did does not disprove creationism.

No. Creationism is disproved much more easily by the internal
inconsistencies in the stories for example was man created before
or after the animal and plant life?

>Evolution is not a scientific fact.  Theories are not fact.  Fact is law.

You don't know what a scientific fact is, do you?

>Theories are unproven, by definition.  Theories remain viable until they are
>disproven (or falsified in the language of Popper).

So far so good, but as more and more evidence is found that supports the
theory, especially its predictions, the closer it becomes to fact.
Evolution is this kind of theory.

>                                                     Creationism has not been
>falsified.

Not true. As an example, there was not a global flood that destroyed all
(not on the ark) life during the timescale claimed, because other
civilisations were not affected by it, so if there was a flood then it
was not global.

>            Evolution has not been falsified.

I agree. The person who falsifies it will be famous for a long time and
probably get the Nobel prize. But it won't be falsified by religious
dogma.

>                                               That the adherents of each
> theory
>are largely divided into two camps (with a smaller camp of overlaps--those who

>accept both as compatible) further scores the validity of the two theories.
>Until either is falsified, both should be presented as viable.  The fact that
>scientific evidence does not exist for creationism does not hold water.  There

Not true. There is NO evolution vs creation battle outside the minds of
the religious fundamentalists.

The ONLY reason everybody else bothers with the creationists is because
they are politically powerful, and want to enforce their dogma on
everybody else.

>is a great deal of evidence that creationism is valid--mankind appears to have
>originated in Africa, the continent in which Eden is believed to have been.
>There are others, but I am not out to prove creation is true.

There is NO evidence for creationism outside the conflicting creation
stories in Genesis. Africa is a big continent. You'll have to do better
than that.

>Evolution has a great deal going for it, but the greatest of these is
>that a great number of people are pushing for it.  Creation is slowly
>being cast aside by the scientists of today.  Science is the religion of
>the 20th century.

No. The best thing evolution has going for it, is that IT EFFING WORKS.

Science is not a religion. Nothing is taken on faith. It starts with
assumptions and then tries to disprove them. One of its strengths is
that the theories are constantly revised in the light of new evidence
until they no longer need to be. Can you say as much for your dogma?

>Perhaps in the 21st, it too will be cast aside.

Only if civilisation breaks down and there is a return to the dark ages.

>Karen

Chris