The Creation vs Evolution debate thread...

[Fish]

Duble post

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

,Arp was not ignored back in 1960, he was given two awards for his work,,the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy by the American Astronomical Society and Newcomb Cleveland Prize.

My point was that Arp was a heavy hitter recognized by the establishment until he was marginalized for his conclusions based on his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966, well after his awards. You seek, by ignoring the chronology of events, to imply that he was not banished, but endorsed by big science. Nothing could be further from the truth, and your portrayal is really cute, but easily refuted. My point is that accepted scientists can be banished for heretical activity. Fred Hubble himself was censored when a speech traditionally published by the Astronomical Journal was omitted where he dared to agree with Arp. That's political oppression, not dispassionate peer review. Idealized portrayals of the process are just plain silly and untrue.

Arp originally proposed his theories in the 1960s, however, telescopes and astronomical instrumentation have advanced greatly; the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, multiple 8-10 meter telescopes (such as those at Keck Observatory) have become operational, and detectors such as CCDs are now more widely employed. These new telescopes and new instrumentation have been utilized to examine QSOs further. QSOs are now generally accepted to be very distant galaxies with high redshifts. Moreover, many imaging surveys, most notably the Hubble Deep Field, have found many high-redshift objects that are not QSOs but that appear to be normal galaxies like those found nearby. Moreover, the spectra of the high-redshift galaxies, as seen from X-ray to radio wavelengths, match the spectra of nearby galaxies (particularly galaxies with high levels of star formation activity but also galaxies with normal or extinguished star formation activity) when corrected for redshift effects.
Nonetheless, Arp has not wavered from his stand against the Big Bang and still publishes articles stating his contrary view in both popular and scientific literature, frequently collaborating with Geoffrey Burbidge and Margaret Burbidge.

I'll leave out your references. You just smog the air with irrelevancies, all of which are true but do not bear on the case at all. HST could discover little green men but that would not reflect on the evidence that Arp presented. Arp's website specifically brings up discoveries that have modified his original theories and discoveries that reinforce his theories as well. Harlton Arp is no flat earther--he's a scientist, operating as such. First rule of science is that all ideas must be falsifiable.

Science is a very nasty game. These people are brilliant, they are absolutely convinced that they are right, and they have no scruples about destroying each other (literally sometimes) to get ahead. Many of them do not play well with others. Underneath the thin veneer of proper behavior is a monster that eats its own.

Also, I did not produce one example of peer review used as a weapon against non-conformers, I produced three among dozens and dozens. I agree that peer review, like all authority, is a necessary thing to separate science from pseudoscience. However, like all forms of authority, it is subject to abuse and the very power of the process attracts those who would abuse that power, just as the honorable profession of school teacher attracts pedophiles. Peer review is not the arbiter of truth. It is just one aspect of the search for that truth. Questioning the authority of the peer review process serves two purposes: to keep or make the peer review process honest and without regard to the personal stakes of the reviewers, and to give proper regard for the heretics who alone will take any field to its next level of orthodoxy. Heretics alone are responsible for all progress, no matter now irritating they may be.

Make no mistake, abuse of authority is not confined to science. Read Truth, Lies and O-Rings. The corporate world and the world of government bureaucracy is full of abusive characters too. Banks, which are supposed to take the term "fiduciary responsibility" seriously now have computer programs to purposely damage you, their customer, by exploiting an overdraft by paying out checks not in the order they are received, but in an order calculated to bounce the greatest possible number of checks!

Another large megabank entered into a partnership with criminals to find accounts in all bank chains, not just their own, of customers who had died and the account was abandoned. They then stole billions of dollars from those accounts. Caught by the federal government, they entered into a consent agreement which did not obligate them to find and refund that money to relatives. Only if a relative inquired, already knowing the customer's account number, social security number and balance were they required to refund. They were not required to provide any of the necessary information if asked. Source: clarkhoward.com, which names the bank involved.

All this is nothing new. I'm personally convinced that the situation was no better and most likely worse a hundred years ago, simply because it could all be better hidden then. We assume that what we don't know doesn't exist.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by OGjimKenobi

I propose we initiate a new rule requiring all evidence presented by either side to include references to peer reviewed research.

Exellent idea.


Ohh, and welcome.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

If there is one central tenent to any monotheistic religion is that God is perfect and man is fallible. All religions, being constructs of man, are therefore fallible as well.

The problem that arises is that all religions claim to be constructs of God, and therefore infallible. But if they disagree, only one can be right. And so they censure and finally kill each other, because their God is the only true one.

I find those who claim to speak for God as absurd as those who claim that God does not exist. Both are shining examples of Mans arrogance.

I wasn't always of that mind, but I get a little closer every day. My bottom line these days is "I don't know...and I don't think you do either".

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

My point was that Arp was a heavy hitter recognized by the establishment until he was marginalized for his conclusions based on his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966, well after his awards. You seek, by ignoring the chronology of events, to imply that he was not banished, but endorsed by big science. Nothing could be further from the truth, and your portrayal is really cute, but easily refuted. My point is that accepted scientists can be banished for heretical activity. Fred Hubble himself was censored when a speech traditionally published by the Astronomical Journal was omitted where he dared to agree with Arp. That's political oppression, not dispassionate peer review. Idealized portrayals of the process are just plain silly and untrue.

Peer review is not perfect, thats true, still it is the bast mankind has come up with. It is a brutal process, I agree. But Arp was not shunned because of his hypothesis, more probably because hypothesis was found to be inaccurate and lacking in corroborating evidence.

Anyhow, abuses of authority do happen within scientific circles and elsewhere, but to suggest that the process of peer peer review is a political tool foremost is little short of a conspiracy theory as it would sugest that those scientists reviewing papers for publication all cooperated to keep what you called heresy out. I find that a bit difficult to believe and in my own encounters with research scientists they do not resent being shown to be wrong as much as you seem to make it out to be (I could be misunderstanding you here), on the contrary, when proven to be mistaken they have shown gratitude because they have learned something. Granted, this is but anecdotal evidence and should be taken as such.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The problem that arises is that all religions claim to be constructs of God, and therefore infallible. But if they disagree, only one can be right. And so they censure and finally kill each other, because their God is the only true one.

Yep, it's pure human arrogance to actually believe that ones particular interpretation of the supreme being is the only possibly correct one. Don't they realize that religions are divinely inspired and not actually created by divinity? Their writings even say it themselves. After all it's the "Gospel according to John" or, the "Book of Joshua", in other words, a humans interpretation of what God said or did, not God himself saying or doing it. It is the word of God, one (or more) step removed.

But religions are more than just recitations of the word of God. They also serve as a code of conduct and a value system. Both necessary things for any human society to be viable.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Creation has evolved!

Excellent! Beat me to it

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Some years ago I was struck by the thought that not all people are Christians. I was about 12 and until that time, I thought the budhists, muslims, hindus and all the others were just different Christians, or potential Christians. People still in the dark that can't wait to hear about Jesus. Then it dawned on me that billions of people have never read the Bible and don't give a damn about it. They all have their notion of how the world was created. So when you say "Creation" you invariably link it to the Bible.

But how about the Hindu version? Why don't we debate that? Or the ancient greek one? Just because Zeus is no longer worshiped does that mean that he wasn't for real? Or how about the mayans? So many of us believe that they knew when the world would end. Maybe they knew when the world started. But I have no doubt that you'd start laughing the moment you hear about the Earth Crocodile or the Golden Turtle.

What's funny is that most religions have incorporated astronomical truths into alegories (I'd say astrological but to my surprise, no.). Most religions have a pretty scientific approach to how the world was created. The Bible however was written long ago in a small and insignificant country that was too often ravaged by invaders for the poor scholars to do anything but pray... Really now, how many ancient jewish astronomers or mathematicians do we know about? Why would that be important?

Because the Church burned Giordano Bruno alive and almost did the same thing with Galilei and Copernicus. Yes but now we live in a different era, you might say. We know that the world is round now. Yes, but only because you've seen it on TV. Without images from space there'd still be some that believe the world is flat just because the Bible doesn't say that the world is round.

Fortunately, the church no longer holds science back. We have the protestants to thank for that. People like Newton who were deeply religious, who looked at facts and changed their view of God according to new evidence, always searching more and more. While it's not a fact that God exists or any form of him ever did, it is a fact that without God we would not have any reason to search at all. Existence itself would have no meaning, regardless of being created in 6 days or in the Big Bang. But should there by one out there, he just seems more like a Big Banger to me.

Now, I like the way this man thinks

[Fish]

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Fortunately, the church no longer holds science back.

Indeed!

The Clergy Letter Project is an endeavor designed to demonstrate that religion and science can be compatible and to elevate the quality of the debate of this issue.

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.[1]

Now find 1200 atheist who deny evolution?
No?
20?
No?
2?

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Fish

Indeed!





Now find 1200 atheist who deny evolution?
No?
20?
No?
2?

This is completely irrelevant to the validity of evolution though.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

This is completely irrelevant to the validity of evolution though.

I know.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

This is completely irrelevant to the validity of evolution though.

Not completely.
It's an illustration of an 'meta-error theory'.

If those who support evolution think that those who do not support it
are ignoring or unfairly discounting large bodies of evidence and
making irrational or unscientific claims, then it is best if they can
explain why it might be that they are being irrational or unscientific.
Saying they are just thick isn't going to cut it because often they are
not.

If you can spot a major difference between the two groups, then
that's a good clue as to where the meta-error theory may lie.

[Nicolas]

This have being said, but i thinked on myself before hearing from others, and my point is this:
I believe in God and creation.
Humans took a lot of time to invent simple things, now, how those birds that Darwin studied could change theyre body to eat especific food, if no one design the new form? the nature doesn't have intelligence or conciousnes. Only a person with certain amount of intelligence (God in this case) can observe a thing, think how it can be changed, and implement a change.
Another thing, is how perfect is all in this world, it couldn't be done itself, is like trhow a lot of paint barrels, and magically you have a good painting, or put a monkey writing in your keyboard and having a poem as a result, the probability this world is a casuality is null.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Nicolas

This have being said, but i thinked on myself before hearing from others, and my point is this:
I believe in God and creation.
Humans took a lot of time to invent simple things, now, how those birds that Darwin studied could change theyre body to eat especific food, if no one design the new form? the nature doesn't have intelligence or conciousnes. Only a person with certain amount of intelligence (God in this case) can observe a thing, think how it can be changed, and implement a change.
Another thing, is how perfect is all in this world, it couldn't be done itself, is like trhow a lot of paint barrels, and magically you have a good painting, or put a monkey writing in your keyboard and having a poem as a result, the probability this world is a casuality is null.

That's not how evolution works, though.

Evolution isn't about nature "deciding" anything. It's about what could be considered genetic abnormalities becoming a favorable trait and therefore being passed along to a new generation.

In other words, let's say you were born with a genetic mutatation causing a third arm. It would not be a very attractive quality for a mate - unless something in the environment caused that 3rd arm to be a favorable mutation, thereby making potential mates seek that quality. That mutation would be more likely to be passed along, thusly asserting its dominance in the gene pool.

It has everything to do with random chance and nothing to do with intelligent design.

[Nicolas]

I do not believe in random chance, i dont think serious evolutionist think on that, because if you studied books of science on how the animals evolved they evolved to good, not to have deformations or things like that, if all is random there is no way the body of animal could get better only by chance.

[Nicolas]

doble post