EVOLUTION vs CREATIONISM

Show me the end of the Universe, Dan

Show me the end of the Universe or a current valid cosmology describing a finite Universe. The Universe has practical infinity: we haven't found the end and it appears to be perpetually growing. Even in a constantly expanding Universe with finite boundaries, this growth increases the odds daily that Life must necessarily come about.

If you add x+1, and beside that you add x-squared +1, which will reach infinity first? Estimates of the Universe run between 11 and 20 billion years old, generally. Perhaps the seeming improbability you maintain of Life's occurrence is the dictating factor of why Life is only four billion years old in this neighborhood instead of six. Life will eventually occur in conditions such as those the Universe seems to offer.

I would say that "crutch" is an excellent way of looking at this religion. Why consider God with the possibilities of science? Because we are a superstitious race that teaches our children to fear God before they know what fear is. God is among our first sources of recognizable fear. My grandmother bought my brother and I goofy God-related things like Gaither albums and storybooks about how small I am in the world before my education explained the scientific method. Personally, I never had any problem specifically related to the two, but many people have, and that comes from the superstitions of religion. Did you learn how to say your prayers first or form a working hypothesis?

In other words, what do most people learn first, objectivity or superstition?

thanx,
Tiassa

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There is a valid model for a finite cosmology. I explained it on the Astronomy board in a thread entitled "Flat Finite Cosmology"

Also, the fact that the universe is growing does not increase the odds for life -- it decreases them. Why? 1) There is no new matter being created, so there are not new places for life to evolve (sure there may be newly-forming planets, but that doesn't have anything to do with the universe expanding) 2) If the universe is expanding, it's constant amount of mass and energy must be spread out further and diluted. THus the universe is cooling (not to mention the Laws of Thermodnamics that state entropy always increases). Therefore energy (alot of which would be required to start life) is decreasing <i>and</i> "thinning out" as the universe increases. This will surely put a damper on the already impossible odds of life forming.

~Caleb

 

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So the odds of life forming are impossible? That would suggest life doesn't exist?

Yes energy in the universe is "thinning out" over all, but it tends to clump in galaxies, stars etc. For now there is plenty of suitable stars and volatile elements for life. Perhaps in 30 billion years life would start to have a problem.

We do know that life exists in this universe, we know what it needs to form. So there should be life everywhere. Why aren't we seeing it? We've only just started looking. We haven't found any earthlike planets because they are too small to see with present techniques, perhaps in 10 years time we'll be able to define earth-size planets around stars.

 

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Tiassa: reccently they've narrowed the age of the universe to approxomatley 15 billion years.

 

Abiogenesis

+/- 50 billion. Just kidding.

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And yet there are objects in the univesrse that are far older than that. A colleague that I work with (I'm a student researcher for the Mathematics department) has just graduated with a double major in Math and Physics (He's going on to persue a higher degree at Washington University). The other day, he was telling me how in one of his upper-level Physics/Astronmy courses his professor (who was certainly <i>not</i> a Creationist) didn't even believe in the Big Bang. One of the things they had to do on a test in that class was calculate the age of a recently discovered galaxy super-cluster that would have taken at least twice the age of the universe to form. I asked him what his professor did believe, if not in a Big Band, and he told me that the professor wasn't really sure, but he knew that it couldn't have been a Big Bang because of the evidence. He had said that modern cosmology is based on the premises of a few early cosmologists (such as Hubble and others) who came up with this Big Bang idea, and scientists are unwilling to consider alternatives because if these 5-or-6 early scientists came up with this Big Bang idea, it had to be true, despite whatever new evidence might surface. Anyway enough rambling about the Big Bang.

...

Yes, but this problem would come about from the universe expanding and "thining out". And yet you state that the expansion increases growth. So I'm a bit confused on which you are truly saying. But anyway, that's a side issue because:

Well, that's not exactly what I said (I said the odds were decreasing), but to be perfectly honest, <b>YES!</b> That's called <u>abiogenesis</u> and it was a myth popularly held in the Dark Ages until some scientist (who was a Christian in his free time, by the way) came along and preformed this famous experiment by isolating meat in a sealed environment, and noting that it didn't turn into maggots.

First consider the facts that

>evolutionists don't even know <i>how</i> life formed,

>and the fact that any amino acids that would have been necessary are extremely unstable and would have broken down before having the chance to react.

>And the fact that it is impossible for these amino acids to form at random anyway.

>and the fact that for the chemical reactions necessary for life to form, the atmosphere would have had to have been oxygen-free, but this would mean no ozone, which would expose the new chemicals to lethal doses of UV radiation. This is a catch-22 that scientists have been unable to explain.

>and the fact that DNA contains information, and in information theory, information cannot rise out of randomness -- only noise can do that. Besides that is the fact that DNA is a "language" of sorts, and requires encoding and decoding, which makes the issue even more complex.

>and the fact that there is no geological record of the primordial chemical soup that is supposed to have existed (although there should be)

>It would have violated the laws of Thermodynamics, since it would require a large decrease in entropy.

Anyway, aside from all of these utter <u><i>impossibilities</i></u>, the chance of life has been calculated at something like 1 out of 10^19,813 (I can't find the website were I read this number, and I'm alittle unsure of the second digit, but the answer was certainly larger than 10^11,000). And, yep, that's a one with over ten-thousand zeroes behind it!!! This number is well below the statistically accepted value of "impossible." Now, even the number of seconds in the universe pales in comparison to this. Even assuming the universe is a 100 billion years old (which is apparently WAY too much), there would still only be about 3^16. Now, Sixteen is a long way from ten-thousand, even on a linear scale, but this isn't linear, it is <b>exponential</b>!!!!!!

So yes, abiogenesis is impossible.

No. It would suggest that life didn't form (i.e. from non-life) Which would further suggest that something (or someone) formed it. I won't say more than that, because science can't tell us <i>what</i> (or who) formed life, it just tells us that life can't form on its own.

Actually, we only know that for Earth, and even that's debatable

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You're right. We just found out that it needs Someone or Something to create it.

Not with a 1 to 10^19,000 chance. I think a snowball has a better chance in you-know-where.

~Caleb

 

Re: End of Debate?

Not so the "end of the debate",

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it will at the time they would want to call it 'all facts,'.. they will run into the ultimate truth of 'creation'! And as mortal men and women we will simply not know all there is to know scientifically about the universe and that of the beyond natural cope of reasoning ! There will be far too much left UNKNOWN to truly come to a conclusion about 'evolution' and our very own existence apart from the 'truth', the ultimate 'truth', that all was created! And by the Creator! (GOD) [who is not an 'it', nor a 'force', but a real and living and loving 'person', a 'triune-being', GOD the Father, GOD the Son, and GOD the Holy Spirit, the tree are ONE, and one in the same! ] (The Supreme Being)

Evolution, is man's theory (scientific) of the origin of life.
Creation, is GOD's revelation of where life truly came from. 'Him'.

 

"evolutionists don't even know how life formed"

That is the point of science. Don't forget science once did not know what lightning was and hence Thor and Zeus were the ancient causes. Nothing natural and divine help could do what lighting did.

" And the fact that it is impossible for these amino acids to form at random anyway. "

And where did you find that one out fact man.

" It would have violated the laws of Thermodynamics, since it would require a large decrease in entropy. "

This is the problem with stating a law. Entropy, as you have stated is a law of THERMODYNAMICS. It has nothing to do with life at all. It is like sighting a traffic law and using that to explain why life cannot be.

" Anyway, aside from all of these utter impossibilities, the chance of life has been calculated at something like 1 out of 10^19,813 (I can't find the website were I read this number, and I'm alittle unsure of the second digit, but the answer was certainly larger than 10^11,000). And, yep, that's a one with over ten-thousand zeroes behind it!!! This number is well below the statistically accepted value of "impossible." Now, even the number of seconds in the universe pales in comparison to this. Even assuming the universe is a 100 billion years old (which is apparently WAY too much), there would still only be about 3^16. Now, Sixteen is a long way from ten-thousand, even on a linear scale, but this isn't linear, it is exponential!!!!!! "

First of all you cannot calculate the chances of life. All who do make extremely biased calculations. I've seen calculations that say there is a good chance there is millions of intelligent species out there, not just life but smart life, to guesses like the one you have cited. None are truly based in fact. They are based in assumption.

 

Christian babies ....

FA_Q2 ....

Didn't you know that Christian babies don't breast feed? Immediately after they're born, they hunch down and start a fire, build a weapon, hunt down an animal for food, and then set about building a shelter. It's amazing! I swear!

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Were we born knowing everything in the Universe? No. Thank you for pointing out something very obvious ... if humanity arrived on the Earth knowing everything in the Universe, what would be left to learn?

You know, I think the Creationists are right ... I live in a perfect society .....

Hey, don't look at me ... I just went a weekend without smoking pot. I almost wish I was as high as a kite; some of the things I saw ... I would prefer that they were drug-laden perceptions.

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But you have a very important point indeed.

thanx,
Tiassa

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My point in saying that scientists don't even know how life forms was more of a rebuttal against Tiassa's statement that We know what it [life] needs to form. Scientist's aren't even close to knowing. That isn't to say that they shouldn't try to find out how it might have happened. If they think life arose from chance, let them try to reproduce it in a lab. That's the scientific maethod, after all, and I'm all for that. The point is, though, that they've been trying since the time of Darwin (probably since the time of the ancient Greeks, but never mind that) to figure out how life could come from no life. And rather than being closer to an answer, we're just as far -- actually further -- from an answer now than we were back then. We now know about the impossibly marvelous genetic code, and the difficulty over whether or not oxygen was in the atmosphere, etc (I'm not going to repeat my earlier post). Anyway, if life had evolved from non-life, you think one of those experiments somewhere along the way would have succeded. But, if scientists really have the kind of faith in unseen events like that, then sure, let them go ahead and try to prove it in the lab.

In other words, in one post we are saying that scientists know all about how life formed, in the next you are agreeing that scientist's haven't a clue, but that sciece will tell us. That sounds like faith to me -- a belief in something for which there is no evidence? So scientists are basing there theories on a belief? <i>Gasp!</i> And this isn't just any theory that they are putting faith in. This is the principle for which they derive their entire worldview. And it's merely a faith, without scientific evidence (yet)? <i>Gasp!</i>

Of course, I don't mind that so much -- we creationists do the same thing. I guess it all just depends on where you put your faith right? An unseen chemical soup in which chenmical reations that are very nearly impossible, and have not (yet) been evidenced in any lab, gave rise to life, or a supernatural God who has revealed His Word to us that we might know Him, and that He loves us. Hmm... tough choice. But then, they both require faith in something unseen.

btw, tiassa, we creationists don't think society is perfect. Far from it. We believe in the Fall of mankind, etc...(but that's another topic, and don't know how that fits into the abiogenesis question).

~Caleb

 

And now come all the posts about how science isn't a religion, and how science doesn't require faith, and how science can't be a religion because it doesn't have a God who contradicts himself and gives us sets of stupid, pointless laws and <i>blah, blah, blah, etc,etc,etc...</i>.

But we just showed that it is a faith. A belief in something (so far) unobserved. We could even discuss their faith in the presence of transitional forms, although none have been shown to exist. But that's another topic as well.

~Caleb

 

Don't mean nothin'

You obviously missed notes on transitional fossils. I think they're even in this thread; I shall endeavor to find them at Sciforums and provide them for you, but I'm unsure why it didn't take the first time.

In the meantime--"so far unobserved": Caleb, what bugs me about this is that you sit around hypocritically patting yourself on the back for getting nothing done. So far? Again, I ask--and this time I want an answer: Were you born knowing everything in the Universe? Are you telling me that straight from the womb there was nothing to learn to help you ensure your own survival? From an evolutionary standpoint, the same question is an issue: Did humanity evolve with complete knowledge of the Universe? No, it did not. You seem upset that science hasn't gone far enough for your own wishes.

To the other: Demonstrate the Creator!

Quit picking on what you think is wrong with other people's theories merely to demonstrate your own. It doesn't work that way. Heads or tails, sure, but there are more than two ideas here. The best you seem to do is say, "I'm right because I think everyone else is wrong, and I don't have to show what's right about my theory." Sure, you might disprove this or that theory eventually, but without being scientifically testable, the theory you offer in its place is merely religious balderdash.

I know. And God created children to starve to death in this or that third world because he loves them. Touching.

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thanx,
Tiassa

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E vs C

It means that it takes far more 'faith' in 'evolution' then it takes for one to believe in 'Creation'!

Evolution; so many man-made theories and scientific facts, and speculations.
Creation; in the Word of GOD. And that there has to be a 'Creator' of this universe with it's many complex life forms on Earth, and very little evidence of life (intelligent [ET] terrestrial) any where else!

Find and Read: Tornado in a Junkyard. (evolution)

 

" My point in saying that scientists don't even know how life forms was more of a rebuttal against Tiassa's statement that We know what it [life] needs to form. Scientist's aren't even close to knowing. If they think life arose from chance, let them try to reproduce it in a lab. That's the scientific maethod, after all, and I'm all for that. ......
The point is, though, that they've been trying since the time of Darwin (probably since the time of the ancient Greeks, but never mind that) to figure out how life could come from no life. And rather than being closer to an answer, we're just as far -- actually further -- from an answer now than we were back then. "

They are not clueless as you have assumed but are working closer daily. What makes you think we are further from the answer? Yes we have been trying to figure life out since Darwin but it took life 10 billion years to figure out what to do itself, we haven't been trying all that long. Also life is not going to be reproducible in a lab until we have a few billion years and a lab the size of earth. The scientific method does not require a test in a lab but rather a theory that can hold up to scrutiny. We have never tested the theory of relativity in a lab but have tested it other ways. Evolution is constantly going through refinements and is now a very valid theory. It still needs more refinements but we are progressing.

" Anyway, if life had evolved from non-life, you think one of those experiments somewhere along the way would have succeded."

What experiments?

" In other words, in one post we are saying that scientists know all about how life formed, in the next you are agreeing that scientist's haven't a clue, but that sciece will tell us."

No, we are saying that we are working towards a viable description, never did I say they had no clue and nether did anyone else.

" But we just showed that it is a faith "

Where?

 

I believe, kmguru, you have it exactly

I say give the formal evolutionary theory 2,000 years to progress, and compare what it does in the world to Chrisitanity's two-millennia history. In addition to the volumes of laboratory data and field data collected and analyzed in that time, I think the introduction of such knowledge will actually bring a sense of peace to the human spirit in the specific sense that many superstitions will disappear. The social pressures of enacting those superstitions will disappear. The detriments of those social pressures will disappear.

Knowledge--education--benefits society. Superstition destroys it. This, I feel, is objectively demonstrated in history.

But what will we know by then? The objective data reward of two millennia spent learning about the Universe instead of fearing and hating it should hopefully be sufficient enough to drive superstition back to shadows. And the comfort of understanding our living partners in this human endeavor will bring great rewards of its own.

thanx,
Tiassa

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What!!?!?!?!??!!?!?

You seem to have forgotten what we've already covered -- i.e. that the majority of the great founding fathers of modern scientific method were Creationists or at the very lest, Christians. Even the "discoverer" of the scientific method was a Creationist!!! Remember all those names, like Issac Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Steno, Pascal, Boyle, <i>et all.</i> ? They are the ones that started our departure from superstitions, remember? And I never even got around to finishing my list because you wanted to hear the scientific facts. Now that you are sick and tired of hearing those, you revert back to bashing and character assasination, and the assumption that Christians are inherently non-scientific. Yet Christians formed the large majority of the foundation for modern science, abondoning myths and fables. This is objectively demonstrated in history. And by the way, your welcome.

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~Caleb

 

Not a problem at all, Caleb

And no Creationist making points about Christian scientists has ever answered questions about where that scientist's fidelity lies. Like that PhD you cited in those ICR posts: some "scientist", eh? He decries the scientific method because it makes him uncomfortable.

Jack Cady, in The American Writer, when discussing the crack-up of Puritanism, made a point relevant to us: that centuries ago, without electricity to chase away the scary shadows of the world and power the technology of discovery, people seemed to hold the Devil to be as real as Cris or I might agree that an Oldsmobile is real. I would assert that when these scientists made their discoveries, they were predisposed to Christian fidelity, and thus attempted to conform their theories to their religious standards. Incidentally, Karen Armstron notes in A History of God that modern atheism, when aimed at Judeo-Christianity, seems to address the faults of the "Newtonian" God, or the God who created the laws that Newton documented. Gravity yes, but that God image seems to have failed. We can't blame Newton, per se, except where he attempted to conform his findings to his predisposition toward the assumption of God. Did thse scientists you mention find their theory, and lead conclusively to God, or did they find their theory, and apply it to what they already assumed is true?

Your point being? I'm quite sure it's difficult to obtain objectivity when certain objective questions are disallowed. Even into the twentieth century, there were parts of the civilized world where it was illegal to be an atheist: in South Carolina, one cannot hold elected public office without first confessing faith in God.

Yes, and the problem with your assumptions comes back to the idea that these people did not know all there was in the Universe. We cannot fault them for not having enough time on Earth to find all the answers they sought. It seems only Creationists can do that, and I base that solely on your wrath aimed at the fact that science doesn't have all the answers that religion assumes.

* Demonstrate character assassination.

* Demonstrate bashing.

* Christians inherently non-scientific: You still cannot demonstrate the Creator. God is an untestable hypothesis at present, and thus remains outside the realm of science.

* What I'm sick and tired of is your petty assumption that scientific fact is a dualism: I don't like your theory, says the Creationist. So, says the Creationist, I assume your theory's wrong. Furthermore, says the Creationist, because your theory is wrong, mine is definitely right, and I don't need to test, prove, or demonstrate anything.

When you learn your station in the Universe, instead of assume it, you'll find that God is merely that much more accessible to you.

To the one hand, they couldn't have done a lot of it without Islam ... Christians did not invent abstract mathematics. To the other, I think the abandoning of myths and fables is important. It's just that y'all have a few left that you insist on clinging to, despite your desire to be taken seriously--said desire being hampered only by your own refusal to approach the subject seriously.

You won't find any argument from me about the quality of science done by Christians in the past. The immorality of what Christians did with their discoveries is also demonstrated objectively in history. And that's the problem with bending your results to a presupposed superstition.

Notice also of Christians who are scientists: they defy God when they must, and worry later about how it fits together--the artificial heart valve was invented by a Seventh-Day Adventist who worried not that he was usurping God's judgement of when your time to go is. I can justify this leap of faith with Sufism, but I'm pretty sure the good doctor thought primarily in terms of saving human life. I agree with his defiance of God's Will in this context, and see no conflict whatsoever in the Sufi context.

But please do get back to me on character assassination and bashing, complete with your best contextual analysis.

And we're always waiting for that objective demonstration of the Creator.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Most of this thread looks insane to me, and I'm tempted to just leave it alone except for the quote above. I would argue that in the philosophical basis of the nature of God, that God would necessarily not be able to be objectively tested. If He could, He forces Himself upon us without our ability to choose Him or not. Some Christians go way overboard and try to convince others that the earth is some thousand years old and that God is provable beyond a shadow of a doubt in scientific discovery. I think this comes from a myopic view of the Bible. Some overzealous scientists say that science has proven the nonexistence of God. This is an over-optimism of our understanding of the universe. The most science can do is show that God would be unnecessary to explain the happenings in the universe. God being unnecessary to explain how things exist does not mean God does not exist. And further that does not mean God is unnecessary to people.

However, there is something in the way scientific predictions are made that use certain assumptions corresponding to Gods nature in the Bible that are <i>useful</i> to science. The most ready example of this is Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbits of the planets. The current astronomical theory was that everything in space moved in perfect circles. The evidence had made the theory bogged down in circular paths going along other circular paths to make up for the errors in the theory. Then Kepler thought that God would not make such a ridiculous and inelegant system, so he though of something that would fall more along his understanding of God's nature. Elliptical orbits turned out to be right, and the rest is history (actually all of it is history). But this illustrates how an understanding of God's nature is useful to scientific discovery.

 

A thought or two I hope ....

Okay, so here's the thing: at this point God is an information filter, and I have no objection to using religion in this fashion; it composes the most part of my own theism. It's a compelling interest, since any correct answer must necessarily be God's nature. In this sense, it's still a faith assumption, but whatever works to gather knowledge ....

thanx,
Tiassa

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