Let us now hear from the Creationists

Now that you mention it, Creationism had at least 3,000 years reigning as the absolute truth of existence, and yet it was unseated by one book, written by one minister, after he visted some islands and saw a few unusual animals.

I'd say that is a pretty impressive shift of thinking for an entire civilization -- at least as impressive as what Jesus accomplished. Jesus was supposedly the Son of God, whereas Darwin was just his father's and mother's son.

 

"The Universal experience of paleontology... while the rocks have continually yielded new and exciting and even bizarre forms of life....what they have never yielded is any of Darwin's myriads of transitional forms. Despite the tremendous increase in geological activity in every corner of the globe and despite the discovery of many strange and hitherto unknown forms, the infinitude of connecting links has still not been discovered and the fossil record is about as discontinuous as it was when Darwin was witting the ORIGIN. The intermediates have remained as elusive as ever and their absence remains, a century later, one of the most striking characteristics of the fossil record."....... Michael Denton in his book 'Evolution: A theory in crisis'....

 

Transitional fossil forms from reptile to bird, accounting for every major substantive physical change in bone structure:

Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba. -- Carroll, R. L. (1997) Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

No, we’re not. The evolutionist’s truth and the creationist’s truth are two different things, because neither accepts what the other considers proof of the truth of evolution/creation.

Proof, if proof would be so obvious that no reasonable person could deny it.

I support teaching of evolution in schools, as long as we also teach other unproved popular theories too.

That you may believe your position is the truth, or my position false, neither belief has an impact on the actual truth. The actual truth stands independent of human belief systems.

You are implying that no evolutionist inquires into the difficulties of evolution. That’s a pretty broad paintbrush, unsupported by any facts. Evolutionary science is continuous and ongoing, whereas creationist science is nearly non-existent, except for a few theoretical thinkers.

I do not see a wide spread process of skepticism. When there are objections to evolution based on new evidence or sound arguments, the evolutionists become more defensive in nature than curious about the truth of evolution possibly revealing that evolution is not a factual theory.

Common sense would refute General and Special Relativity, quantum physics and restore Newtonian Physics. Common sense saw the world as flat. Common sense put the Earth at the center of the Universe. Common sense would hold that the Martingale technique of doubling one’s bet after a loss guarantees a win in a negative expectation game. Common sense says that a metal hull will sink. Common sense tells a person with a high fever to bundle up instead of taking a cold shower. Common sense says that if you buy when the price rises above the moving average and sell when the price falls below, that you will make money.

Common sense absorbs new factual perspectives. It is a fact that scientists observe such and such, which gives us new factual points of view.

It is not necessarily common sense to attach ourselves to theories that are incomplete simply because they appeal to an atheistic bias.


Common sense is not science, and common sense is frequently VERY wrong.

Common sense is usually right, that is why it is so uncommon.

If we accept your premise that nothing can be proved, then why bother doing any science at all? The creationist advocates, that where nothing is found, design should be implied. The evolutionist advocates, that where nothing is found, nothing is found. I prefer the latter concept. I can’t defend a client from a criminal charge by telling the jury that “God did it!” I’d be disbarred.

I am not suggesting ending science. Hardly my premise.

Let the scientists practice science, let them speculate, come up with many many theories, and test those theories with the full rigor of science.

However, when the rigors of science are truly applied and a theory is found unfalsifiable, then the theory becomes very suspect and should not be taught dogmatically as the actual truth.

I agree – creationism cannot be proved. I disagree that evolutionary theory cannot be proved. You are setting your own personal standard of proof for what is required to falsify evolution, and that standard is not shared by the majority of the scientific community, therefore your standard of proof is incorrect, until such time as you are able to convince the scientific community otherwise.

Cause simply cannot be proved by looking at the effect.

Even if from this point forward we observed man evolving into different species, this does not prove it happened in the past, or that said changes are not by some design we don't understand.

As long as there are possibilities not disproved and we have no way of revisiting the past to observe the changes, we are speculating on the cause.

That's why some unknown force we call gravity is a fact, we do not call gravitational theories gravitational facts.

The explanations offered are still speculative, because they simply cannot be proved by observation or scientific methodology.

A theory is a conclusive process, not a piece of evidence. As it is conclusive without all the facts, it is subject to change and revision or even abandonment. Science is a history of theories once believed since refuted. Though theories may have been popular among scientists, the scientists abandoned those theories in favor of something better.

What is the number of repeated trials that will satisfy your personal standard of proof? Many other experiments of a similar kind have been performed and have produced similar results. Unless they are ALL frauds or mistakes, then the statistics that they produce the same findings is proof that the theory is correct.

What is a statistically valid number of tests? 10, 100, 1000?

I would love it if the worm experiment were repeated a few more times. Two more times would convince me completely. But, that is MY personal standard of proof. However, the scientific community has published the results, and now it falls to the experiment’s detractors to repeat the experiment and find that it fails.

You have your standard of proof, ok.

You consistently turn the burden of proof on its head. You think that it’s the original experimenter’s duty to repeat a test until it satisfies all possible detractors. This is absurd. The scientist publishes, and the detractor tries to repeat. If the detractor refuses to repeat, the original findings stand.

I did not say it was the original experimenter's duty to repeat a test. I said it is science's duty to repeat a test if they want to know with greater and greater certainty that what they believe is an actuality.

The burden of falsifying the experiment is on the creationist, and to suggest otherwise, is sophistry.

By that logic, the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove that the theist is wrong when he says God exists.

The atheist would have to prove non existence of God, which they have never done.

They don't even try, because they know logically that it the responsibility of a claimant of fact to demonstrate proof of the fact they claim.

That's why there is this conflict in science because there is no fact of evolution.

There is not 100% agreement in the scientific community that man evolved from lower species.

Yet, all scientists agree on other scientific principles.

No scientist challenges that looking up at the sky they see the color blue (unless they are color blind).

This is the difference between uncontroverted fact and speculative theories.

If we are going to teach speculative theories in school, teach ID too.

That is fair, and accomplished the goal of a science curriculum to teach a child how to think, not what to think.

Let them apply their scientific mind to the problems of each theory, and let them come up with their own belief systems. Science should not be the only source promoting belief systems, and an adopted theory like man evolving from mud is a belief system.

My argument immediately above explains why your position is “ivory tower” thinking.

That may be your conclusion, I don't see it that way.

As previously stated, there are many such examples of speciation. I simply chose one that I thought gave a clear demonstration of the evolutionary process. If I don’t satisfy your burden of proof, then that’s fine, because I don’t need to. The scientific community has allowed the offered experiment to be published, and it has not been refuted as false, therefore it stands as acceptable proof of speciation, until such time as some detractor demonstrates that it is a fraud or mistake.

Your example show change occurred.

It did not show why change occurred, or what is behind that change. It also does not show change occurred in all species.

Objection: The question is argumentative. You are implying that the search for truth must, by definition, not be a battle. I suggest that the search for truth is always a battle, and the proof is that civilization has universally developed court systems to resolve such battles without resorting to violent physical force.

This is not a courtroom, so you can dispense with the lingo.

The search for truth is a battle against ignorance and falsity.

The two statements above contradict each other. First you say that there are no spoils of truth -- then you say that there is no greater spoil than truth.

There are no spoils of truth, truth doesn't lead to some ancillary spoil. Truth in itself is self satisfying, so it is the greatest spoil of all human seeking is the truth.

It is only your opinion that evolution is a lie. The scientific community finds evolution to be true. If you want to prove that your position is the more correct, then perform real experiments to falsify those experiments that have been accepted by the scientific community. If you do not, then you lose.

I did not say evolution was a lie, I only say it is not a known truth.

Please do not put words into my comments that are not mine.

Sounds like evolution to me, i.e., “Nature, red in tooth and claw…” – Darwin.

Sounds like ignorant barbarism to me. This combative survival mentality exists when there is scarcity, and apparently there is scarcity of intelligence for this mindset to continue.

 

"We are not even authorized to consider exceptional case of the ARCHAEOPTERYX as a true link. By link, we mean a necessary stage of transition between classes sych as reptiles and birds, or between smaller groups. An animal displaying characters belonging to two different groups cannot be treated as a true link as long as the intermediary stages have not been found, and as long as the mechanisms of transition remain unknown" .......Evolutionist Pierre Lecomte de Nouy.

 

Please cite the source publication and the url, if available.

 

"the Case for a creator" Page 58....

 

"ARCHAEORAPTOR is just the tip of the iceberg. there are scores of fake fossils out there, and they have cast a dark shadow over the whole field. When you go to these fossil shows, it's difficult to tell which ones are faked and which ones are not. I have heard there is a fake fossil factory in northeast China, in Liaoning Province, near the deposits where many of these recent alleged feathered dinosaurs were found." ..... Alan Feduccia, an evolutionary biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.....

asked what would motivate such fraud, Fedducia replied:

"Money. the Chinese fossil trade has become a big business."

Page 59

 

If you want to have a reasonable discussion, then cite the ACTUAL and complete source of your findings, not some vague partial quote. I don't hide where my info comes from, because I am interested in discovering the truth. If you are, then do not hide your sources. Otherwise, I must regard your quotes as unsubstantiated.

 

Glad you can find time inbetween $300 an hour opinions to share them with us.

LOL.

Anyway, he is citing a book, and the page number.

You can buy the book, go to a library, etc.

Not all sources need to be links to sites. In fact, most good links to sites themselves quote sources that are books or published papers, not necessarily available on the web.