Creationism Madness!, page 1

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Topic started on 23-8-2009 @ 12:09 PM by john124

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Since there has been many threads and comments recently that are mis-guided about what creationism basically is, I have posted this to show a few examples of why the theories are utterly incorrect from any logical standing point. Religious theories, guesswork, opinions etc can not be mixed with science to create a pseudoscience taught in place of science, as this one example shows the complete BS as the end result.

Leave science for the science classroom, and religion for the religious classrooms and churches. We don't want to see doctors who prescribe medicine on faith-based opinions, we want medicine prescribed on the evidence of what works best!

I'm also disappointed with how many people still incorrectly perceive science, and also atheism as anything other than expanding the scientific evidence that investigations & research present to us.

Creationist beaned in Boston

Recently, a young-Earth creationist named Nathaniel Jeanson gave an invited talk in Boston, and besides the usual crowd of believers, a group of skeptics attended as well. Rebecca Watson penned a wonderful description of the event (and on Skepchick as well), complete with audience — and speaker — reactions.

I don’t generally go to talks by creationists, as it would be a rare event indeed for them to say something original, or accurate. But Rebecca noted this:

Because his work at Harvard focused on biology, that was the bulk of his talk, but before reaching that discipline he first dismissed both astronomical and geological evidence for evolution and a multi-billion-year-old universe. Of the former, he declared that when we observe galaxies around ours, they are spread out equally to the “north, south, east and west” of Earth, and therefore we are literally at the center of the Universe (and therefore blessed by God?). This is silly. Mountains of research suggest that the Earth occupies a wholly unremarkable corner of a Universe that is vaster and more ancient than Jeanson’s comparatively puny philosophy can imagine.

I listened to a recording of the talk for this part, and Rebecca reports his argument faithfully. His argument is totally wrong. I know, shocker. His basic assumption is that the Universe has a physical edge, which is incorrect. There is a visible limit for the Universe, a farthest distance we can see. That distance is about 13 billion light years. We can’t see any farther away because there hasn’t been time since the birth of the Universe for a photon to get any farther. You can consider objects that have moved more than 13 billion light years away from us, but we simply cannot see them due to the expansion of the Universe.

You might therefore naively make a map showing all the objects in the Universe, and lo, we are at the center. But that would be true for any and every single point in the Universe. If you are on Alpha Centauri, or in the Andromeda Galaxy, or sitting near a young quasar 10 billion light years away, you would look out and still see yourself apparently centered in the Universe. The whole point here is that there is no special location in the Universe, no preferred point.

So, BZZZZZT. He’s wrong.

But, we knew that.

Of course, Jeanson ignores another rather obvious and difficult problem: if the Universe is 6000 years old, how do we see galaxies billions of light years away? Creationists have to bob and weave a lot to answer that one. Perhaps the light was created already on its way, or the Universe was created appearing old already. But that would be awfully tricky of a creator, trying to fool us by providing millions of individual bits of evidence of an old Universe but then saying it’s young.

I thought deception was someone else’s purview in the Bible.

Anyway, its stuff like this that’ll probably keep me away from live lectures by creationists in the future. Trying to wrap my head around creationist astronomy is like trying to ride a unicycle around a Moebius strip: it’s off-balance, physically impossible, full of one-sided arguments, and in the end you don’t go anywhere.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by john124]

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 12:11 PM by acmpnsfal

reply to post by john124

Wow, cant you see thats why science does not have all the answers and religion does not have all the answers? They each believe they hold all the pieces to the puzzle, when in fact they dont. Science needs to work with religion (or even better the premise of spirituality) to better understand all. Separation leads to nothing but more misunderstanding and derision.

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 12:15 PM by john124

Originally posted by acmpnsfal
reply to post by john124

Wow, cant you see thats why science does not have all the answers and religion does not have all the answers? They each believe they hold all the pieces to the puzzle, when in fact they dont. Science needs to work with religion (or even better the premise of spirituality) to better understand all. Separation leads to nothing but more misunderstanding and derision.

Where is the evidence that religion has any pieces of the puzzle?

Who is saying science explains everything?

What is the purpose of filling in the blanks & unknowns with more unknowns?

The fact that science cannot answer everything does not prove anyone else's guesswork at what the unknown's are. Every theory has to be taken on its own merit, and so far the creationism theories show nothing except blind faith or mistaken people.

Read the actual source and see for yourself the illogical nature of creationism.

[edit on 23-8-2009 by john124]

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 12:20 PM by acmpnsfal

reply to post by john124

Well seeing as science as we know it today is finding more and more ways to validate things we believed to be true in ancient civilizations which were largely spiritual(and our modern science is still pretty young), wouldnt it follow that we should try to reincorporate some of those belief systems into our current understanding of everything?

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 12:51 PM by Mike_A

Originally posted by acmpnsfal
reply to post by john124

Well seeing as science as we know it today is finding more and more ways to validate things we believed to be true in ancient civilizations which were largely spiritual

Like what?

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 02:21 PM by fockewulf190

Originally posted by acmpnsfal
reply to post by john124

Wow, cant you see thats why science does not have all the answers and religion does not have all the answers? They each believe they hold all the pieces to the puzzle, when in fact they dont. Science needs to work with religion (or even better the premise of spirituality) to better understand all. Separation leads to nothing but more misunderstanding and derision.

Indeed. My take on this whole issue is that there is no truly known right answer, so why waste brain power on an unsolvable mystery. There is no way this planet, or universe, or what have you, is 6000 years old. Go to any museum with a dinosaur skeleton in it, or fossils, and the proof is right in front of your eyes that the world isn´t 6000 years old. Science factually blows that theory out of the water.

On the other hand, the other day I saw a documentary about the moon. In one part of the documentary, scientists were describing the gravitational effects the young moon was causing on the Earth. Back then, the moon was much closer to the Earth, so the tides were 1000 times bigger than they are today. Then, the scientists go on to proclaim their beliefs that since the oceans were causing such massive erosional effects on the early continental landmasses, and pulling massive amounts of minerals and stuff into the oceans, this lead to the development of life forming from this primordial "soup". They then show a bubbling mud puddle as being some kind of natural uterus which spawned life. Utterly ridiculous theory without a shred of rock solid evidence to back the claim up. Has there ever been a successful scientific experiment done duplicating this ancient brew in a lab and replicating the creation of single cell life? None that I know of. So science takes it on the chin here.

Evolution exists, but it cannot prove the origins of life. Creationism exists, but it sure as shinola didn´t start 6000 years ago. No one has the answers.

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 03:15 PM by john124

Originally posted by fockewulf190

Originally posted by acmpnsfal
reply to post by john124

Wow, cant you see thats why science does not have all the answers and religion does not have all the answers? They each believe they hold all the pieces to the puzzle, when in fact they dont. Science needs to work with religion (or even better the premise of spirituality) to better understand all. Separation leads to nothing but more misunderstanding and derision.

Indeed. My take on this whole issue is that there is no truly known right answer, so why waste brain power on an unsolvable mystery. There is no way this planet, or universe, or what have you, is 6000 years old. Go to any museum with a dinosaur skeleton in it, or fossils, and the proof is right in front of your eyes that the world isn´t 6000 years old. Science factually blows that theory out of the water.

On the other hand, the other day I saw a documentary about the moon. In one part of the documentary, scientists were describing the gravitational effects the young moon was causing on the Earth. Back then, the moon was much closer to the Earth, so the tides were 1000 times bigger than they are today. Then, the scientists go on to proclaim their beliefs that since the oceans were causing such massive erosional effects on the early continental landmasses, and pulling massive amounts of minerals and stuff into the oceans, this lead to the development of life forming from this primordial "soup". They then show a bubbling mud puddle as being some kind of natural uterus which spawned life. Utterly ridiculous theory without a shred of rock solid evidence to back the claim up. Has there ever been a successful scientific experiment done duplicating this ancient brew in a lab and replicating the creation of single cell life? None that I know of. So science takes it on the chin here.

Evolution exists, but it cannot prove the origins of life. Creationism exists, but it sure as shinola didn´t start 6000 years ago. No one has the answers.

The evidence of life beginning at thermal vents at the bottom of oceans is abundant.

Often you may see science as a belief if you don't understand the evidence. Maybe that's the fault of the scientists for not explaining in laymans terms all of the time. They deserve to be questionned, but you have to realise that not everyone is going to understand each area of science to the same extent.

We do know the Moon was much closer due to the fact that it's moving away a few centimetres a year from laser-mirror reflections, and we also understand the gravitational forces associated with the Moon and the Earth. Scientific theories are based on this and are formed on an evidence related basis. I see nothing like that from creationism or religion as to propose a working theory.

What's ridiculous about that theory you saw on TV? Often the evidence are the remains left behind such as fossils, you don't always need to reproduce the exact conditions in a lab, rather we understand the separate processes, and we observe the effects elsewhere. Nobody says science always gets it right, but it has proven a successful method in our understanding.

I also disagree where you say no-one has the answers. In fact science has answered quite a lot. What does religion answer related to the universe and planet earth? Except how people are often inclined to turn to faith-based thinking when answers are sometimes void.

Since we know evolution exists we can also say it must be related to the origins of life. To say it isn't is contradictory, and to assume a theory is set in concrete and cannot be expanded upon when the relevant evidence has been acculumated at a later point is a further misunderstanding of science. It's good to be skeptical in the correct way, but not so that you dismiss something due to misunderstanding the processes.

Creationism exists as a belief, but has not been shown to have any merit as a working logical theory. It requires vast amounts of faith without having any evidence to back it up that relates directly. Rather, creationists would use scientific discoveries and manipulate them incorrectly that produces meaningless results, and then try to connect that to their belief system. It's not like creationists haven't been listened to, as you can see from the source - scientists have gone to check out creationist seminars!

Think of the universe this way - 13 billion years of its existence in comparison to our planets 4 billion years lifespan. The majority of the univere's existence we nor planet earth existed! What does that tell us about our own existence?

[edit on 23-8-2009 by john124]

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 03:19 PM by john124

Originally posted by acmpnsfal
reply to post by john124

Well seeing as science as we know it today is finding more and more ways to validate things we believed to be true in ancient civilizations which were largely spiritual(and our modern science is still pretty young), wouldnt it follow that we should try to reincorporate some of those belief systems into our current understanding of everything?

Incorporate what??

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 04:04 PM by Welfhard

Science is a constantly updating to incorporate new evidence from new discoveries and aligns itself to the direction the evidence points.

Religion is based on faith - believe without evidence - so when we have science, religion is a redundant system, one that has forms that come and go because many cannot reconcile themselves with reality.

reply posted on 23-8-2009 @ 11:35 PM by Bananarama

reply to post by acmpnsfal

No no no.. Just no.

See, religion is an ideology while science is based on tested and proven fact. They are in NO WAY the same thing. That is the mistake many people have made, is thinking they are two sides of the same issue. That is a problem posed only be religious people, who think they are right. In reality religion has nothing to do with science or explaining ANYTHING, it is merely a way of looking at it.

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