What predictions does Creationism make? (a fundamental requirement in science class)

What I don't get is this assumption on the side of atheists, that every person that believes in God somehow does not believe in evolution and/or other natural processes.
Or the claim (as stated on one of the posts) that the point of creationism is to prove science is flawed.

That is first of all not very scientific, because you are generalizing based on a small sample of subjects.

For example, I am Muslim and I also believe in evolution.

How is that?

Well, in the Qur'an it is stated that God created the Universe and also the first man, Adam.

BUT: There is not a single statement in the Qur'an that contradicts the evolution - in fact the opposite is the case. It is stated in a number of places in the Qur'an that mankind was created in "stages". In another place the author of the Qur'an (which in my case means God Himself) says that there was a time in the past when man was an "insignificant thing". The words used here are very important, because they are so precise. The term here for insignificant thing describes something small, simple, primitive.

How I view this whole thing, as a scientist and as a Muslim is this: God created the Universe with its laws. The laws and processes were created as such that at one point in time life will emerge on a planet. This life then will evolve in stages. We will get primates -> they have a fully developed anatomy and brains but they lack self-consciousness. This is when God says he "breathed" of His spirit into Adam - i.e. He picked one of the primates and gave him a "soul" which in Arabic means TWO things: Life force AND consciousness. This sudden "jump" in evolution is well known in science, but as of yet still not explained.

a reply to: sHuRuLuNi

You're the one making the assumption that somehow atheists don't believe religious people can accept the evidence for evolution. Most religious people have no problem with this. Extremist creationist cultists, however, do.

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

Actually what you said is exactly what science wants to do. What you call "discovering it again", science calls peer review or further proving it right. Science doesn't test it once, say, "Yep that's the case!", then move on to the next thing.

a reply to: Raggedyman

So do you think that magic powers that thing you are typing on to post in these forums?

a reply to: Isurrender73

You are distracting from the OP. This thread isn't about evolution. It's about Creationism being valid science or not. The fact that you are trying to shift the focus of the conversation to evolution just shows that you are unable to answer the OP's questions in the opening post.

a reply to: Ghost147

You don't need to elaborate soo much to make a point, the reality is that Creationism is no science is a believe that comes from religious views as that is just a concept, no even close to a theory.

But as usual the religious right will eventually get away with having that "religious belief" in the curriculum, because in America everybody has the right to everything.

a reply to: sHuRuLuNi
I'm an atheist and I don't assume that. I've spoken with plenty of theists here that believe in evolution.

The fact of the matter is that the Creation narrative is incompatible with our scientific findings. It's also commonplace for theists to dismiss the Theory of Evolution and many other scientific theories.

I'm not familiar enough with the Quran, but in Genesis it states things like birds flying above the sea before all land animals were made. We have strong evidence life on Earth didn't evolve like that. As one example.

This is when God says he "breathed" of His spirit into Adam

That's invoking metaphysical powers, essentially magic, into the equation. It's not a contradiction to science because god's powers are beyond natural processes, right?...

a reply to: Ghost147

"... is Creationism willing to be peer reviewed, and thrown away if proven to be false?"

Just a note or two on this approach, if I may...

Creationism is based on faith.
For instance, it says that God created the universe. We were not there so we base our belief in the faith that this is true. Arguing science against such faith, or faith against science for that matter, is basically pretty pointless.

Why is such conflict so embraced by the devout from both ends of this razored polarization?
The human condition - something we have yet to overcome, from any quarter, to graduate to the next level.
IMESHO, that is.

Have a nice day

a reply to: redoubt
It's definitely entirely faith-based, and it's always refreshing when the religious acknowledge that.

However, the OP is asking for this specifically in response to the demand that Creationism should be taught in a school's science curriculum. If it's faith-based then it obviously doesn't belong in one. If it has scientific merit then it needs to xyz as outlined in OP.

a reply to: Ghost147

I am not a creationist, but I do know that theory of evolution has some mighty holes.
Does it really matter though?
Forget teaching evolution or creationism in schools - mankind need classes in ethics and morals...
We live in a corporate/fascist society run by oligarchs.
Worrying and fighting over such "origins" are distractions.

www.evolutionnews.org...

Peer-Reviewed Paper Concludes that Darwinism "Has Pretty Much Reached the End of Its Rope"
Jonathan M. February 6, 2012 2:23 PM | Permalink
An interesting paper was recently published by David Depew and Bruce Weber in the journal Biological Theory. The paper bears the title "The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis." Its abstract summarizes the article's contents:

We trace the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, and of genetic Darwinism generally, with a view to showing why, even in its current versions, it can no longer serve as a general framework for evolutionary theory. The main reason is empirical. Genetical Darwinism cannot accommodate the role of development (and of genes in development) in many evolutionary processes. We go on to discuss two conceptual issues: whether natural selection can be the "creative factor" in a new, more general framework for evolutionary theorizing; and whether in such a framework organisms must be conceived as self-organizing systems embedded in self-organizing ecological systems.
This paper is interesting in at least two respects. First, there is the curious use of the word "Darwinism" to describe the modern evolutionary synthesis. It is frequently asserted by our critics that "Darwinism" is a pejorative term invented by creationists and proponents of ID as a form of derision. The term, however, is used widely in the mainstream scientific literature -- albeit not always in a consistent manner. The authors define "Darwinism" thus:
Darwinism refers to its author's proposed causal explanation of evolution -- natural selection -- and to theories in which this process plays the dominant role in evolution, including human evolution.
The second point of interest is the paper's claim that "Darwinism in its current scientific incarnation has pretty much reached the end of its rope." Furthermore, as the authors argue,
...it is largely because Lamarckism, saltationist (sudden) mutationism, and inner-driven orthogenesis, to name the most enduring alternative traditions in evolutionary biology, failed to become mathematized empirical sciences with at least a foothold on value-neutrality that Darwinism still rules the evolutionary roost.
The authors are careful to distinguish between "genetical Darwinism" and "Darwinism as such." Curiously, the primary point on which they criticize Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's What Darwin Got Wrong does not relate to an alleged flaw in their arguments, but rather has to do with their failure to distinguish between "genetical Darwinism" and "Darwinism as such." They remind and re-assure their readers that,
in the past, improved versions of Darwinism have taken the place of inadequate ones and that a new version -- a Darwinism of the future -- may well displace population genetical Darwinism without ending, but instead enriching, Darwinism as such.
The paper goes on to provide an historical overview of the developments of "genetical Darwinism," portraying it as a play in five acts. These are:
Act 1: Natural selection contra mutation.
"Validation of adaptive natural selection as an actual natural phenomenon beginning in the 1880s."

Act 2: Mutation plus natural selection.
"An intermediate position that can be justly called Darwinian became popular in the first three decades of the twentieth century. It assigned the creative role in evolution to sudden mutations. To natural selection, it assigned only the housekeeping work of filtering out unfit mutations."

Act 3: The Modern Synthesis.
"The population genetical theory of natural selection...became the foundation of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1940s-1960s."

Act 4: Molecular Darwinism.
"The effect on population genetical Darwinism of molecular genetics beginning in the 1950s and 1960s."

Act 5: The End of Population Genetic Darwinism.
"So much for Darwinism as reductionist genetics."

Notably, the paper's authors seem to share the view of the genome that ID proponents have been advocating for years: "There is probably very little 'junk DNA.' The entire genome, including its frequent repeats, plays a role in regulating gene expression." In support of this, they cite a 2011 paper by Pink et al. ("Pseudogenes: Pseudo-functional or key regulators in health and disease?").

Contrary to the Darwin lobby's oft-repeated assertion that there are absolutely no weaknesses in Darwinian theory, the paper offers the concession that the modern synthesis has never provided an account of "how major forms of life evolved" -- an omission that is not unsubstantial, to put it mildly.

In spite of all this, the authors are nonetheless confident that a new general theory and conceptual framework of evolution will be forthcoming, and that this will make up for where current formulations of evolution fail. But this is mere speculation.

The Darwin lobby will doubtless continue to make their routine assertion that no credible scientist sees any substantial problems with modern evolutionary theory. Such a position is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.

a reply to: Lucid Lunacy

"... the OP is asking for this specifically in response to the demand that Creationism should be taught in a school's science curriculum. If it's faith-based then it obviously doesn't belong in one."

Yeah, I pretty much gathered that but felt the desire to comment nonetheless.

Personally, I think that science should be left to science classes and faith, to churches and families. The problem arises when a child should stumble into that... no man's land of intolerance in either environment.

Innocence is no longer accepted on either end of that aforementioned polarization. You either obey or get kicked to the curb.

...

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Claims evolution has holes.

Quotes creationist propaganda as proof.


Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
I am not a creationist, but I do know that theory of evolution has some mighty holes.

Which holes exactly do you perceive in MES?

Does it really matter though?

judging by the very vocal minority who continues to insist that nonscience should be inclkuded in my childrens science curriculum... yes.

Forget teaching evolution or creationism in schools -

science belongs in school. creationism in the home and church.

mankind need classes in ethics and morals...

they have these really cool animals called Parents. And these Parents have one job once they take it, to prepare their children for the real world. It's not the schools job to teach morality, its the parents.

We live in a corporate/fascist society run by oligarchs.
Worrying and fighting over such "origins" are distractions.

Learning and adding to your kn owledge is in no way a distraction. Ever.

As for your quote mine from the ironically named "evolution news", if you had actually read the papewr yourself as opposed to copy and pasting out of context passages along with creationists interpretation of the data, you would know that the conclusion presented by your source is horridly biased and not actually representative of the authors true intentions.

originally posted by: CantStandIt
a reply to: onthedownlow

The point of creationism is NOT to prove science is flawed. Get real now.

When the theory of creationism first came around, the point was that it couldn't be disproven. Very much like many scientific theories that postulate on things that we lack the current knowledge to disprove. Creationism is a man made theory. If it provides the proof you need, that is great, I am not by any means suggesting that there is no creator.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

It's funny how you link a paper from 2012 that talks about how evolutionary theory isn't going to get any better and then this happened literally two days ago.

Virginia Tech chickens help reveal that evolution moves quicker than previously thought

originally posted by: redoubt
a reply to: Ghost147

"... is Creationism willing to be peer reviewed, and thrown away if proven to be false?"

Just a note or two on this approach, if I may...

Creationism is based on faith.
For instance, it says that God created the universe. We were not there so we base our belief in the faith that this is true. Arguing science against such faith, or faith against science for that matter, is basically pretty pointless.

Why is such conflict so embraced by the devout from both ends of this razored polarization?
The human condition - something we have yet to overcome, from any quarter, to graduate to the next level.
IMESHO, that is.

Have a nice day

this thread is a social experiment. the conclusion is irrelevant as long as we see how it was reached. the journey is the demonstration.

no one is stupid enough to think one thread will make a difference in the face-off between creationist science and actual science....i hope.

I posted this in another thread, but it seems appropriate here as well.

This is how I think creationists think science works.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: Ghost147

Hypothesis. Life can only come into being through design, not random chance. This can be falsified by doing tests that attempt to start life through random chance under conditions that would have been possible.

The test and results can certainly be peer reviewed to find flaws with the test and improve the test.

If at any time life is jumpstarted through mere random chance, then the hypothesis is invalid.

That test is incorrect: first there are so many variables, all that test shows is that a set of variables (including the variable of time) does not work. In order to prove life could not rise on its own you would have to show that organic compounds work outside the very basis of normal chemical reactions.

originally posted by: Isurrender73


Hypothesis 2.

Neither Natural Selection nor Mutations of cellular organisms can account for variations of genetic complexity that cross the boundaries of Class/Phylum.

This can be falsified by doing tests that attempt to create various stresses on single cell organisms in an attempt to cause mutations where the cellular organism becomes a multi-cellular organism considered of a new class/phylum from the parent organism.

All experiments that attempt to cause such mutations can be peer reviewed and improved.

If at anytime a cellular organism becomes multi-cellular, thus establishing a new class/phylum then the hypothesis is flawed.

The hypothesis was flawed from the start. We already have proven that mutations due account for genetic variation considering "giving rise to variants in genes" is in the very definition of mutation. Phylum, class, species are just taxonomic terms that we use for categorizing. there is no specific barrier between the two. So before your hypothesis can be taken seriously, you would need to rewrite it to state what the mechanism is that forms a barrier and provides a concrete separation between classes and phylum. You would then have to provide a barrier between species because otherwise, evolution could occur naturally between those subgroups. This still does not provide evidence for creation, because for the second part you would need to show how this is incompatible with Chemistry and modern genetics.

Hypothesis 3

Neither Natural Selection nor Mutations of complex life can produce offspring of a different class/phylum.

This can be falsified by long term testing of simple organism that have short lifecycles such as Mayflies, which have a lifecycle ranging from 1-24 hours.

All observations of natural selection or attempts to cause such mutations can be peer reviewed and improved.

Although these tests need to be done in controlled environments over many years the tests can be done and peer reviewed.

If at anytime the Mayfies evolve into an organism of a new class/phylum the hypothesis is flawed.

We already do this, we get variation based on the results which goes against your hypothesis. Secondly, you need to prove that these mutations cannot add up, IE, show there is a barrier preventing that from occurring or that changes in DNA/organic chemistry goes against all principles of chemistry. In other words start proving the null hypotheses for current models.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Hypothesis. Life can only come into being through design, not random chance. This can be falsified by doing tests that attempt to start life through random chance under conditions that would have been possible.

Wrong!

There is no designer, if anything, the observer is the designer, observation is key to effecting outcome.

With the ICFO’s quantum random number generators, the Delft experiment perfectly disproofs Einstein's world-view, stating "nothing travels faster than light" and “God does not play dice.” At the very least one of these statements must be false, proving the laws that govern the Universe may indeed be a throw of the dice.

Random number generators developed at ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, by the groups of ICREA Professors Morgan W. Mitchell and Valerio Pruneri, played a critical role in the historic experiment was published online today in Nature by the group of Ronald Hanson at TU Delft.
The experiment gives the strongest refutation to date of Albert Einstein’s principle of “local realism,” which says that the universe obeys laws, not chance, and that there is no communication faster than light.

www.icfo.eu...

Roll the dice! either way Quantum Entanglement is here to stay!