Is Creationism actually science?

[scd]

@RonSewell

Frankly, because I’m not a complete idiot.

great. the same is true for motors.

[Frank_robert (Retired Psychologist)]

@scd

how do you know that?

GENERAL MOTORS FACTORY TOUR??: How cars are built? – Manufacturing process all around the world. https://youtu.be/ekQHdE3YkGM

[Edgar]

@John_Harshman

When you redefine words in common use, you run the risk of creating confusion. When you refuse to recognize that other people mean something different, you magnify the confusion.

The word “Darwinist” is in common use? As far as I can tell, no one in the scientific community uses the word “Darwinist”, so your confusion as to its meaning is understandable. Only in creationism/ID circles is that word used.

Please allow me to (once again) educate you on its use: A “Darwinist” is simply someone who accepts the theory all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor over billions of years via a process that involves natural selection.
So a “Darwinist” can be anyone from the original nineteenth-century variety right up the more sophisticated 21st century variety who embrace the so-called Modern Synthesis.

@AllenWitmerMiller

I first learned this very common understanding of Psalm 14:1 from the late Gleason Archer (a friend and colleague I greatly miss.) I’ve heard the same interpretation from many other evangelical OT scholars as well as the rabbi and Journal of Biblical Literature editor who taught me Hebrew grammar so long ago that it is scary (because I was quite young at the time.) [My point in mentioning that professor from my youth is that this interpretation is not something novel but one that has been around for a very long time—even long before I was born.]

Well, I guess it comes as no surprise to learn that some very learned Bible experts have very vivid imaginations. What a pity your very imaginative interpretation of Psalms 14:1 is ignored by 99.99% of professional Bible scholars.

evangelical OT scholars

I gave up listening to evangelical scholars a long time ago.

So, let’s return to your words, Edgar, so that we can put your integrity to the test.

Oh dear!

@Edgar , you might start your education with the commentary/study notes which Dallas Theological Seminary faculty—is that mainstream enough for you?—produced for the NET Bible … Here’s another … My best commentaries are in storage but what I’ve explained to you is also easily found in layperson-oriented commentaries, such as this one at [What the Bible says about Nabal]https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/718/Nabal.htm)

I take your point. I apologize for being so narrow-minded.

Are you now willing to admit that your claim is false? Is your interpretation of Psalms 14:1 truly the only one in the “real world”?

Here’s what I’m willing to do for you:
I shall upgrade my assessment of your interpretation of Psalm 14:1 from “absurd” to “very imaginative”

… and I shall will amend my statement to, “Unless one visits the lonely fringes of Very-Imaginative Bible scholarship, the only interpretation of Psalms 14:1 out there is the one that refers to atheism.”

POSTSCRIPT: Edgar, I do appreciate that you give me fun opportunities to return to the batting cage to practice my basic skills.

I’m happy to have been of assistance. (I presume “batting cage” is a baseball term. Baseball is not big over here in Australia - cricket, on the other hand, is our national game, and batting practice for it is done in “nets”.)

[Edgar]

@Tim

Please consider that I’ve had my fill on this forum of implausible creationist hypotheticals . This is particularly true as they generally aren’t even remotely original, and have a strong tendency to be plagarism of Paley’s Watchmaker analogy (often with the scene changed from a heath to a beach).

If I were an atheist, I would need to dismiss anything logically compelling like Paley’s “watchmaker” analogy as implausible too.

You have not in fact established that “the very first computer was irreducibly complex”

If I were an atheist, I would fear the concept of Irreducible Complexity too, no matter logic it is or how apparent in is in the world around us. Would you agree that a mouse trap, for example, is irreducibly complex?

Evidence of this?

If I were an atheist, I would need to deny the reality of miracles too, no matter how well documented they are. No amount of evidence would convince me of their authenticity.

Then your claim can be dismissed out of hand.

If I were an atheist, I would say the same thing.

I don’t “believe” anything, other than that at one stage there wasn’t life on the Earth, that a later stage there was, so that something must have happened. There are a number of potential explanations, some of them more plausible than others.

Huh? The only “potential explanations” you refer to are ones based on nature, yet you claim that you don’t “believe” abiogenesis is the result of a natural process.

some of them more plausible than others

None of those explanations are “plausible” – they’re all based on wishful-thinking, fantasy, superstition and magic.

Given the track history of success of natural explanations over supernatural explanations in explaining natural phenomena, I think that a natural explanation is more likely to prove true.

Yep, take evolution, for example – that fairy tale is sooo successful at explaining what was responsible for the history of life on earth!

more likely to prove true.

Really? Which calculations do you base that conclusion on? Or is it just an assertion?

No, I don’t agree with it.

Let me get this straight: You don’t agree (with Patterson’s statement) that theories that can’t be tested are just stories that don’t belong in science? If so, you have abandoned the scientific method (which involves testing an hypothesis) and your idea of “science” is a charlatan’s paradise.
Little wonder you accept the Darwinian explanation for the history of life on earth so uncritically. Little wonder you’re willing to accept fairy-tale abiogenesis explanations as “plausible”.

@Tim

I wonder what a mashup of Richard III and Genesis would look like. “In the deep bosom of the ocean buried” interpreted as a reference to the Noahic Flood.

Speaking of Noah’s flood, you might find this interesting:

“ The historicity of the Biblical Flood account is confirmed by the tradition existing in all places and at all times as to the occurrence of a similar catastrophe. F. von Schwarz (Sintfluth und Völkerwanderungen, pp. 8-18) enumerates sixty-three such Flood stories which are in his opinion independent of the Biblical account . R. Andree (Die Flutsagen ethnographisch betrachtet) discusses eighty-eight different Flood stories , and considers sixty-two of them as independent of the Chaldee and Hebrew tradition . Moreover, these stories extend through all the races of the earth excepting the African ; these are excepted, not because it is certain that they do not possess any Flood traditions, but because their traditions have not as yet been sufficiently investigated. Lenormant pronounces the Flood story as the most universal tradition in the history of primitive man , and Franz Delitzsch was of opinion that we might as well consider the history of Alexander the Great a myth, as to call the Flood tradition a fable . It would, indeed, be a greater miracle than that of the Deluge itself, if the various and different conditions surrounding the several nations of the earth had produced among them a tradition substantially identical. Opposite causes would have produced the same effect.”

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Deluge (newadvent.org)

[scd]

@Frank_robert

GENERAL MOTORS FACTORY TOUR??: How cars are built? – Manufacturing process all around the world

i can show you the same with genomes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00511-9

so now genomes are also a product of design?

[Edgar]

@Faizal_Ali

Suppose we routinely directly observed unguided waves spelling out people’s addresses in seashells? Would we still be able to determine that any particular instance of this was due to design? No, we couldn’t.

But waves are never observed spelling out someone’s name and address in seashells, let alone routinely. Everyone knows that such an arrangement of seashells could only be the result of design, because everyone knows waves are not capable of doing that - that’s the point of the analogy. Not even small children see sandcastles on the beach and think the waves made them.
No one has ever seen life arise from inanimate matter and never will – such an event could only be the result of design.

Living things come into existence by unguided natural processes.

The first television came into existence by unguided natural processes too! Even the village idiot knows that chaos produces order!

Living things come into existence by unguided natural processes. That is what we observe.

Really? Who has ever observed a living thing arise from inanimate matter? Wait, surely you’re not referring to reproduction? No, I guess not - no one would present such an illogical argument.

Your argument is based on your belief that this “first viable organism” was “irreducibly complex” in a way that could not have arisen thru natural processes. But unless you actually know the detailed structure of this putative “first viable organism” you’re just blowing hot air.

Not so. Knowing what we know now about the architecture and complexity of even the simplest known cell, the rational mind will conclude that any viable organism is so way too complex to have arisen naturally.

Your argument is as flawed as this one: “If we don’t know the exact structure of the first television, claiming it could not have arisen naturally is just blowing hot air.”

when that day comes

You live in an atheist dream world – that day will never come. Humans have zero chance of ever producing a viable organism from inanimate matter.

you creationists will fall back on your dishonest rhetoric and say “See? It needed intelligent designers!”

What “dishonest rhetoric”?

rational people

An interesting choice of words. Do “rational people” deny an obvious scientific impossibility when they come across it and then try to explain it away with lame pseudo-science? I don’t think so.

[Edgar]

@Tim

endless bad analogies

What would you suggest is a good analogy for abiogenesis?

@Dan_Eastwood

If Creationism is science, then where are the new invention, patents, medical treatments, practical applications, or fruitful areas of new discovery? These things are the hallmarks of good science, and we have over 500 years of historical examples in evidence

In that case, the discovery that the sun is a hydrogen nuclear fusion reactor does not have “the hallmarks of good science” and your definition of “good science” is confined to operational science.

This is not to say that Creationists cannot conduct science, they do, but they do it the same way as anyone else; through application of methodological naturalism.

Creationists apply methodological naturalism to identify what is scientifically impossible - aka miracles. Therefore, recognizing miracles is science – a miracle such as abiogenesis, for example.

@Michael_Okoko

Aren’t you aware that genetic mutations can alter the body plans of organisms and are bonafide members of the repertoire of mechanisms employed by neodarwinism?

I’m aware that mutations are one of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms, but no, I was not aware that mutations can alter the body plans of organisms. As far as I know, genetic mutations have never been observed producing a new body plan.

You claim that “mutations can alter the body plans of organisms”, but not only do you have zero empirical evidence to support said claim, your claim cannot ever be tested. This reduces your claim to nothing more than a pseudo-scientific story, which exists only in your mind.

Thousands of years of artificial selection practiced by animal and plant breeders represents an immense experiment in the potential of organism to evolve – the results of that vast experiment suggest that the genomes of organisms offer only small, limited variations within any given species. Not the slightest hint of a novel body plan or a novel organ in sight. Sorry.

This means that if you intend to study how novel organs and body plans emerge, comparative genomics and transcriptomics are examples of vital areas to consider, not fossils.

Nonsense. No one knows or can ever know how novel organs and body plans emerge – all you’ve got are untestable hypotheses, which impart no knowledge at all.

I could be wrong, but fossils mostly tells us these changes occurred and not how they happened

Thank you for agreeing with me – fossils don’t tell us how macroevolution happened (assuming macroevolution even occurred).
Fossils certainly tell us that “changes occurred”, but they certainly don’t tell us that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor via a process of biological evolution.

It would seem that you’re reading too much into the evidence – perhaps due to a personal belief system you feel compelled to reinforce.

For example, we know that viviparity evolves from oviparity. This study examined how this sort of transition could have happened using genomic and gene expression data:

Another paper to read is this which discusses how new organs can evolve using placental evolution, which seems to be the most understood, as a model.

Thank you. I will check these things out.

[Edgar]

@Frank_robert

I would expect it does to you but for many others it looks like what would be expected from natural processes.

… the latter being decidedly irrational.

@Frank_robert

Living organisms are inherently complex yet we know they evolve.

Judging by some recent posts on this thread, some folks here would consider “inherently complex” to be scientifically meaningless term.

[RonSewell (RonS)]

@Edgar

I’m aware that mutations are one of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms, but no, I was not aware that mutations can alter the body plans of organisms. As far as I know, genetic mutations have never been observed producing a new body plan.

Uh, you better get set for incomings. To prep up, here is a Khan Academy note on homeotic genes, and if you are inclined, watch this YouTube:

What can we learn about gene control and development from Fruit Flies

[Witchdoc]

@Edgar

You claim that “mutations can alter the body plans of organisms”, but not only do you have zero empirical evidence to support said claim, your claim cannot ever be tested. This reduces your claim to nothing more than a pseudo-scientific story, which exists only in your mind.

Empirical evidence for evolution of toes to hooves

https://amp.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/f49b6q/evolution_of_the_horse_foot/

Comparative anatomy evidence for evolution of muscles by comparing muscle anatomy of fish, reptiles and humans (for example at t=9 minutes 20 seconds for the appendicular muscles)

Evolution of Muscles

Vestigial human kidneys which regress is evidence for evolution of organs; humans go through three sets of Human Kidneys - The Pronephros, Mesonephros, Metanephros, where the pronephros, mesonephros which later regress during development are relics of our fish ancestry

APBIJ.MS.ID.555554.pdf

We can keep going if you like. Here are a few more

Foetal Atavistic Muscles - Evidence for Human - Chimpanzee, Human - Amphibian/Reptile Common Ancestry

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/hv2q7u/foetal_atavistic_muscles_evidence_for_human/

Vestigial teeth genes in birds - evolution of beaks from ancestor with teeth

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1254390

Anatomy and evolution of the vas deferens - evidence of our evolution from fish

https://www.reddit.com/r/debatecreation/comments/evxts2/evolution_of_the_vas_deferens/

The vestigial human yolk sac and its genes - evidence for evolution of placenta from egg laying ancestors

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/etxl1s/the_vestigial_human_embryonic_yolk_sac/

Tbx5, the molecular transition between three and four chambered hearts - evidence for organ evolution

https://www.reddit.com/r/CreationEvolution/comments/bk2d7s/tbx5_the_molecular_transition_between_3_and_4/

The Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve - Evidence we evolved from an aquatic ancestor

https://www.reddit.com/r/CreationEvolution/comments/awzvqo/the_stupidest_nerve_in_the_human_body/

Vestigial whale hind limbs - evidence for evolution of a new bodyplan of land dwelling back to aquatic

The evolution of whales - Understanding Evolution

No evidence for body plan changes? On the contrary, the evidence is abundant.

If you keep burying your head in the sand regarding the evidence, you might end up with vestigial relics for eyes, like the Namibian golden mole

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/eyde69/the_namibian_golden_mole_vestigial_eyeballs/

By the way - one last question, @Edgar

Was the “bodyplan” of the spider tailed horned viper designed, or did it evolve?

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/hrwuf9/the_iranian_spider_tailed_horned_viper_death/

[Faizal_Ali]

@Edgar

But waves are never observed spelling out someone’s name and address in seashells, let alone routinely. Everyone knows that such an arrangement of seashells could only be the result of design, because everyone knows waves are not capable of doing that - that’s the point of the analogy

Exactly.

Whereas in our experience living things only arise thru the reproduction of an ancestor that the organism resembles very closely but not always completely. No “intelligent designer” involved.

That’s why the seashell analogy in inapplicable to biology.

@Edgar

Really? Who has ever observed a living thing arise from inanimate matter? Wait, surely you’re not referring to reproduction? No, I guess not - no one would present such an illogical argument.

Indeed I am. And the illogic exists in your conflation of how the living things that have populated the planet over its history arose with the question of how living things first came into existence. The existence of a particular living thing capable of reproduction, or part thereof, that exists today is not explained by “design”, any more than is the pattern of ripples left on a beach by the motion of waves. Even a child can tell that from a sandcastle someone built. Now, we can still ponder how waves and sand first came into existence in the first place. But that is a very different question from that of what produced the ripples in the sand.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@scd

then prove me that the flagellum evolved. it should be very easy. thanks.

The flagella are a part of living evolving organisms. There is nesting hierarchical structure in the sequences of the genes encoding the proteins that make up different flagella (there are many different evolutionarily related flagella), and there are related simpler structures. You’ve had all this spoon-fed to you before innumerable times.

@scd

@Rumraket

The genomes they design, yes. Genomes they don’t design, no.

since there is no evidence for undesigned genome, this isnt true.

Your very own genome is undesigned. It was inherited from each of your parents, with a some mutational alterations thrown in. So your genome arose through a blind physical process, not by intelligent design.

[Michael_Okoko]

@Edgar

I’m aware that mutations are one of the neo-Darwinian mechanisms, but no, I was not aware that mutations can alter the body plans of organisms.

Indeed you have lived on the moon and only came back to earth recently.

@Edgar

As far as I know, genetic mutations have never been observed producing a new body plan.

Unbelievable.

@Edgar

You claim that “mutations can alter the body plans of organisms”, but not only do you have zero empirical evidence to support said claim, your claim cannot ever be tested. This reduces your claim to nothing more than a pseudo-scientific story, which exists only in your mind.

Muhahahaha. You are killing me with your jokes Edgar.

For starters let’s look at spiders. Spiders are born with 8 legs, but with knockdown mutations these researchers were able to generate spiders with 10 legs, altering the typical body plan. This extra pair of legs is not harmful to the spiders and they develop normally like their 8-legged counterparts. The extra legs are also fully functional.

https://www.pnas.org/content/109/13/4921

Let’s go to snakes. As you know, snakes are limbless with most of them having no appendages at all. However, we know that modern snakes descended from ancestors with limbs, so how was the body plan of snakes amended to make them limbless? You guessed right, its mutations. Both studies were able to show the mutational events that altered the body plan of snakes from limbed to limbless.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)31069-7

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31310-1

If the snake papers are too technical for you, this livescience article clearly summarizes their findings:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/56573-mutation-caused-snakes-to-lose-legs.html

Generally, the evolution of new morphological features or body plans involve mutations to gene regulatory networks (GRNs). A primer on GRNs is found here

The scientific literature is rife with articles on how mutations to these GRNs underlie morphological evolution. Step out of your bubble and explore.

@Edgar

Thank you for agreeing with me – fossils don’t tell us how macroevolution happened (assuming macroevolution even occurred).

Not quite. Fossils can tell a bit, but you should be looking mostly at living descendants to explain how these changes happened.

@Edgar

Fossils certainly tell us that “changes occurred”, but they certainly don’t tell us that all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor via a process of biological evolution.

Fossils tell us that to a great extent. Mix that in with the genomic data and it becomes basically ridiculous to deny all extant life forms are descended from a common ancestor.

@Edgar

It would seem that you’re reading too much into the evidence – perhaps due to a personal belief system you feel compelled to reinforce.

Sorry Edgar, I am only following the evidence where it leads. You seem to forget I was once a YEC and utterly rejected evolution. However, when I largely understood how science worked and saw that evolutionary claims were strongly supported by data, I knew I had to give up the empirically disproved claims of YEC pertaining to the origin of the rich diversity of extant life forms.

[Frank_robert (Retired Psychologist)]

@scd

i can show you the same with genomes:

You are overlooking the obvious, we know genomes are genetic material of an organism. A naive person may say it’s looks designed others would see it as the beauty of life.

You and @Edgar are looking for design likely due to your beliefs others are not.

[scd]

@Rumraket

Your very own genome is undesigned.

no. you dont know how the whole genome was created. you asume it.

[Frank_robert (Retired Psychologist)]

@Edgar

… the latter being decidedly irrational.

You have it backwards, knowledge is rational.

@Edgar

Judging by some recent posts on this thread, some folks here would consider “inherently complex” to be scientifically meaningless term.

Does it have a particular scientific meaning or does it simply mean “intrinsically difficult to model.”

[John_Harshman]

@Edgar

The word “Darwinist” is in common use?

It used to be. Of course nobody today is a Darwinist, so it’s dropped out of use. I suppose that means that I can redefine “Manichean” as a person who believes in the resurrection of Jesus, and start calling you a Manichean. Right?

@Edgar

A “Darwinist” is simply someone who accepts the theory all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor over billions of years via a process that involves natural selection.

Is Michael Behe a Darwinist, then?

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Edgar

What would you suggest is a good analogy for abiogenesis?

Dissipative Systems

@Edgar

In that case, the discovery that the sun is a hydrogen nuclear fusion reactor does not have “the hallmarks of good science” and your definition of “good science” is confined to operational science.

Nuclear fusion is an area of ongoing research and development, making it a fruitful area for new discovery and application.

“Operational” science, LOL

@Edgar

Creationists apply methodological naturalism to identify what is scientifically impossible …

Clearly you aren’t familiar with the Creationist literature on Flood Geology, which strongly endorses the physically impossible.

@Edgar

Judging by some recent posts on this thread, some folks here would consider “inherently complex” to be scientifically meaningless term.

Complexity is difficult to define with precision. If we can all agree on a single definition then it becomes meaningful.

@Witchdoc

Empirical evidence for evolution of toes to hooves

I think @Witchdoc might have seen this one coming!

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@scd

no. you dont know how the whole genome was created. you asume it.

DNA replication

[Tim]

@Edgar

If I were an atheist …

Your head would probably explode. So it is probably just as well that you’re not.

@Edgar

Huh? The only “potential explanations” you refer to are ones based on nature, yet you claim that you don’t “believe” abiogenesis is the result of a natural process.

I can think of at least three:

1. Abiogenesis

2. Pan-spermia

3. Divine Intervention

@Edgar

None of those explanations are “plausible” …

At least we agree on the implausibility of my third option.

@Edgar

Given the track history of success of natural explanations over supernatural explanations in explaining natural phenomena, I think that a natural explanation is more likely to prove true.

[puerile taunting of Evolutionary Biology omitted.]

Like static electricity rather than gods being responsible for lightning, like the Earth’s rotation rather than a divine chariot being responsible for the (apparent) movement of the Sun through the sky, etc.

@Edgar

Which calculations do you base that conclusion on?

No, I haven’t totaled up all the successful natural explanations, that’d take too long. But I do have a total for the number of successful supernatural explanations: zero. This makes natural explanations infinitely more successful than supernatural ones.

@Edgar

Let me get this straight: You don’t agree (with Patterson’s statement) that theories that can’t be tested are just stories that don’t belong in science?

No. I don’t agree that “there is no way of putting them to the test.”