That's not the way science works.

It isn't like in a court room. Alternative theories are meant to be constructive not adversarial.

A theory is a guess. If you don't believe me look up what the late Richard Feinman (a leading American physicist) had to say on it.

Absolute proof seldom occurs in science because, typically, they raise new questions as well as answer existing ones. That doesn't mean that the thoery is no good or that there aren't good and bad theories it's a question of judging which is looks like the best guess and worthy of spending time and money on further enquiry.

My contention is that the creationist idea isn't really a scienctific theory at all. People who believe in it and try to debunk mainstream science aren't trying to understand the way the world works. They are trying to substantiate a literal interpretation of the bible. For them, we don't need science to find the answer, it's all there in the scriptures. God did it and that's that.

Creationism isn't new of course. It was at one time the mainstream idea even among scientists. For those days it's understandable. Before the invention of the microscope things seemed to grow out of nothing. Creation was happening all around them. It was a miracle of nature they couldn't penetrate.

The above was meant to be in answer to discussion on another thread "Light Entertainment". My login timed out so it ended up here.

This is a little off topic, but would anyone care to explain to me how creation and evolution are incompatible? The way I look at it, even if evolution is true, each species had to evolve from something else, which had to evolve from something else, etc., so where did the first species come from? And on the other side, if you accept creation to be true, you can still say that mutations caused new species to spin off the ones that already existed, which would account for the closely related species.

I am not an expert on evolution (which is why haven't delved into it before now, not really my field) but the general idea is this:

The world started out with inorganic relatively simnple compounds floating around in the sea. These got there as the by-product of the formation of the Earth itself.

The environment on Earth about 3 billion years ago was very different to today and was being bombarded with all sorts of radiation. The energy from that caused compounds to combine to form more complex ones. The process continued until they became sophisiticated enough to form the basic elements of microscopic life.

That process continued (very very gradually) with the formation of more complex primitive life forms until they became cellular in structure. Then they became multicellular and so on. These if you like were the first species that gradually became bigger and more complex as time went on and evolving into all sorts of diverse creatures.

Now I know this sounds like a fairy tale and you wonder how it is that such sophisiticated organisms could come about without deliberate intervention by a thinking being. Who is directing the energy to make this formation take place?

Well my understanding is that (initially) it is believed to be the result of low probability chance combinations that will tend to occur given enough time and enough material. Well we are talking billions of years and plenty of material in the primordial sea. That's an awful long span of time. Virtually anything can happen if it is even remotely possible. Maybe that's where the conceptual difficulty lies with the sceptics, I don't know.

Anyway a point is reached where the life forms start to self replicate and evolve further in a more self sustained manner. I don't know when DNA (not necessarily the form we see it today) appears on the scene but when it does evolution really takes off.

I hope that answers your question Bud.

Ok. For the sake of peace and quiet, let's accept the explanation given by the Evolutionists, as to the What, When and Where of creation.

Please move on to the next two questions.

re "Anyway a point is reached where the life forms start to self replicate and evolve further in a more self sustained manner. I don't know when DNA (not necessarily the form we see it today) appears on the scene but when it does evolution really takes off..."


REPLY: This gets to a core difficulty for evolution. You say: "where the life forms start to self-replicate and evolve further..."

How can a creature get more DNA to 'evolve further'? It is an impossibility, one that evolutionists simply cannot explain.

How, for example, did we 'develop' a highly complex organism like the human eye, which has dozens of component parts which must all interact together to produce sight?

Or how did the tiny, humble trilobite 'acquire' highly complex compound eyes with hexagonal lenses that can see in the dark thousands of feet below the surface of the oceans, where the weight of water is intense?

There are billions of these (dead) trilobites each with their highly complex eyes. Yet there is not one life form indicating a line of development up to that wonderful eye, which again shows all the hallmarks of design.

The more obvious answer is that the human eye, like everything else in the 'natural world', is the work of a Creator - a brilliant Designer

Tony Bennett:
"The more obvious answer is that the human eye, like everything else in the 'natural world', is the work of a Creator - a brilliant Designer"

Stan:
People often see things they don't understand. They see things in the sky they can't explain. They sometimes come to the conclusion that they are visitors from space like the ones they see in the movies. To them that's the more obvious answer and so it must be right. Usually it isn't.

I don't pretends to be able to answer all your detailed objections Tony. I was just trying to answer Bud's question which seemed to be asking about the generally accepted picture of the process of evolution of life on Earth.

Don't rely on me as an ambassador for evolution, I don't know enough about it. I suggest that Bud or anyone else troubled by Tony's questions to go look for themselves at what the literature has to say.

<<I suggest that Bud or anyone else troubled by Tony's questions to go look for themselves at what the literature has to say.>>

I agree.

The following may be of interest.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/06/news/kansas.php

"TOPEKA, Kansas Six years after Kansas ignited a national debate over the teaching of evolution, the state is at it again, poised to push through new science standards this summer requiring that Darwin's theory be challenged in the classroom."

I don't see the need for all this fuss. Darwin should be challenged. So should the question of how a person can walk on water, multiply loaves and fishes etc.

Students may be better served if they were taught how to reason and to question everything.

re (Buck): "Students may be better served if they were taught how to reason and to question everything"


REPLY: Amen to that!