Evolution V Creationism?

Question

Evolution- Evidence found in fossils, plate tectonics show formation of the earth, carbon dating proves age of earth, Charles Darwin proved evolution of species, irrefutable scientific evidence.

Creationism - Evidence- some book. No proof.

Discuss.

Answer 1

Yes, there really isn't any versus here. There is only acceptance of evidence vs. acceptance of dogma.



The current biological theory of evolution relies only on 3 things: inheritance of traits, variability within species, and selection of these traits by the natural environment. How can people not agree that these things are facts? Do people not realize they inherit traits from their parents, who inherited those traits from their parents, etc. ad infinitum? Do people not realize that every organism of a species is different (save for anomalies such as twins) than every other organism of the same species? Do people not realize that organisms with better traits for living actually live longer and produce more offspring than those with less suitable traits--a fact that has been used since prehistoric man began taming and breeding wolves to help with hunts (which, I realize, is artificial selection and not natural selection, but the mechanism is the same)? How can there be any disagreement with these things?



Just a couple of notes to other answerers:



~"Evolution is based on a book that describes scientific knowledge of 150 years ago. Apparently a different group of Americans believe that this is the inspired word of God - or at least it's an excuse for greed and sexual excess."



>>That doesn't describe current biological evolution at all. Numerous scientific studies are being researched and scientific papers are being reviewed daily on evolutionary theory. To think that all thought or work on the subject stopped 150 years ago is a bit naive for an "old" know all...



~"Everything you said about Evolution was guess what, written in a book.Some book somewhere.You had to read about it did you not.If you had never read it how would you even know about it."



>>Yes, but, as I said before, scientific papers on the subject are being reviewed daily and published periodically in peer-reviewed, scientific journals. All you have to do is go to your local library, pick one of these journals up, and thumb through it to see what is currently being done in the field and in the lab.



~"Evolution - The fossils do not blend by small-step evolution, so macro evolution did not occur."



>>No, it just means there is still a debate about phylogenetic gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium. This is one of those points that creationists/IDer's try to bring up that they think shows that evolution isn't true. On the contrary, it simply means that speciation events could occur rapidly (after a period of gradually building up genetic differences in subpopulations of a speices) or that speciation events may occur slowly. Both could have and could still be occurring, because both rely on the same mechanisms.



~"Breeders cannot breed one species into a new species, so small changes do not lead to large changes."



>>No, not in one generation. And in multicellular, complex animals, not in a few dozen generations, or in the lifetime of the breeder. But yes, I would posit that small changes do lead to large changes, because it hasn't yet been falsified. If this is not true, what is the mechanism that stops an accumulation of small changes from becoming large changes? If what you say is true, there should be some mechanism that causes this...



~"Creationism - irreducible complexity, it is impossible for the cell to have evolved, it had to come into existence all at once or not at all."



>>This is simply an argument from incredulity. What you are really saying is that you can't imagine any way for a cell to come into existence without being created, so there is no other way. The irreducible complexity argument has been destroyed time and again, both in scientific literature and in the court of law (Kitzmiller v. Dover).



~"I do not agree with the carbon dating and I do know it does not work and is not accurate."



>>OK, what about other forms of radiometric dating? Do you know about and disagree with them all? What about molecular clocks...do you know they don't work and are not accurate? Why would all of these forms of dating point to the same general conclusion if they were all wrong?



~"God created everything seen and unseen and the Bible is proof that God exists because when you read it you can see the history and what has been prophesied years before it happened and then it comes to pass."



>>Prophecy is not science--hypotheses are.



~"Nothing is proven in the evolution theory. Look how perfectly the earth is made, if one of the things were off in the slightest, we could not live here."



>>Biological evolutionary theory is as provable as any other scientific theory. The fact of evolution (which I stated in the second paragraph) is pretty much without a doubt fact. The fact that the Earth is a specific distance away from an optimal sun with just the right atmosphere...that can be seen from much more than one side, and has very little to do with evolutionary theory.



~"Hmm let me think.....Evolution or Creationism ? What would I rather be ? A monkey's uncle?"



>>Give me a break.



~"Oh yeah! I also vote for Creationism since Evolution only inspired Hitler to practically wipe out and entire race of human beings"



>>Oh yeah, then I vote for evolution, because only racist creationists were involved in lynchings and hate crimes brought about by the KKK. See where this argument leads? And, once again, does nothing but make the side using it look willfully ignorant or appear to be grasping at straws.



~"Isaac Newton believed that the Bible is literally true in every respect."



>>Yeah, that's a good point, since every scientist / naturalist from the 1600's was a creationist. Because they all died before Darwin was even born.



~"Where are the transitionary fossils that are said to prove evolution?"



>>Every fossil is a transition. There is absolutely no way to think that every offspring of every organism in one continuous line would ever be found. But, apparently, for creationists, that is what it is going to take for you to stop using this argument.



~"If evolution is true why is still called a theory? The answer is quite simple, in all branches of science for a theory to become a law it has to be reproducable, in other words you have to be able to see it in action."



>>No, No, and NOOOO. A scientific theory does not "graduate" to a scientific law. There is no hierarchical war going on between theories and laws and hypotheses. In ALL branches of science, a law is simply a formal (and sometime mathematical) statement of a repeatable fact. A theory is an explanation of the facts, hence a theory actually encompasses and includes scientific laws. Scientific laws are used to provide evidence for scientific theories. Look at what I wrote in the second paragraph: inheritance is a law of nature, variation is a law of nature, natural selection is a law of nature. The theory of evolution uses these laws to explain the number and diversity of life we currently see on the planet.



~"Second, there is plenty of evidence for creationism, if you would care to look:

http://www.answersingenesis.org

http://www.icr.org

http://www.trueorigin.org

http://www.apologeticspress.org"



>>No. Stop using these things as scientific sources, because they are not. The "evidence" you claim to be on these sites is A) evidence that also supports evolution, or B) isn't actual scientific evidence. Everything else on these sites, by and large, is made up of conjecture or fabrication or misquoting authorities or attempts at debunking evolutionary theory. There is no evidence there. They might get close, at some points, to pointing out flaws of evolutionary theory, but, in the end, provide no actual physical scientific evidence that there is any flaw.



~"I know the Bible is not a scientific text-book, but when it touches on science it is accurate:"



>>I wonder, then, would you consider creation scientific? Just asking, because your quotes about "science" in the bible are no more than an author taking poetic license with some scientific terminology.



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Sorry this got so long, but you did say "Discuss", did you not?

Answer 2

What evidence found in fossils? The fossil record shows that fish, insects and plants all appear suddenly and highly developed with no evolutionary predecessors. Animals also appear suddenly with great variety.



The accuracy of carbon-dating has been called into question by the scientific community.



If Darwin proved the evolution of species, why do scientists, to this day, still argue about how it happend, when it happend, how fast it happend, even whether it happend at all?



What irrefutable scientific evidence? The appendix? The peppered moth?



I know the Bible is not a scientific text-book, but when it touches on science it is accurate:



The water cycle - "All the winter torrents are going forth to the sea, yet the sea itself is not full. To the place where the winter torrents are going forth, there they are returning so as to go forth." - Ecclesiastes 1:7.



"For he draws up the drops of water; They filter as rain for his mist." - Job 36:27.



The Earth is not supported by elephants on a turtle or a guy called Atlas - "He is stretching out the north over the empty place, Hanging the earth upon nothing." - Job 26:7.



The earth isn't flat - "There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.” - The Hebrew word 'chugh' , here translated “circle,” can also be rendered “sphere." Some translations use 'globe' or 'the round earth'. Only a sphere appears as a circle from every angle. A flat disk would more often appear as an ellipse, not a circle.



Long before the invention of the microscope: "Your eyes saw even the embryo of me, and in your book all its parts were down in writing.” - Psalm 139:16.

Answer 3

Both theorys have flaws in there ideas, take the bible, noaha, a seniour citizen suposidly built a giant boat and took 2 of every animal into it, then a great flood occured, now if there was a flood big enough to flood the entire earth wouldnt there have to be enough water on the planet in the first place to do so.



What i mean is that all the water for the flood must of come from somwhere and then went away again.



Also, if man is created in gods image why are there so many races, if there was adam and eve and no evolution then everyone would have to be the same race and would have to look all the same colour.



How can you churchies explain that.

Answer 4

this question is getting SOOO tiresome.... *sigh*



anyway, we should just let this whole thing go. evolution certainly seems plausible whereas creationism has no proof and depends on the faith of the believer to be true. but let's face it, we know VERY LITTLE about how the universe really works much less how it came to be this way.



everyone just get out of each others' hair and leave it alone



evolution - may or may not be correct, but it works for now so just chill



creation - if you believe in it, go ahead, just stop trying to convince everyone else because it's not working. plus, should it turn out that this is the truth (hypothetically speaking of course), we won't find out until we die so stop making life so unpleasant by constantly arguing over what the "truth" is.



simply put: TRUTH IS AN OPINION

Answer 5

Where are the transitionary fossils that are said to prove evolution?



Carbon 14 as a dating method is at best unreliable, because of its relatively short half life of 5,730 years it cannot be used to measure ages of millions never mind billions of years for obviously after each period of 5,730 years the amount of Carbon 14 is reduced by half, so, after about 20 half lives (about a million years or so) the amount of Carbon 14 that is left that is left would not be measurable by the most accurate of instruments.



Darwin did not prove evolution he only suggested it as a possible alternative to Creation.



If evolution is true why is still called a theory? The answer is quite simple, in all branches of science for a theory to become a law it has to be reproducable, in other words you have to be able to see it in action.



How do the evolutionists explain polystrate fossils?



Maybe some person can show me their "irrefutable scientific evidence?"

Answer 6

First of all, there is a problem with your word "proof." “Proof” is one of those words. As Jim McGuiggan has said, “‘Proof’ in math isn’t the same as proof in history or in interpersonal relationships or in biology or in any one of a host of other disciplines. Ask a child (or a husband or a father or a friend) to ‘prove’ the beloved really loves them and it isn’t possible. Even if it could be ‘proved’, the child may not be able to make the case well enough to convince the critic. In this case it would be the child’s inability that would be the problem and not that the claim couldn’t be ‘proved.’ The trouble with critics is that often they can’t tell the difference between someone being unable to prove it and the ‘prove-ability’ of the claim. In addition, more often than not they don’t know what kind of ‘proof’ is required in the various disciplines.”



And as John Lennox said in his debate with Richard Dawkins, “Of course, we do no speak of ‘proof.’ You only get proof, in the strict sense, in my own field of mathematics. But, in every other field, including science, we can’t speak of proof—we can speak of evidence, of pointers, of being convinced beyond reasonable doubt.”



Second, there is plenty of evidence for creationism, if you would care to look:

http://www.answersingenesis.org

http://www.icr.org

http://www.trueorigin.org

http://www.apologeticspress.org



And third, here are some of Darwin’s failed predictions: www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-printable.html

Answer 7

It is not true that Charles Darwin proved evolution - he proposed a theorem of natural selection to explain the diversity of species. It is a theory which numerous scientists have been testing for the past 150 years, and it is generally accepted (ie by 99%+ of the scientists working in this field) that none of the evidence so far collected, from fossils, plate tectonics, gene research, etc contradicts this theory, and indeed that much of the evidence collected more recently supports it. However, natural selection operates over such long time periods that it's quite difficult to conclusively prove. What is certain is that nobody has been able to disprove it (although there are certainly people who think they have).



A couple of corrections to earlier posts : whilst it was recently fashionable in intelligent design circles (having accepted defeat on the eye, wing, etc) to contend that the cell represents the unit of irreducible complexity, even this has now been conceded, and the debate has moved on to the internals of cells, although even there all of the examples brought forward (principally by Behe) have also been shown to have plausible reducible components.



Whilst it is true that most of us learned of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection from a book or from a teacher, the evidence for it can be researched in numerous other ways and even by our own scientific efforts, if we are appropriately skilled. The Bible, on the other hand, does not have any supporting evidence whatsoever. It's also worth noting that the Bible contradicts itself in numerous places, so it's logically impossible for it all to be literally true.



EDIT: I forgot to add the point I was going to make on fossils. Well two points really. Firstly, lots of animals don't fossilize well, so we're never going to have good fossil records of them anyway. Secondly, the total number of fossils we have found is not that large. Whether or not you believe in evolution, if you accept the vast majority of scientific evidence that life on earth has gone on for some considerable time (perhaps 3.5 billion years), and that that there are trillions of animals in existence in any one of those years, then the proportion of dead animals whose fossil remains we have discovered is extremely small indeed. In fact we generally find lots of fossils of the same animal, presumably because the right fossilization conditions happened to exist where that particular animal was numerous. When you add to this the difficulty in determining from a fossil anything but it's overall physiology, it's absolutely not surprising in any way that we don't have detailed fossil records of a series of evolutionary changes. In fact it would be astonishing if we did.



@StuartG The reason it's called a theory is that as you say it hasn't been proven. Much like Einstein's theories of relativity, for example. Succeeding generations of scientists generally spend their time trying to find exceptions to theories, and when this happens, they generally propose new theories. So far nobody has found anything which can't be explained by Darwin's theory. Until they do, most of us will continue to regard it as the theory most likely to be correct. Incidentally can you provide any reference to support your assertion regarding the capacity of existing instruments for measuring the proportion of Carbon 14?

Answer 8

Both are anthropomorphic simplifications of how our present diversity of animal life came about. Creationism is based on a chapter of a book that describes scientific knowledge from around 2,100 years ago. (The next chapter gives an account based on scientific knowledge from 2,600 years ago, but apparently that version is not the inspired word of God).



Evolution is based on a book that describes scientific knowledge of 150 years ago. Apparently a different group of Americans believe that this is the inspired word of God - or at least it's an excuse for greed and sexual excess.



Both arguments are distinctly dated. Choose whichever one suits your purpose and let the zoologists worry about how the species came about.

Answer 9

Christians seem to think their god was too stupid to be able to use evolution as his tool!!



If god supposedly made man in his image then we have surely become better than god now.



“Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity. We aren’t the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago.”



The interesting thing is that where Christians stick to the creation theory and tie it tightly to Christianity, as science finds ever more proof of evolution it does not just destroy faith in their creation theory but surely makes more and more people realize the whole religion is not credible!!!

Answer 10

Nothing is proven in the evolution theory. Look how perfectly the earth is made, if one of the things were off in the slightest, we could not live here.

How can the birds migrate and end up in the same place at the exact same date and time every single year?

Answer 11

Sorry, not an answer to you, just a need to guffaw at the freaks. Every day as an atheist, I question life, the universe, and everything. Every day as a creationist, they question nothing but what pennance is acceptable for the thing they are about to do, contary to the bible. Those that think that god is a reality are fucked! Give me the freedom to question over the comfort of belief and the calousness of doing what I want anyway and praying for forgiveness to cover it up.

Answer 12

The answer could be...



GOD (The Universe) created Evolution (Organic Machine Code).



We are Organic Living Machines - The Universe must have programed our DNA!

Answer 13

Hmm let me think.....Evolution or Creationism ? What would I rather be ? A monkey's uncle? Or something created in the image of God? I vote Creationism. Oh yeah! I also vote for Creationism since Evolution only inspired Hitler to practically wipe out and entire race of human beings ( Not monkey's okay people, Jews and any other race are human beings not monkeys!)

Answer 14

Evolution Vs. Creationism

Smart Vs. Smrt

Answer 15

Isaac Newton believed that the Bible is literally true in every respect. Throughout his life, he continually tested Biblical truth against the physical truths of experimental and theoretical science. He never observed a contradiction. In fact, he viewed his own scientific work as a method by which to reinforce belief in Biblical truth.



His discoveries span all aspects of the physical world with special emphasis on experimental and theoretical physics and chemistry and applied mathematics. He invented virtually the entire science of mechanics and most of the science of optics. During this time he invented such mathematics as he needed or as interested him including the discipline known as calculus.

Answer 16

All the evidence is on the side of evolution. EVIDENCE THAT CANNOT BE REFUTED.



The only thing on the side of so called creationism is that some preacher told you that it is incompatible with an old book, something that is not necessarily true.

Answer 17

There is nothing to discuss. I have never heard 1 single creationist argument that couldn't be refuted. So basically it comes down to a willingness to accept information or don't. If people could just be honest and say " I don't accept evolution because it contradicts my religious beliefs" then that would be a bit more honest. But clinging to a pseudo science like Creationism or ID is just plain ignorant.

Answer 18

I do not agree with the carbon dating and I do know it does not work and is not accurate. God created everything seen and unseen and the Bible is proof that God exists because when you read it you can see the history and what has been prophesied years before it happened and then it comes to pass. Also the Bible tells us what will happen if we do not choose the right decision for our souls.

Answer 19

Nothing to discuss.



Evolution - lots of evidence in geology, biology and other studies of the natural world



Creationism - a book loaded with lies, absurdities and scientific impossibilities



Case closed.

Answer 20

evolution true facts creation a man made fairy tale a lie

Answer 21

What's there to discuss? A book which claims to hold the truth is not a proof.



edit: Heather, was that on purpose? Because in my language ''smrt'' means ''death'' ...

.

Answer 22

i think its more ridiculous for people to believe that the universe and everything appeared out of nowhere

Answer 23

if Creationism is true, then why the French?

Answer 24

Everything you said about Evolution was guess what, written in a book.Some book somewhere.You had to read about it did you not.If you had never read it how would you even know about it.

Answer 25

What's to discuss? The merits of the real world versus the merits of an imaginary one? Those two concepts can't be rationally juxtaposed--but we manage to have to do it almost every day for the sake of ignorant creationists.

Answer 26

Let the people believe what they need to believe.

Answer 27

there is no "V" save for in the minds of the hardcore US creationists.

Answer 28

There's nothing to discuss. Creation is nothing but delusion and fairy tales.

Answer 29

No contest.

It's a 'walkover'.

It's a 'Gimme'.

It's a 'whitewash'.

Answer 30

Same thing here... nothing to discuss.

Evolution....99.85% scientists

Intelligent design.....0.15%scientists

Biblical creation......001%

Answer 31

we won! yay!...