[basil-rash]

It’s funny, because the creationists generally feel the exact same about evolutionists.

Both are faith based responses to questions we cannot answer any other way. Getting caught up in absolutes thinking your interpretation is the gold standard is a sign of an unrefined critical thinking process.

[IncreasePosts]

No, evolution is not faith based. If you want something faith based, which creationism purports to resolve, it would be if someone has a strong belief on how abiogenesis actually happened, since that is something that is still not well understood. But, we see evolution happening all around us, all the time.

[basil-rash]

It most certainly is. Evolutionists believe in the time invariance of the laws of physics with no proof, creationists believe the processes by why things have changed in the universe (“physics”, broadly) have changed over time, also with no proof. That there is some external influence that we cannot directly observe that has some massive impact on the development of the universe in ways we cannot explain.

(Funnily, physics have come to acknowledge the same, but they call it dark matter and say it’s all very scientific, whatever it is. But this is unknown enough to be not worth much discussion.)

Regarding the evolution we see around us all the time, I and many creationists besides me have full confidence in the idea that micro-evolution does occur. That there is a stochastic gradient decent process that hones in on time-varying local maxima over generations cannot really be denied. But that provides absolutely no answer to the questions of abiogenesis and speciation en-masse.

[dekhn]

The reason we believe in time invariance of the laws of physics is based on observation of old structures in the universe (at least we only have to look back about 4 billion years to the beginning of evolution on earth). So far we have not found any convincing evidence that the laws have changed (either new or different interactions, or the strength of the interactions).

I will say all of science is based on faith- the faith that the human mind can perceive the universe as it truly is, using rational thought and experimental data collection. For some reason this really bothers some scientists and they like to treat science as an unquestionable objective truth, but realistically, we can't exclude any number of hypotheses, but merely state them as improbable based on our understanding.

[basil-rash]

I fear you are failing to comprehend how fundamental the axiom in question (is the universal state influenced by actors beyond our comprehension?) really is. There is no experiment that can answer it, any and all observations must be looked at under a lens that is fundamentally influenced by your answer to the question.

We can certainly say that the observations look like they may have progressed at the rate we expect for the past 13 billion years, but that does nothing to exclude the possibility that around 6,000 years ago some actor we do not understand took 1 week to craft everything we observe now to be precisely how it is.

Reading your final paragraph, I believe we are more aligned than I previously thought. :)

[dekhn]

I thought even creationists rejected the Ussher chronology.

[basil-rash]

Some might. There are many branches and leaves in both the evolutionist and creationist worldview trees. That axiom is simply a fairly significant trunk-branch.

That said, it is very rare that I hear someone describing themselves as Christian who denies the general 7 day creation story. I happen to personally believe it was seven consecutive days^, but I've heard arguments it could have been seven days with an unknown gap in-between each pair.

^ "day" being the most morally-understandable way of describing the intervals at which the creation occurred. Obviously there was no sun or even light at first, so the concept of a day itself is shaky, and I make no claims as to how many cesium-133 transitions may have occurred in that period, or how far light might have travelled in one of them once it was created, or the magnitude of the various fundamental forces' impact on matter in that period, or really anything related to our understanding of how the dynamics we currently observe may have behaved in those intervals.

[burnished]

Oh they really aren't. Its sort of a tired rhetorical ploy pitting them as faith based beliefs on equal intellectual footing though.

Both are theories about the world. 'Creationism' as a theory really only became pure faith very recently as most specific claims attributable to it have been disproven or better explanations have been found. For a long time it was a perfectly cogent theory.

[basil-rash]

This is objectively false. Evolution explains absolutely nothing creationism doesn’t, and creationism explains a whole lot that evolution cannot. For instance, universal origins and the formation of cells.

[carapace]

Creationism doesn't explain anything.

You don't have to take evolution on faith. You can write a computer program that demonstrates that selection among almost-but-not-quite identical entities with heritable properties generates adaptive forms. Many people have.

DNA is real. Reproducing lifeforms are real. We know how they work in some detail. There's no faith required.

[arkey]

> Creationism doesn't explain anything.

How so? For that to happen you'd need to have the usual "evolution-is-science-and-creationism-is-religion-which-denies-science" stance, no?

There are creationist scientists, there is "creationism-proving", or at the very least allow "creationism-compatible" evidence in science, and so on. Let's reduce it even more, science hasn't been able to disprove Creation.

Believing "God did it" should not invalidate science, wanting to understand more, and actually making experiments. On the contrary, it should encourage it, as it did with many scientists who, in a way, brought us to where we are.

And as other commenters say, your computer program would prove absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things, primarily because micro-evolution (which can easily be understood as a feature of Creation) does certainly not imply macro-evolution or abiogenesis.

[basil-rash]

Please understand the discussion at hand before commenting. Nobody is denying the existence of small-scale "micro-evolution" that subtly guides species into local optima. The question is of abiogenesis and mass-speciation, topics evolutionism has been thoroughly unable to explain, despite many attempts.

[carapace]

I do understand the discussion. You don't seem to understand what explanation is. Saying "God did it" doesn't explain the origin of life. We may never have a scientific explanation for how life arose. It may be that it was an act of God (which, for what it's worth, I personally believe) but that doesn't explain it. There are limits to human knowledge, and faith transcends those limits. You seem to confuse faith and science and put them in some sort of competition with each other, they're not, they are both approaches to the Truth.

[basil-rash]

You are using the evolutionist's definition of "explain", which is not applicable to the creationist's interpretation of reality. Under the evolutionists view, there is no actor with the ability to alter universal state besides those physical laws which we currently observe. Thus, any change in universal state that has ever occurred would naturally be able to be "explained" by providing a detailed step-by-step rundown of how those laws interacted with universal state S until it reached universal state S'. Under creationism, this definition is nonsense: any change in state can occur at any time based on the whims of the unknown actor, no further rationale is necessary or indeed possible.

Accordingly, if we take a definition of "explain" which does not assume a particular interpretation of the fundamental axiom (as we should, when that axiom is the very thing under debate), my statement is perfectly valid: That actor which we cannot fathom made it so. Thus, it is.

[dekhn]

Could you show us an experiment that would demonstrate creationism is a better explanation than evolution (and random chance) for the formation of cells? If you can't come up with an actual experiment, there's really no way to say that creationism "explains" something.

[basil-rash]

Creationism explains everything very simply: "X is the way it is because God ordained it to be". There is no need to experimentally verify, its existence is the proof. In general, the need for experimental evidence is only present when you've accepted the lack of external intervention as axiomatic. When that very axiom is under debate, experimentalism is entirely irrelevant.

Not to mention, anything I present as being evidence of intelligence being more able to produce functional complexity than randomness you would reinterpret as "randomness-that-produced-something-that-look-like-intelligence producing functional complexity better than randomness-that-doesnt-look-like-intelligence".

[samatman]

Do you believe that the Bible is the literal and inspired word of God, correct in every detail?

[basil-rash]

It's certainly inspired, but it has been subject to the chaotic nature of humanity, as has everything since the fall.

[samatman]

Close enough.

You're trying to package your religion as something which it isn't. Creationism is Christian theology, not science. People know this. On some level, you know this.

[basil-rash]

Of course I know that. And further I know evolutionism is the same. Indeed I opened this entire thread with the statement: "both are faith based responses to questions we cannot answer any other way."

It would seem you are not paying attention to what is actually being said.

[Kerb_]

That's cool and all, but do you give an equal amount of credit to Young Earth Creationists and regular creationists? Because both are equally based in faith. It is equally possible some holy being made fake dinosaur bones 6000 years ago to fool us, and no amount of scientific rigor can compete with a being with the foresight to know exactly how we would test the bones. At what point is "umm we obviously have evidence these bones are over 6000 years old" thinking in absolutes? In the meantime, I'm willing to be disrespected for thinking both forms of creationism are equally woo-woo in comparison to evolutionary theory.

[basil-rash]

It’s important to understand why we think the bones are over 6,000 years old, and especially consider what assumptions we make in determining that age. Most importantly, the time invariance of physics.

Really it boils down to whether you believe the laws of physics we observe now have been constant throughout time. If you do you’re called an evolutionist, if you don’t you’re called a creationist. Neither side has any proof, nor is any proof fundamentally possible.

[pixl97]

Then please provide a consistent with observations theory on how physics has changed with time. Or do you have to throw thermodynamics out the window because you've gone and screwed causality? One side has a whole bunch of consistent observational evidence. The other side has a lot of frantic handwaving and inconsistent data points.

The point being is, creationists have zero idea why they think 6,000 is some magic number in this case, other than bob said so in a book. But yea, books are written by men and men are liars. Even looking at things like RNA/DNA mutation rates in known species it's pretty damned easy to see that things have been around a whole lot longer than 6k years.

[basil-rash]

> looking at things like RNA/DNA mutation rates in known species it's pretty damned easy to see that things have been around a whole lot longer than 6k years

Again, please understand the underlying assumptions you are making when you concoct statements like this. Namely: DNA/RNA started as a single form and has mutated at a constant rate since then. You have no evidence to support that, and I disagree with every component of it.

[pixl97]

Then lay down a dissertation that at least provides some evidence you're correct.

Also, any guesses on why the 'modern' age is suddenly going in slow motion. Not exactly sure how you're going to pull that off without breaking chemistry completely.

[basil-rash]

There is no evidence one way or another, nor is any evidence possible. That is, indeed, the entire point.

And I'm not sure why you think the almighty creator of the universe would have trouble making chemistry... "work".

[basil-rash]

Sheesh someone had fun flagging nearly every single post in this thread… cc @dang for notes?

[crudcodersare]

God designing us in an emergent manner or through a static blueprint are the same thing. Someone had to create the laws, the genetic algorithm idea itself and all of these components and the environment for it to operate within never mind things like colors, matter etc. Evolutionists cant see the forest for the trees.

[Kerb_]

Then that's not believing in creationism, that's believing in evolution. You wouldn't "not believe in fusion theory" because you believe God created the sun through the process of inventing a universe that sustains nuclear reactions. You would just believe in fusion, as a part of God's creation.

[satvikpendem]

> Someone had to create the laws

This is unknown and a quite anthropomorphic view on the universe. Just because we can create things doesn't mean we ourselves were created, even in the way you're talking about in the First Mover argument.