Stephen T-B

If the future belongs to the Creationists, what will happen to scientific inquiry?

WinAce

Well, if that should ever happen science goes down the drain. Which is why we really need to challenge their attempts to discredit evolution whenever we can--be it in the press, bulletin boards, court, etc. as well as correct the common misconceptions such as 'why are there are still chimps?' and 'moon dust proves the earth is young!'

GeoTheo

Can you back this preposterous claim up with anything other than bluster?
You don't think a creationist could design a 747?
Come up with innovative pharmacuticals ?
Engage in pure biological research?

Mageth

Engage in pure biological research?

Since evolution and evolutionary theory are tightly coupled to and essential for a complete understanding of modern biology, this is highly improbable for large areas of biology.

Bialar Crais

Why does people get sick. Demon possesion.
Pshychological illness. Demon possession.
Planetary orbits. Angels pushing the planets.
Why? Gawddiddit...

Depends. The people in ICR and AIG I wouldn't trust to design paper cups. I mean, they wouldn't want to fall in the naturalistic bias and assume NATURAL causes for aerodynamic phenomena...

No, by denying 99% of all modern biology I doubt they can come up with anything in these fields. The willingness to Lie for the Lord(tm) and to twist evidence to fit whatver preconcieved notion the bablle forces them to take is also a great impediment.

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: Bialar Crais ]</p>

WinAce

Well, look at the claims made by groups like AiG--if you subscribe to their philosophy, our knowledge of these (and perhaps other fields) is completely and totally wrong:

* Cosmology ('no Big Bang, it was all created 6000 years ago--complete with distant starlight!')
* Physics (radioactive decay rates being unstable and other nonsense)
* Geology ('it was all caused by the Flood, honest! Yeah, the geologic column, fossil record and uniform screwing-up of all the different radiometric dating methods too! And don't forget catastrophic plate tectonics!')
* Biology ('common descent? what common descent? They're all seperately created kinds! No, you can't show us 50 different lines of evidence converging on them being descended from a single lifeform! That's not what the Bible says!')

So yes, I wouldn't trust a literal 'Creationist' on scientific matters as far as I could throw him. Luckily, humans are remarkably good at selectively believing crap in one area but using legitimate science in others (note the day jobs of the 'scientists' such as Russell Humphreys).

Then of course, there are the guys like Behe who claim that every single farkin' molecule is either the result of an original mega-bacteria (...) or a separate act of divine intervention. They don't deny common descent because they don't want to look like total idiots (see AiG).

However, since our knowledge will always have a few gaps to forcibly stuff a few gods in, they can be very successful at convincing the layman, especially since most of those will invariably be Christian and happy to hear how 'scientists are now saying that God is needed to design life and abandoning evolution in droves'.

YEC arguments are ridiculous, and few except the hard-core fanatics take them seriously. However, 'intelligent design' is a very real threat. Even if we had no idea whatsoever what causes genetic variation, it would be the height of absurdity, not to mention pseudoscience, to postulate a designer to explain it without corroborating data--at this point it's totally ad hoc, exactly like Phlogiston and Aether.

It makes no predictions and doesn't even add anything to our understanding while introducing the additional, unsolvable problem of the unknown designer's origins. This presents no problem to the average Christian, who can merely say 'why, he's uncreated!' but no true scientist can accept a load of bullshit unless it has very strong supporting evidence behind it (in which case, it wouldn't actually be bullshit).

The fact that we know much about how our genome developed from gene duplication and other mutations, as well as continuing the search for knowledge instead of giving up and using the easiest, crappiest explanation possible, "God did it!", is good science. Intelligent Design clearly is not.

Hence, if they 'win' and get it introduced in schools, science education by definition goes bye-bye. It wouldn't be any different if astrology was required reading in astronomy class or numerology in math.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assumed from your rather hostile reply that you're no big fan of evolution. However, you're welcome to present some actual evidence supporting intelligent design, as opposed to 'explain this molecule--oh, you have a hypothesis? Well, that's just hand-waving, prove it 100%, otherwise God did it!'.

I'll temporarily lower my standards of evidence to make it easier on you. I'll accept it as totally valid science if you can produce one single example of an observed case of supernatural design resulting in a new gene (natural mutations are observed to produce lots of complex genes). It can be as simple as a single nucleotide substitution. OK, ready?

*Crickets chirp*

Didn't think so.

Stephen T-B

GeoTheo seems to be the only Creationist standard bearer left in these parts, which means he's got his work cut out trying to make a case for the validity of a Bronze Age myth.
If any of his fellows should look in on this thread, I would ask them to consider what is the genesis of scientific inquiry?
I suggest it is our natural curiosity, the same curiosity which led, step-by-step, from our understanding of the true relationship between the Earth, the sun and the moon to our present understanding of evolution - and our acquiring of the necessary knowledge to do such things as design and build jet aircraft.
Indeed, NONE of the knowledge now possessed by mankind of the physical universe and the laws which govern it comes from Biblical revelation. If the Bible had been adhered to, as the Church would have liked, and tried for several hundreds of years to enforce, our curiosity would have been suppressed totally – and incidentally every natural disaster from plague and pestilence to drought, hurricanes, earthquake and volcanoes would still be attributed to Divine wrath. Who, believing such a thing, would have had the temerity to examine true causes and have attempted to find effective remedies?
If the future does belong to the Creationists, the fate of science will be several times worse than it was under Stalin when scientists in every field were required to substantiate Marxism and the Soviets' interpretation of it.
Would the Creationists tolerate work in any field which cast doubt upon the veracity of the myths they believe in? How could they? In no time they'd be on the back foot again, with unimpeded science forcing them into a corner.

GeoTheo

Proverbs (I forget where off hand)
"It is the Glory of God to know a thing and the glory of man to discover it."
The idea that the prevalence of creationism would lead to an end to all scientific discovery is totally false. Origins is only a small part of science, signifigant only in pure biological research, in which there are very few people working. It almost never enters the equation in any other feild of applied research, engineering etc.
You Guys just like to get together and make doomsday predictions. You like to paint creationists (Us and Them mentality) as the scourge of mankind. Sound familiar?
There is some type of psycho-social phenomenom occuring in this very thread. To you have the intellectual curiosity to see it or am I the only one?

Starboy

Greetings GeoTheo,

Are you saying that creationism is a scientific theory? And those that adhere to it fully understand science and its ways?

Starboy

WinAce

Do you agree that Young-Earth Creationists consider large and important parts of our scientific knowledge, such as physics and geology, fundamentally incorrect merely because it disagrees with their particular interpretation of the Bible?

Do you think that if they ever gained the power to remove such subjects from science curriculums, they wouldn't exercise that power?

Do you agree with them that physics and geology aren't important scientific fields?

Young-Earth Creationists, revisionist historians, conspiracy theorists and other advocates of pseudoscience are a very real danger to the real deal.

We aren't making any 'sky is falling' predictions but merely commenting on the sad state of affairs in US education: when 40% of the public (?) believe all our problems were caused by a talking snake inspiring our ancestors to eat an apple and subsequently getting thrown out of an ecosystem where death and population overgrowth were BOTH non-existent, what does that say about our capacity for self-delusion as a species?