DonaldW112

Nick Petreley after closing his own Evolution Board has been an active participant at the christain forums. He is trying to make the case that since science excludes god from the start he is justified in ignoring science. People have had different opinions about this concept<a href="http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14640" target="_blank">here</a>

The response I posted was this:

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Let me preface my remarks with the comment that I am a practicing scientist (at least I try to). I have responded to Nick on his board and after he shut down the evolution topic on this one. He rarely responds to my posts in any meaningful way. I think Nick has learned a lot in the last month or so (like the definition of evolution), but I believe he has a drastically distorted view of how science works. This seems to fit his worldview well since it seems someone convinced him that you can't be a christian if you believe in evolution.

As to the Lewontin quote: There is the concept that science can only deal with the natural, not the supernatural. So in a sense those who hold this view accept naturalism as a starting point for science. The reason that scientists use this as a starting point is that the explanation "god did it" is untestable and even if true not useful. By definition god could do anything.

That being said though if the evidence from geology, biology, and cosmology fell in line with the tale from the bible we would have to conclude that either the people who wrote the bible knew a lot more than they let on about geology, biology and chemistry or that someone told them (e.g. god?). So you see in some sense even if the evidence support the creation story as told in the bible scientists would have to look for natural explanation but that is the only explanation that science can find. Now I know a lot of creationists are going to jump up and down and say -- "you see no matter what evidence we give for creationism, evolutionists would not change their minds". This is not true since there would be no (or not many) evolutionists since the facts would not support evolution they would support a young earth, a global flood, etc. I bring this up to point out that scientists have no vested interest in which way the evidence points. If it points to creation then we will find the evidence, to date that evidence is not there but many people keep looking.

The flip side to this is if god (or some supernatural being) were interfering often with our world, science would be useless. You would try to repeat an observation and the 3rd time it would not work because some supernatural force had broken the laws of physics. Or more importantly if you believed a god could and would interfere you could always claim your experiment failed because god wanted it to or my results don’t agree with yours because god helped my experiment (please publish my results not the other guys). This is chaos.

Just my thoughts – any others?


I ask all creationists to remember who figured out and refined evolution for the first 50 years -- creationists!

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I wanted to get some feedback here. Have I lost it? Did I stick my foot in my mouth? Any other opinions?

Also, is anyone here Jerry Smith over there? If so nice job!

Donald

Jerry Smith

thanks.... Its nice to be appreciated... This is my "home" board, though I rarely post here. I find I can learn more here with my mouth shut....

By the way... I was smijer on Nick's board (I meant to be Jerry Smith there, but made my "sign-on" and my displayed name the same by accident)...

You did a great job there and at Christian Forums...

Liquidrage

I would simply tell him that...

Science is the "observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena".

Ignornace is "condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed".

People make choices.

DonaldW112

I agree with that 100%

Donald

Jerry Smith

Notice Nick hasn't posted in over 24 hrs? Reckon he took his marbles & went home?

Randman has shown up there!!!

Sinister possibility: npetreley=randman??

&lt;shutter&gt;