pug846

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Hellllll no.

(I'm sure someone else will be able to provide a more thorough response - but, this is the best way to sum it up.)

Peez

No. Creationism is based on religious dogma, not observations; it does not explain common descent, it denies it (it doesn't explain much of anything); and very significantly it makes no testable predictions. Note that in science, the term "theory" does not connote tentativeness. A theory can have lots of evidence supporting it (atomic theory, theory of plate tectonics, evolutionary theory), or it may have little or no evidence supporting it, and even much evidence against it (the theory that we live on the inside of a hollow earth). A theory is a more complex animal than a hypothesis, and is meant to explain a variety of facts. The theory of evolution explains common descent, the "theory" of creationism denies that there is anything to explain.

Peez

[ December 12, 2001: Message edited by: Peez ]</p>

wdog

yes, you all are probably correct in the strict sense, I stand corrected. creationism is not really a plausable theory, i used the term too loosly. thanks

hezekiah jones

Apparently it was a viable theory 'round about about 800 B.C.

KeithHarwood

Alas, it is. This is one of the areas where science is different from religion. There are many religions and they have many inconsistncies between them. There is one science. It comes in various branches concerned with different aspects of the same universe. Religions either accept their inconsistencies or resolve them by means such as crusades or jihads. Science never accepts inconsistencies and resolves them by observation of the universe. The solid state physics that gave us the transistor also gave us some of the particle detectors that are used in dating fossils. So, in denying evolution you may very well be denying solid state physics as well. And an inconsistency in solid state physicx could easily lead to an inconistency in quantum mechanics and thereby call into question the nucleogenesis that powers the sun and created the initial chemical composition of the universe.

So, if you can find an inconsistency in evolution you may very well bring into question the existence of the earth and of life on it. That means that you have to be very convincing about your inconsistency. You can't put a box around it and arbitrarily claim that the inconsistency doesn't go outside the box. Scientists will take the incosistency as far as it will go.

scigirl

Announcement:

I'll be going out of town for a few days, so I will not reply to Douglas until monday or tuesday of next week. Meanwhile. . . thanks for all your help and resources, everyone!

scigirl

Muad'Dib

IIRC, Steven Jay Gould remarks in HTHT that the idea of a 6000-year-old earth, at least, was good science in the early 19th century, before it was realized that basalt and granite are in fact igneous rather than sedimentary. If you assume that no new material is coming from undersea volcanoes, the continents would have been completely eroded in only a few thousand years.

MrDarwin

Try asking a creationist sometime, "is there anything that would falsify creationism"? The answer to that will answer whether creationism is a scientific theory.

(edited to rephrase question slightly)

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

hezekiah jones

Right-O. I was referring to the alleged date that that ancient tribe of jealous-god-worshipping goatherders finally got around to inscribing the Book of Genesis, or, as I prefer to call it, "Bereshit." I never cease to be astonished that there are people stalking the earth today that cling to mythology so antiquated, and actually think it can be applied to contemporary observations, or, even more perversely, that our observations can be made to apply to it. Of course they can't.

How many stars did those folks think were in the "firmament"? A couple thousand? Had they ever seen a kangaroo? How many koalas on the ark? Two? Seven? Were koalas "clean" or "unclean" beasts? What did they eat? A pair of eucalyptus plants? Carnivores - did they starve or what? What about species of flora indigenous solely to the upper Amazonian rain forest? How many kilos of "Bereshit" was the 800-year-old Noah mucking out on a daily basis? Ah, questions, questions ...

[Edited to remind myself to stop using the expression "koala bears."]

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: hezekiahjones ]</p>

Synaesthesia

Oolon,
That animals’ morphology and functional genome changes at varying and occasionally dramatic rates isn’t really controversial. The contention is systematically supported by the geological records and genetic data. Punctuated equilibrium is not in opposition to the fact that animals change gradually - The processes is still limited by selective pressures and the availability of useful mutations - it is just a refinement in our conception of how they do so.