Evolution vs. Creation- serious discussion only please

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OK, so we've had a lot of conflict on this board recently over evolution and creationism/ID. Here I want to have a mutually respectful, intellectual debate on the merits and flaws of both. I would request that no one bash religion, mock people from either side, or post lists of people who do or do not support either theory. Let's try to stay out of flame wars as much as possible.

Here's some ground rules:
1. Present any empirical evidence you know of that supports your views. Explain why it supports your views in well-reasoned terms.
2. Give contradictory evidence or opposing interpretations of the other sides' evidence without being disrespectful.
3. This thread is not about the existence or non-existence of God, or whether evolution can be reconciled with Biblical teaching. We can create another thread for that.
4. Don't argue from the Bible, as this is solely to discuss the physical, biological, geological, and any other empirical evidence for or against evolution as compared to ID.
5. Please do not bring up something that has already been resolved satisfactorily in the list of evolution misconceptions that Sedaka provided. If you dispute something in that list, we can discuss that. But this shouldn't be about debunking of basic ignorance.

Have at it.

Intelligent design is a flaw.... oh, wait, that screws up the original purpose of this thread.

Ok, well, ID is an untestable theory. It's evidence is merely a criticism of evolution(irreducible complexity and specified complexity both demand an evolutionary framework to make sense). It does not fit in with the current definition of science and the definition of science used by proponents, such as Dr. Behe, are so broad as to include astrology. It handles things in a dishonest manner by bypassing the scientific process and seeking to impact the masses with propaganda. It has no scientific publications at all, and is often accused of misusing the publications that exist for it's own purposes with certain author's having to rebut the misuse of their papers by IDers. And the entire movement is just a front for creationism as evidenced by the fact that there are books which literally replace instances of "creationist" with "intelligent designer" where the time of the switch relates back to the time when creationism was disallowed in schools. Not only that, but the disallowal of ID from schools is not even the action of some anti-theist conspiracy given the fact that a number of theists support ID and the judge for the Dover trial is a Bush appointed, Republican, church-going judge. The fact that this idea continues is just evidence of the stubbornness or ignorance of certain groups of people in light of what should be a rather clear-cut case of right and wrong.

Yeah, it kinda does.



No argument there.



Do they? I think that the former is merely consistent with it, and that the latter hasn't been clearly defined (at least not that I've seen). There's other stuff (hierarchical sequence comparisons) that do demand an evolutionary framework, but I think that statement was too strong.



Well there's nothing wrong with saying that astrology is a scientific hypothesis as long as it's making observable predictions. It would just be a scientific hypothesis that has turned (as far as is discernible) out to be false.



While I agree with most of the above, I think it sort of puts you in the position of merely criticizing ID. I have some things I'd like to add that talk about evolution, but I'm going to step out for a bit as I've been inside too much today.

I don't know if it's entirely untestable. We could examine what predictions it makes, and see if those predictions are borne out by the evidence available. YEC at least, which seems to be the most common form of ID on this forum, would predict an Earth certainly no more than 10 000 years old. Is this supported by geological evidence? I would say not, so we have something that casts doubt on YEC.

I agree that ID's evidence typically consists of a criticism of evolution, but to be fair, we should at least listen to those criticisms. Irreducible complexity is largely a myth in bacterial flagella, as detailed in that "evolution misconceptions" link that Sedaka was talking about and that I linked to in the OP. Let's not bring in Behe or any other specific individual, since then we'll just end up in ad hominem attacks. A theory does not rest on the qualities of its proponents but on the evidence for or against it. Also, for the purposes of this thread, I don't care if evolution is compatible with theism or not. That's an entirely separate debate.

Ah, I just found this. So, contrary to ID claims, speciation has been observed in the lab, primarily in drosophila. It is no longer possible to realistically claim that evolution as a whole is false. However, iamnotaparakeet, the principle detractor from evolution here, has stated his support for speciation. I'm not quite sure what evolution he still opposes, though, aside from comments he's made about abiogenesis and Miller/Urey. I would prefer not to get into a debate over the ultimate origin of life, as this is not something that evolutionary theory deals with. Evolution only discusses how life changes over time, not how it originated.

I had to fill my jerk quota for the day.

Well, the evidence for irreducible complexity is basically an issue of "this could not have evolved", and the latter is semi-unclear with some arguing that the term is used in a manner to tautologically disqualify evolution. Really though, the argument was simply that ID is not advancing a positive hypothesis so much as working off of pre-existing hypotheses to discredit them.

Well, I suppose I could have stated the term "theory", and then gone into the argument by IDers, one that is less trumpeted, for "Theistic Realism" to replaced methodological naturalism within the sciences, but I did not think that this was a good approach sense only the more extreme fundies will take this approach, however, it is shown that in areas where ID is becoming more popular, science is often redefined.


I know, I did wrong, however, I am on some level dissenting from the notion that this thread is trying to promote as it is in effect trying to argue that ID and evolution are somehow equal or can be considered close to such, when I think that this is wrong with ID being labeled unscientific by both most established scientific agencies and the US government and along with this managing to seem fundamentally dishonest at every step.


Well, the issue is that the hypothesis has little to no scientific underpinnings for it. So, it is just a random idea. You are right, it is not supported, but it is also just not scientific.


Obviously people do listen if these criticisms are later debunked. I brought in Behe because he is important enough to the movement to function somewhat as an intellectual representative in terms of the thoughts on science. A theory does not rest upon the qualities of its proponents but certainly on what they consider the theory. Well, I know that much on the compatibility issue, technically given how broad "theism" is, evolution must be, the issue is the kind of god. Really though, there is an issue of whether ID is possible without theism, as IDers have gone both ways with Dembski positing aliens(which Dawkins would reject with "who designed the designer?"), and others saying that evolutionary theorists reject ID for fear of facing up to a God, thus reflecting the idea that the intelligent designer must be God.

I agree with you, and don't think that ID should be considered equal to evolution, considering that ID has little to no evidence behind it and evolution has mountains of evidence. However, I wanted to at least give any dissenters a chance at a "level playing field" which demonstrates more convincingly that evo is a more valid explanation than ID, as shown in the dearth of evidence for ID. If we're just considering this on the basis of empiricism, I am curious to see how a serious debate between evolution and creation without all the peripheral issues actually pans out. My prediction is that ID will have nothing to say, since really the most compelling ID arguments are in essence an appeal to ignorance (ie I can't imagine how X could possibly have developed).

Amazing, a hypothesis is falsifiable but it isn't "science" because of its origin. How does this definition of "science" compare to Sir Karl Popper's?

Science, at least, evolves to correct its mistakes. Unlike religion, which just schisms.

I would argue that it isn't really well-grounded, nor would it necessarily be falsifiable. After all, it has basically been falsified as Orwell stated, but it is still held to with apparent age theories and stuff like that.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 11 May 2008, 1:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with that. Just not that irreducible complexity inherently demands evolution as an explanation. But like you, I think the notion that it somehow refutes it is not convincing.



I think science is a hard thing to define precisely, but I know what you are saying. Some things clearly are, and some certainly aren't science, and some are a bit gray. At the very least I've seen predictions from astrologers. As a hypothesis, it could be called scientific. Continuing to hold onto it, though, is clearly not. I've never seen anything testable presented for ID, but perhaps there has been, and I've just missed it somehow.



That's a fair reason for a thread-derailing, I suppose. To be fair, I will freely admit that I can be a huge jerk at times (especially when sufficiently frustrated, or when I'd find it really funny).


Anyway, since the thread's supposed to be about what we think, I'll say that I think that all organisms living on Earth today are, as far as we can tell, related to one another. In particular, if one compares the sequence of some protein, one can find hierarchical degrees of similarities between organisms, and if one takes a totally different protein one can find the same degrees of similarity. Two common examples are cytochrome C and alpha hemoglobin. The sequence for humans is closer to that of any great apes than to that of other mammals. It's closer to that of other mammals than that of reptiles and birds. It's closer with members of that clade than with fish, to which it's closer than it is to invertebrates, to which it's closer than it is to non-animals. These match not only one another well, but also what one might expect from gross morphological comparisons. And, of course, there are other ways of inferring relationships besides organisms (insertions of transposable elements like endogenous retroviruses is a common one) that tell us the same thing. This is what we would expect from common descent. There's a lot more one can say on these topics, but I think this is sufficient for now. I've mentioned it elsewhere already, but I think molecular biology provides some of the strongest evidence around for evolution.

Well, the issue with irreducible complexity is that it works on the framework that the system is irreducible due to the nature of evolution. If our theory were different, then the complexity would be less of an issue, however, the argument is that evolutionary pressure prevents flagella or eyes or whatever from forming because less than developed forms are less useful.


Well, I think ID represents an anti-theory, if all theories fail then appealing to the supernatural or that which is beyond us makes sense, but that being a theory in and of itself doesn't.

Right, well, I think we all can be.

Popper's not the last word on science. I liked his ideas, but I think he was wrong on most of it.

Falsifiability is too strong in some ways and too weak in others. I think a better characterization would be more like the one offered by Lakatos. That is, that scientific theories have a core along with multiple auxiliary theories (like precision of observations, etc.). Scientific theories that are apparently falsified can often be saved by taking one of the auxiliary theories to be false rather than the core (e.g. an anomalous observation in celestial mechanics could mean the presence of another object rather than a problem with the theory of gravity). Successful scientific programs may have to occasionally sacrifice their auxiliary theories, but the more predicting and less accommodating they do, the more successful those programs are.

Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing then. I just thought the initial statement was too strong, nothing more.



That seems like a correct characterization from what I've seen.

Well, conventionally an idea tends to be labelled unscientific if it doesn't match up with the evidence or make accurate predictions. An example would be Aristotelian physics, which does make predictions and is testable, observable, and falsifiable. However, its predictions are wrong and the tests have falsified. Thus, it is not often regarded as scientific mainly because scientists tend to reject old systems that no longer serve a purpose. My view would be that some ID hypotheses (depending on which specific one) could be considered "scientific" in a strict sense, but are not good science because they fail to account for observable facts.

Anyways, would you like to say what specific evidence casts doubt on evolution or points toward creationism?

Yes - why is that? Three or four people have cognitive problems with evolution, and they spend a lot of effort to turn it into everyones problem.

I have a problem with the theory of gravity. Consider this observation, which destroys the entire 'paradigm' of gravity that has trapped most people's mind: water does not flow down hill; it flows towards money. If water has to go up and over a bunch of mountains to get to money, it will do so. I have seen this occur frequently in California and other places - the drier an area is, the easier it is to disprove this 'theory' of 'gravity'.

Further considerations: the symbol of the gravitite movement is the apple, as Sir Isaac Newton was said to be inspired by a 'falling' apple. Adam and Eve 'fell' after eating an apple. Today, as our society disintegrates, Apple computer sees it stock try to shoot up towards heaven as it promotes its anti-God logo, which is the apple Eve ate from. This is surely the mark of the beast.

Let us be honest: inanimate objects do not really fall - they move towards power (evil, money, etc). Sometimes they move towards the power in the underworld; sometimes there are accumulations of evil above the ground (Los Angeles).

I am willing to spend hundreds of hours of our time to convince you of this. And you, being a person of good character, must be courteous to me. Let's try to come to a concensus.