What does this have to do with evolution?

In reference to the Nye - Ham debate....

How doesn't it? It doesn't make it fact, but it's more reasonable to say we've evolved than it is to say we were created 3000 years ago, or whenever Ham says we were created. Can we refute the idea that Civilizations existed thousands of years before Jesus Christ? Can the idea that Jesus was the Son of God be refuted? Can the idea that Aliens have visited Earth be refuted? Answer to all of these questions is no, because there's no evidence to say otherwise.

There was a finding off the coast of Japan recently, that suggests an advanced civilization existed before the last Ice Age.

My point is that this thread was about the science of evolution.

I guess "straw man" isn't technically a correct description.
"Affirming the consequent" would be better.


Hypothesis: if evolution is true then creationism is false.
Conclusion: creationism is false, therefore evolution is true.

A implies B
B, therefore A

This is a textbook case of affirming the consequent.
Falsifying creationism doesn't tell us anything about the validity of evolution.

I don't think the point of embracing evolution is to undermine creationism. It doesn't make religion any less important; there are things about our past science cannot prove. It will never be able to undermine the credibility of Jesus and the idea that he's the Son of God for example.

Science deals in the tangible and abstract, not the spiritual. I feel like the deeply religious view scientific discoveries as attacks on their belief system when those discoveries might negate the word of God as written by man. If evolution was fact, it wouldn't make religion less relevant.

FWIW, I believe in God.

My point has little to do with creationism or religion.
It has to do with evolution.

Nye laments religion working its way into the schools and interfering with science.
This is a common complaint among evolutionists.

My question: If they're so concerned about religion interfering with science,
then why do they keep bringing it up when debating evolution?

Because many school boards have faced efforts or tried to either add Creationism to science classes or have Evolution reduced to an unproven idea. It has happened in many states to include Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Maine just since 2005.

Because the Religious idea of Creationism, could undermine Scientific idea of Evolution. They have to cut the head off the snake for lack of a better term, to stop people like Ham from spreading what the majority of scientists consider, disinformation.

I think the problem is that people on both sides of the debate keep looking at the Bible as a world history/geology book. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament were written with the sole purpose of being textbooks for a history or geology or physical science classroom.

I would humbly submit that if both sides read the Bible with an understanding that the Bible was written as God's plan of salvation for humans, we could get the creation-vs-evolution debate back on a scholarly track.

I mean: why do they keep bringing it up while debating evolution?
If someone has criticism for some aspect of evolution, a common response is to talk about the flaws in creationism/religion.

This does nothing to improve scientific understanding.

Here's an analogy (just an analogy, not an accusation):

Person "A" argues that 2+2=5
Person "B" says that they don't think 2+2=5, and wants to investigate the matter further.

Person "A" responds by saying that Person "C" thinks 2+2=7, which is even more wrong.
What person "C" thinks has nothing to do with the validity of the argument proposed by person "A".

Continues to be an excellent thread.
SnT

For your viewing pleasure :)

A List Of Fallacious Arguments.
Grateful Citizen caused me to go back and check.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/s...arguments.html

Disclaimer: I am not, and do not pretend to be an expert of Quantum Physics. This is just my understanding of the situation.

The argument seems to revolve around the "time" in which certain events happened. To me, I believe that both arguments are invalid because Time is an illusion. What leads me to this thought is the theory of relativity and time dilation. Motion (velocity) directly affects the entire concept of time. Now let me give you an example of Time Dilation and space flight. If there are a set of twins (classic example), one on earth, and one that travels on a spaceship going at a high velocity through the universe, the theory tells us that the twin on earth will age faster than the twin on the space shuttle. With this in mind, we are in constant motion (our velocity in orbit around the sun, in turn our sun/solar system has a velocity orbiting around the galactic center, which in turn has a velocity relative to the universe). It seems to me, that time is an illusion based on our observation. One cannot declare that the universe is Billions of "years" old, because everything in our known universe ages differently based off motion and observation. Thus, a “day” for God could be billions of “days” for humans. YMMV

I didn't read through this entire thread but I say it's BS

If we evolved from apes there are more than a few flaws in that theory.

1. Where are the remains of those we evolved from over the years showing that evolution?

2. Why are there STILL apes if they evolved into us?

:D

There are lots of fossils but even better, we now have DNA...LINK

But, I guess, you could argue that God was either practical or not very original... ;)

Science is much younger than religion, but no less a religion, a provable one…over time. A very long time.

Twice this week science has been dealt a blow. Stephen Hawking, who made a career “hawking” Black Holes, now says that they do not exist, at least not as he first theorized. And Polaris, the North Star, was once considered a Cepheid variable star but is now rejecting that label by behaving differently than scientifically predicted.

In the mid ‘80s, there were astronomers that suggested that our Sun might be a flare star, which could account for “global warming”. Where did those learned voices go? Silenced for blasphemy?

Science, in the modern day, is trying to explain the incomprehensible the same way religion did a couple of thousand years ago. They answer the question, “Why is that star getting brighter?” with the same available knowledge as someone asking why seashells were found in mountains in biblical times. They don’t know, for sure, but feel the need to offer an answer to make the questioner feel comfortable when he or she goes to sleep at night. Oh, and to project the aura of superior knowledge and wisdom over the questioner.

Or not. ;)

Pat