Talk:Creationism/Archive 15

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Contents

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I think the page could use a mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster religion, since it was started primarily as a reaction to creationism.

Revert by Ec5618

Ec5618 just reverted added text. I just wanted to state that in addition to the reason given for reverting I was about to revert the new text as commentary and not factual. - Tεxτurε 22:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


Why aren't there any illustrations of people riding dinosaurs in the article? I saw them at a museum and know they are real, otherwise they would not have been there. It's obviously been overlooked. Somebody should remedy this immediately!--Blockhead 23:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Religious context

"Liberal theology considers Genesis a poetic work, that human knowledge of God expands over time and that the early biblical stories show only the most primitive understanding of what was to become known as the Christian deity. In a Christian context, comparing the God of the early Jewish tribes to the God revealed in the figure of Christ clearly depicts how much theological understanding developed in between the writing of the various books that came to be collected in the Bible." - It is refreshing to see that such schools of thought are not deterred by the many references to the God of mercy (Deuteronomy 7:9, I Chronicles 16:34,II Chronicles 6:14, Psalm 86:15, Psalms 118 and 136, Psalm 145:8, and Isaiah 55:7 for a non-exhaustive list) and the demand for the treatment of strangers equally as Israelites (Exodus 12:49, 22:21, Leviticus 19:10,33-34, 23:22, 24:22, Numbers 15:15,19, Deuteronomy 24:20,21, and I Chronicles 6:32-33) in their theory of primitive understanding. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.32.122.241 (talk • contribs) .

The paragraph seriously over-reached. I've re-written it. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 16:47, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

How is this: 'Although the Hebrew Bible does not provide an account of "creation out of nothing"' which has its roots in Creation according to Genesis' statement: "The Hebrew text lacks the definite article, and many have suggested it should be translated as 'When God began to create the heaven and the earth.' This interpretation implies that there was unordered matter in the universe before God began to order it, and implicitly rejects the doctrine of creatio ex nihilio." do anything other than possibly imply some undifferentiated matter? Would someone explain the basis (textual) for this understanding? The text appears to be plain concerning the creation of light, how does the beginning afford a different understanding? Especially since the first verse COULD just as easily be translated 'Beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.' Dan Watts 11:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe someone has addressed this but I will again, Why does the article take a Judeo/Christian POV? Even in the context of the historical background of Creationism this occurs. To my understanding every culture, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamian, American, Greco-Roman had a Creation myth. I cannot imagine that it was until the 1600s or 1700s that anything but creation was considered. Should the other world religions of ancient times be addressed? Maybe there isa good reason not to, I am just asking. JWPhil 16 July 2006

intro explanation

I've removed the second half of the opening paragraph for discussion. I don't understand what it means by equating "literal" with "physical", who it's supposed to be describing, what the metric is for determining what is "general", what the "spiritual nature" of human beings is supposed to be as a "foundation", or what it means by "declaring other views" ignorant and materialistic. So, I'm assuming that this is a point of view.

While the belief may be interpreted "literally" (i.e. in physical terms), religious discussion is generally limited to a spiritual meaning. Hence "creationism" simply emphasizes the spiritual nature of human beings, claiming such spiritual nature to be the foundation of all nature, and declaring other views to be materialistic and ignorant of spiritual concepts.

Also, the demiurge idea really doesn't belong in the introduction, does it? Especially the intro practically equated creation from pre-existing chaos with demiurge, which strikes me as very odd. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 17:40, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


NPOV

Whether Intelligent Design (ID) should be considered Creationism is questionable. As a theory, ID is intended to simply detect design among biological information. The philosophy behind it and the nature of the source of intelligence(s) is beyond the scope of ID. From Guillermo Gonzalez, assistant professor of astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, "Creationists seek evidence to prove a particular interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Bible. They start with a specific set of prior religious commitments and seek evidence that conforms to those commitments. ID theorists start with the evidence of nature and remain open to possible evidence of design. This approach is no different from the approach taken by many of the founders of modern science." See these: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=526 http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2834&program=CSC&callingPage=discoMainPage http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&program=CSC&id=2824&callingPage=discoMainPage

--Swmeyer 23:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The links you provide are to the Discovery Institute, whose "Wedge Document" (a leaked internal memorandum) makes it clear that they intend their advocacy of "intelligent design" to be an entering wedge for specifically Christian theistic doctrine. (That's sometimes misquoted as "theocratic", but that's an error.) See our article Wedge strategy for discussion of this, founded on many many citations from creationists/IDists.
ID is accurately described as the second generation of "creation science", or attempts to dress creationism in scientific terminology ... whilst denying or ignoring scientifically-gathered evidence against it. --FOo 00:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Really? Let's deconstruct it:

Design:verb
1. to sketch an outline for; plan
2. to contrive
3. to plan to do; intend
4. to make original plans
Design:noun
1. a plan; scheme
2. purpose; aim
3. a working plan
4. pattern
5. arrangement of parts, form, color, etc
6. artistic invention

Notice something about all of these definitions? All of the verbs are active, involving someone carrying something out. All but one of the nouns assume purpose as well, someone to plan, scheme, aim, arrange or invent. Definitionally speaking, the word "design" implies a "designer". Design as used in "intelligent design" is a euphemism for creationism. You have to hand it to the creationists... they've evolved.

Foo's right, the Discovery Institute claims it isn't creationism as part of their Wedge strategy. FeloniousMonk 00:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

FeloniousMonk, I found no mention of claims of not being creationism in the Wedge strategy document linked.
First, the wedge strategy has been made into a conspiracy when it is clearly not.
Second, the methods used to detect design in fraud and in SETI are those employed in ID, specifically applied to biology. There is science behind it, and it is being ignored and described just as you both do. Here's a description of the method for detection: specification.
I could go into more, but check these out first. --Swmeyer 01:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm already very familiar with the DI's response to the Wedge document. I consider Phillip E. Johnson statements on the Wedge made extemporaneously to carry significantly more credibility than a policy statement about a document that calls for dissembling and obfuscation as a matter of policy.
  • "So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing" —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." [1]
  • "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." [2]
  • "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy." [3]
  • "The objective (of the wedge strategy) is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'" [4]
The cats already out of the bag on this, it's too late to try to deny the obvious. FeloniousMonk 02:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
FeloniousMonk, if you are familiar and willing to hear them, then I'm surprised you did not consider these points as legitimate. I hope you know I'm not trying to deny anything. I agree that the wedge document exists, that Johnson is the self-proclaimed strategist behind it, and that there is a strategy to attempt a reverse of the naturalistic/materialistic assumptions existent in modern science/modernity. What I don't see is the conclusions that (1) anything they say to the contrary should be rejected on face and (2) the merits of their research/arguments should not be considered. I will post a rebuttal of your interpretation of the wedge strategy over there. Here I will address the sources you site.
Your first citation comes from the Touchstone interview. If you look at the context, this is right after he said he started to think of this like a political campaign or litigation because people would not listen to the evidences. Of course, this is a characterization. When he says "How to win" he is saying this as if he was in the characterization. Nevertheless, I admit there is strategy involved here, what he calls the "wedge strategy." If you look at the components, they are (1) stick to the basics--that no mechanism exists in Darwin's theory that could result in the buildup of information, (2) do not go into Genesis so as to avoid the Bible-science conflicts, and (3) to avoid discussions of theology that would otherwise not allow for entry into the secular community. If you look at these three items, with a great deal of suspicion it is possible to see this as a conspiracy for religion to undermine science. I offer you an alternative--it is good strategy that is intended to put to the forefront what he saw as worthy of consideration without getting caught up in less significant things.
Your second citation comes from an online article that sites Johnson from a unnamed radio show--not a very good source. It's secondary and without mention of the context of this statement.
Your third source is a quote from Johnson printed in World Magazine in 1996. In context of what Johnson has said elsewhere, it is clear he is saying the same thing--philosophical naturalism is what was always at issue. In fact, I heard him say this exact thing in 2000 elsewhere. Around minute 21, he lays out the skeptical case as an extrapolation from minor changes discovered in evidence to assert that everything developed thusly. At 23:21 of the MP3, he says, "There's been a tremendous amount of debate about all of those propositions in the skeptical case (which he just laid out). Most of that debate has centered upon the philosophical issues rather than on the accuracy of any particular piece of scientific information." He continues on to explain why he thinks so--a precommitment to naturalism that cannot handle the data. Thus, he is properly (in his view) funnelling the debate down to issues that are not about science. (Note he sees a precommitment to philosophical naturalism like a religion--you can see an example in his mention of Dobzhansky on page 34 of your fourth source).
Within your fourth source I do not find the quote you mention. I did a word search for objective (8 hits), convince (14), inherently atheistic (0), debate (15), shifting the debate (0), Jesus (5--all by Michael Ruse), Bible (7--5 by Ruse, 1 by Johnson that was irrelevant). In summary, no place in this source does he say this.
In summary, your sources show that Johnson understands the debateand his strategy seems solid.
Swmeyer 05:44, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Yup. There really isn't any doubt that "Intelligent Design" is just another way to spell "Divine Intervention", and should be treated as such in this and other articles. Its proponents' words speak for themselves.
Dembski's work isn't science; it's a poor & fraudulent imitation of philosophy of science that seems to fall apart as soon as anyone asks him to define his terms. See these refutations by actual nonfraudulent scientists and philosophers of science: [5] [6] --FOo 02:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The theory of evolution wasn't exactly science when it was first being developed, yet apparently over the course of a few hundred years, many people feel it is. the ID movement is so new, why do people seem to expect them to have developed as much scientificness or whatever as evolution in such a small timeframe? Homestarmy 19:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Mu! Or to be more precise, your assumption is wrong. The TOE was indeed science when it was developed (although we certainly would think some aspects of it as quaint nowadays). ID is antiscientific nonsense. "Scientificness" is not something that evolves over time. Evidence for or against scientific theses accumulates over time. But nonsense stays nonsense. And whatever I have seen about ID is indeed nonsense. The "information theoretical arguments" they use are just like a cargo cult - they use some of the elements, but without any understanding (...that is WP:AGF, the alternative is that they are consciously trying to mislead).--Stephan Schulz 20:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
To my understanding no one has definitivly proven there is or is not absolute evidence for ID or Contrary to such. Would we not then argue that until such evidence is determined to have been proven as factual the arguement is far from a settled matter. It seems to me that ridicule should be reserved for the conclusion of an arguement when one has incontrovertible proof, which no one has. As to whether the ID advocates are scientific, is this not a function of method rather than motive or production? Does not "science" indicate more the mode of inquiry than what is being investigated or even success in the inquiring? If that is so should we not limit our disparaging remarks and get on with the business of producing ARTICLES. JWPhil 18 July 2006
I don't know what you mean by your first sentence. To even begin to prove something, ID needs to define a set of conditions by which we could tell if it is true or not. This it has not adequately done. So it is premature to ask for evidence: we have no idea what evidence would be dispositive, especially if the purported designer is supernatural and could do absolutely anything (i.e. be consistent with ANY evidence at all). Yes, science indicates a mode of inquiry. ID fails to meet this standard. Plunge 19:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Swmeyer, Gonzalez is wrong, or at least being misleading. While one could certainly accuse the scientific creationists of starting with religious belief and attempting to prove it (and they might even coyly admit as such), the movement qua the movement always claimed that their arguments for creation were based on _science_ alone. In other words, both intelligent design advocates and scientific creationists BOTH claim to be "just doing science" when they make their arguments, and of course BOTH can be accused of having pre-judged the issue. The attempt of many ID advocates to re-write history in order to distinguish themselves from scientific creationists is simply disingenuous here. I would say that the major distinguishing feature between the original scientific creationist movement and ID is that ID takes the strategy of avoiding making all but the vaguest of positive claims. Scientific creationism actually proposed testible alternatives and was forced then to defend them against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Intelligent Design, on the other hand is generally only ever willing to go as far as "something creates for a purpose" in what they will claim and defend. They will also attack scientific evidence for things like common descent and even microevolutionary change without actually coming out and saying that they think these things are false (in fact, often they will claim to find them plausible even while trying to question them at every step).Plunge 19:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Subheader

I have to say that I believe ID is inescapably connected to religious explanations of origins for several reasons.

  • First, the basis of ID, that because certain characteristics are too complex to have evolved without direction, i.e. natural selection, there must have been an intelligent agent responsible, relies the assumption that there can only two possible explanations for the origin of these biological mechanisms: either undirected natural forces or intelligent intervention, which is in itself a logically invalid explanation because it precludes other explanations.
  • Second, that an intelligent intervention is assumed as a possibility is not scientific, for it can not be empirically proven. For example, why is the possibility of the universe itself being naturally "intelligent" in a way so as to manipulate the creation of such characteristics implicitly deemed impossible? Further, why is it also implicitly deemed impossible that primitive life could not have acted collaboratively to evolve these mechanisms? I say that these possibilites are implicitly precluded because my first point about ID, that it is assumed there are only two possible explanations, implies that no other explanations are even possible, and that by process of elimination, intelligent intervention is the only other possibility.
  • Third, one cannot use a lack of explanation for certain phenomenon as evidence for a theory. Ignorance does not translate into knowledge. Thus, a lack of evidence is used as evidence to prove the theory. This logic risks becoming a fallacy because it is dangerously close to, if not, the fallacy of insufficient sample and the fallacy of circular reasoning.
  • Fourth, 'William Dembski, one of ID's leading proponents, has stated that the fundamental claim of ID is that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."' His statement implies that intelligence itself could not have arisen naturally, using the idea that intelligence could not have arisen naturally and using it to prove that natural "intelligence" could not have caused these characteristics, because it cannot arise naturally, etc. I see such a statement to fall into the category of circular reasoning. While William Dembski may perhaps not represent the entirety of proponents to ID, being establisher of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, it is reasonable to accept Dembski as an authority in ID.
  • Fifth, because ID does not propose any hypotheses, is not verifiable or falsifiable, lacks empirical evidence, does not apply a heuristic, etc., it is therefore pseudoscience and thus not valid as actual science and not valid as material to be taught in a science classroom.

In conclusion, I think that ID is a pseudoscientific tool to justify creationism as valid among scientists. Its connection to creationism is undeniable, as it falls under the condition of being claimed a conspiracy to suppress a theory (evolution through natural selection) due to ulterior motives (promoting religion in general, creationism especially). However, if we perceive ID as valid, then also must we accept FSMism as equally valid. As such, it would be wrong in the principles of education to teach ID and wrong in the principles of science to accept it as a valid, scientific theory.

I look forward to your thoughts of support or rebuttal.

--ZendarPC 05:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

ZendarPC, I appreciated the tone of your critique. However, I think there are solid reasons to think otherwise.
  • On your first point on the assumption that there can only two possible explanations for the origin of these biological mechanisms, Darwinian evolutionary theory (DET) puts forth randomness as the explanatory mechanism without any possibility of design. Many ID proponents actually hold to various perspectives that include randomness as well as design. They are not holding these views as mutually exclusive in all cases. However, what is an either-or is (1) either randomness accounts for what appears to be designed (admittedly so by Dawkins) or (2) there is something other than randomness (antonym of random is with purpose) that is necessary to account for what appears to be designed. In that sense, it is an either-or. But in the bigger picture, the interaction of randomness and design is a perfectly viable option. For example, forensic science, history, and archaeology all sometimes theorize about agency to account for particular data.
  • On your second point, design is detected through Dembski's explanatory filter. It is scientific in that it puts forth rigorous methods to detect complex specified information and, using statistical methods, determine that it is more reasonable to infer design than attribute the existence of that information to natural selection acting on random mutations. For more info, see this and this and this and this.
  • On your third point, ID does not claim to use DET's lack of explanation for certain phenomenon as evidence for ID. Rather, many ID proponents see DET as lacking, which requires another theory to make sense of the phenomenon. This requires rigorous research to see if alternative theories offered can make sense of the data better. There are methods, as I pointed you to above, that actually are in support of detecting design.
  • On your fourth point, it is reasonable to accept Dembski as one authority on ID. However, I'm not sure I see the circular reasoning in what he was saying. I interpret your quote to say that there are phenomena in natural data that we would call intelligence in any other system and that it cannot arise from random mutations and natural selection. Can you elaborate on your point?
  • On your fifth point, while I do not agree with all your claims, I am undecided on the issue of whether ID should be included in classrooms. However, what I am sure of is that if ID should not be included because it is not actual science, then naturalistic interpretations of scientific data that underlies DET as taught in classrooms should not be taught, either.
Please get back to me on your fourth point or any pushbacks you may have.
--Swmeyer 21:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Swmeyer. On your rebuttal on ZendarPC's first point:
There are not just two concepts. ID's focus on 'irreducible complexity' suggests it does accept that biology exists, as a field of study, and is not merely an elaborate ploy to keep us for seeing the truth. In another concept we are living in the Matrix. All you see is computer generated.
On your rebuttal on the second point:
When I use a lowpass filter on my holiday snapshots I am using a scientifically devised tool. I am not engaging in science. That Dembski (and others) use scientific tools to do their 'studies' doesn't mean they are engaging in science. Assuming a supernatural explanation explains everything, and therefor explains nothing. It just creates logical paradoxes (who or what designed the designer?, for one).
On your rebuttal of the third point:
Most arguments I have heard ID advocated make are along these lines: "Evolutionary theory is just a theory, and its lacking. Oh, and which do you find more realistic; that the world came about by chance, or that it was created by the supernatural and allpowerful supernatural entity you already believe in?" In other words, "evolution is incomplete, so there's no shame in denouncing it. Believe in us."
On your question regarding point four:
1. This (item) shows signs of intelligent design (it is irreducibly complex, meaning no-one can imagine it coming about by chance).
2. It must have been designed by an intelligence.
3. That intelligence is therefor irreducibly complex.
4. Return to step 1.
On your comment regarding the fifth point:
Science is naturalistic. There was time when the church encouraged scientists to use only naturalism, as science was supposed to compliment religion, not supplant nor blindly follow it (which is, apart from being an interesting bit of trivia, neither here nor there). To science the supernatural does not exist. And be thankful for that. Because science would not accept the supernatural explanation that disease is caused by demons, research into diseases has yielded powerful antibiotics.
Evolution is naturalistic, and falsifiable (though it hasn't been). And no matter how hard people try (many people have tried to uproot evolution) they can never find a single fossil in the wrong layer of rock. Imagine, a single fossil of a newborn human baby or a schnauzer in a layer of rock we've always assumed to be from a time in which dinosaurs ruled the world. Such a find should have been found, statistically, if the Earth is young. Unless we're being purposely deceived. -- Ec5618 23:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Ec5618, I'm not going to do any more pushbacks because my original point is that ID is not creationism. There are a number of points that are beyond my expertise to make, but I know they are to be made. I'd suggest giving the guys at Discovery a chance. Hear their explanations and arguments. They are not out to enforce their religion on anyone. It's not a smoke screen. They really think they are onto something. (unsig. Swmeyer)
I am slightly offended. You asked for a response from ZendarPC, you got one from me, but you will not respond to me.
I am also noting a pattern here, in which certain editors come here, make grand claims about evolution's shortcomings, or about a great misunderstanding of the position of ID proponents that permeates the article, and then, when asked to back up their claims, link to dubious websites (which we have all read to some extent), copy-paste quote mines, or claim they are not experts, and shouldn't have to answer these questions (rather, shifting the burden; other editors should do some common sense research, and figure it out).
I am not saying you fit the profile completely, mind you. But people, do we have to go through the song and dance with every new editor? -- Ec5618 09:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

(See Talk:Intelligent design movement for a similar discussion between Swmeyer and FeloniousMonk)

Swmeyer's NPOV template and NPOV objection is baseless. Advocates of intelligent design argue that their ideas are not necessarily religious or creationism, yet in their statements to their constituency they don't deny the obvious. Is intelligent design fundamentally creationism in a new suit? Read its leading proponents claims:
  • "... intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces. This evidence is available to all apart from the special revelation of God in salvation history as recounted in Scripture. ... To be sure, creationists who support intelligent design think it does not go far enough in elucidating the Christian understanding of creation. And they are right! ... Even so, there is an immediate payoff to intelligent design: it destroys the atheistic legacy of Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This gives intelligent design incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God" -- William A. Dembski [7]
  • "And another thing I think we need to be aware of is that not every instance of design we see in nature needs to be directly attributed to God. Certainly as Christians we believe there is an angelic hierarchy - it's not just that there's this physical material world and there's God. There can be various hierarchies of intelligent beings operating, God can work through what can be called derived intelligences - processes which carry out the Divine will, but maybe not perfectly because of the fall." - William A. Dembski. Address to Fellowship Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, March 7, 2004
  • "My colleagues and I speak of 'theistic realism'-- or sometimes, 'mere creation' -- as the defining concept of our [the ID] movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology." -- Phillip E. Johnson. Starting a Conversation about Evolution
If the only NPOV objection is that ID is not a form of creationism, then I'm taking the template down. His objections have been thoroughly rebutted and largely now dismissed at the ID related articles, and his private campaign to redefine ID and mitigate any criticism of it is apparent, being watched, and going to stop. FeloniousMonk 23:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Doctrine of Creation

This page has little to do with the doctrine of creation, which is concerned with much much more than origins. The Doctrine of Creation should NOT redirect here. These topics are related but not identical. Kiwirad

Recently removed from this article: Creation Dates

Different historical cultures and religions believed that the earth was created on different dates. Many historical calendars were based on these dates.

  • Jewish - 25 September or March 29 3760 BCE
  • Christian - Sept/Oct 4004 BCE
  • Maya - August 11 or August 13, 3114 BCE
  • Byzantine Empire - September 1, 5509 BCE

Could we move this list somewehere else? Origin beliefs perhaps? It seems a waste to just delete it. One question though: on what are these dates based? Are they clear from scripture, or have them been deduced by scolars? -- Ec5618 14:14, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

It is somewhere else: Dating creation. Joshuaschroeder 14:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Geocentrism

...and a few even support such ideas as geocentrism.

I am not familiar with any Creationists who are believers of geocentrism. I thought we all knew by now that the Earth revolves around the sun, etc. This almost appears to be condescending to Creationists in general. Can we just omit the statement? Salva 22:41, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd change it to 'a very few'. It's hard not to be condescending to creationists. Dante 02:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
In fact, many of the major movers and shakers in the creationist movement from the 1970s and 80s were also geocentrists. See the article on modern geocentrism. Joshuaschroeder 22:07, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Checked that article - no mention of any creationists names there. No mention of the 1970s and 80s. Does anyone have real evidence? 219.89.106.141 01:00, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

(from the Talk:Modern geocetnrism archives):

Here are the cited modern geocentrists and cites that show they are creationists:

  • Dr G D Bouw "In short: evolution is dangerous to your health." [8]
  • Marshall and Sandra Hall -- authors of the widely distributed paperback, The Truth: God or Evolution?, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1975.
  • Malcolm Bowden -- author of The Rise of the Evolution Fraud [9]
  • James Hanson -- quote: "Geocentricity vs. Acentricity: that's the argument. Acentricity meaning there is no center whatsoever... To me, this is a hellish nightmare. This is worse than evolution, as far as I'm concerned."
  • Paul Ellwanger -- author of the Lousiana and Arkansas creationists laws
  • R G Elmendorf -- R. G. Elmendorf has a standing offer of $5000 to anyone who can prove to him that evolution is possible. Since Elmendorf is also a geocentrist, he offers $1000 to anyone who can prove that the earth moves.
  • Paula Haigh -- [10] "We witness the immense benefits that flow from this loving submission of reason to Faith in the work of the Creationists today and in the flowering of theology during the Middle Ages. Contrariwise, we also see only too clearly today that the most pernicious and degrading errors dominate men as they refuse to submit their reason to God's Word."
  • Robert Sungenis -- "As it stands, wherever Scripture addresses the topic of origins, it never teaches that the universe came about by an evolutionary process (e.g., Genesis 1-2; Job 38-42; Heb 11:1-3; Psalm 104, et al)." [11]


Joshuaschroeder 02:06, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying, Josh. I am almost certain that this geocentrist tarnish on creationism has to be of a decreasing minority, if it has any sustenance whatsoever. It wouldn't surprise me if a few of those wackos from the evangelist side of creationism had made such claims. Salva 02:56, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

That you are "almost certain" is one thing, but there has yet to be provided an actual citation that geocentricity is a decreasing minority. Those who keep trying to reposition the point by claiming that it's an "extreme minority" or a "very small minority" are doing so without providing any evidence whatsoever that such is the case. The current wording will stand until an editor is able to find a citation. Joshuaschroeder 15:00, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Geocentrism has strong biblical support, dozens of verses. In my mind, what killed geocentrism among the general public is not the scientific evidence but the news media (if evidence could change people's minds then we wouldn't be having these creationism debates). Many of our news shows on TV start with a globe (often spinning). So almost anybody that grows up with a TV is going to think that the earth is round and spins. That seems to count for much more than any scientific evidence. MvH Jan 20, 2006.
Geocentrism also has some contradictory ideas in relation to the Bible, in perhaps dozens of verses as well. You really have to look at it in context for these sort of things. But anyway, on some of those citations, some of those quotes seemed to have nothing to do with Geocentrisism, just because they quoted scripture against evolution doesn't mean those same scriptures also say the sun revolves around the earth.... Homestarmy 20:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed from article

Sorry, I forgot to log in when making the edit.

I removed: Because it was horribly out of context:

"To distinguish the belief that individual "kinds" of higher organisms were created by divine intervention in the natural order, from the belief that the Universe (and its contents) was created by God, the former is sometimes referred to as special creation."

Because I was unable to find the work by this man 'in the article section below':

"Also, when one looks at the early Church the majority view was the creationist view as shown by a work by Robert I. Bradshaw given in the article section below." -- Ec5618 16:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

New proposal for ID sim/diff/confl section

The theory of Intelligent Design, in contrast to modern-day creationism, is essentially an agnostic movement. Instead of adopting a personal (often literal) interpretation of the origin of life based on one's religious text, Intelligent Designers view themselves as having approached the conclusion that life was created through individual lines of inquiry in genetics, mathematics, biochemistry, and other areas of science. One common misconception about Intelligent Design is its supposed purpose of relegitamizing creationism by means of masquerading as a contender with mainstream Darwinism. This is untrue, since the basic idea that berthed the title of Intelligent Design, now recognised as irreducible complexity, precedes the actual movement by hundreds of years, dating all the way back to similar arguments made by the Greek philosophers Plato and Socrates.

One characteristic that both Creationism and Intelligent Design share is the general idea that the Earth was created by a designer. Creationists see this designer in their own adopted perspective according to their religious beliefs, whereas Intelligent Designers retain a more open-ended and scientifically-oriented philosophy that has drawn attention from agnostics, theists, and in some cases, deists.

I will return intermittenly to add on if I have any new ideas for the current thesis. I would sincerely appreciate anyone's opinions on this proposal! Salva 16:35, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Notes

Your first paragraph is terrible:

  • Intelligent Design is not a theory.
  • "essentially an agnostic movement" is not true. See Intelligent Design movement.
  • "life was created" is a claim that is independent of "life was designed". Life could be created without being designed by an intelligence, for example.
  • Why is it a misconception/untrue to claim ID has the "supposed purpose of relegitamizing creationism"?
  • There is an improper conflation of atomism and IC. Plato and Socrates never made any statements about IC.
  • The claim that the "similar arguments" can imply intelligent design is implicit to the last sentence of the paragraph, and it is not only arguable but the general consensus of philosophers today is that it isn't true.

--Joshuaschroeder 17:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The claim that the "similar arguments" can imply intelligent design is implicit to the last sentence of the paragraph, and it is not only arguable but the general consensus of philosophers today is that it isn't true.
Would you be so kind as to cite a reference or two that supports "the general consensus of philosophers" regarding intelligent design? Salva 20:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
A citation: [12]

Perhaps I misunderstood the general consensus of philosophers today is that it isn't true. Are you saying that the general consensus of philosophers today is that ID isn't true??? Because the above link lead me to a website that was founded by only two persons (philosophers?) - that was my interpretation. Could we please clarify this? Salva 03:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that the general consensus is that ID did not spring out of the minds of Plato and Aristotle, as it were. What the majority of philosophers do or do not believe is not part of the proposal being evaluated. Joshuaschroeder 21:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

You will note that while the philosophical implications of Plato and Socrates are written in that clearinghouse, there is no indication that there is any connection to ID. Claiming moreover that the website is limited to the "founders" (who are the editors only, not the authors) is laughable. If this were the case then any person who wrote a review article would be effectively only expressing a limited opinion. In short, it's inappropriate for you to question the validity of the source based on the number of authors. Joshuaschroeder 05:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I wasn't reading you correctly - two philosophers (the two listed on the main page) does not comprise the general consensus of philosophers today. I was asking for a citation that reflected your comment that all philosophers today don't think the idea of Intelligent Design is true. That's a false assumption. In fact, I would argue that most modern-day philosophers are certainly not Neo-Darwinian atheists that succumb to the doctrine of a universe created by random chaos. Vatican City is full of Catholic philosophers. You don't have to be an atheist to be a philosopher.

I was asking for a citation that reflected your comment that all philosophers today don't think the idea of Intelligent Design is true. That's a false assumption. -- not only did I not write this claim, this claim isn't even an assumption, rather it is a superlative generalization.

Plato and Socrates both believed that life and the universe were too complex to have been devoid of some form of intelligence.

Neither Plato nor Socrates defined said intelligence nor did their teleology approximate anything more than deterministic Deism. Certainly they weren't advocating the same kind of "best of all possible worlds" that the optimists posited in Enlightenment. So what is your point? Joshuaschroeder 21:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

This is close to the same argument that Intelligent Designers make today. Are you saying that this is incorrect? Salva 21:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Please see the criticism section of the article. Joshuaschroeder 21:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Intelligent Design Section

Propose placing Intelligent Design as a separate root section. Most practioners of Intelligent Design consider the use of "creationism" as pejorative or an insult. Categorizing ID under "creationism" or "neo-creationism" is considered provocative pejorative efforts by critics to tar ID with the term "creationism" and discredit it without addressing its claims.

In the principle of NPOV, propose making Intelligent Design a separate section and not grouped under "Creationism" categories. Make Intelligent Design a separate section in the grouping bar on the right.

Good start Silva. I edited your paragraph as follows:

Intelligent Design "Intelligent design (ID) is a metatheory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[1] Proponents seek to formulate scientific theories based on intelligent design to have equal footing with naturalistic scientific theories regarding the origin of life.[3]

Intelligent Design focuses on empirical methods of distinguishing intelligent from natural causes. Intelligent Design (ID) contrasts itself to modern-day creationism. ID is agnostic in that it assumes the identity of an Intelligent Designer cannot be determined from objective examination of the evidence.

Instead of adopting a personal (often literal) interpretation of the origin of life based on one's religious text, Intelligent Designers hold to come to the conclusion that life originated by an Intelligent designer from lines of inquiry in genetics, mathematics, biochemistry, and other areas of science. Critics allege that Intelligent Design is masquerading as a contender to Darwinism, and that its' purpose is to relegitamize creationism. However, the concept of intelligent cause to the universe and life traces back to antiquity. Most founders of modern science believed in an intelligent cause to the universe and life." DLH 16:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

question about educational reform

Does anyone know why creationists have advocated changes in the teaching of biology in the United States, but have not advocated changes in the teaching of physics? (If creationists have actually advocated changesin the teaching of physics, this has not received much publicity which raises two other questions (1) do creationists dedicate less' time to changing physics education? If so, why? Or, if they dedicate the same amount of energy, why has the press not picked up on it)? I am curious, but since we recognize the politicsl dimension of ecreationism (i.e. that it is part of a political struggle), it seems to me that some article should cover this. If not this article, which one? Slrubenstein | Talk 21:55, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

They don't focus on implementing changes in physics as much because it isn't as vital for their political agenda as biology is. Origins is a more popular subject for discussion in biology classes, so that's what they allocate their energy and resources towards. I could go into great detail with this...yes...excellent idea for an article. Standing by. Salva 00:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Verification

Can someone help me out verify this? Is there a denotative expression about the following? "the Bible teaches that only Life begets life and that death is a result of sin"

"Only life begets life" - Louis Pasteur - http://www.grisda.org/origins/12005.htm
Death & Sin - see http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/overheads/pages/oh20010713_49.asp RossNixon 00:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Citations for ID quotes

Would the person who transcribed the quotes into the ID section ("our strategy has been to change the subject a bit..." and "this (the ID movement) isn't really, and never has been a debate about science..."), or someone else who knows whence the quotes came, be willing to include citations in the article? --Jay (Histrion) 18:51, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Creationism in Pop Culture

Ec5618 seems to be taking credit for my work. I removed creationism in pop culture, not him.

Which is why I said, in my edit summary: "I left out creationism in popculture. It serves no purpose, and is not even amusing" as opposed to: "I removed creationism in popculture. It serves no purpose, and is not even amusing". Never mind though. Take some credit. -- Ec5618 07:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I added it back in; references to the topic should belong in the article. On the other hand, you're right to question the validity of the references, which is what I tried to do with my last edit (though I later reverted it because I hadn't reviewed some of the references mentioned close enough). Basically however, I think the section should mention when creationism is discussed or alluded to in pop culture, e.g. Inherit the Wind or on The Simpsons et al. --mwazzap 06:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed changes/addition to "Critique of Creationism" section

A summary of how we can evaluate creation and other areas of science (like evolution), neither of which can be directly observed, but both sides constantly demand that the other provide "proof". Summary below explains:

Criticism/Evaluation of creationism

Scientific evidence for creation

There is no way to scientifically prove that creation did or did not happen, the event of creation is completely outside our ability to observe or measure from where we stand today. However, studies can be made of the effects of creation, and of the evidence pointing to a young earth (in the thousands of years old instead of in the billions). A number of observances that we see today point towards a young earth and young universe. Many of these are pointed out in Dr. Walt Brown's book In the Beginning - Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (Available in both hardcover and freely available online at the link at the end of this page)

One point Dr. Brown points out the existence of over 200 Short Period Comets in our solar system. A short period comet is a comet that orbits the sun in less than 200 years, and has a life expectancy of around 10,000 years (30,000 years at the absolute maximum). Evolutionary (old earth) scientists cannot adequately explain why there are over 200 short period comets in existence at one time, because the chances of any non-short-period comet (intermediate, long, or hyperbolic comets) becoming a short-period comet are slim to none (not to mention no hyperbolic comet has ever been observed *entering* our solar system, but many comets have been observed becoming hyperbolic comets (hyperbolic comets are on a path outside our solar system, never to return unless another object interacts with it and somehow makes it return)). Most often, a comet that comes close to a planet (or the sun) is pulled apart and destroyed, or its path is adjusted and it becomes a hyperbolic comet, leaving our solar system "forever".

Based on these facts, either there such was a recent, massive influx of comets into our solar system (probably on the order of hundreds of thousands) that enough were captured by our solar system and became short-period comets, OR these comets came from within our solar system during a recent event. Dr. Brown's theory on the Genesis Flood and Creation both explain in detail why these comets exist, and in addition explain a number of other "perplexing" questions related to our universe and the earth.

Concerning the recent reversion: Does anyone have an example of non-natural explanations of phenomena being advanced as scientific enquiry? Dan Watts 14:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The fact is that science has only used naturalistic explanations for a very long time, because they seem to work better, but naturality of explanations is not a priori part of the scientific method, falsifiability is. If you can construct an essentially supernatural hypothesis that is testable, then it is ammenable to science inquiry. JoshuaZ 14:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • "Science cannot comment on the role that supernatural forces might play in human affairs." (emphasis added) [Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences]
  • "...[E]limination of the supernatural as an acceptable explanation of the structure, behavior, and even existence of natural phenomena provided the scientific community with a strong incentive to engage in additional inquiry in order to forge additional links in their ever-expanding chains of natural causes and effects." - The Sacred and the Secular University, John H. Roberts and James Turner, Princeton University Press 2000, page 31.
  • "ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation" [Kitzmiller v Dover ruling]
These references appear to contradict your argument. Dan Watts 20:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I think there is an ambiguity here about what the words "natural" and "supernatural" mean, but I don't have any good references for this, so if you want to put the word back in, feel free. JoshuaZ 20:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The main issue is that as soon as science can explian it, it is not supernatural anymore.... KimvdLinde 20:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Problems with this section:

In the following points, I've accepted the claims you make without question. When you say, chances of an event are slim to none, I've accepted that, for the purposes of this post. Know however that you are probably mistaken, and that slim chance of an occurence does not preclude an occurence.

  • There is no way to scientifically prove anything. Not just creation.
  • "the event of creation is completely outside our ability to observe or measure from where we stand today." Were we ever in a position to observe creation? Will we ever be? Past events can never be observed directly, why are you making this rather obvious point. Is anyone disputing this? Bensaccount was unable to grasp this basic fact either.
  • Studies of the effects of creation? Given that creation is speculation at best, positing that its effects can be studied in POV.
  • "A number of observances that we see today point towards a young earth and young universe." Obvious POV.
  • "Many of these are pointed out in Dr. Walt Brown's book .." We don't plug books, nor do we recommend 'further reading' in the body of the article. Furthermore, this book is hardly the ultimate book on creationism. The man is a mechanical engineer. Not a biologist, nor a astronomer.
  • "One point" That's nice, but not only do you fail to mention the obvious scientific criticism of this 'one point', you are singling out a single argument made by Walt Brown. Since I've never heard this argument before, I don't believe it to be representative of creationist teaching.
  • This 'one point' is based on a very simplified view of cosmology, and makes assertions that are not backed up by references. "Most often, a comet that comes close to a planet (or the sun) is pulled apart and destroyed, or its path is adjusted and it becomes a hyperbolic comet, leaving our solar system "forever"." How do you know this?
  • "Evolutionary (old earth) scientists cannot adequately explain" POV.
  • "slim to none" So its impossible?
  • "Based on these facts" Facts you say. Back them up. Oh, realise that you can't actually observe the moment these the comets you speak of would have reached our solar system.
  • "OR" We don't make our point by rasing our voices.
  • "perplexing" Argument of incredulity is hardly conclusive evidence.

-- Ec5618 16:56, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


Barwick 03:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC) The effects of creation can be studied, if someone says "this happened on October 28th", then we can go back and study what we see today (November 5th), and see if it matches up with that person's story. For example, if Joe says "I saw that house burn to the ground on October 28th" and we walk by that house and it's still standing, with zero ash or charred marks anywhere on any of the surrounding trees, etc., then we can be pretty sure that his story is false. Similarly, someone can say "In 1999 there was a huge forest fire on my property", we can look around at the property, see certain characteristics of the plants, etc, and put a somewhat accurate date on the forest fire as being 6 years ago.

With regard to creation, if the earth was created recently (within the past 10,000 years or less let's say), then there are certain characteristics that we should see, and if we see enough of them, then we can be more sure that the event of creation actually took place as stated. If we see enough that points to an older earth then that throws doubt onto the record we have of the event of creation (and fossils, layered strata, and a myriad of other points don't point to an old earth, Dr. Walt Brown explains exactly how he's pretty dang sure that they formed in his book).

A number of observances point towards a young earth is NOT in any way POV, it is scientifically studied fact. Evolutionary scientists have tried countless times and can't fudge the numbers enough to account for the number of short-period comets in existence. The likelihood of a comet entering the solar system and becoming a short period comet is approximately one in a million.

How do I know this, you ask? It's well referenced in Dr. Walt Brown's book, but I'll include them here for you:

“What is the chance that Jupiter could catch them [comets falling from outside the solar system] by its gravity and tame them into short-period, prograde orbits? He [H. A. Newton] found that the chance is very small. Only about one in a million would have its period reduced to less than Jupiter’s period of 11.86 years.” Fred L. Whipple, The Mystery of Comets (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), p. 75.

“Using current standard models for the formation of comets, a significant number of [hyperbolic] comets should have been observed. This lack of detections of extrasolar comets is becoming an embarrassment to the theories of solar system and cometary formation and may drive the parameters of these models.” Thomas A. McGlynn and Robert D. Chapman, “On the Nondetection of Extrasolar Comets,” Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 346, 15 November 1989, p. L105.

“No comet has ever been observed on a trajectory originating outside the gravitational influence of the Sun. And yet, sooner or later, such comets should be seen.” Sagan and Druyan, p. 350.

It is a scientific fact that the number of short-period comets cannot be explained by the old-earth crowd, but can easily be explained by creation scientists, whom state that the earth is the source of these comets. Dr. Brown had made predictions about the makeup of a comet well before they sent Deep Impact, and he was spot-on. Findings in Deep Impact lined up exactly with Dr. Brown's theory for the formation of comets.

Regarding Dr. Brown, Now you appeal to non-authority to claim he doesn't know what he is talking about, as if having a PhD in Mechanical Engineering isn't something already (let's assume it's not), you honestly believe that the lack of a PhD in some field related to geophysics, astronomy, history, archaeology, etc., makes someone NOT qualified to study the field? Need I remind you that most of the wealthiest and most successful people on the planet dropped out of college to pursue their area of interest? It doesn't take a degree to know something, it takes reading. Personal study. What do you think Dr. Brown has done for the last 25 years since retiring from director of Research institutions and S&T studies and other positions in the military? He's read, researched, and studied the "experts" in all fields related to Creation Science, including astronomy, geology, molecular biology, physics, and a host of others, many experts of which are staunch evolutionists, yet he finds proof for creation in even their findings.

I don't mean to be a prick on the issue, but I feel very strongly about it. I'm simply a 25 year old research scientist (in the area of computers), and I just gone toe-to-toe with a Doctor from the University of Maryland who's studied many of these thinngs, including cosmology, and he could not explain the existence of so many short period comets, among other points I raised with him. And trust me, I'm hardly comprehensively versed in the area of Creation Science. But this doctor previously (and probably still now) continues to claim that there is no evidence that supports the Biblical story of Creation, because that's the view that's been forced down our throats for so long. I'm telling people that yes, there is evidence that verifies the Biblical events of Genesis (creation and the flood), and that people need to know about them.

"The effects of creation can be studied" Not if whether creation took place is under dispute. Creation is under dispute, don't state that it happened as fact.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) Evolution is under dispute also, what does that matter? We're saying "I believe this to have happened", and then we come and say "well if that happened, then we should expect to see __________". That ___________ is what we're studying, and there's plenty of _________ to study.

"false" You hit an important point of falsifiability here. Yes, if the house is standing we can conclude that it didn't burn down (although it might have been rebuilt). However, if the house is a pile of rubble and ash, we cannot conclude that Joe was right. He might have seen a different fire that was subsequently put out, or he might have been wrong about the date. Science does not ever state anything as fact, merely as fitting the available data, so your forest fire example is false.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) No the forest fire example is not false, we can put a somewhat accurate date on a forest fire based on known growth rates of forest plants. We can't get 100% accurate, but we can make a pretty close estimate. The same with certain topics in creation.

"if the earth was created recently" Yes, we would expect to see evidence of that. You're absolutely right. That a mechanical engineer far outside his area of expertise has supposedly found such evidence, evidence that would stand up to scientific peer review and scrutiny, is incredible.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) There you go again... "He's a mechanical engineer by degree, therefore he's not qualified to understand the vast workings of the cosmos and other topics related to the earth and universe..." Give me a freaking break. This man is more qualified than the vast majority of PhD's that come out of the best universities in the country. YOU spend over 40 hours a week for 25 years of your life reading from the experts and studying a set of topics (AND how they're related, which most specialists don't do), and tell me that you aren't qualified on the topic. Not to mention he REFERENCES every single one of those experts for every single one of his predictions and theories.

"A number of observances" Yes, it is POV. 'Point' suggests that these observances are actively promoting YEC. According to creationists, the observational evidence points toward YEC. Or, The observed evidence might allow for YEC.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) Exactly, the scientific observances we see match up with what would be expected for recent creation.

"Evolutionary scientists have tried countless times" There is no such thing as an evolutionary scientist, and your use of this term shows your bias or narrow reference frame. We do have astrophycisists and astronomers, none of whom seem to share your objections. Perhaps none of them have found this topic interesting enough to write a book about, especially a book for laymen. Please understand that a great number of people (crackpots maybe) have 'theories' they'd like science to prove wrong (Prove me wrong, eh, eh). The fact is that very few scientists have the time or inclination to waste their time on deflecting questions from ignorant people. A number of people still claim that the Moon should be covered in a kilometre thick layer of dusk, making landing on it impossible.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) And do you know why they believed that it should be covered in a kilmeter of dust? Because of the faulty presupposition that the moon has been around for billions of years, they believed that all the space dust settling on it for so long would create that thick of a layer of dust. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for the astronauts), the layer of dust was approximately as much dust as should settle there in a couple thousand years.

"It's well referenced" Note that these references all seem to be from decades past. Is it not conceivable that the author (Brown) used outdated sources, or wrote his book a long time ago? Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, one of his sources, simply state that we have never observed our sun catching a comet, not that it is improbable. I'll note that neither of these authors is convinced by this point that standard cosmology is false.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) I believe the current edition in print is his 7th edition, and I believe he's working on the 8th edition as we speak. Being "old" does not make an observation wrong, it simply means that he may have been using that reference since the book first came out, and never updated it, or it may mean that nobody has made observations relating to that specific topic because someone like Carl Sagan already observed it years ago.

Note the difference in language in your sources: "Using current standard models for the formation of comets", "No comet has ever been observed"

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) What's the problem with the language? Those two quotes of my references that you took out of context are dealing with two different things. One is stating that the current understanding (aka the magical "oort cloud") should have resulted in a significant number of hyperbolic comets being observed. The second states that no hyperbolic comet has ever been observed to go from a hyperbolic comet to a long, intermediate, or short period comet. Assuming we've only been watching the skies for 6000 years, let's assume that 6001 years ago, a hyperbolic comet did enter the solar system and become a parabolic or elliptical-orbit comet. That makes the average once per 6001 years. Heck, let's say 10 of them did. That makes one per 600 years. That still doesn't explain the number of short period comets, let alone the long and intermediate range comets.

"It is a scientific fact" There is no such thing as fact within the realm of science. And on what do base this 'fact'? You do realise that we don't see even a tiny percentage of the goings on in our own solar system, don't you? Even asuming most comets are destroyed, they could be collected by the thousands as we speak. I could imagine a single stellar object breaking up, forming hundreds, in not thousands, at once. There, .. an explanation that doesn't call on supernatural intervention. The supernatural can be used to explain everything, which is why actual science can't use it to explain anything.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) Oh, sure, one single object broke up and formed all the short period comets we have in existence today, AND all the intermediate period, AND all the long period. Except that 93% of short period comets have prograde orbits (leaving 7% in retrograde) with a VERY low angle of inclination to Earth's orbital plane, 70% of intermediate period comets have prograde orbits (30% in retrograde) with a mostly random angle of inclination to Earth's orbital plane, and 47% of long period comets having prograde orbits (53% having retrograde) orbits, again with a random angle of inclination to Earth's orbital plane. I'm SO sure that a single object entered our solar system and caused THAT to happen. Even a small series of objects can't account for such a random arrangement. If they all DID have such a correlation, scientists long ago would have concluded that an extremely large comet broke up, or some other extremely large object.

"I don't mean to be a prick on the issue" Yes, you do seem to feel very strongly about this issue. You make several logical fallacies though, including false dichotomy and you raise the God of the gaps argument. If standard science can't explain it, well, God must have been responsible. It just doesn't work like that.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) No, I've shown, and can show other ways how the Bible (what I believe God said happened) and its events account for a large amount of things that we see today.

Stumping a doctor is not hard to do. He has probably never connected the story of creation to his day to day work, and has never had to explain the problems with your concepts. I might as well ask you to explain te me, how its possible that you're not from Bern, Switzerland. You probably have little factual information about that city handy, and would be hard pressed to present an air tight case, on the spot.

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) This doctor was a self-proclaimed expert, and he spoke with the knowledge that the average doctor I've talked to does not. He's debated with plenty of people before on this topic, and certainly knows plenty of info on the subject.

You suggest that there is evidence. I'm afraid the burden of proof is on you (and the ID/CS movement). Exponents of alternative thought are no longer persecuted in the Western world, but you can't expect people to agree with you without evidence. If evidence exists, and can withstand scientific scrutiny, then so be it. But this book was not peer reviewed, and not written by a professional in his field. No-one will take his arguments seriously, and they shouldn't, not unless he can prove his assertions, at which point not a scientist in the world would doubt them.
And again, this 'short lived comet' argument is not a main argument of creationists, so it does not deserve to be explained in detail. -- Ec5618 08:42, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Barwick 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC) The burden of proof is on EVERYONE. Evolution and Creation. Evolution has just as much it needs to explain as creation, and yet we go around teaching evolution as if it is THE answer to how we got here, yet there's no proof. The only thing people can do is observe microevolution (changes within genes that are already in existence in a being, such as a bacteria having on/off certain genes to make it immune or susceptible to certain antibiotics), and extrapolate the data out. They can play with the fossil record and say it looks like simple things are below more complex things, and conclude that the more complex things didn't exist until after the simple things died off.

They can try any number of things, but science can also explain exactly why larger things (believed to be more complex than smaller things) are higher up in the fossil record and sedimentary layers. Dr. Brown again explains this in his book in the section on liquefaction, a little understood (understood by few people that is) phenomenon.

Creation similarly can have the same things going for it. Just like people do with evolution, we can make an observation today, create a hypothesis, and expect to see certain things in our environment, universe, and even within ourselves. Similarly, we can look at the Bible and see things that human beings would have absolutely NO means of knowing at that time, test and observe them, and if we see a strong trend of these observations written in the Bible being true, then we can conclude that there is something more to the book than just the average human being. Whether or not that is God is something else to be decided, but through study, we can come to the point where we conclude that even the best, most knowledgable human being could not have come up with the things in the Bible, and therefore the arguments made in it about OTHER things we cannot possibly know (like Creation) just may be right. Can we scientifically prove it? No, but we can have a pretty darn good idea.

I think it best to leave those who go toe-to-toe with a cosmologist over planetary science to themselves. Joshuaschroeder 09:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Berwick: The "Moon dust" argument has been defunct since the early 1960's, when a faulty estimate was corrected. And your comet argument is obsolete too: astronomers have now observed many objects in the Kuiper Belt (now considered to be the primary source of short-term comets), and there never was a need for them to be replenished by hyperbolic extrasolar comets. A little research on TalkOrigins would have revealed this, and you could also have brought this up on a discussion forum (such as the Evolution/Creation section of www.iidb.org) rather than attempting to use this page for that purpose.

Err, im not sure who's saying what since there's some un-signed comments, but whoever the last person was, I too agree that you should check out talkorigins Berwick. There's like this ultimate list of all top of the line evolutionary attacks against Creationism and creationist arguments, some of which actually sounded very interesting, though to me, that's because I thought many of them had extraordinary fundamental errors. But if you look at what they have to say, since they represent like the epitome of all modern day evolutionary theory or something, you can much more reliably address the subject of evolution. Personally, reading some of that archive, i've come to realize I should never of been worried about evolutionary theory really being very accurate on many of its fundamental assumptions, but that's just me, the point is, try to look at talkorigins some and you'll be able to get a better understand of the modern day, accepted theory...and maybe be able to use some better attacks on evolutionary theory. Homestarmy 20:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact, short period comets are considered to come from the Kuiper Belt. The idea that scientists can't explain short period comets is just another big lie. Ken Arromdee 15:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Needs more creation myths

This page only mentions the Judeo-Christian creation myths. That's not remotely fair. There's so many other good ones out there, like from various Native American tribes, Hindus, Shinto, African, etc. --Cyde 00:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Gee there's a brilliant message... "I'll completely ignore the fact that scientific evidence supports the Judeo-Christian account of creation, and call it a myth because it makes me feel good and smart. Durrrrh..."
On this note, can we just delete stupid comments like the one Cyde just put in here (and consequently my stupid resposne?) Is there a process for this, or just "you're an idiot, go away" and delete it?
Barwick 03:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The best predictor of something not being science is a creationist calling it 'scientific'. I second the motion for expansion to include other creation myths.
Tenshu 21:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I think maybe only in a small section or in the intro, because the word "creationism" is usually used in a context that implies the Abrahamic tradition. And, creationism and creation myths are not quite equivalent; "creationism" is also usually used in a context that opposes it to scientific accounts of natural/cosmological history, rather than as an isolated belief to be discussed without some wider context. --Tothebarricades 00:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
One, other creation stories are included under origin beliefs.
Two, you can always edit/delete your own responses here on Wikipedia talk, but in general it is considered bad form to edit other people's responses (unless you're clarifyimg their position because of a syntax or spelling error, for example).
Joshuaschroeder
Doesn't the Judeo-Christian concept of Creationism pretty much represent the majority PoV anyway? Homestarmy 20:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The majority POV regarding creationism yes -- not the majority POV in general. --ScienceApologist 00:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well I meant for creationism, sorry if I wasn't clear :/. the article does mention other beliefs on the origins of the earth anyway, right? Homestarmy 00:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't disrupt the wiki. --FOo 01:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


One of the problems for Creationism is that outside of the Judic religions it makes no sense where as science trys to be culturally nutral (sorry about spelling but im deslexic)

POV

This page's editors are tolerating a blatant POV (as well as a duplicate link, which is against Wikipedia policy). My recent edit to bring it into conformity with Wikipedia policy was instantly reverted by User:Duncharris Not wishing to get into an edit war, I am instead placing a tag on the section. Pollinator 20:21, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The link is to talk.origins list of creationist websites. Whatever you think about talk.origins archive, the page that it refers to is neutral — it just lists the sites and does a job much better than we ever could since WP:NOT a link farm. That they encourage people to visit such sites and familiarise themselves with them speaks volumes when the creationists don't do similar. Please remember NPOV#Pseudoscience; the mainstream point of view has priority. — Dunc|☺ 20:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Don't distort the issue. It's not one of priority, pseudoscience or whatever. I'm not arguing for creationism, (which has several variations). I'm arguing violations of Wikipedia NPOV, as well as double linking. Pollinator 01:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Given the above by Duncharis, where is your NPOV argument? --Stephan Schulz 10:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
His beef is that the TO archive is already linked, but given the subsequent links are to a different and very relevant section, its OK. --JPotter 23:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Rossnixon's advocacy

Rossnixon apparently wants to see qualifiers to the scientific evidence portions of the article. This is wholly inappropriate. The scientific evidence against YEC is obvious to even those who are YEC advocates. That they reject the evidence is a well-known fact. To claim the evidence is an "allegation" only is to deny the fact that scientific evidence is neutral with respect to point-of-view. This is a non-negotiable feature of science. Yes, the evidence against YEC is plain and no, this article does not demand the reader accept it because the reader could choose to reject science (which is indeed what YEC does). -ScienceApologist 13:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The evidence against YEC is inconclusive. It can be interpreted several ways. One cannot repeat in the laboratory things that happened in the distant past. You can only simulate something similar and hope you got it right. Evidence is not interpreted in a neutral fashion - it is always "tainted" by one's existing "world view".
My original point was that - I do not believe in Creationism despite scientific evidence against it. I believe in Creationism partly because of my faith and partly because of the inadequacy of the scientific evidence for evolution RossNixon 10:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

In reference to your recent edit "it is the phenomena that are natural, not the explanation" I have to disagree. Both the phenomena and explanations are natural, because the alternative is supernatural - and you will not find any scientific explanations that refer to supernatural causes. That is the whole root of naturalism - that natural effects have natural causes. I think this may be a difference of semantics, with you defining natural as "normal" or "intuitive" or something. Such a minor issue I didn't want to make a new topic on it. --Ignignot 22:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see a discussion of why it is the phenomena and not the explanation that is natural here. In short, explanations are scientific, phenomena are natural. The explanations are not "natural" unless you consider everything made by humanity to be "natural". Rather they are actually artificial explanations (man-made) for purely natural phenomena. This is a fundmental point in the philosophy of science. What makes a phenomena "natural" is that it can be investigated empirically through the scientific method, but the explanations themselves are not "natural". --ScienceApologist 22:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
After reading the discussion, I don't think the point was made that the other interpretation of natural is "not supernatural". Perhaps it is inappropriate to view scientific explanations in the natural / supernatural dichotomy. However, it might be possible to rephrase the sentence to say that science does not use supernatural explanations to explain natural phenomena, which I think would satisfy both of us. --Ignignot 15:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
This is a fair assessment. Although "supernatural" discussions are included elsewhere in the article, if you see a good way to incorporate them there, that would be fine. --ScienceApologist 16:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Randis offer

Challenge info: http://www.randi.org/research/challenge.html (important passages in bold)

Only an actual performance of the stated nature and scope, within the agreed-upon limits, will be accepted. Anecdotal accounts of previous events are not accepted or considered. We consult competent statisticians when an evaluation of the results, or experiment design, is required. We have no interest in theories or explanations of how the claimed powers might work; if you provide us with such material, it will be ignored and discarded.

AND

IMPORTANT: Only claims that can be verified by evidence under proper observing conditions will be accepted. JREF will NOT accept claims of the existence of deities or demons/angels, the validity of exorcism, religious claims, cloudbusting, causing the Sun to rise or the stars to move, etc

So you actually CANNOT win money by proving ID if you arent able to convince God as participant (unlikely). The million dollar challenge is a false killer argument in this case.


Finding Darwin's God

From Kenneth R. Miller Finding Darwin's God; 1999; ISBN: 0060175931; p.xi:

Yet evolution also remains a point of concern and controversy, because it deals with the greatest of all mysteries, our own origins, and our human place in nature. The institutions of religion had once claimed solutions to these mysteries as their own, and the notion that natural science might find its own answers to such questions stirred immediate conflict. Darwin felt the conflict clearly, and attached three quotations to serve as epigraphs to the later editions of Origin. Each tells us something about Darwin's view of the proper relationship between religion and natural science, but the third, from Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning, is particularly revealing:
To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well-studied in the book of G-D's word, or in the book of G-D's works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both.
In no small way, my purpose in writing this book has been to argue that Darwin chose exceptionally well when he selected this quotation.

Two World Views

From Kenneth R. Miller Finding Darwin's God; p. 173

Ken, you're intelligent, you're well-meaning, and you're energetic. But you are also young, and you don't realize what's at stake. In a question of such importance, scientific data aren't the ultimate authority. Even you know that science is wrong sometimes."
Indeed I did. Henry M. Morris continued so that I could get a feeling for what that ultimate authority was. "Scripture tells us what the right conclusion is. And if science, momentarily, doesn't agree with it, then we have to keep working until we get the right answer. But I have no doubts as to what that answer will be." Morris then excused himself, and I was left to ponder what he had said. I had sat down thinking the man a charlatan, but I left appreciating the depth, the power, and the sincerity of his convictions. Nonetheless, however one might admire Morris's strength of character, convictions that allow science to be bent beyond recognition are not merely unjustified—they are dangerous in the intellectual and even in the moral sense, because they corrupt and compromise the integrity of human reason.
My impromptu breakfast with Morris taught me an important lesson—the appeal of creationism is emotional {Peace-of-Mind invested in God}, not scientific; {Two World Views}. I might be able to lay out graphs and charts and diagrams, to cite laboratory experiments and field observations, to describe the details of one evolutionary sequence after another, but to the true believers of creationism, these would all be sound and fury, signifying nothing. The truth would always be some where else.


Yesselman 01:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

spelling

I have changed Day-age creationism into Day–age creationism once. It seemed more correct to me with the en-dash. What do you think? --Rtc 21:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems kinda irrelevant, but I don't see a problem with it. Homestarmy 00:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

question

"The major Jewish denominations, including many Orthodox Jewish groups, accept evolutionary creationism or theistic evolution." --can this be verified?Akerensky99 05:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Read Jewish creationism. --ScienceApologist 11:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
According to that article, it seems it isn't correct to make such sweeping comments. While the intro reads:
"In general, the major Jewish denominations accept evolutionary creationism (theistic evolution), with the exception of certain Orthodox groups." the section on Orthodox groups specifically notes that :
"Many Orthodox rabbis, such as Abraham Isaac Kook, saw evolution as compatible with Jewish theology. Over time a growing minority of Orthodox rabbis and laypeople came to accept the existence of biological evolution as a fact. However, the majority of Orthodox rabbis and laypeople seem to have regarded the idea as false."
Perhaps the reference to Orthodox Jewsish groups should be removed, or the modifier 'many' be replaced with 'some'. -- Ec5618 12:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Concerns about the Opening

The opening of the article reads

"In Abrahamic religions, creationism or creation theology is the origin belief that humans, life, the Earth, and the universe were created by a supreme being or deity's supernatural intervention. The intervention may be seen either as an act of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) or the emergence of order from pre-existing chaos."

I have a concern about this as it does not deal with Hindu Creationism, which is automatically excluded because it is not an Abrahamic Religion.

Secondly the opening suggests that Creationism is an automatic feature of Abrahamic Religions. In fact there are considerable elements within Abrahamic faiths that argue for different positions concerning the validity or invalidity of what has come to be understood as creationism.

As the article now reads it is a Western Ethnocentric piece of writing, that excludes others Creation beliefs.

I would suggest, to overcome these two difficulties we amend the beginning to read

"In many religious traditions, creationism or creation theology is the origin belief that humans, life, the Earth, and/or the universe as a whole were created by a supreme being or by another deity's supernatural intervention. The intervention may be seen either as an act of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) or the (re)-emergence of order from pre-existing chaos. Various forms of creationism are found principly in religions of the Abrahamic faiths, and in Hinduism, although such beliefs can in theory be found in many other religious traditions in which creation proceeded as a result of a divine intervention, rather than as a part of the unfolding of an eternal or recycled natural order."

Equally I find the statement

"While the general idea of natural selection may fit into various particular views, the evolutionary concept of common descent —that humans are "descended from lesser creatures" — is a point of great issue with most creation believers. Most creationists also dispute evolutionary theories about the origin of life, origin of the human species, the geological history of the Earth, the formation of the solar system, and the origin of the physical universe."

That this applies only to those Creationists of the Abrahamic and other faiths who adhere to a belief in an unchanging created order. I would suggest that we insert the words

"Most Euro-American Christian Creationists also dispute...." because once again this demonstrates a predominantly Euro-American bias (and indeed a very American bias) as "Creation Theologists" like Matthew Fox, in the Christian tradition, and many non-Christian Creationists have no difficulty with the concept of common descent."

Regards John D. Croft 04:04, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense

I have marked this article as nonsense twice, yet it has been reverted both times. Somebody please explain how the idea of creationism does not qualify as incoherent and/or possessing no redeeming value / historical background.

Easy! It is coherent. It has redeeming value. It is historically accurate. rossnixon 10:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
There's been lots of nonsense in the world, yet nonsense or not, Wikipedia reports on things, not make value statements on the content unless those value statements are part of expressing everyone's POV in the interest of a neutral POV overall. And by the way, Creationism is not nonsense, belief in Christ makes one born again, and to become born again, God uses creation. Homestarmy 03:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
My cat believes in Creationism. I told her she's the dumbest cat I've ever seen. She got really pissed off.81.246.23.14 11:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Then you have proven your opinion is worthless and should be ignored. The logical fallacy in your arguement and your beliefs in general is simply this: A belief in Creationism is silly and for unintelligent people. Such a claim is false and only undermines any attempt to make any sort of debate as their are several highly educated people who do not see evolution as being adequate. You may object that "But most scientist believe evolution is fact!" Yeah well believe it or not a majority of people thought the world was flat. Majority arguements don't cut it. Also just to mention it, The Bible says the earth is round as well. This is the only arguement that is ever presented by a majority of those who side with the evolutionary view. Not because it was based a an objective study and drawing the conclusion, but rather by making a conclusion and finding evidence to support it. Science and religion have never been at odds, as a matter of fact it was religion that decided to explore the world around them. Where they disagree is in orgins. In order for Darwinian Evolution to have happened, meaning that everything came to be by natural causes, whereas Creationism sides with Many Religious groups in stating that God created everything. Now let's see what both sides are asking of us: on one hand we are asked to believe that the universe and everything that exists came into by accident with unknown causes, and the "no cause" arguement is obsolete, and that something came from nothing. The other says that the universe and everything in it was created by God. Now which sounds sillier. When you orgin answer is God it is perfectly logical. Why? Because of the very definition of God. God has no beginning and no end. So, where did God come from? He didn't. He always was. Definition of God. To us, the notion of time is linear. One second follows the next, one minute is after another. We get older, not younger and we cannot repeat the minutes that have passed us by. We have all seen the time lines on charts: early time is on the left and later time is on the right. We see nations, people's lives, and plans mapped out on straight lines from left to right. We see a beginning and an end. But God is "beyond the chart." He has no beginning or end. He simply has always been. Physics has shown that time is a property that is the result of the existence of matter. Time exists when matter exists. Time has even been called the fourth dimension. But God is not matter. In fact, God created matter. He created the universe. So, time began when God created the universe. Before that, God was simply existing and time had no meaning (except conceptually), no relation to Him. Therefore, to ask where God came from is to ask a question that cannot really be applied to God in the first place. Because time has no meaning with God in relation to who He is, eternity is also not something that can be absolutely related to God. God is even beyond eternity. Eternity is a term that we finite creatures use to express the concept of something that has no end -- and/or no beginning. Since God has no beginning or end, He has no beginning. This is because He is outside of time. He created time. Now you may ask: If everything needs a creator, then who or what created God? This is a silly question as the very definition of God means he doesn't need a creator as he is eternal. By definition He is not created; He is eternal. He is the One who brought time, space, and matter into existence. Since the concept of causality deals with space, time, and matter, and since God is one who brought space, time, and matter into existence, the concept of causality does not apply to God since it is something related to the reality of space, time, and matter. Since God is before space, time, and matter, the issue of causality does not apply to Him. There seems to be alot of misconceptions about creationism, Christianity, and evolution in general on this page. - TheQuestion

Creation science edits

Now, I haven't been on Wikipedia here a very long time, but you know, that latest edit seems.....harsh. I mean, I know that most people condemn creation science as not science, but the way it reads now, it just sounds like an attack rather than an observation. Homestarmy 04:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

You're going to have to be more specific in your criticism of the latest edits. Is there anything factually inaccurate about the current wording? Is there anything NPOV about it? --ScienceApologist 15:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Eh, people changed it, it's not as angry anymore, im a bit surprised with all them fighting words on the edit summaries people didn't take the conflict here immedietly. Homestarmy 15:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
How about a reference for "most scientists claim ... that the action of a deity has never been observed"? Perhaps the results of a poll, that seems reasonable. Dan Watts 15:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
A right reasonable request but we need to be clear on what manner of poll we should quote. I contend that the only "scientists" who claim that the action of a deity has been observed are those who advocate creationism or intelligent design. Would it be adequate for us to present a reference to a poll which demonstrated that most scientists dismiss such arguments? If so, the reference can be gleaned immediately from the text itself. --ScienceApologist 15:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
If it can be established that the dismissal of such arguments includes the belief (of those same scientists) that a) no such measurements exist (or are possible) or b) no existing measurements could be understood (by them) to be the result of the action of a deity; then I would concur without argument. Dan Watts 16:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
That's quite a qualification. What if we cited the religious beliefs of scientist as seen in the poll conducted by the National Academy? This doesn't quite rise to your qualifications, but it seems to indicate the same information.--ScienceApologist 20:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Does the religous belief cited address supernatural influence on the material world? Dan Watts 16:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Inasmuch as it is asking the question about the veracity of the theistic conceit. --ScienceApologist 15:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I just amended the title of the Omphalos book to Creation (Omphalos), which (as I have a hard copy of the first edition I can attest) is the correct title. It's wrong in Father and Son.

While I'd like to take your word for it, I cannot find reference to this anywhere. As the work is still available for sale still in the previous form, I reverted the title. Let me know what you find. --ScienceApologist 07:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Template deletions?

Hold on a minute, what's all this about deleting templates that this article supposedly reached consensus on? If their that important, why are they being deleted? Homestarmy 13:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

That Poll thing...

What's going on with this mini-edit war? It looks like a fine poll to me and the wording seemed to fit in quite well with the paragraph, what's the problem? Homestarmy 00:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The Poll should stay. It is the only indication we have of how polarised the community is over this issue. rossnixon 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Well I just don't like the idea of people getting into an edit war over it because from the edit summaries, it looks to me like there's more than meets the eye to some people's objections, couldn't an explanation be in order from all sides besides "It measures ignorance because it's a poll"? Homestarmy 00:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
The poll belongs on the Creation-evolution controversy page as it is really about the controversy rather than being about creationism per se. --ScienceApologist 01:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) It doesn't appear to be a false dichotomoy as the creationist choice wasn't noting who believed Creationism, it was noting people who thought it should be taught in some fashion, you don't have to believe in something to think it ought to be taught :/. Homestarmy 02:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Please read the poll again. It asked for people to choose between three options or "don't know" to describe origins. --ScienceApologist 19:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I wonder why the section on the US can contain a poll by "People for the American Way", but the section on Europe can't include a poll in the UK? Secondly, the poll also included results as per how many believed in evolution/creationism, not just whether they wanted it to be taught in schools. When I first read the BBC article I was surprised, since it seemed to show that the US isn't the only developed country falling behind in the struggle for science, and that creationism isn't exclusively a US phenomenon, as I had previously thought. —Gabbe 08:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Reading the poll results, there were 2 parts to it. 1. What people believe. 2. What people think should be taught. The first part fits with this article, so I will put this in (and remove the second part, which possibly fits better in another article). Here are the results:

The participants... were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life: 22% chose creationism, 17% opted for intelligent design, 48% selected evolution theory, the rest did not know. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rossnixon (talk • contribs).

But there's still the issue that the section on the US mentions not only how many Americans believe in Creationism (the Gallup poll), but how many think it has a place in schools (the People for the American Way). Shouldn't that be removed as well then? —Gabbe 10:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, you have to explain the problem with such polls. Basically, it is an indication of ignorance more than anything else; by and large the British are not as religious (and not as fundamentalist) as the Americans, just ignorant. Opinion polling is a notoriously inexact art, and any mention of polls should make this clear. — Dunc|☺ 10:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

If you ask me, anyone who doesn't believe in Darwinian evolution is obviously ignorant. In my opinion, both the US and UK poll measure ignorance in their respective countries more than anything else. But that's not the point. I'm well aware of the argumentum ad populum-fallacy. I agree that opinion polling is not an exact science like math or physics. I also agree that most surveys (such as this one by Pew Global) show that US is more religious than the UK. But I can't understand why this article can include a poll about Creationism in the US but not a poll about Creationism in the UK? I'm just wondering why these two countries should be treated differently. —Gabbe 11:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Just because people believe a poll is exposing "ignorance" does not in itself make such polls wortheless, if the UK poll was accurate and useful to describe the situation, (And from what I saw, it seemed to fit the article in context well) I don't see how people's objections to Creationism render the source pointless. Homestarmy 15:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Polls that ask people to choose between categories like "creationism" or "evolution" reinforce the POV that there is a dichotomy between the two. In NPOV articles, we need to be wary of inclusion of polls which are editorially useful as "neutral" sources for people's "opinions". When polls themselves are written with a POV, they are problematic. --ScienceApologist 19:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

To be abundantly clear: the polls currently discussed didn't force respondents to choose, or at least were honest about how they worded the questions. This is why the BBC poll is problematic. --ScienceApologist 19:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It would have been better if the poll had more options (eg. intelligently-guided evolution), but till then this is the only poll we have. Perhaps someone will find another poll result - doesn't matter if it's up to say 10 years old. rossnixon 00:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Ross does have a bit of a point there, I mean, this article currently seems like it can hardly afford to pick and choose the top teir of sources. Homestarmy 00:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Those kinds of polls are very misleading. We need to avoid them (and we've discussed their inclusion in Wikipedia before). --ScienceApologist 01:37, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The aim of WP is to bring objective information, so either the poll is out of the article, or it is made abundantly clear that it is a false dichotomy that was asked and as such suspected and probably overstating the percentage creationists. --KimvdLinde 01:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
concur completely with KimvdLinde. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Put poll back, also added comment that at least one choice was missing (theistic evolution). There were 3 options, so was it a dichotomy or a trichotomy? rossnixon 09:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I've got an honest question, what sort of a poll would be required to indicate the mood of England or some other European country towared Creationism or other things that wouldn't end up as a false dichotomy or whatever it is? Would it need a "no answer" section? would it need longer descriptions of its categories? There must be something out there. Homestarmy 13:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
A poll that clearly let readers to choose more than one option and had more than two questions would be much better for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, news organizations don't tend to like nuanced polling. --ScienceApologist 13:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the major flaw is now not mentioned, and that is that evolution does not offer an explanation for the origin of life. As such, the answers point at different aspects. The lumping of evolution wit the origins of life is a frequent used strategy of the ID pushers to make their point. --KimvdLinde 16:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The point about the poll being equivocal is meant to address that. --ScienceApologist 18:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC) Ok, was unclear to me as a non-native speaker. --KimvdLinde 18:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

More specific details about the poll are at [13] if it's of interest to anyone. —Gabbe 19:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Eww, you were right, the evolution choice said "God has no part in this process", that is a false dichotomy I think.... Homestarmy 19:28, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to infer that the results of the poll indicate the views of the general public concerning creationism and intelligent design, since those topics were not included in the disclaimer (and an attempt to put such in was reverted)? Dan Watts 20:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

No, as the poll asks the wrong question (origin of life) with the wrong and incomplete set of potential answers. --KimvdLinde 20:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
So a disclaimer for those topics would also be appropriate? Dan Watts 22:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't even know how to appropriately word a disclaimer. Really all the poll says is that x-number of respondents will respond in that way when faced with such a flawed poll. It doesn't say anything else because it's so flawed. Can we remove it? --ScienceApologist 23:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Changes to education in the UK

Since it hasn't yet been posted here I thought I'd link to this [14]. Creationism is now effectively 'on the syllabus' in the UK but in the context of explaining what creationism is and why evolution generated such hostility when it was first developed. As the DFES spokesperson specified, evolution is still dealt with as a matter of fact. I'm going to edit a small comment in on the subject, feel free to comment here if you think it is out of place or overdone. --Davril2020 13:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The new stuff in the controversy area

Lots of absolute statements in there, many of that material really ought to have some citations, like what is and is not scientific analysis and all that stuff, im sure there's got to be some source-wise material in other articles about science, any chance we could bring some in for that list of stuff? Homestarmy 17:15, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? --ScienceApologist 18:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Basically, all that stuff you cleaned up about what is and is not science and how it works and stuff. Im not saying it's wrong, it's just something that sounds so absolute and basic it just seems like there ought to be a reference, nothing complicated, I mean there's got to be something simple, like a 3rd grade science book, I dunno :/. And it kind of sounds like it should all be in the science article is what im thinking, like it's just somehow being copied into this article. Homestarmy 18:48, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
There is some point at which common knowledge belies citation. I think we may be running into that problem here. --ScienceApologist 18:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
So is all that stuff in the science or scientific method article then? Because scientific method was wikilinked....Homestarmy 19:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Since science and scientific method refer to the subjects independent of this context, much of the information is there but in different forms. --ScienceApologist 19:04, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
I also just had another thought, where did this critique first come from? the person who submitted it? Isn't that original reaserch, even though it might be conforming with scientific viewpoints and whatnot? Homestarmy 19:11, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
This is Wikipedia:Summary style reporting on the various critiques made by scientific skeptics and those actively involved in the creation-evolution controversy. It isn't original research because all of the claims are verifiable through looking at any criticism of creationism source. --ScienceApologist 19:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
But not all criticisms of creationism have to rely on science, do you mean like scientifically recognized ones? Homestarmy 19:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
There really are no "scientifically recognized" criticisms of creationism because most scientists don't bother to worry about the subject. You are right that some of the criticisms aren't scientific, but those are verifiable through our references as well. --ScienceApologist 19:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
But then don't we just go back to the problem of that there are no references in this section beyond scientific method being wikilinked? :/ Homestarmy 19:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
There are references, just no citations. Feel free to add citations in as you see fit. (By the way, citations are only a guideline, not a policy -- some writing doesn't lend itself to citation well). --ScienceApologist 21:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
But I didn't see anybody add references in response to this new section, none of the one's currently at the bottom seem to, well, have anything to do with this particular kind of critique. Homestarmy 00:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Talkorigins certainly mentions all of these and has references to the points. We can mine a reference list and citation group from them if we want, subject to GDFL of course. --ScienceApologist 02:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

New Section is Needed

I find it ironic that the controversy within the religion, and even evidence in contrast to these beliefs are presented, while there is virtually no evidence for these beliefs shown. Much evidence clearly exists, as the controversy has lasted over a century, and I know so from my studies in both the areas of christian theology and archaeology, as well as paleontology, anthropology, and biology. I will contribute some evidence when I have the time, but for now, I think it would be beneficial to the article if someone takes the initiative to do so.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.158.167.86 (talk • contribs).

Unfortunently, I have the feeling that the same people who put the "This article may not show evidence because we control the evidence!" stamp thing on the talk page might veheminently oppose that :(. Homestarmy 13:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

If you are claiming that there is scientific evidence for creationism you are incorrect. --ScienceApologist 13:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
....that article appears to detail how evidence may be presented in courts of law, creationism itself hasn't really been on trial, just attempts to teach it.... Homestarmy 14:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Even so, creationism as a concept does not have the backing of the scientific community and does not have verifiable evidence to back up its assumptions. --ScienceApologist 14:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Well whoever first posted this didn't seem to specify what type of evidence they planned to give, if they can find evidence that many creationists cite, whether people agree with it or not, well, I don't see how it can't be allowed. It depends on how the article notes the evidence. Homestarmy 14:43, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll use direct quotes when explaning then. The assumption being made would be incorrect. There is verifiable evidence, that some of the scientific community acknowlege, however, both sides basically believe their arguments to be overpowering. I'm not even going to go into my opinions, as I hate unnecessary debates. But I'll post some of the research done in the historical, archaeological, mathamatical, and scientific feilds, that give it the merit it has, regardless of how much that is interpreted as (I'll leave that up to the readers, as I have no intention of debating). I can't give links, as my information comes from books. If I cite the author, book, page number, ect, that should be fine, yes? --Waenishikusu 21:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

    • "Even so, creationism as a concept does not have the backing of the scientific community and does not have verifiable evidence to back up its assumptions. --ScienceApologist 14:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)" Not true. Your bias is showing.

":If you are claiming that there is scientific evidence for creationism you are incorrect. --ScienceApologist 13:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)" also, not true. I question your credibility. You do not have verifiable evidence to back up your assumptions. This article does not seem to be in the NPOV. Also your generalizing. I request that someone please demonstrate how the claims of evolution are logical and how the claims of creationism aren't. Now when I say evolution I think you know what I mean. The naturalsitic orgins of the universe and the incorporation of Darwinian Evolution

Please, please, please

We all know that you don't like Creationism. This does not give you leave to rant at Creationists within an article. This may be tough but keep this NPOV. I just excised a personal opinion ranting at people who believed in God. Subtle bias is prevalent throughout the place and it is highly ironic that the "criticisms" section is three times as long as the rest of the article. Seriously, people. 70.17.208.92 21:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

O_o I was offering to fix the lack of evidence for creationism in the article...--Waenishikusu 23:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I was not referring specifically to you but generally to all here. 141.157.84.104 04:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's more doubt of the evidence's existence, rather than the hate of creationism. Thus, their comments are not unnexpected, and actually, quite understandable. But if I can cite scources, there is no need for links, correct?--Waenishikusu 15:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't see why you'd need more links if you've referenced it heh. Homestarmy 19:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Valento

Hey, I'm an ardent Conservative and a creationist. I am a high school Junior and all my science classes are written by Dr. Jay Wile. He is a genius creationist and a wonderful Christian, so look him up sop we can come up with more eveidence for the truth of God. Come to my talk page to tyalk about God stuff in general- please, no vandalism. This is a happy place. Please inform me on times to discuss, I am eager to listen and to learn. User:Valento March 26, 2006

NPOV

I felt that one sentence was a little biased and a little clumsy, so i tweaked it:

However, scientific evidence as an empirical source for information on natural history is usually interpreted as contradictory to the Bible, but can be interpreted as supporting it, depending on the presuppositions that are held.

The use of "usually" is purely speculative, it all depends on your context. Majority of the world's poplation are religious, post-modern secularists are not a large group outside 1st world countries. —This unsigned comment was added by Khehreb (talk • contribs) .

That sentence is certainly not brilliant prose. But it is correct. Most people, wether in first-world countries or otherwise, don't know the scientific evidence, much less interprete it. Those that do overwhelmingly support an old earth and common descent. Hence scientific evidence is usually interpreted as contradicting (a literal interpretation of) the Bible. --Stephan Schulz 18:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Not everyone who knows the evidence absolutly almost has to support an old earth and common descent mentality....Homestarmy
Indeed, for every opinion/fact/interpretation no matter how well-supported you can usually find someone who will oppose it. Nevertheless, it is a matter of fact that most people who know the evidence consider hardline creationism to be unsupportable. --ScienceApologist 19:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean know the evidence as in basically a Biologist or someone with a high school education? Homestarmy 13:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
That depends on the quality of the high school, I guess. As far as I'm concerned, if you understand high school biology, basic geology and radiometric dating, you qualify.--Stephan Schulz 13:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is the issue: the sentence makes a claim. If the claim is not just someone's personal observation (which is not allowed regardless of whether it is true or not, see our NOR policy), there should be a verifiable source to support the claim. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Name of God

In reference to the recent edits, whilst I agree that it is historically accurate that God and Allah are just different translations and Yahweh is a personal name, the fact remains that this is how God is reffered to by different people. The history, whilst interesting, is not known to most modern people so the change is unnessery. Jefffire 21:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

They are not translations of YHWH - "god" is a translation of "el" ansd "Allah" is the Arabic form of the Hebrew "El," which itself probably has older roots in Semitic languages. Slrubenstein | Talk 08:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Huh, well that's me told. So I'm righter than I thought I was but for the wrong reasons. Thanks. 8*) Jefffire 12:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Naturalistic explanations or explanations of natural phenomena

The phenomena described are obviously natural so that's not a debate. However, the explanations themselves are not necessarily naturalistic. To wit, some explanations are purely descriptive (e.g. F=ma is not "naturalistic). Therefore it is incorrect to claim it is "natural explanations" or "naturalistic explanations". They are, in fact, scientific explanations. --ScienceApologist 03:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

  • "Science cannot comment on the role that supernatural forces might play in human affairs." (emphasis added) [Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences]
  • "...[E]limination of the supernatural as an acceptable explanation of the structure, behavior, and even existence of natural phenomena provided the scientific community with a strong incentive to engage in additional inquiry in order to forge additional links in their ever-expanding chains of natural causes and effects." - The Sacred and the Secular University, John H. Roberts and James Turner, Princeton University Press 2000, page 31.
  • "ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation" [Kitzmiller v Dover ruling]
These references appear to show that the approved (only?) scientific explanations are by definition naturalistic. Even Bell's theorem (which certainly appears to play havoc with causality) is defined without any reference to supernatural causes. Dan Watts 14:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Flipflopping the argument around does not make every explanation naturalistic. KimvdLinde 04:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, first off, F=ma is not an explanation -- neither a natural nor a supernatural one. It's a summary. It's a useful tool for predicting things: if you apply the same force to differing masses, you will get different accelerations, inversely proportional to the mass. This is basically true; you can try it. It's a great summary (or approximation) to use with masses that are relatively big (i.e. not atomic scale) and relatively slow (i.e. not relativistic speed).

I have to admit that I'm really not sure what's meant by a "supernatural explanation." I know what's meant by a supernatural claim -- it means some claim that we can't investigate through our normal senses and instruments. It means one that the claimant asks us to take on faith, rather than investigate practically. But it's not clear to me how such a claim can possibly be an explanation in the sense desired.

For instance, if someone claims, "God created cats and dogs just as they are now," this is clearly a supernatural claim. But does it explain? How did God create them? By what means? If I say, "A blacksmith created this axe," then I can go on to describe the method of its creation, and maybe even teach someone how to create an axe. However, the claim "God created cats and dogs" does not give us any kind of handle on the phenomenon.

Natural explanations invite more questions:

  • What are living things made out of? Cells.
  • What are cells made out of? Organelles.
  • What are organelles made out of? Organic molecules.
  • What are molecules made out of? Atoms.
  • What are atoms made out of? Protons, neutrons, and electrons.

And when we reach the limits of our present knowledge, natural explanations offer us new questions which, if answered, will expand our knowledge. Once upon a time, cells were not known. Then they were, but their structure wasn't. And so on down the line. Natural explanations give us more to learn.

In contrast, supernatural "explanations" usually tell us to stop asking questions. "How did God create dogs and cats?" "That's not for us to know." "It's a mystery." "That's not the point -- the point is to worship God, not figure things out." These kind of answers do not lead to increased knowledge.

Perhaps you could read [Job 38-41] concerning knowledge. There does not seem to be any "Stop studying!" there.
Actions speak louder than words, (especial words found in the bible). Ofcourse, if you insist on using words then what about 1 Corinthians 1:19 "For I (god) will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." Obviously there does seem to be some "Stop studying!" there.--146.244.138.137 18:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
That seems to point out that natural knowledge has its limits (temporally as well as factually). Dan Watts 01:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

(Of course, there are some people who claim that "the supernatural" can be dealt with rationally. But bringing Aleister Crowley into a discussion of science and religion probably counts as some kind of trolling.)

So, if the question is, "Why does science reject supernatural claims?" then the answer should be clear. Accepting a supernatural claim tends to kill a line of investigation. This doesn't mean that people who want to practice science have to be diehard naturalists; or that religionists can't be good scientists. Nothing could be further from the truth. But it does mean that they can't allow supernatural beliefs to substitute for natural, testable explanations in their scientific work. --FOo 06:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

So the sum of matter and energy in the universe (with proper conversion units) is a constant. From that do you agree with David Mills in Atheist Universe that this mass-energy has no beginning? Dan Watts 12:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
David who?,... Anyway, the sum of influence in God (with proper conversion units) is a mystery. From that, do you agree with 40 unknown authors in the Bible that this immeasurable influence has no beginning?--146.244.138.137 18:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
(Try David_Mills_(author).) While I disagree with the "40 unknown authors" part, yes. Dan Watts 01:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Dan and others seem to be in disagreement with me over the nature of an "explanation". To wit, "explanations" need only be symbolic abstractions, they are not required to be novel or incisive. Therefore F = ma is, by definition, an explanation of how three natural phenomena (forces, masses, and accelerations) are mathematically explained in terms of each other. However, the explanation itself isn't naturalistic in that it doesn't rely on anything more than an appropriate mathematical contextualization of terms. F = ma is a perfectly reasonable explanation for a certain mathematical manipulation that may be undertaken with respect to physics, but it is not a "natural" explanation any more than y = mx + b is a "natural" explanation of a linear relationship.

What's more Dan seems to want to draw a stark diving line between scientific explanations being "natural" and the creationists' alternative "supernatural" explanations, I submit that science makes the distinction phenomenologically rather than at the abstract level. The problem with creationism accordingly is that it posits supernatural phenomena, not supernatural explanations. Of course, this requires a careful parsing of the terms, something which wasn't done by Roberts and Turner in Dan's quote. They are, in fact, refering to supernatural "phenomena" not explanations. One can hardly blame their editorial accomodation, avoid using "phenonmenon" twice in one sentence is good practice, I would wager. --ScienceApologist 14:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Some of us happen to like "supernatural phenomena"! :D Homestarmy 15:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
See Logical Fallacy: Appeal to consequences--146.244.138.137 19:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the meaning in the difference you draw between supernatural explanations and phenomena. If your explanations for phenomena are supernatural, then you would view the phenomena as supernatural. To a scientist the origin of life is a natural phenomena and has natural explanations. To a creationist the origin of life is supernatural in the same regard. In science there is an assumption that there is no such thing as supernatural phenomenon, hence the old term "naturalist." Could you please elaborate with your reasoning? --Ignignot 16:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
The difference between the explanation and the phenomena is that the explanation is an abstraction meant to contextualize or describe the phenomena. These explanations are dependent on the phenomena themselves and exist independently of them only as symbology. It is the phenomena themselves that are (super)naturalistic. The equivocation of "supernatural explanation" is also somewhat illustrative: to wit, a supernatural explanation could be thought of as an explanation that was presented, made, or formed "supernaturally". Some might consider the bible to be a "supernatural explanation". Science, however, doesn't care where the explanation comes from. If F=ma had been written in the Bible (even if it had been done supernaturally) the explanation would still be scientific. See the distinction? --ScienceApologist 17:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
So you are saying that supernatural explanations are explained by supernatural entities, for example, a burning bush tells you that F=ma is a supernatural explanation. However I think it is just as easy to interpret it as "a phenomena with supernatural causes" - for example, the Sun goes across the sky. A scientist would say it appears to do so because of the Earth's rotation (a natural explanation) vs. an ancient greek might say that it is caused by Helios riding his chariot across the sky (a supernatural explanation). I think that since a phenomena can be considered either supernatural or natural depending on the point of view, the concepts of supernatural explanation and supernatural phenomena are indistinguishable. --Ignignot 19:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Your example is indeed a kind of explanation, but it is in terms of other phenomena (Helios would be a supernatural phenomena if he existed). The explanation itself is completely descriptive and if there was evidence for Helios' existence then the explanation would have been scientific. Technically speaking, however, the explanation itself is neither natural nor supernatural and in some sense the phenomena even belies characterization since the supernatural/natural dichotomy wasn't extant until the Enlightenment. --11:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Ignignot, your statement "In science there is an assumption that there is no such thing as supernatural phenomenon" seems to me to miss the point – the assumption in science is that science can only deal with repeatable verifiable phenomena, which the supernatural by definition isn't. Which is why the Roman Catholic line about "the realm of science" leaves room for "the realm of the spiritual". The old term "naturalist" predates both science and the perception that natural philosophy was not just cataloguing the wonders of God's creation ...dave souza, talk 11:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Some understand Colossians 1:16-17 to declare that the physical universe is sustained by Christ Jesus and that in 2 Peter 3:11the dissolution of all things will happen when He stops the sustaining. Nowhere are we guaranteed that the universe is natural. Dan Watts 19:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
What the Bible says is irrelevant to the scientific method. --ScienceApologist 20:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Well is this article about the scientific method or creationism? :) Homestarmy 23:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
The Biblical reference was essentially off the point, and more a matter of proselytizing than anything else. Its relevance is null in that it uses non-supportable theological beliefs regarding supernatural intervention to argue against "nature" as a "natural" phenomena. I'm sure it's great in Sunday School, but out of place anywhere else -- most certainly here, unless the intent was to show the spuriousness of creation "science".
Homes, you missed SA's point. It deals with the irrelevance I noted in the preceding paragraph. •Jim62sch• 00:26, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I was addressing SA's first sentence in this section. Dan Watts 02:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, don't be holding out for the contributions I promised. It seems they've all been utterly deleted. No, I'm not planning on typing them up again anytime soon, as some of them took me 4+ hours to type. As well, these things inevitably lead to debates, and I've grown to despise them, regardless of the fact that I'm constantly in them, and seem to be good at them. Whatever, there's nothing I can do to change it, so I might as well forget it. One a side note, even as a creationist, and a Christian, I have to agree with Scientific Apologetic on one point: you can't draw such a defined line between the natural and the supernatural. Let's take this from a philosophical point of view. Under the assumption that a benevolent, omnipotent deity does exist (which I do believe), if he had any ability to transend nature, would it not be natural? If nature cannot effect the supernatural, then the supernatural, logically speaking, would be relative with the nature of nature itself. Otherwise, would there not be, philosophically speaking, an imbalance? And now, taking into consideration the issue of omnipotence, one would assume that this imbalance could be held in balance, by a higher power. But if the imbalance of nature is maintained, then they are once again, directly relative to eachother, regardless of what the dominant force is. Would this higher power, now not simply become a higher nature? In a sense this would be a "Super" nature. So would that make it supernatural? Yes. But two senses of "natural" are both still "natural" even if, in nature, they were polar opposites (after all, nature constantly destroys itself, as well as rebuilds, yet are still all "nature"). However, there is nothing to indicate anything "opposite" about them, rather than simply "separate". This takes away from any shred of validity that an entirely separated supernatural is existence. And another point for other creationists. If God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, alpha and omega, I Am, would that not simply define him and all that is a product of him as the "true" nature? And it should also be taken into consideration that once again under the assumption we were created, is the physical nature not a direct product of him? This is something that I can't see as arguable material, no matter what your views on religion. When Creationism can come to such a concensus with a theory stemmed from a naturalist point of view, can it's validity be argued much further?--Waenishikusu 00:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Pending tasks

Has anyone noticed that the Pending Tasks section is now one overlong (albeit rather poetic, from having read it diagonally) rambling? --Ramdrake 23:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Scientific critique of creationism

Can anyone explain why Nnp insists on reverting to ScienceApologist's non-neutral version? I have requested on his (Nnp's) talk page that he explain himself. So far he has not. He just keeps reverting with no explanation. El Cubano 20:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have your chronology out of order. You reverted ScienceApologist, I reverted you, you reverted me, I reverted you again and you left me a message. I haven't reverted you after you after I got your message. Don't try to paint it as if I'm just ignoring your question.
The answer to your question: Here's the part of your edit that I took issue with:
However, it can be argued that evolutionists start with the presupposition that there is no God, and all findings are thus studied.
This contains weasel words, and if it was reformulated without weasel words to read However, evolutionists start with the presupposition that there is no God, and all findings are thus studied., it would be factually incorrect. You seemed to be trying to introduce a certain bias into the article, so I reverted you. // Nnp 22:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I see. Was not trying to introduce bias. I was trying to prevent the introduction of additional bias. Let me give it another crack and see if we can agree on this. El Cubano 22:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok. How does my last edit strike you? El Cubano 22:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Davril2020, what does it matter that "literalists frequently clash on scientific issues besides evolution"? The article is about creationism, which most often centers around the evolution/creation debate. Please name some other scientific issues. El Cubano 23:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave others to expand more thoroughly on this one since I don't have much time, but cosmology, astronomy, geology, archaeology, physics, and zoology are all issues where there have been notable disputes between literalists and scientists. If you need specific examples from each area I will post some, though I know other editors who work on this article can also supply the info you need. --Davril2020 23:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Of your list I can say that cosmology is probably the only one where there is a serious disagreement. The rest are relatively minor. El Cubano 23:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Carbon dating? // Nnp 23:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
It's been a while since I had a physical science, but I seem to recall that there was a significant amount of debate over carbon dating, even within the scientific community. Otherwise, point taken. El Cubano 23:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
There is no debate in the scientific community over carbon dating. --ScienceApologist 06:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. I just tried a new version. El Cubano 02:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

That was better, but we still have the issue of quantification. Most literal texts which use a young earth dating system necessarily dispute carbon dating, cosmology, astronomy and geology for instance, so I think saying 'sometimes' is inappropriate. On the other hand, 'often' is still quite vague. I will see if I can think of a rewording which completely avoids conjecture and if I succeed I will try editting it in. --Davril2020 09:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. I like the 1 May 09:12 (UTC) version. Hopefully that one makes everyone happy :-) El Cubano 11:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ, please explain how ScienceApologist's version is more NPOV than mine or how mine is defficient.

  • ScienceApologist: Creationism, on the other hand, works by taking theologically conservative interpretations of scripture as the primary or only source of information about origins. Creationists believe that since the Creator created everything and also revealed scriptures, the scriptures have preeminence as a kind of evidence. Consistency with their interpretations of scripture is the measure by which they consider all other evidence. They then accept or reject other scientific evidence based on whether or not it agrees with their beliefs, discounting that which contradicts scriptural revelation. This perspective can be seen as a type of luddism or anti-modernism since any seemingly opposing facts are either ignored or dismissed. Those who oppose creationism point out that such positions are fundamentally unscientific and a hallmark of pseudoscience.
  • El Cubano: Creationism, on the other hand, works by taking scripture as the primary or only source of evidence. Creationists believe that since the Creator created everything and also revealed scripture, the scriptures have preeminence as a source of evidence. Consistency with the creationist interpretations of scripture is the measure by which they consider all other evidence. Creationists then accept or reject other scientific evidence or viewpoints based on whether or not they agree with the scriptural accounts. This perspective can be seen as a type of luddism. However, from the point of view of the creationist, it is simply discounting that which cannot possibly true, as it contradicts scriptural revelation. This causes concern within the scientific community, as it can result in creationists not accepting new scientifically accepted theories and facts that do not agree with scripture.

My main problem with ScienceApologist's version is that this article is about creationism, not creation science. We are talking about scientific critique of a literal belief in creation. Secondly, the last sentence is, IMO, very POV. That would be a critique of creation science, not creationism. Creationism is a belief, not a scientific discipline (not even a pretend scientific discipline). Even then, I think the word hallmark is a bit charged in this context and it would suffice to say something like: "Those who oppose creationism point out that such positions are pseudoscientific." That seems more based in fact. However, I don't think it is relevant in this article, as it applies more to creation science.

Also, I spent quite a bit of time trying to get that paragraph to a point where I thought both sides would be happy. Why revert it? Why not just edit the parts with which you had a problem or disgreed? El Cubano 05:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

    • I may have been a bit hasty with my revert, but I'm not convinced its NPOV and I'd rather have a version everyone agrees with worked out here and then put into play. However, looking at your version in more detail it may be ok. Let me sleep on the matter and I'll let you know in the morning (US east coast time). Poke me on my talk page if I don't. Ok? Thanks. JoshuaZ 05:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
OK. Thanks. El Cubano 05:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I've boldly bunged my tuppenceworth in, hoping to get closer to NPOV. The pseudoscience remark seemed to fit better after creation science is introduced. To some extent it makes the Sceptic bit rather redundant, and I'm concerned that this bit might give the impression that only "sceptics" (hint:atheists) see creationism as pseudoscience, but so far I've left it in place. ..dave souza, talk 17:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah well, SA was quick to revert that point, but think about it. SA's change to the intro to types of creationism is fine, much better than the older intro which seemed to equate scientists with unbelievers..dave souza, talk 18:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
    • "There is no debate in the scientific community over carbon dating. --ScienceApologist 06:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)" Ummm...yeah there is. Where have you been? Again you lose validity. Your bias is once again showing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.197.141.33 (talk • contribs).
I'd be fascinated to see evidence of such a debate in the scientific community, say a peer reviewed article in the last 10 years that argued against the validity of C-14 dating? Note by peer-reviewed, I'm not counting apologetics from the ICR or AiG or something similar. JoshuaZ 07:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this link could be of interest? // Nnp 16:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Theistic evolution

I suspect the article contains an error: It categorizes Theisic Evolution as a type of creationism and even claims it is the same as Evolutionary Creationism. Contrary to Evolutionary Creationism, to my knowledge, almost all Theistic Evolution proponents do not hold literal interpretation of the scripture. Instead, they hold historical-grammatical interpretation. Theistic Evolution is held by a subset of roman catholics (while on the other hand many roman catholics reject theistic evolution and hold strict independence of science and belief based on Augustine). Evolutionary Creationism on the other hand seems to be a small position within the evangelical and fundamentalist movement who try to deduce evolutionary theory by literal interpretation of the bible. --Rtc 23:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Wait, wouldn't evolutionary Creationism just contradict the "According to their kinds" verse anyway? If its a literal interpretation then why is it a separate sub-belief? Homestarmy 00:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Obviously its proponents have their way to argue against it being a contradiction, but don't ask me about details. It is a sub-belief as just any other sub-belief. Narrow creationism (which this article seems to be about mostly) by definition holds literal interpretation. Of course there are a lot of different positions regarding what is the correct literal interpretation, and my impression is that evolutionary Creationism is one of them and theistic evolution is not one of them. --Rtc 00:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Well doesn't this article already mention creationist ideas that aren't straight from the Bible? I know most popularily it probably is associated with Christianity, but I thought there was something in here about hinduism or Islam. But if this article is just about the Christian POV on creation, then yes, I would say that Theistic evolution is not inherintly creationism, its a bit too broad, for example, a Deist could easily be a theistic evolutionist. Homestarmy 00:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I refered to literal interpretation of the scripture in general. Not only literal interpretation of the bible. As I understand, this article is about creationism in abrahamic religions, that is, the abrahamic origin belief based on literal interpretation of the scripture, independent of how that interpretation might look like in detail. Regardless of the definition now, to my knowledge, Theistic Evolution is commonly not even refered to as creationism. It just seems to be confused with evolutionary Creationism a lot. BTW, not that you misunderstand, as I see it, even evolutionary Creationism is in conflict with science, since they seem to claim that evolution would not work without a god's direct intervention. They attack evolutionary theory with common creationist arguments to support their view that the process is actively guided and controlled by a superior being and would not work without. On the other hand, most Theistic Evolution proponents seem not to oppose science in such a fashion. --Rtc 00:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, personally, "Theistic evolution" and "Evolutionary Creationism" sound similar anyway, I suppose both don't really need to be mentioned. But if the article is about the Abrahamic tradition, then yes, theistic evolution shouldn't be mentioned if what you say is true. Homestarmy 13:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Can we have some citation to the difference between evolutionary creationism and theistic evolution? I cannot for the life of me tell the difference. Perhaps if we listed some of the major proponents of each idea we might have a better idea how they can be distinguished. Right now, Wikipedia redirects evolutionary creationism to theistic evolution, by the way. --ScienceApologist 16:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression they were alternate phrasing for the same things. I would be fascinated to see what differences exist between them. --Davril2020 16:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, for what it's worth, according to the the TalkOrigins Archive here "Evolutionary Creationism differs from Theistic Evolution only in its theology, not in its science. It says that God operates not in the gaps, but that nature has no existence independent of His will. It allows interpretations consistent with both a literal Genesis and objective science, allowing, for example, that the events of creation occurred, but not in time as we know it, and that Adam was not the first biological human but the first spiritually aware one." "Theistic Evolution says that God creates through evolution. Theistic Evolutionists vary in beliefs about how much God intervenes in the process. It accepts most or all of modern science, but it invokes God for some things outside the realm of science, such as the creation of the human soul. This position is promoted by the Pope and taught at mainline Protestant seminaries." JoshuaZ 16:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
If that's not splitting hairs, I don't know what is. --ScienceApologist 17:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
As I recall, we drew on that TalkOrigins article for the "categories", which as it emphasises are broad definitions of areas of a continuum, with some overlap, though I note that the flat-earthers seem to have fallen off the edge. At one point there were separate articles for EC and TE, but there was such overlap that the articles were merged, with some to and fro as to which was the best heading. Some (Roman Catholics) consider themselves creationist in believing in Creation and were reluctant to give up that heading, in a similar way to those who consider their position of belief in an intelligent designer to have had its name corrupted by the intelligent design mob. As far as I could find the online claims to the EC label came from variants on the example cited of Susan Schneider who interprets the Torah, finds it conflicts with Darwin, then reconciles the two with string theory. Read it if you can be bothered. The official Roman Catholic, C of E etc positions clearly fall under the TE label, but still believe in Creation as they define it. Don't expect all these ideas to fit into neat boxes. ..dave souza, talk 18:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Primarily, this article is clearly about narrow creationism, as implied by "Although the term is sometimes used in such a broad sense, it has come to be more commonly associated with the religiously conservative beliefs that conflict directly with aspects of modern science." So please let's concentrate more my hypothesis that narrow creationism in general and evolutionary creationism in particular holds literal interpretation while theistic evolution does not. In my eyes, holding literal interpretation is one of the central defining aspects of creationism (contrasted to, mainly, Historical-grammatical). The article seems to describe mostly a cultural perspective and it seems far too reluctant to me regarding theological backgrounds. [15] neither seems to shed any light on them especially concerning evolutionary creationism and theistic evolution: they say that there are some theological differences, but they don't mention them and only describe differences of a seeminly very incurious look 'on the surface'. Re flat-earthers: Let's be honest, they are simply used as a metaphoric stereotype. They are not really a creationist position. While the mere list of creationist positions of [16] seems complete and correct to me (as mentioned, except flat-earthers), the descriptions on the other hand seems unreliable in a multitude of ways: For example it asserts the POV propagated by some atheists and most creationists likewise (obscure, isn't it) that "Creation and evolution are not a dichotomy, but ends of a continuum". Neither is the case: They are not commensurable, at least not in the very reductionist scheme depicted in the article. It suggests that evolution is hold as a belief in a fashion that creationists hold creation. "Methodological Materialistic Evolution" seems like a term invented by the author—the positions accepted in the epistimology are falsificationism (by rationalists) and the paradigm shift (by irrationalists) (see Demarcation Problem); atheism, naturalism and materialism are not accepted in science, not even in a methodological fashion. Clearly, there are people who 'believe in evolution' and try to 'defend' the theory against creationist attacks and attack creationism. But this is exactly opposite to the aim of science, which is ignoring beliefs such as creationism as being outside the scope of science and trying to find inconsistencies in the existing theories by reasoning and facts (though not in the way creationists do this as part of their evangelism campaign and strategies), to gain new, enlighting insights and formulate new, better theories with better predictions. So please use sources which are more reputable, such as [17]. It clearly states "Here, Creationism means the taking of the Bible, particularly the early chapters of Genesis, as literally true [...]" PS: User:ScienceApologist asked for a citation. Very unfortunately, as a source for the alleged views of evolutionary creationism, I can only provide a German text.[18] It clearly states "ich [bin] selber ein 'Kreationist'" ("I am a creationist myself") and clearly holds literal interpretation, yet at the same time evolution. (I have to admit that it does not exactly mention the words 'evolutionary creationism' in any reasonable German translation of them. But what, if not this view, should constitute evolutionary creationism?) Theistic evolution on the other hand is unequivocally hold mostly catholics (even if only a minority position among them), and they clearly hold Historical-grammatical interpretation and openly reject a literal one. --Rtc 19:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
While I agree in principle that the scientific method does not in and of itself include the "natural" assumptions of universiality, material primacy, and consistency, I think it may be overstating the case of the post-modern philosophers of science who divide into rationalists and irrationalists while ignoring the content of scientific discourse itself. Yes science is a method, but creationists aren't upset with the method of science: they are upset with the conclusions drawn from applying the methods of science (regardless of whether the conclusions were gotten through the falsification or the paradigm shift enterprise). --ScienceApologist 20:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
At least this is how creationists see it. In fact, science does not assert the reality of its theories and does not draw any such conclusions from them. At least in principle it should not. Instead it shall make bold conjectures with entitlement for truth, but it shall not assert them to be infallible or actually be the truth. If it happens here and there that is a point that can be criticized in a honest way (but that's not what creationists do). Claiming the theory of evolution to be actual reality is done entirely outside scientific discourse and happens mostly on movements of social interest groups and in popular science. But let's stop chatting, how about the evolutionary creationism–theistic evolution problem?--Rtc 20:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the subject and antecedent of most of your pronouns in the last paragraph needs to be modified. "Science" does not "assert" anything, nor does it "make bold conjectures". Scientists and applied scientists and engineers, however, rarely do science without also asserting reality or drawing conclusions. Science isn't just a head-trip: the reason science is kept as a human enterprise is because of its functional and descriptive utility, not because of its methodology. --ScienceApologist 21:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
That would be more the Kuhn view. I described the Popper view. (And, besides, I actually said "does not assert anything" if you look closely. However, I defend that it "makes bold conjectures", with the key example being Einstein.) Please, this is not a philosophical talk page. If you want to discuss, we can meet on IRC or ICQ. --Rtc 22:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
So wait, who's talking philosophy then and who's talking whatever we're supposed to be talking about? Isn't Creationism by default supposed to have something related to philosophy? Homestarmy 22:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Narrow creationism

(subhead added as section getting awfy long).dave souza, talk 09:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry if I am guilty drifting away a little bit. Whether creationism is about philosophy or not: This talk page is not about creationism, but about the Wikipedia article on creationism. The questions were clear: 1) Does/should this article talk about narrow creationism, ie., the abrahamic belief based on literal interpretation? 2) Might that just be the fundamental difference between evolutionary creationism and theistic evolution? My answer to both is yes. I think it would also solve one of the To-dos posted above: "Re-visit the suggestion that 'Creationism' refers to any and all theories that the universe was created ex nihilo by a deity, as opposed, more specifically, to the assertion that it was created in six twenty-four hour days, literally and as to every detail as described in Genesis 1)" The former is broad creationism, the latter is Young earth creationism. As I said, narrow creationism would be the most reasonable choice, ie., a) abrahamic beliefs that b) hold literal interpretation. --Rtc 22:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Literalism is a question of degree rather than an absolute: only flat earth YECs may be fully literal, and all regard some biblical passages as allegory. The Young Earth creationism article covers the more literal options, this gives an overview of the broad spectrum. As such it includes ID which denies any biblical inspiriation, but is "unable to disentangle itself from its creationist roots", and TE which hold to God as a creator but doesn't find this contradicting science. ...dave souza, talk 09:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it really depends on what people want to do with this article, narrow would suit fine with me. Dunno how one could argue that only flat earth YECs are fully literal though...Homestarmy 18:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Creationism and Politics?

What are the political implications of 'Creationism' ? So far this article mainly went into the Creationist trap of discussing the whole nonsenese as if it was real. However anyone with a brain can see that Creationism may be a new form of Nazism or even worse, seeking the overthrow of centuries of human development and the destruction of Reason itself. Viande hachée 00:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you meant evolutionism, not creationism? Your description fits that far better! rossnixon 05:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
No I meant Creationism is explicitly a new form of Fascism or Nazism, held together by denial of reality, mass organization and enmity towards human values. Viande hachée 11:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Godwin's law. Also, there's a big difference between genocidal political philosophy and creationism, I don't seem to remember gas chambers being set up to murder everyone who isn't a creationist, come on now. I'd also like to add that centuries of human development once were pretty much entirely founded on creationism simple because there wasn't much of anything else and history did not, in fact, explode. Homestarmy 18:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
There's already a section on the politics of it, so I'm not sure what you would add. Could you give specific examples? Remember to meet WP:NOR and WP:NPOV with your suggestions. If you have any queries and want to talk to someone directly drop a note on my talk page. --Davril2020 19:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Well Godwins Law stinks, and it merely refers to a method of killing discussion threads on usenet. The 20th century fascists appeared very positive and modern to most of their contemporaries, the scarecrow image prevalent today is misleading. Absence of doubt as desired by the creationists is however a surefire way of identifying fascist ideology. Every European country has a very small and nutty political party of US-style Christians. These are routinely referred to as fascist, because they interconnect with the various openly neo-fascist groups. Real hard Nazis are normally neo-pagans, however. Viande hachée 19:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Fundamentalist Christianity does not inherintly have to have a political agenda that leans strongly towareds facism ,and fundamentalism is generally where Creationism comes from. Homestarmy 13:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Intelligent Design Section

Moved section down, and reduced header -- Ec5618 18:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC) Propose placing Intelligent Design as a separate root section. Most practioners of Intelligent Design consider the use of "creationism" as pejorative or an insult. Categorizing ID under "creationism" or "neo-creationism" is considered provocative pejorative efforts by critics to tar ID with the term "creationism" and discredit it without addressing its claims.

In the principle of NPOV, propose making Intelligent Design a separate section and not grouped under "Creationism" categories. Make Intelligent Design a separate section in the grouping bar on the right.

Good start Silva. I edited your paragraph as follows:

Intelligent Design "Intelligent design (ID) is a metatheory that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[1] Proponents seek to formulate scientific theories based on intelligent design to have equal footing with naturalistic scientific theories regarding the origin of life.[3]

Intelligent Design focuses on empirical methods of distinguishing intelligent from natural causes. Intelligent Design (ID) contrasts itself to modern-day creationism. ID is agnostic in that it assumes the identity of an Intelligent Designer cannot be determined from objective examination of the evidence.

Instead of adopting a personal (often literal) interpretation of the origin of life based on one's religious text, Intelligent Designers hold to come to the conclusion that life originated by an Intelligent designer from lines of inquiry in genetics, mathematics, biochemistry, and other areas of science. Critics allege that Intelligent Design is masquerading as a contender to Darwinism, and that its' purpose is to relegitamize creationism. However, the concept of intelligent cause to the universe and life traces back to antiquity. Most founders of modern science believed in an intelligent cause to the universe and life." DLH 16:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Name one conservative who fits this

I would appreciate it if someone could point out even one well known conservative thelogian or Bible scholar who could be consdered to be "appealing instead to a naturalistic interpretation." El Cubano 21:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that there isn't a good demarcation of who is a conservative theologian and who is a liberal theologian. Roman Catholic theologians that receive mandatum from the Vatican may be considered "conservative" by certain reformers in the Roman Catholic church, but might easily appeal to a metaphorical interpretation of Genesis due to naturalistic constraints on literalism. Not every theologian who isn't a literalist is liberal. --ScienceApologist 22:40, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Pending Tasks

"Keep the article NPOV." Wouldn't the article need to become NPOV before we could work on keeping it that way? :-) Dubc0724 01:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Naturalism does discount supernatural phenomena

From naturalism: any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses. Now, based on that definition of naturalism, I would say that it is perfectly valid to say: naturalism explicitly discounts evidence of supernatural phenomena. Someone please explain to me how the naturalist attitude of "supernatural phenomena do not exist" is different from the creationist attitude that they must exist? The way I see eat, each group has a preconceived notion and they interpret available evidence (or fabricate their own) to fit their own notions. I think the statement should be left as I had it. El Cubano 13:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Technically, the term "phenomenon" refers to the observation of an event. The interpretation is what makes the phenomenon "supernatural" not the event itself. The difference is that the creationist assume that the "supernatural" acts in observable ways in the "natural" world while the naturalist claims that all observations are caused by the natural world. In some sense, the naturalist sees no distinction between "supernatural" and "natural" while the creationist claims an observable distinction. This is the reason your inserted clause is incorrect. --ScienceApologist 17:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
How about this: similar to how naturalism explicitly rejects the notion that it is possible to observe the difference between natural and supernatural events. The point that I am trying to make is that if creationism is to be criticized for making the evidence fit the conclusion, then it should be pointed out when naturalism does the same.
Doesn't really do justice to naturalism's claim that supernatural explanations for physical phenomena are not necessary. Naturalism doesn't make any evidence fit any conclusion, it makes a metaphysical argument related to scientific materialism. They're making very different claims not really comparable in the sense you're attempting. --ScienceApologist 21:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Human Origins

Why is it that Human Origins redirects to Human Evolution. Their should be a Disambiguation page. I would say that is not balanced. I would say some one might want to read an article more similar to this one. Maybe a new article called human origins could be created and link to both evolution and creationism.

I have created a disambiguation page at Human origins with references to creation myth and human evolution. --FOo 06:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


Abrupt appearance

An anon inserted this text:

Originally a term used in evolution biology for the spontaneous occurence of new kinds in the fossil record. Advocates of this category, Wendell Bird being the most known, say that it can be explained best by a direct supernatural intervention instead of natural causes. The argument is accompanied by the explicit claim that it can be applied to any timescale, which is supposed not to exclude a scope of 10.000 years in particular. Paul Nelson: The Whole Question of Metaphysics. Origins Research 15:1 (1993).

Aside from the quote being to a website about a conference who had a single speaker attacking a single source that apparently argued for "abrupt appearance", I can't find any other reference to this idea. Wendell Bird was a lawyer for ICR and generally speaking advocated for creation science. "Abrupt appearance", it seems, is just a euphemism for created kinds. Thus, I submit this should be removed. It has the character of neocreationism but as there seems to be only one lawyer who likes the new phrasing, I think we shouldn't jump the gun in describing it as a neo-creo formulation. --ScienceApologist 10:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I added this but was not logged in.
  • "Phrases like 'intelligent design theory', 'abrupt appearance theory', [...] the like, have sprung up, although the content of many of the arguments is familiar. This view can be called 'Neocreationism' (Scott 1996)." [19], see also [20]
  • Abrupt appearance quote mining page: http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/abrupt/abrupt.htm
  • theories of abrupt appearance
  • "If that fails, then try to sneak creation science in as 'intelligent design theory' or as 'abrupt appearance theory.'" [21]
  • "Now creationists often speak instead of 'abrupt appearance theory' or 'intelligent design theory.'" [22]
  • "‘Creation science’ in all guises, for example ‘abrupt appearance theory’ or ‘intelligent design theory,’" [23]
It might be created kinds in disguise, but we also don't omit intelligent design only since it is creation science in disguise; and nevertheless the central elements of neo-creationism are there: a) Cause explicitely not identified b) timeframe explicitely not identified, yet consistent with YEC.
Just have a look at google! I must confess that obviously abrupt appearance seems to be to a very large part only of historical significance (my theory is that it was shortly considered as the new strategy in the early 90s, but then abandoned for intelligent design) and neo-creationism is nearly coincident with Intelligent Design now, but it should be mentioned IMO. Otherwise it is hardly visible why Neo-Creationism is justified if one could just as well name it Intelligent Design. I picked the source that seemed to be the best to me, but in no way that means it is the only source. --Rtc 15:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
In principle, there's no reason to omit abrupt appearance if it is as you state, but perhaps you can start by writing an article on the subject first and seeing what kind of research you can put together. You might find that this summary isn't the best? Abrupt appearance. --ScienceApologist 15:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Catholic Church

Someone should add a section on the contrasting views on creationism held by different leaders of the Catholic Church. For example, Pope John Paul II and Father George V. Coyne support evolution. This is a speech by the Pope: http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP961022.HTM and this is a speech by Father Coyne: http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18504 Although I recognize that most leaders of the Catholic Church probably support creationism, I think it is significant that two major leaders of the Church favor evolution. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.161.33.93 (talk • contribs) Rtc 01:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC).

This is already described in extend in the article Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church, which is a sub-article of theistic evolution which in turn is a sub-article of this article. Your claim that "most leaders of the Catholic Church probably support creationism" seems in fact a fatal, entirely unsubstantiated prejudice (can you give names/sources?); catholic church in modern times has always supported historical-critical method and thus in no way reflects creationism in the narrow definition. There is much to be criticized about the modern roman catholic church, but surely not their views concerning science: They explicitely hold independence of science and belief. --Rtc 01:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408])
With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation. (ibid, 2:9)
St._Augustine_of_Hippo#Natural knowledge and biblical interpretation Gzuckier 15:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that the modern roman catholic church's views on science are represented by statements predating September 430? ..dave souza, talk 16:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, when said statements are by St. Augustine, I would argue that they retain some authority in the current Church. Gzuckier 17:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Subject to reinterpretation : ) ..dave souza, talk 17:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC) Though on re-reading, I've seen some of this before as justification for the present policy. St A as an early scientist! ..dave souza, talk 17:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Young Earth Creationist Stats

I see in the "Young Earth Creationist" section the sentance: "It is also estimated that 47% of Americans hold this view, and a little under 10% of Christian colleges teach it[1]." I have to disagree with it. The source states: According to Gallup Polls in 1982, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004 where 44%, 47%, 44%, 47%, 45%, 45%, respectively, believed “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.”

I believe Old Earth Creationists can therefore also have answered "yes" to the question, as long as they believe that _humans_ have only been on the earth for 6000 to 10000 years. So, 47% of Americans hold "creationist" beliefs, but not necessarily young earth. So how can this sentence be reworked and where should it be, to reflect that? Given of course that people agree with me. Which I think they should. ;)

In fact (but this is a stretch, so feel free to ignore this paragraph), couldn't even a person believing in theistic evolution feel that "God created humans through a process of evolution, and that process resulted in humans in their present form in the last 10000 years"? Of course most "evolutionists" feel humans have been humans for much longer than that, though how long exactly remains a matter of definition, but the poll was about people's opinions. People are often wrong, they may even be wrong in such a way as to think humans only evolved to their current state about 6000 years ago, and that "first human" was called Adam. (With "let there be..." metaphorically hiding all of evolution in three words.) Yea, a stretch, but maybe illustrates that the conclusion is wrong given the above question (the conclusion that the 47% are all young-earthers). --Hugo van der Merwe (not logged in), 21:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, Old Earth Creationism is more about the "days" of Genesis 1 really meaning "several million years" to conform with the current estimated age of the universe on, well, the Age of the Universe article or something like that. A year range between 10,000 and 6,000 years is still definently Young earth creationism.. Homestarmy 21:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
But does "humans created" necessarily/usually coincide with "earth created"? I suppose it might. While it is possible to believe the earth is 5 billion years old and the universe nearly 15, while also believing humans are at most 10000 years old, there probably aren't many people with that belief, so it won't really affect the 47% stat, no matter if it isn't a fact that all 47% people answering "yes" are YEC's. Can discussions be deleted as "irrelevant"/"incorrect"? ;) --Hugo
hmm, your right, I wasn't paying attention heh. But OEC to my knowladge doesn't really have any set-in-stone sort of way about discussing whether humans started out just 6,000 years ago or whether they just kind of "evolved" into the garden or something. At any rate, both YEC's and OEC's are creationists, OEC's aren't "Theistic evolutionists" necessarily because that's a less precise categorization. Homestarmy 21:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Poisoning the well

This is a somewhat minor issue, but I think it's important enough to bring up. In the opening to the Creation Science section of this article, I noticed a pretty obvious adaption of the "so called" form of poisoning the well. The exact wording was "...the endeavour of self-described 'creation scientists'..."

ScienceApologist mentioned that this is "their term and not anyone else's." However, we need to remember that Creation Science is the generally accepted term for the movement -- demonstrated in part by the fact that it is the only name Wikipedia uses to represent the movement.

Thus, I suggest that the use of quotation marks and the term "self-described" is a poisoning-the-well fallacy, and is not in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on words to avoid. I propose that we amend the opening to make it more NPOV. What do you all think? Tschel 00:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I would have to agree. I checked a similar phrase Christian Science, the cult(?) of Mary Baker Eddy - and it does not say "self-described" and does not use quotation marks. rossnixon 01:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Seems fair. Homestarmy 02:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
If we really wanted to be nitpicky, "Creation Science" and "Creation Science" arose specifically claiming that they we're not "creationism" so it might be poisoning the well not to just call them creationists here. On the other hand, I don't think even most "creation scientists" today bother to really make the distinction any more. JoshuaZ 02:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
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