Home >Debates >Evolution is better than creationism
spinosauruskin
JasperFrancisShickadance
Evolution is better than creationism
Started: 6/14/2014 Category: Science
Biological evolution is the best model we have to explain how life became diverse.
It is not a religion. If you think it is, stop listening to Hovind or Comfort or Ham.
A theory is the greatest point to be used in science, and is on the level of gravity, electromagnetism, and everything in science that is universally accepted.
Creationism on the other hand is a position taken by religious fundamentalists who have blind faith in what they believe is the word of god.
It is not even a theory. It is a mere hypothesis.
Creation "scientists" do not use the scientific method to confirm their religious dogma, but will constantly try as hard as they can to find holes in the theory of evolution and/or most contemporary science by looking at the concepts with a confirmational bias and the holes only exist when looked at with scientific ignorance.
There is a lot of evidence for how the Bible says Earth was made. It's science and takes no more faith than Evolution does. There is NO observable evidence for Evolution therefore it takes faith to think it happened. I do not believe that Evolution is a religion but I can see why some people do: science is the evolutionist's god, and also, it takes faith to believe in Evolution.
"It is not even a theory. It is a mere hypothesis." This is incorrect because Creationism goes through the same evaluation processes as Evolutionism, is based on the same facts as Evolution, and, just like Evolution, is another idea for how the creatures in this world came to be how they are now. Creationism has been tested and, because there is so much evidence that leads to a Creator God, many people call it a theory.
Evolution is a horrible way to explain how life became diverse. First, it breaks the 1st and 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Matter cannot be created from nothing; energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
Nothing can go from simple to complex, just as a messy room cannot become clean by itself. There has to be human intervention for that to happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org...
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu...
"Creationism on the other hand is a position taken by religious fundamentalists who have blind faith in what they believe is the word of god." The phrase "blind faith" means different things to different people, and, sadly, many people use it as a negative, disparaging term to describe anyone who believes in God. A dictionary definition of blind faith is "belief without true understanding, perception, or discrimination." One of the greatest examples of faith is found in the Old Testament, where God told Abraham that Abraham would be a father of many nations and that his wife Sarah would bear him a child even though they were very old. Indeed, Sarah was 90, and Abraham was around 100 when Isaac was finally born to them. Then God told Abraham to do the unthinkable, to kill Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19). Upon receiving the order, Abraham did not question God. He "blindly" followed God"s orders and traveled quite a distance to a mountain with the intention of killing his son. In the end, God stopped him and said, "Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son" (Genesis 22:12).
This account makes it seem that God was rewarding and complimenting Abraham for blind faith, and since Abraham is one of the models given to us to follow, it would seem that blind faith is the ideal. That, however, is not the whole story. If we turn to the book of Hebrews and read what it says about Abraham, we can figure out a bit more. Abraham is listed more than once, but verses 18-19 tell us Abraham "reasoned" that God had promised a great nation through Isaac and that even if Isaac were killed, God could bring Isaac back from the dead, and because of that reasoning"not blind faith"Abraham followed through with the command. Abraham did not act blindly. Instead, he used his powers of reason, based on what he knew about God, to think it through. He knew God"s nature as a faithful God, and he remembered God"s promise regarding Isaac. Then he acted accordingly.
So, taking away from what you just read, as Christians it is not blind faith to believe in what the Bible says God can do, and it is especially not blind faith to believe in the creation facts we find on this earth, which happen to follow directly to what the Bible talks about.
"Creation "scientists" do not use the scientific method to confirm their religious dogma, but will constantly try as hard as they can to find holes in the theory of evolution and/or most contemporary science by looking at the concepts with a confirmational bias and the holes only exist when looked at with scientific ignorance." We do that only because there are MANY holes and flaws in Evolution, and because of that there is a much greater probability of Creationism being correct. It is not "conformational bias" which leads us to the problems with Evolution! It is plain logic and common sense to point them out.
This shall be an interesting debate and I look forward to the next round.
"No observable evidence for evolution"
The fossil record, genetics, observed speciation, antibiotic/vaccine resistant diseases (the reason you need a flu shot every year, and that your immune system doesn't become immune to the common cold after the first time).
"It takes faith to believe in evolution"
A couple of things, first, what do you mean by faith?
If you mean some form of trust, yeah it could be analogous. But there is verifiable empirical data that shows it is the best explanation of our origins.
"There is so much evidence for a creator god"
If that was the case, it wouldn't be the oldest unanswered philosophical question, that has been insufficiently answered for millennia.
The room cleaning analogy is not really the best way to think about it, chemistry is a very complex thing, and therefore biology is also.
Biological evolution does not break any law of thermodynamics. As for the first, energy can't be created or destroyed I agree, but nor does the charge of the universe.
The energy and mass in the universe adds up to 0. This is to do with negative energy. So in the same way a neutron can break down into an electron and proton, and charges of 1+ and 1- come into existence, the same could ebb the case for energy in the early universe.
Evolution doesn't deal with that anyway. That's for cosmology to do.
As for the second law, I really don't see how it affects that law.
The second law of thermodynamics states that after any process, a portion of energy becomes useless ambient heat called entropy.
How does this affect evolution? Because a closed system's entropy increases over time? The earth isn't a closed system, the enropy is able to leave the earth and the sun's radiation enters. The overall entropy of the universe is increasing, of which calculations determine a zero entropy around 13.7 billion years ago.
Things easily go from simple to complex in evolution. It happens all of the time. It's to do with the self-replicating nature of proteins, and the fact that they can catalyse other reactions.
Okay, defending blind faith. That's a new one.
The story of Abraham is horrible. Asked to kill his own son, to test his unshakeable loyalty? That doesn't sound like a nice god to me. It sounds like a petty tyrant, a psychopath.
Trust me, the only "holes" in evolution are gaps in understanding. What, because we don't yet have a theory of quantum gravity does that mean gravity isn't true?
The only "disproven" elements of evolution are those that don't even make sense. Laymen like Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have no clue what they're talking about.
This reminds me of a joke I saw once. There were two men, a scientist and a priest. On the board there was a game of hangman with the letters EVOLU-ION already revealed. The scientist looks and says "I'm going to predict T as the last letter" and the priest looks and says "no, the word's obviously creation!"
The holes that have been found in evolution are not really there. They are based on a lack of understanding of evolution and its implications.
As for evidence of creation, well you have been lied to. I can't put it less bluntly than that. Creation science is pseudoscience, along with astrology, phrenology, and homeopathy.
What you must not understand is how the scientific method works.
Observed phenomenon -> hypothesis -> experiment/observation -> theory -> more testing until incorrect hypothesis from theory -> theory altered to explain and predict...
Creation "scientist" method
Observed phenomenon -> story -> denial of evidence against story -> censorship of evidence to reduce number of dissenters who discover such evidence.
As for evolution being a religion, and science being its god, is called a fallacy of equivocation, by using broad meanings of the words "religion" and "god"
Evolution is the reason that you need different vaccines, and why there is a diversity of dog breeds. It is the foundation of biology.
Also, I am going to give you a helping hand. As for what evidence you would accept, there is a slight problem normally.
I call this the crockoduck principle.
"If ever a creationist asks for a specific piece of evidence of evolution, they will most likely be asking for something that would disprove it."
The most well-known occurrence of this law is when Kirk Cameron claimed he would accept evolution if he saw a fossil of a duck with the head of a crocodile.
It has also spawned the phrase "go full crockoduck" which is when a creationist asks for some ridiculous evidence of evolution, or when they make a ridiculous claim about its implications.
So my question is what would convince you evolution happened?
Show me how DNA evidence supports creation. I have yet to see anything more than rhetoric I have heard before many times over. If there are so many holes you see in evolution, name some of them, and I may be able to explain how it works.
However, I can point out several holes in creationism.
It can't explain how we can see things further away than 6000 light years.
It can't explain how the human population grew at the rate it must have in the 2000 years between Jesus and the flood, as our population went from 300 million from 0 AD to 6 billion in 2000 AD, a growth factor of 20, while the population must have grown from six to 300 million in the same amount of time, a growth factor of 50 million! And take into account recent advancements in medical science and food production, and it seems even less likely.
It doesn't explain why we have vestigial organs that exist in our ancestors (not the apes today, we broke off long before).
It can't explain how magic makes life, but chemistry can't. There really is no evidence of magic in the body, and therefore can be explained purely in terms of natural causes. Claiming chemistry can't create life is like electricity alone can't power machines.
You BELIEVE that evolution happened. You have faith that the earth is billions of years old.
Evidence for God:
First: By unwavering mathematical law we can prove that our universe was designed and executed by a great engineering intelligence.
Second: The resourcefulness of life to accomplish its purpose is a manifestation of an all-pervading Intelligence.
Third: Animal wisdom speaks irresistibly of a good Creator who infused instinct into otherwise helpless little creatures.
Fourth: Man has something more than animal instinct - the power of reason.
Fifth: Provision for all living is revealed in such phenomena as the wonders of genes.
Sixth: By the economy of nature, we are forced to realize that only infinite wisdom could have foreseen and prepared with such astute husbandry.
Seventh: The fact that man can conceive the idea of God is in itself a unique proof.
[http://www.dlshq.org...]
"...chemistry is a very complex thing, and therefore biology is also." That is true. It is the very reason Evolution and it's Origin of Life (Big Bang) is illogical.
"As for the first, energy can't be created or destroyed I agree" you admitted it!! That is why the Big Bang isn't true!
"This is to do with negative energy. So in the same way a neutron can break down into an electron and proton, and charges of 1 and 1- come into existence, the same could ebb the case for energy in the early universe." Why doesn't this happen now? Why hasn't this happened, documented, ever in history?!
"Evolution doesn't deal with that anyway. That's for cosmology to do." Well, you have to assume that that's what happened (in cosmology) in order to understand and believe in Evolution.
"Things easily go from simple to complex in evolution. It happens all of the time." Where? I've never heard of it.
God tested Abraham's faith. Abraham, knowing his son would be in God's hands no matter, was trusting that whatever God planned/wanted God to do would be correct and it would turn out. As it goes, God releases Abraham quickly and knows that Abraham was faithful and willing.
Holes in evolution:
[http://www.creationtoday.org...]
-missing links
-understanding of how things work
-too many questions, not enough answers
-spontaneous reproduction (What are the odds that, of the millions of species of animals, birds, fish and insects, a male of each species developed at the same time and in the same place as a female of the same species, so that the species could propagate? Why are there two sexes anyhow? This is not foreordained in the evolutionary framework. Is there some sort of plan here? If the first generation of mating species didn"t have parents, how did the mating pair get to that point? Isn"t evolution supposed to progress when an offspring of a mating pair has a beneficial mutation?)
"The holes that have been found in evolution are not really there. They are based on a lack of understanding of evolution and its implications." Oh really? If you don't understand it why is it so popular? Why do so many people say Evolution is a theory when you don't even understand it?! You have contradicted yourself.
Your version of Creationism science method: "Observed phenomenon -> story -> denial of evidence against story -> censorship of evidence to reduce number of dissenters who discover such evidence." Actually it's more like we have a great hypothesis (that the earth was Created), we find evidence for the idea, we test the evidence and, if correct, the idea becomes more like a theory, we find more evidence in the world that fits the idea, and now we have the Creationism theory. Because of the evidence we have for the idea it is quite reliable.
"It has also spawned the phrase "go full crockoduck" which is when a creationist asks for some ridiculous evidence of evolution, or when they make a ridiculous claim about its implications." Evidence is ridiculous?
The problem is that Creationism and Evolution BOTH have a surprising amount of evidence, but each of us thinks we have the best and most logical. Enough about that.
DNA evidence for a Creator is one of the main things that convinced me of a God! Intelligent Design is the most logical thing I know of because of DNA.
-The similarities between apes and humans point to a Common Designer JUST AS it points to the idea that Evolution happened.
-The idea that every cell (which contains miles of written DNA in them) just existed, poof, by a Big Bang is crazy. The dates that Evoluitonists show for the age of the earth seem to small of a time for all this to happen.
Because of shortage in time, here are some websites:
http://answersingenesis.org...
http://www.icr.org...
http://creation.com...
http://www.ucg.org...
http://www.seekfind.net...
http://www.youtube.com...
"By unwavering mathematical law we can prove our universe was designed"
Uh, no we can't.
Do you know how we determine of something is designed or not? By comparing with things that are not designed.
"The resourcefulness of life..."
No this is explained perfectly by evolution. Anything that reproduces, carries on its genes. This causes those unable to reproduce by lack of ability to survive to not pass on those genes. This causes things to be adapted to an environment. THIS IS THE FOUNDATION OF EVOLUTION. HOW IS THIS EVIDNECE FOR GOD?
"Infused instinct..."
So magic made animals know what to do? You're hilarious!
Evolution of behaviour works in the same way. As I have explained to you through previous discourse, genes do have the capacity to influence behaviour. Now, if one animal has a predisposition to stay in groups, and the other is alone, it may allow for easier gathering of food. However, it is also possible for a greater risk of disease transmission in that group. This is all dependant on circumstances. Everything has benefits and drawbacks, and the environment shapes the organism. E organism is not directly shaped for the environment.
"Man has more than animal instinct"
Actually we have almost none. We have a more plastic brain, which allows for the ability to learn very easily.
"We have the power of reason"
That's to do with our ability to communicate and understand abstract concepts, which comes from the brain's plasticity.
"Provision for living is revealed in the wonder of genes"
You don't understand genetics. DNA is a molecule. Nothing more. It catalyses reactions, and so an RNA molecule was built off of it.
Your argument is an argument from personal incredulity. Your failure to comprehend biology is not proof of god.
The sixth argument is pathetic. "Only infinite wisdom..." is no more than an eloquently worded god of the gaps argument.
I have heard the ontological argument. You can't just logic god into existence.
This argument is based on the assumption that man can't think of an infinitely great being. My argument is that a man can think of a being greater than himself. He can think of a being greater than that etc. However, when he takes all attributes he considers desirable and ascribes infinity to that attribute, he is unable to think of a being greater than that by definiton.
The concept of god is not the divine nature of man, but the human nature of god. He was originally thought to be a human, but over time that concept evolved.
"That's why evolution is illogical"
EVOLUTION EXPLAINS COMPLEXITY
"And the Big Bang is illogical"
First, the Big Bang isn't the origin of life, it explains the EXPANSION of he universe. The origin of life is called abiogenesis. The origin of the universe, if you may, is before the Big Bang. However, physicists cannot yet describe it as there is no working marriage of quantum mechanics (the study of the very small) and general relativity (the study of the high energy). The origin of the universe is the highest-energy and smallest possible thing. That, my friend, is why we can't yet answer the origin of the universe... YET.
However the Big Bang and origin of the universe is actually NOTHING to do with evolution other than being modern science.
"Why doesn't this happen now?"
It kind of does. Particles and antiparticles are constantly popping in and out of existence on the quantum level.
On the magnitude of the singularity? We don't know yet. Why don't you find out instead of giving non-explanations like a sky-wizard did it?
"Actually you have to believe that happened in cosmology to understand evolution"
Only when it affects evolution. Most of it doesn't apply.
"Where? I've never heard of it."
Well find out then! www.talkorigins.org has great stuff on evolution, while AronRa, (youtube.com/user/AronRa) is also great at explanation of concepts of evolution. But be careful, he isn't particularly tolerant of creationists.
"God tested Abraham's faith"
No decent parent would sacrifice their child for anything.
"My three delightful children are my only chance at a second life, or even an immortal one. And I'll tell you something; if I was told to sacrifice them to prove my devotion to god and admire the man who said 'Yes I'll gut my kid to show my love of god'
I would say, no.., F**K you"
-Christopher Hitchens
That article is refuting strawman arguments and is a show of how stupid creationism is. They have no idea how evolution works, unlike the places I cited here.
Some forms of creatardation aren't worthy of response.
Transitional forms off the top of my head:
-Tiktaalik - sea to land animals
-Australopithecus - upright walking ape
-Ambulocetus - whale
-Basilosaurus -whale, later form
-Archae-motherf**kin-opteryx - dinosaur to bird
"Understanding how things work"
What? You have demonstrated you don't understand evolution. Of course you won't understand how things work!
"Too many questions, not enough answers"
Because most of the people around you are creatards how do you go about learning about evolution? Do you ask questions and find out the answer through research, or do you just automatically assume evolution is a lie and believe whatever your pastor says about it?
"Spontaneous propagation"
There is a transition between asexual and sexual reproduction. It's a process I do not fully understand, but it's again better than "a sky wizard did it"
"If you don't understand it why is it so popular?"
I understand it, but don't have complete knowledge of all of it, but you don't need to know every single intricate detail of a topic to accept it. You could never accept anything ever if that was the case.
But that wasn't what I said. I said YOU don't understand it.
Evolution is a theory, but I have already explained IT MEANS SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN SCIENCE!
"Evidence is ridiculous?"
No when you go full crockoduck you ask for evidence that would actually disprove evolution!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org...
"Both creationism and evolution have a surprising amount of evidence"
If you mean surprising by creationism has less than aliens inventing the pyramids, or that evolution is the most substantiated scientific theory known?
Good objections to creation "science"
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAC3481305829426D
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSr63zLFV8-G41HEg-H11bMqat5_Mca1i
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL969utfM58zj-rVkfcceNHyxNW_h8UAcn
This has been an engaging debate. Too bad you have been arguing against a strawman.
For the last round I will give rebuttals only. Please see the sites I give at the bottom.
"Do you know how we determine of something is designed or not? By comparing with things that are not designed." But that doesn't work, either, and it's an irrelevant statement. I don't know how it's supposed to sound, but it doesn't make sense to me.
We were debating the 'resourcefulness of life' but then my opponent brought up this: "Anything that reproduces, carries on its genes. This causes those unable to reproduce by lack of ability to survive to not pass on those genes. This causes things to be adapted to an environment." Huh? This does NOT by any means explain the resourcefulness of life. Big Bang, what I'm assuming my opponent believes in, is the explanation. Pro contradicted himself, as I know he always says "evolution is a totally different thing from the Big Bang" and "the Origin of Life has nothing to do with evolution." Yet he said "No this..." (The resourcefulness of life) "...is explained perfectly by evolution."
We were debating 'infused instinct.' My opponent: "So magic made animals know what to do? You're hilarious!" Tu Quoque fallacy: it's the same thing with your theory too. It's the same thing with yours, except for mine there's an loving Creator, and yours the earth created itself from nothing yet every living thing on it knows what to do. You're hilarious!
"Everything has benefits and drawbacks, and the environment shapes the organism. E organism is not directly shaped for the environment." I disagree because there isn't ONLY evidence for environments shaping the organism, there's proof that the organisms are created specially and uniquely. One argument example would be that of plants epigenome as varied as their environments" and of Epigenetics in Species [http://darwins-god.blogspot.com...]. Different specimens of a given species of plant, all with the same genome, had significantly different epigenomes. Epigenetics is another example of how the species do not appear to have evolved. As you know we all use the same facts in the world to encourage our theory, but the scientific evidence presents a great many challenges to the idea of Evolution. Under evolution the idea is that random biological changes naturally occur and are inheritable, such as mutations in the germline, and they might magicaily sometimes be an improvement to the organism"s fitness. In those cases the organisms with the change would likely be successful and procreate, thereby passing on the change to future generations.
But epigenetics challenges all this. First, the tagging of DNA does not naturally occur as mutations do. In order for an epigenetic change to occur and have any effect, there must be a small army of coordinated molecular machines that are working according to the same code. Some machines attach the tags according to external, environmental signals. Other machines remove or move the tags, again according to other signals. And yet other machines interpret the tags, thus influencing which proteins are expressed. This is far more involved than a random mutation occurring that just happens to improve slightly how the organism works, even to the environment. In fact epigenetics would involve thousands of changes required before any benefit would be realized. The tagging machines not only need to be built, or adapted from other machines, but they need to know where in all the genome to place the tags. Likewise for the machines that remove and move the tags. In other words, it is not good enough merely to evolve the machines. They somehow much know where to place the tags given a spectrum of environmental signals.
And then the machines that interpret the tags would have to do so correctly. They would have to know what the tag means. So again, not only must these machines have evolved or adapted, but they must know what they are doing. That is astronomically unlikely to occur according to our knowledge of science.
I really don't understand why you call our brain plastic and then say we have no instinct because of it. You're saying there's no instinct in ourselves? What does the "ability to learn very easily" have to do with anything?
http://www.brainhq.com...
And the 'power of reason' is us knowing good from evil; spiritual from physical; etc. and where does this come from you say? Brain plasticity which evolved...somehow.
DNA is molecule, yes, but you say it like it's not amazing or important. That's crazy!
http://www.everystudent.com...
"He was originally thought to be a human, but over time that concept evolved." I'm assuming you mean 'God.' Well there are a LOT of myths out there, especially on the Internet, that say the idea of God started way back 6,000 years+ ago and has become 'Christianity' now. It's silly, just like 'evolution' itself is, and there are multiple reasons you shouldn't trust the web and it's stories. Why don't you try TRUSTING, for once, that there IS a God--instead of saying God is an evolved, man-made story? Why is the Bible so accurate if God is a myth? How come the Bible is believed by so many modern-day people? Why/how do you explain the so-called hallucinations people have, of experiencing God?
"EVOLUTION EXPLAINS COMPLEXITY" hey, mind if you add some detail? I can't trust you saying that complexity "evolves" from simplicity without giving some proof.
"First, the Big Bang isn't the origin of life, it explains the EXPANSION of he universe." Why do you evolutionists say the Earth came from the Big Bang then?
"The origin of the universe is the highest-energy and smallest possible thing. That, my friend, is why we can't yet answer the origin of the universe... YET." My friend, I hope you don't sit in your death bed saying the origin of the universe can't be discovered because it's the smallest possible thing. I hope you discover that that is an opinion, and that MAYBE, just maybe GOD is the origin of the universe.
"No decent parent would sacrifice their child for anything." If you believed God Created everything and loves all, then sacrificing their child in the temporary world wouldn't be so bad. But it also depends which way of sacrificing.
It is so annoying when atheists/evolutionists say "Creationists are stupid because they don't study evolution because they are retards," which is what you JUST said. Please, I'm only 13. But I encourage you to actually study creationism, perhaps just one time, so you can figure out what we really believe in. Right now you can't tell the difference between a "sky-wizard" and a Creator God. Do some research. http://www.comicvine.com... http://www.debmark.com.... Your sky wizard hasn't...fulfilled any prophesies, nor does he go with what the scientific world does...nor has he performed miracles...a Creator is much different.
P. S. your YouTube copy/paste process didn't work, you seem to have done it wrong--or--maybe you didn't research how to do it?!
https://www.google.com...
http://www.westernjournalism.com...
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com...
http://i961.photobucket.com...
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com...
Posted by chewster911 7 years ago
I know this happened 5 months ago, but Jasper really? Evolution hypothesis? Creationism on the same ground as evolution? Evolution breaks 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics? So many fallacies o.O
Posted by spinosauruskin 7 years ago
Yeah, my view is that you shouldn't bother calling yourself a creationist if you aren't a young-earthier though. It is generally accepted that theists believe that a god created the world.
Maybe I should have clarified six-day genesis creation?
Posted by Malacoda 7 years ago
I don't think I'm going to vote on this one. The thing is, I am a Creationist. I also am an evolutionist. I piggy-back my belief of evolution with saying that God created the universe and began the process of evolution. I think the debate should of been something like "Big Bang Vs. Creationism."
That was a laid back saying. You know, when you do a decent move in chess, and then lean back on your chair kind of "your move"
I was teasing lol
Posted by JasperFrancisShickadance 7 years ago
Calm down, dude, I'm workin on it :)
Your move.
Vote Placed by medic0506 7 years ago
Reasons for voting decision: Easy win for Con. Pro provided very little in the way of empirical evidence for his opinions, also costing him the source vote. His ad homs and unnecessarily fowl (pun intended) language, cost him the conduct points.
Vote Placed by FuzzyCatPotato 7 years ago
Reasons for voting decision: better points, better rebuttals; thermody well won, eviedenc for won, methodology won
Vote Placed by Phoenix61397 7 years ago
Reasons for voting decision: No clear winner in the "convincing arguments" field, but pro had bad conduct and incessantly insulted con and creationism rather than its ideas (ad hominem).