Creationism, a theory?

James Cizuz
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Creationism, a theory?

 

Well, I always see Christians etc put such things as evolution down as being "just a theory" and they want Creationism taught in schools as well, because it's a theory so much be on the same level as science as evolution. Well this never really made sense to me, other then the constitution and other documents in other countries that say you can not push religion on people i'm not talking about that.

 

What is a theory? A theory is a collection of observational evidence, testable evidence, tests, hypothesis, and conclusions. A theory is not a guess. A hypothesis is kind of a guess.

What is a hypothesis? An interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for actio. Basically a guess to how something may work.

 

Now knowing those two things you need to then get the evidence, or collection of tests and evidence for a certain subject. Of course I can not give every piece of evidence, I will give the conclusions science has found.

Creationism

    Tests: No tests have shown creationism to have any evidence that is testable or proven.

    Evidence: None found, or proven.

    Observational: Other then the "look how perfect the universe is, so someone must of made it(which makes                              no sense, because it's very chaotic and we are not perfect)" there is no evidence                                         observational. 

    Hypothesis: Many different hypothesis, although none proven they are the ideas.

    Conclusions: No evidence, or hypothesi that are not proven.

 Evolution

    Tests: Many tests have shown that evolution does happen and is testable and proven.

    Evidence: Mountians of evidence found, much proven.

    Observational: Mountians of observational evidence, such as fossle records. 

    Hypothesis: All work on one idea, some branch off but follow the same premis.

    Conclusions: Evidence proven, Hypothesis tested and proven, it is tested.

 

Now, the difference between a law and a theory is very small. To become law all scientific community must accept the evidence. Most people who believe in creationism and are scientists will refute it and not want to believe in it.  Also to become a law, every aspect, it must be completly explained. It must have unmeasurable evidence, tested to the max.

 

Now evolution has the evidence and was proven. Although, no explantion that has been tested can explain how it started. Be it the begining elements somehow, possibly through radiation formed RNA, but thats just a hypothesis their still trying to prove, as well as others. Evolution is also refuted by a large number of creation scientists, or scientists that simply believe in god.

 

Now creationism is just an idea, or assumption on how something happened. No evidence has been supported, it has never been tested true.

 

In conclusion, Creationism is not a theory, it is a hypothesis.

 

Also do not use the definition in the dictionary, because anything could be a theory now, but scientific definition for theory is much different. 

"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken

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Actually you are a bit

Actually you are a bit confused over what a "law" is - kind of like many theists. A law isn't a higher order of validity than a theory, to be a law something has to be a very simple explanation - usually a mathematical formula.

And a "hypothesis" is a little more than a guess. Actually Creationism wouldn't even be a hypothesis because it is neither scientifically testable or falsifiable.

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James Cizuz
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Did I not just say a law

Did I not just say a law was a theory that is fully explained? Heh. Never said it was higher, said it was the same, it's just more accepted in the scientific community and is explained more.

 

I agree on the hypothesis point, although we have to give them something to shut them up. 

"When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness.... No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever.... I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it." ~H.L. Mencken

Thank god i'm a atheist!


deludedgod
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The biggest problem with

The biggest problem with creationism is that the scientific method cannot possibly be applied to it. It is based on concepts which are obviously ridiculous. Since it can establish no evidence to support it's circular presuppositions, it spends all of it's time attacking evolution under the delusion that this somehow validates it.

 The reason for this is that creationism cannot provide evidence because none of it is testable. Since creationists reject every single method of dating the Earth, they cannot use these methods to attempt to validate their claims. Since creationists reject all forms of mutatory tracking and genomic evolution tracking, they cannot use these to support their claims. Since creationists reject all forms of paleontological study (this list grows tiresome and boring), they cannot use fossils to validae their claims.

Since they depend on supernatural babble which cannot be verified by science (otherwise it would not be supernatural QED), it cannot postulate itself as scientific. It is clearly nonsense. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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xarisumin
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deludedgod wrote: The

deludedgod wrote:

The biggest problem with creationism is that the scientific method cannot possibly be applied to it. It is based on concepts which are obviously ridiculous. Since it can establish no evidence to support it's circular presuppositions, it spends all of it's time attacking evolution under the delusion that this somehow validates it.

 The reason for this is that creationism cannot provide evidence because none of it is testable. Since creationists reject every single method of dating the Earth, they cannot use these methods to attempt to validate their claims. Since creationists reject all forms of mutatory tracking and genomic evolution tracking, they cannot use these to support their claims. Since creationists reject all forms of paleontological study (this list grows tiresome and boring), they cannot use fossils to validae their claims.

Since they depend on supernatural babble which cannot be verified by science (otherwise it would not be supernatural QED), it cannot postulate itself as scientific. It is clearly nonsense. 

 

If I could respond to this, I shall.

 

To your first paragraph: I agree that no evidence has been offered per se as a defense of creation. However, the scientific method is being applied in order to validate the claims of the Bible (see ICR). It cannot be proven through the scientific method that matter was created ex nihilo.

To your second paragraph: You are wrong in saying that Creationists reject every form of dating. I would like to point you to the recent completion of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) project of ICR (see www.icr.org - they published three separate books on the results of this project. Two are written on a scientific level, one is written on the popular level). To simplify their findings, they took a rock (a repeated experiment) and tested it with the five different types of radioisotopic dating methods (using an outside lab - not affiliated with ICR). They found that all five of the results differed to the extent that the levels of error are unacceptable in the scientific world (I do not have the scientific numbers memorized). (A brief point of background - when uranium decays to lead - it gives off helium - a gas which eventually escapes from the rock) They then had the same rock sample measured for the amount of helium given off. They compared the amount of lead to uranium left in the rock (to see how much helium should have escaped from the rock) to the amount of helium left in the rock. They discovered significant evidence that in times past, half-life levels were not constant but happened in a short period of time (i.e. a rock that was supposed to be 100-300 million years old was actually only 6,000 years old from the level of helium escape).

 Concerning your third paragraph: They do deal with fossils. They claim that the fossils in the earth were laid down by a world-wide cataclysmic flood.

 I respect your opinions on this site. However, after having examined some of the comments it seems obvious that you have not read widely of both sides of the story. It is unwise to make hasty generalizations without examining, citing, or dealing with the statements presented or made.


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Wikipedia on the what a

Wikipedia on the what a scientific law is:

"A scientific law, or empirical law, is a general principle that is very well supported by evidence such as experimental results and observational data. Typically scientific laws are limited sets of rules that have a well documented history for successfully predicting the outcomes of experiments and observations.

The concept of a scientific law is closely related to the concept of a scientific theory. Typically scientific laws are more limited sets of rules for making predictions about the world than scientific theories.

The physical sciences involve a set of scientific laws, specifically called physical laws. However, the biological sciences also have scientific laws, such as Mendelian inheritance and the Hardy-Weinberg principle found in genetics. Social sciences also contain a number of principles, also called "laws" that are taken as granted in a particular field, though the use of the term "scientific law" is not ordinarily applied outside the natural sciences."

 

Xari, scientists aren't claiming matter was created. Energy and Matter cannot be created; that is scientific law.  


deludedgod
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First off. I am a

First off. I am a scientist. Do not lecture me about versings in techniques. Second, you mentioned ICR. The institute for creation research is not a scientific institution.

Second, I am referring to far more than radiometry. I am referring to molecular dating, ortholog clocks and spectroscopy.

Third, I already have a response to that argument, which I wrote when I compiled a small list of rebuttals to creationist nonsense:

 

Large atoms with concentrated, crowded nuclei are highly unstable. To correct the instability, they will either

a) Release a highly ionizing but low energy particle consisting of a helium nucleus with two protons and neutrons. This is called alpha radiation.

b) If the nucleon number is isotopically unstable, the atom will change a proton into a neutron or vice versa allowing an electron to be released or a positron depending on beta minus versus positive.

Another thing they can do is released an ultra-high energy wave called gamma which is irrelevant to my question below.

For instance, a carbon-14 isotope. 99.999% of all carbon is stable carbon-12. but carbon-14 isotopes are not stable and make up 1ppt (part per trillion) of all carbon. They release beta radiation to correct the nucleon instability by firing off an electron. This causes it to decay into Nitrogen-14. The great thing about radioactive decay is that it is a random process that obeys probability laws. The other good thing about it is that you can dip a radioactive material in molten lead, in acid, shoot it, burn it, fire particles at it, try to irradiate it again, pass a current through it...and none of these things will change the isotope clocks. They are fixed.

Now let me explain how we use this to measure the age of the Earth and organic material. Radioactive half-life is the amount of time it takes for the Geiger counter count rate (CPS) to fall by half. Radioactivity is a Zeno's paradox, because it falls to 1/2 then 1/4 then 1/8, but never to 0. It takes the same amount of time to fall from full to half as from half to quarter because the probability remains the same, because radioactive decay is an elemental nuclear cycle.

Depending on their isotopic properties, different isotopes and elements decay at different rates. Uranium 238 has a half life of 4500 million years...almost exactly the age of the Earth. Certain Thorium isotopes, and Polonium 221 for example, half in hours to seconds.

All life is made out of carbon, and all life is made out of roughly the same percentage of carbon-14, which is 1ppt (part per trillion). When something is alive, the amount of carbon-14 it has remains at a constant 1ppt, but once it decays, biological processes stop so the carbon influx/outflux stops too, and the C-14 starts to decay into N-14 and is not replaced. So if we examine a dead plant by giving it a radiocarbon test, and we find the amount of carbon 14 (can be calculated using the mass of total carbon) and the amount of C-14 has reduced to 1/8, it means that the plant is 18,000 years old roughly, because C-14 has a half life of 6000 years (actually about 5300 years). The N-14 that C-14 decays into is simply released into the atmosphere.

If you don’t like Carbon 14 dating, there are over 20 types of radioisotope dating, including Pb-Ur, Ar-Ar, K-Ar etc. Some of which can date back millions and billions of years because the isotope is more stable.

To prove that the dinosaur bones are 6000 years old, you would need to find some rocks in ancient geological striation, among the dinosaurs, and test them using multiple isotope tests, which should give you a dating of between 3000 and 10,000 years if you are right.

Radiometric dating is not exact science. However, dinosaur bone dating never drops below 65 million years. They cannot provide exact answers for ancient (millions to billions of years) dating, but using a range establishes consensus. If the Earth was only 6,000 years old, the radioactivity emitted by unstable materials would be huge. We would immediately notice it because almost none would have decayed...in fact, we would not be here because life could not survive in that environment.

Creationists typically answer this with two fallacious arguments:

  1. Radiometric dating is erratic, different techniques give you totally different numbers. It cannot be trusted
  2. Scientists assume uniformitarianism, while radiometric dating might have been greatly speeded up in the past.

Both of these are ridiculous. The error in the spectrum of radiometric dating is normal experimental error. Radioactivity, after all, is a completely random process. However, the use of multiple isotope tests is not designed to establish a precise age. It is meant to establish the magnitude. If you have three tests, one which says 50 million years, another says 70 million and another says 92 million, then that is your age range. Radiometric errata does not help creationists, because it is used only to establish the magnitude of age. Even with such error, we would notice if the Earth was 6000 years old because the spectrum would bluntly stop between 2000 years and 12000 years. Radiometric errata is not an argument for creationism. The magnitude of age always comes up on the order of millions and billions.

Uniformitarianism. Firstly, this argument is self-defeating. To assume anti-uniformitarianism (a legitimate scientific debate) one must assume the Earth is millions or billions of years old. We can measure the conditions of the last 10 000 years so accurately now that we can be certain that the cataclysm of the conditions necessary to increase radioactivity that much could only have existed long before advanced life, as such bombardment would have inevitably shut down any evolutionary projects. Anti-uniformitarianism only calls into question the accuracy of ultra-slow isotopes like U238, which halves in over 4.5 billion. years. It does not affect fast isotopes like C-14, which we can measure only to the past 60,000 years. Going back this recently, radioactivity could not have increased at all in such a short time span unless our Neanderthal ancestors were performing atomic blast tests.

Obviously, insisting the universe is 6,000 years old is completely ridiculous. As is the idea that the world was created in six days. I could present literally thousands of arguments from every scientific field in existence. Gaseous shifts, atmospheric depletion, spectroscopy, radioactive decay…all impossible if the universe is so young. At 6,000 years of age the universe was barely a tiny baby, and stellar evolution had not yet taken place with the result that matter was simple quark soup and dark energy. On the other hand, when the Earth was 6,000 years old, the Universe was fully mature. Hydrogenous ionization that had taken place during what cosmologists and astrophysicists call the “dark ages” had formed every element imaginable, and had created the fusion process necessary for the creation of stellar bodies and galactic clusters. The sun was still a little sun, because it was created roughly the same time as Earth was pulled together by it’s gravity. When Earth hit it’s 6,000th birthday, it was a lifeless boiling radioactive rock and an immature, barely existent atmospheric layer of carbon dioxide.

 Now, back to the issue of these tests on rocks. The inaccuracy of radiometry does

a) Not deal with the fact that there is no evidence for young earth creationism

b) Is an obvious failure to acknowledge the constant improvement of mass spectrometry.

c) Does not in any way validate a young Earth

d) Fully ignores the fact that there are a huge number of dating techniques.

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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