I appreciate the time Billy put into his response. Clearly he feels very strongly about his beliefs and his religion, and I can only imagine how tough it is to have to try and sustain that belief nowadays.
But there are some things he said that I want to discuss.
Evolution has and continues to be questioned – and whether you choose to believe it or not, it is questioned quite seriously. Have any of you ever taken the time to read a historical account of evolution?
I’ve read many. I recommend "A Brief History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson, who is not a scientist. I also recommend "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond… I could list more.
At this point, evolution is not questioned as a whole by society. It happened, there really is no way of getting around that. What is questioned are the details. It is otherworldly difficult for an animal to become fossilized, and even more improbable, for it to be preserved for us to see today, therefore, there are a lot of missing pieces.
I have often heard criticisms of evolution, but admittance that natural selection does happen. Fortunately (or unfortunately) evolution is natural selection over a long period of time.
But I’ve written about that in length.
…but at the end of the day the changes in evolutionary theory are truly a matter of science forcing findings and theories to fit into a larger pre-designed schema.
This is just simply not true, and very obviously so. One reason being that scientists have no reason to create a pre-designed schema, or to convince you of anything. Sure, science has exposed a lot of religious beliefs to be simply superstition and myth, and that has got to hurt people like the pope and his orthodoxy. Who would want their whole life nullified?
Secondly, there is no evidence that science forces findings, especially with regards to evolution. Scientists have falsified results, but thats to either get attention or win money. As a former scientist, I can tell you that my role was to simply figure out what is going on. Not to purposefully bash religion. But in the process of testing, we’ve discovered that the world adheres to certain principles, namely scientific theories and laws, such as gravity.
But I’ve written about this in length as well.
Lee Strobel – a noted journalist and investigative reporter has had extensive experience covering this topic. Hundreds – probably thousands of books have also been published on creationism as an alternative to evolution — and as universal truth. You mean to tell me that none of these books are serious enough to provide even a base questioning of the theory of evolution?
No they aren’t serious enough. Sorry. First of all, this man is an apologist. He is religious. He employs no method of testing his theories, he just states them. That doesn’t work.
In order for something to be considered serious, it needs to meet the basic standards of scientific testing methods. First, there needs to be a hypothesis, second, controls and variables have to be set up, then data has to be gathered on a HUGE scale, done by many scientists working independently in many different places. At that point, all the independent data is analyzed independently. When the results are the same, we test the crap out of it again, until we can start predicting outcomes. And there are various ways of accomplishing this, depending on what the hypothesis is.
You have all mentioned “facts,” but as I recall evolution is theory. In fact it’s called The Theory of Evolution.
I bit my lip when I read this. I urge Billy to read this post (scroll to the bottom) on what a scientific theory is. I remind everyone that gravity is also a Scientific Theory.
Creationism, if it is merely a philosophy as most of you contend, is equally a “theory.” If we’re truly teaching our children “theories,” then leaving creationism out doesn’t seem very fair now, does it?
Creationism meets no criteria for being considered anything more than a myth. There is no corroboration, no evidence, no testable hypothesis, no data to analyze, logic to its ‘functions’, no compatibility with anything that we know to be true or real today, and no reason to consider it a real possibility. It was suggested in a book, many thousands of years ago… one book… that has been translated hundreds of times. Isn’t that a little sub-standard?
And to answer Terry L., in many ways atheism is a religion.
I’ve written about this extensively as well. We’ve concluded that atheism isn’t a religion.
And Persimmon, nobody is testing or collecting data on creationism? You’re wrong as well.
Billy says this but then offers no evidence that someone is testing or collecting data on creationism. And I am very interested to know how one would collect data or test the idea that the world was created by Jahweh.
And to address other faith systems…the world’s three largest religions all share a similar creation story. So, where’s the dilemma in sharing these beliefs with pupils?
There isn’t a dilemma, only that all three major religions disagree on just about every other aspect of religion. So why would one be right over the other? Sadly, there is absolutely no evidence that Christianity is correct, and that Hinduism is wrong. None. There is no reason to believe one over the other. And consider even the different sects of Christianity alone. There’s a lot of different versions of the bible floating around, a lot of different interpretations. That inconsistency in itself automatically destroys any hope of the creation myth being credible.
At this point, there really isn’t a viable alternative to evolution. There are no other hypothesis that currently exist that are testable and that can meet the standards that we all live by. Enjoy your computer? LIke watching TV? Glad that you have electricity? All these things are based on the very same scientific principles that evolution is… in fact, all science is one in the same. It is the world’s standard in consistency. And the great thing is you don’t have to take my word for it, or anybodies word for it. You can test it for yourself! In fact, thats how it was discovered, people wanting to understand their environment better. Why does this rock cling to that one? Why does fire burn brighter when I use this leaf over that leaf? Why are there clam shells on top of vast mountain ranges, thousands of miles from any ocean?
Enjoy.
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