Split Thread Should creationism be taught as Science?

IanS said:
Good grief - how many times do you need to be told that science is not claiming "proven Fact"? Nobody knows anything as an absolute "proven Fact".
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I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
 
Gotta break it to ya

psionl0 said:
I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
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"Prove" and "disprove" are two different words. Heck, they even mean two different things.
 
psionl0 said:
I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
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It doesn't rule out UFOs, Chronos castrating his father, Lord Rama splitting himself in twain, and innumerable other ideas.

What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
 
psionl0 said:
I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
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Well if you "know that", then why are you arguing that because science cannot literally prove human evolution, we should therefore consider that maybe "God did it!" ?? (see the highlight of your own words below) -

psionl0 said:
Since you can't argue that it a proven scientific fact that intelligence can not possibly have any involvement in evolution, you go for option B - attack anybody who dares point out that science says nothing on the matter.
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If you understand that neither science nor anything else can truly claim literal “proof” of anything (where “proof” means 100% unarguable certainty that can never be wrong), why are you then writing as if that means we should seriously consider that an un-evidenced intelligent God is guiding evolution? ... we also cannot "prove" that 50ft pigeons from Jupiter are not the cause of evolution (or the cause of all "Creation"), does that mean we also have to serioulsy consider that (and a million other such silly beliefs) as a realistic possibility (at least pigeons do exist ... whereas gods have no known existence).


And by the way - in your highlighted post above where you just said "science says nothing on the matter"; On the contrary science says something extremely clear on the matter - science says that the answer is natural evolution and NOT an un-evidenced invisible God from heaven.
 
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psionl0 said:
I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
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Nope, the problem is that you say that science can’t disprove the notion of a god, but that the notion of a god is an appropriate topic for science lessons.
 
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psionl0 said:
I know that but I don't think anybody else does. If I dare to point out that science doesn't disprove any notion of a god then it invariably results in howls of outrage.
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All the gods have been disproven for centuries.

Well, except for one -- the god of agnosticism. But no one really cares about that one.
 
Olmstead said:
All the gods have been disproven for centuries.

Well, except for one -- the god of agnosticism. But no one really cares about that one.
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Since agnosticism is the position that the existence of god can neither be proven nor disproven, that would appear to be the one psionl0 is talking about here.
 
Mojo said:
There is a “guiding hand”: it’s called natural selection.
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psionl0 said:
You have it backwards. Natural selection does not create mutations.
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RecoveringYuppy said:
You have a mistake and a non-sequitur. It's accurate to describe natural selection as the guiding hand.
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Indeed, and it's the sort of mistake that is most easy to make if one has some Lamarckian misunderstanding of how evolution works.

Random mutation, unlike Lamarckism, where *that* is directed. Probabilistic, natural selection, "selective pressure".
 
IanS said:
Well if you "know that", then why are you arguing that because science cannot literally prove human evolution, we should therefore consider that maybe "God did it!" ?? (see the highlight of your own words below) -

If you understand that neither science nor anything else can truly claim literal “proof” of anything (where “proof” means 100% unarguable certainty that can never be wrong), why are you then writing as if that means we should seriously consider that an un-evidenced intelligent God is guiding evolution? ... we also cannot "prove" that 50ft pigeons from Jupiter are not the cause of evolution (or the cause of all "Creation"), does that mean we also have to serioulsy consider that (and a million other such silly beliefs) as a realistic possibility (at least pigeons do exist ... whereas gods have no known existence).

And by the way - in your highlighted post above where you just said "science says nothing on the matter"; On the contrary science says something extremely clear on the matter - science says that the answer is natural evolution and NOT an un-evidenced invisible God from heaven.
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That is a whole lotta straw right there.

It should be quite simple. Using the scientific method, we know quite a lot about the world. But when it comes to theological matters, science has absolutely nothing to say whatsoever.

You can say that there are no gods but you can't say that science is on your side because science is silent on the matter.
 
psionl0 said:
That is a whole lotta straw right there.

It should be quite simple. Using the scientific method, we know quite a lot about the world. But when it comes to theological matters, science has absolutely nothing to say whatsoever.

You can say that there are no gods but you can't say that science is on your side because science is silent on the matter.
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Yes it does have a fair bit to say on various testable claims that holy texts make.

https://biblehub.com/matthew/4-8.htm

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
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That makes sense if the writer thought the world was flat. Regardless of how high the mountain, one couldn't see all the kingdoms of the world.
 
Mojo said:
Since agnosticism is the position that the existence of god can neither be proven nor disproven, that would appear to be the one psionl0 is talking about here.
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No one is ever talking about that god, because that god is irrelevant. We're not discussing the posibility of a god's involvement in creation because of agnosticism, we're discussing it because the idea sounds neat and might quell some existential angst. In other words, this isn't the god of agnosticism but the god of someone's imagination. And that god is already disproven because someone literally imagined it like Lovecraft imagined Azathoth.
 
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psionl0 said:
Wow. The ignorance about evolution is astounding. Natural selection occurs after the random mutations and not before.
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Indeed, and therefore the “guiding hand” acts after the mutations occur, and doesn’t direct the mutations.
 
psionl0 said:
Wow. The ignorance about evolution is astounding. Natural selection occurs after the random mutations and not before.
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Incorrect. Environment and gene pool are in a constant state of feedback. Changing environments or random events then reveal which of the changes that have been taking place, potentially for eons or only tens of thousands of years (far less for microbes), are now dis/advantageous. Genes hopping around is also fairly common, and does not cause more apparent damage because much goes to the areas of so-called inactive DNA (terminology eludes me, wiki as needed).
 
psionl0 said:
That is a whole lotta straw right there.

It should be quite simple. Using the scientific method, we know quite a lot about the world. But when it comes to theological matters, science has absolutely nothing to say whatsoever.

You can say that there are no gods but you can't say that science is on your side because science is silent on the matter.
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You were talking about the existence of homo sapiens ... science very clearly says that humans evolved from earlier apes ... and that is a 100% contradiction of religious claims that God created humans.

If you want to try nuancing that to claim that God (that's a biblical Christian God by the way) may have created evolution as his method of making humans, then you have to show the evidence for any such claim ... because what science has done is to search for all available evidence of how humans came to exist, and it finds massive unarguable evidence for evolution and zero evidence of any "guiding hand" of a God.

You seem to be attempting to shift the goals with every post you make. And at the same failing to read or failing to understand what is said to you.


And by the way, it's not a matter of "science being on my side, as you just put it, but rather it's the other way around, i.e. "I am on the side of science"... The difference is that I am not arguing firstly from an atheist standpoint and then saying "look at science, it's on my side" ... I am firstly looking at the science and accepting that as by far our best understanding of the world, and going from that position to say that science finds no evidence of any God (but it does find vast mountains of evidence to the contrary!).
 
psionl0 said:
That is a whole lotta straw right there.

It should be quite simple. Using the scientific method, we know quite a lot about the world. But when it comes to theological matters, science has absolutely nothing to say whatsoever.

You can say that there are no gods but you can't say that science is on your side because science is silent on the matter.
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When was the last time a scientific discovery concluded that 'god did it'?
 
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