For starters, you have made a logical and well thought out argument. Still, I wasn’t attempting to Argue creation vs. evolution as a whole. just what should be taught in PUBLIC schools… the answer (that perhaps we agree on) is clearly both… along with any other theories given merit within the scientific community… With teachers doing their best to not influence the kids to their point of view (good teachers can do this).

Now… back to the evolution/creation argument…
As Matt probably remembers, I do believe in God… and that he/she/it (using means which are foggy in my mind) created man. Today, I’m going to play the part of “devil’s advocate” and argue evolution, because that is how I will get the most out of Matt’s Post.

1) The theory of “My parent had sex and I was born as a result” has more holes than any theory which can be reduced to “god did it.” as the creation theory can be reduced. How do you poke holes in that?

I scratched my kneecap. Why did it itch? Random microorganisim crawling across the nerve? Nerve mis-fire? Phychological? No, God intentionally, directly, specifically and purposfully made me itch for… whatever reason.

How do you poke a hole in that? Evne it it’s a fale theory, you can never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever poke a hole in it.

Saying it has more holes in it (and being correct about this) dosen’t make you correct about the over-arching argument.

2) Observable science: No. I can’t come up with any instance of life from non-life. At least none that would meet our needs for this discussion. Nor do I have a CONCRETE example of traits appearing or disapearing in any species… (tho I can come up with hole species appearing and disapearing in the fossil record, or disapearing in recorded human history). I pretty much have to give up your points there…

… Provided this Counter-point is on record… most current theories of evolution take this into account… usually via “evolution takes longer than the time that has elapsed since the dawn of human civilization.” (which is what, 10,000 years or so?)

I suspect you’d also give me this point (without me having to go to the web for examples) that there are plenty of things in nature which can not be reporduced in the lab… at least not yet.

3) None of the “holes” you’ve poked in evolution theory actually dis-proove it, in the scientific sense. Every false scientific theory can be dis-prooven… tho something like evolution (if it is wrong) requires science and technology not yet available to the human race. Of course creation can not be dis-prooven either… but that’s another story.

4) (this is my personal question and not part of the argument) Why aren’t you (or others of your ilk) in an uproar about schools teaching that the earth is billions of years old when, if you take every word of the bible as literal truth, the earth couldn’t be more than 20,000 years old???

While I don’t assign the following traits to most Stonebrook-ers, I’ve made no secret of my dis-like for the policies and PR of mosy public “fundy” leaders (such as Fallwell and Robertson)… I think that “evolution” was chosen as a batlle topic because it’s “sexier” than the age of the earth and easier for most people to wrap their brain around. It’d be a lot harder to polarize your followers with a topic like that.

5) I hope you still enjoy this form of debate… if you don’t you should let me know and. I would stop posting debate in your blog.

1. Presense of information is a direct manifistation of intelligence.

2. DNA is information.

From our two postulates we can easily argue on philosophical terms that since DNA is information, it must have been designed. Let us expand further with another postulate:

1. A system consists of a series of unrelated parts working in a manner that has a purpose.

I think anyone will agree that a human being (or any living creature) is not only a system, but a complicated one at that. I dont know how many engineers read this blog, but I know from experience in my line of work that no system is perfect, at least those created by man. Without the hard work of design engineers, systems engineers mechanical, electrical and computer engineers technology we have today would be impossible to have. It would be nice to think that some random process could make an airplane, or my Honda Civic, but it doesnt. Why would one make such an argument for the most complicated systems, that we really do not have a grasp on yet, life? Given our experience as humans, designing things, it should be unreasonable to conclude that living systems are anything but designed. Again this is not where the debate lies though. The real trap, and the devil is cunning about it, is trying to argue it without God. The Bible says:

17 This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

-Ephesians 4:17-19

Therein lies the true issue, not that science “proves God”, but that those who “believe in evolution” have rejected God, because of their worldly ways. The issue isn’t one of science, it is one of sin.

Science, Math, History, Economics… what do all these things have in common? “textbooks” from even as recent as 50 years ago will have things in them which are today considered wrong. Science is especially vulnerable to this weakness. I’m sure that 50.. 100… 200 years in the future the Physics, chemestry and biology textbooks which got my through Jr. High and High School will be partially “erased” by future discovery. When I was in 7th grade our general science cirriculum included several lessons in this idea that science it little more than a collection of probable truths. If this lesson was placed and occasionally re-enforced in science classes I see no harm in teaching theories as that theories… wheather they be evolution, creation, or intra-dimensional traveler who made us to solve the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything. Is the real source of the debate faith in one’s own beliefs, or lack of faith in young americans to arrive at their own beliefs?

‘Therein lies the true issue, not that science “proves God”, but that those who “believe in evolution” have rejected God, because of their worldly ways. The issue isn’t one of science, it is one of sin.’

I am angry at this and call bull-s_ on this. Do youk now you just told all Catholics that they don’t believe on god and that they’re sinners??? One of the popes said “evolution is a tool of god”… Show me a bible vurse that says it’s a sin to believe in evolution??

I’ll do you one better… explain to me why believeing in evolution means you hate or reject god. There are an awefull lot of devoted christians (many from the methodist church I was raised in) out there who believe in evolution. Just because they’ve decided the bible isn’t literal truth and tried to fill in the “blanks” in ways different from you does not give you the right to tell them they’ve rejected god or that it’s an issue of sin.

That statement was one of the most offensive and hatfull things I have ever read attached to this blog.

If you can’t accept that people’s beliefs can differ from yours somewhat and that they can still live good christian lives and love Jesus and god too… then you need to spend more time with your bible and less time arguing issues like this.

I’m sorry that you are offended by my comments. I did not see them as judgemental at all, but rather reflects what was written in Ephesians: In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, sinners will become more callous and deny God even more. If one wants to draw out the nuances of that particular verse, or perhaps Gen 2:17 where it clearly states that before Adams sin there was not death, then I leave that to the reader. Please do not be upset when people have opinions that you do not like, that does not mean they are allowed to express them.

It isn’t judgemental to observe, nor is it judgemental to point out what the real issue is. I pray that God will be able to give you the guidance to see what I am pointing out.

I hear this all the time, and I have no idea where this idea comes from. From an observable science, there isn’t even a debate over whether evolution has developed today’s species over really long stretches of time.

The scientific way we see evolution working in our world, especially in plants but also in animal life, doesn’t even warrant a glance at the creation model.

One reproducible, observable creative form of evolution is DNA “duplication and divergence”. What happens is that, from one generation to the next, an organism will have a DNA replication mistake which will double its number of chromosomes. Those “spare” chromosomes, then will mutate and form new traits. In large organisms with longer lifespans, like dogs or humans, this is only rarely observable. But with organisms like bacteria, it has been observed (including beneficial mutations). Populations which start with just one chromosome (no variation) grow to show variations not present in that first chromosome — they must have come from mutations.

A quick web search finds extremely specific examples:
- bacterium which can’t, and then can, digest nylon,
- yeast populations that can’t, but later can, exist in a low-phosphate environment,
- a unicell green alga which evolves into multicellularity,
- bacteria that absolutely cannot metabolize something, but later developes a way to do so (E. Coli and “Klebsiella” bacteria, apparently).

In larger animals, it’s tough to run controllable experiments on dozens of generations. But essentially, this has been done (and has produced novel features) with cats, dogs, pigeons, goldfish, cabbage, and geraniums. Not all of the features were preexisting in the population originally.

Now stop to think about that: what’s funny is that mutation is the only natural process that adds variation to populations. Selection and genetic drift remove variation. If mutations didn’t make new variation, then a single pair of individuals — a la Eden or the Flood — would make for little or no variation to select from. Using the “no traits that weren’t already in the genes” argument would rule out a theory that had all of today’s animals originating from a single pair.

It’s true that evolution selecting from preexisting variation is much quicker. Artificial selection programs often stall when they’ve selected among all the variation that were already there. But if the selection is maintained, change still continues (but slower).

Anyway, I’m sure this has been hashed a million times over, and I suppose email and topical fora are a better place to delve into detail. And, similar to Dave B’s point, I don’t think accepting the fact that evolution is scientifically supported and Creation isn’t scientifically supportable (pretty much by the definition of science) is something that has to disrupt one’s faith in God. Believing the Word requires faith — that’s all there is to it. I just find it disturbing when arguments for Creation, those which have already been debunked anyway, are presented as science. I just don’t think that furthers the Christian cause.

There are many people out there who lead (what even you would call) a good christian lifestyle… through the teachings of the bible… and believe the earth was created over millions of years and not 7 days… or that man evolved from ape… or.. etc. etc. etc.

This is the part where we could launch into an argument over weather all christians SHOULD believe that the whole bible is completely true or not… but it would be a waste of time for the topic at hand because not all christians do, and many of the ones who don’t believe do lead good lives in the service of christ.