Creazionism for reason and for science: the true

[mimmo77]

What is the true behind the creazionist thesis and the weak/wrong points of evolutionism?

I've read this:
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/
http://www.harunyahya.com/evolution01.php
http://www.harunyahya.com/definitivereply01.php
Note: do not consider any religious references!
Note2: His site is http://www.harunyahya.com/

Criticism of evolutionism seem correct (I also saw the site of Dawkins).
But the conclusions are wrong because they speak of a divine creation (like a god intervention).
Perhaps the truth is in the middle.
Perhaps the Criticism of evolutionism should be officially considered from science to create a new theory more reliable.


What do you think about this?

[bobdezon]

I think you have a skewed view of reality. Creationists are laughable at best. There is no need to meet in the middle. There is no middle position, they are wrong, end of discussion. Why would anyone in their right mind want to move away from established science, with reams of mutually supporting evidence and towards a theory which simply posits "god did it"?

[Matt]

Perhaps the truth is in the middle.

What about that £1,000 you owe me?

Don't remember it? I don't have any evidence?

Oh well lets split the differnce. I'll settle for £500

[Mongrel]

Didn't look at the links but I bet every one of the "criticisms and weaknesses" is covered in detail at Talk Origins

[Matt]

If any of the claims made on the website is not covered to you satisfaction on talk origins' index to creationist claims then we can discuss them here one at a time.

[Gib]

Perhaps the truth is in the middle.

It's possible, but by no means assured. Sometimes one side of an issue is just plain 100% wrong. The existance of flat-earthers does not mean that the earth is half flat/half sphere....

Perhaps the Criticism of evolutionism should be officially considered from science to create a new theory more reliable.

Criticism of current evolutionary theory is every day creating a more reliable theory. It's just that this criticism takes the form of actual testable hypotheses which are tested, and turn out to be true. The modification of the theory is usually very small, but occasionally we get a jump as large as the discovery of DNA.

The sort of "criticism" the creationists offer though usually take the form of ignorant propositions which are not testable, are at odds with the evidence, or quite often are just lies.

[Skeptiger]

The sort of "criticism" the creationists offer though usually take the form of ignorant propositions which are not testable, are at odds with the evidence, or quite often are just lies.

Unfortunately the "criticism" of creationists is also laced with an ulterior motive which is based on religion. No matter what skewed arguments they make, they cannot escape from the fact that their beliefs are not based on science.

[brettdbass]

http://www.skepdic.com/creation.html tellls me..

Creation Science is a pseudoscientific theory which claims that (a) the stories in Genesis are accurate accounts of the origin of the universe and life on Earth, and (b) Genesis is incompatible with the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution. “Creation Science” is an oxymoron since science is concerned only with naturalistic explanations of empirical phenomena and does not concern itself with supernatural explanations of metaphysical phenomena.

..in the first paragraph.

I don't need to know more, but there is a lot more on the page to show exactly why that above statements are correct, and therefore why creation science is total bunk.

[mimmo77]

Unfortunately the "criticism" of creationists is also laced with an ulterior motive which is based on religion. No matter what skewed arguments they make, they cannot escape from the fact that their beliefs are not based on science.

The "religion" question is a very bad thing,

[mimmo77]

Didn't look at the links but I bet every one of the "criticisms and weaknesses" is covered in detail at Talk Origins

Ehm, too many things to read, is there a summary?

And, IMPORTANT, IS THERE A SITE of Criticism of evolutionism that is NOT CREAZIONIST? ? ?

[Matt]

Ehm, too many things to read, is there a summary?

There's a number of FAQs on that site. The index to creationist claims will probably help you locate an answer to any specific criticism of evolution you're likely to come accross. Unfortunately there have been many fallacious criticisms of evolution and so there's a lot of material to cover. Just deal with them one at a time.

If you want a summary for the evidence for evolution from a common ancestor you can find it here

Or if you have a specific question I can try to answer it.

[Matt]

And, IMPORTANT, IS THERE A SITE of Criticism of evolutionism that is NOT CREAZIONIST? ? ?

Depends what you mean. There is scientific scrutiny of various parts of evolutionary theory. That's what makes the theory so strong, that it has been refined over 150 years to account for newly discovered information. The core principle of common descent has been spectacularly upheld. The percieved role of natural selection in shaping the diversity of life on this planet has been radically revised as we have gained greater understanding of the sciences of genetics and development. It is in these latter areas that you will find much scientific back and forth. Not a critism of evolution as such but some dissent about the finer details. That's how progress is made.

With regard to critism of evolution as a general principle there are many sites that claim to have no religious pretext. The whole Inteligent Design movement was an attempt to divorce creationism from religion. However in truth (as the wedge document reveals) such a move was purely asthetic and the driving force behind their dissent from evolutionary theory was entirely religious.

As it turns out there is no good reason to doubt the central tenets of evolution. It's an observed fact, like the existence of electrons or the earth orbiting the sun.

[Mongrel]

This is a good thing to watch, it's the Nova dramatisation of the Kitzmiller trial. ID tried to sneak into the schools educational system using the "Critique of evolution" excuse.

[Matt]

Lets take one example from the links you provided.

http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter1.php

This traces the supposed moral implications of the theory of evolution.

We see that this is the listed in the index to creationist claims, under ethics.

We have a number of responses provided

Evolution is the foundation of an immoral worldview.

1. Evolution is descriptive. It can be immoral only if attempting to accurately describe nature is immoral.
2. Any morals derived from evolution would have to recognize the fact that humans have evolved to be social animals. In a social setting, cooperation and even altruism lead to better fitness (Wedekind and Milinski 2000). The process of evolution leads naturally to social animals such as humans developing ethical principles such as the Golden Rule.
3. Some bad morals, such as eugenics and social Darwinism, are based on misunderstandings of evolution. Therefore, it is important that evolution be taught well to negate such misunderstandings.
4. Despite claims otherwise, creationism has its own problems. For one thing, it is founded on religious bigotry, so the foundation of creationism, by most standards, is immoral.
5. Probably the most effective weapon against bad morals is exposure and publicity. Evolution (and science in general) is based on a culture of making information public.
6. Scientists are their own harshest critics. They have developed codes of ethical behavior for several circumstances, and they have begun to talk about a general ethics (Rotblat 1999). Creationists have nothing similar.
7. Some people feel better about themselves by demonizing others. Those people who are truly interested in morals begin by looking for immorality within themselves, not others.

We also see the claim that Survival of the fittest implies might makes right.

1. This claim exemplifies the naturalistic fallacy by arguing that the way things are implies how they ought to be. It is like saying that if someone's arm is broken, it should stay broken. But "is" does not imply "ought." Evolution is descriptive. It tells how things are, not how they should be.
2. Humans, being social, improve their fitness through cooperation with other people. Even if survival of the fittest were taken as a basis for morals, it would imply treating other people well.

We see this "Karl Marx made it clear that Darwin's theory provided a solid ground for materialism and thus also for communism. He also showed his sympathy to Darwin by dedicating Das Kapital, which is considered as his greatest work, to him. In the German edition of the book, he wrote: "From a devoted admirer to Charles Darwin""

This appears to be a variation of a discredited lie.

Marx admired and corresponded with Darwin. Talk Origins says of a similar claim...

Marx sent a personally inscribed copy of the second edition of Das Kapital to Darwin and wanted to dedicate it to him, but Darwin wrote a letter politely declining.

The response to that is...

1. Darwin wrote a letter declining the dedication of an unnamed book on atheism, but he wrote it to Edward Aveling. Aveling's common-law wife was Elanor Marx, Karl's daughter, and she inherited his papers. They got mixed up with Karl Marx's papers, and the letter was assumed to have been to Marx. This view found ideological favor in Russia, so it was widely repeated. Later, a letter from Aveling, requesting permission to dedicate his book The Student's Darwin to Darwin, was found among Darwin's papers. Darwin declined permission and argued that science should not address religious matters directly (Colp 1982; Carter 2000).
2. Darwin did have a copy of Das Kapital, but its pages were unseparated when he died, so he never read it.
3. None of this matters to the science of evolution.

Of interest it shows you how creationists tell barefaced lies. From wanting to dedicate Das Kaptial to Darwin and having the offer declined (perhaps an understandable error on behalf of the Russian press who popularised the myth) we now have tha easily checkable claim that Das Kapital actually was dedicated to Darwin. In truth it was dedicated to Willhelm Wolff.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...1/dedicate.htm

Marx did indeed send a copy of Das Kaptial to Darwin and did indeed write an inscription in that copy. That's a far cry from a dedication

If Evolution Deceit is incorrect about that what else might not be as Evolution Deceit has described?

Did Karl Marx realy make it clear that "Darwin's theory provided a solid ground for materialism and thus also for communism" I don't know as I've not read much Marx and don't intend to for this irrelevent claim.

You see the most important and relavent part of the response above is part three. It doens't matter to the science of evolution. Fred West could have dedicated an autobiography to Stephen Hawking but doing so wouldn't make Black Holes dissapear whatever you think of Fred West.

I happen to bear no ill will to Karl Marx but even if I held him personally responsible for the outrages of Stalin Pogroms or the disaster of Mao's cutural revolution then it still wouldn't affect the evidence for evoution one jot. See argument to consequences.

Anyway that's enough for now. See what else you can dig up

[mimmo77]

This link is interesting:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

However, it gives a weak response to some hot questions, like this:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200_1.html
or this per example:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html

Also I see that the responses often want to by-pass the critic and go to attack of some stupid religious-crazionist assertions, like the assertion that the Earth is younger.

I still think that there are some weak point in the evolution theory, a lot of work is still to do