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Creation scientists claimed for a while the possibility of the speed of light decreasing. They were hammered about this from every quarter. Now it seems that it might be credible.

A lot of science done seems to be based on the assumption that the universe is billions of years old, and that the earth itself is around 4.5 billion years old (subject to change). Indeed, a lot of dating methods such as c14 rely on assumptions that can't be verified - that would actually be false assumptions if we accept the creationist model including a worldwide flood.

It seems to me that everyone could benefit from the creation vs evolution question being finally answered. Science can only go so far if it is based on a faulty foundation.

So for all you budding evolutionists that are so sure your theory is correct - Dr. Walt Brown proposes a challenge which has never been taken up. A challenge that seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you don't feel you have the skills, then maybe you know others that do. Either way, the longer this challenge goes unanswered, the more certain creationists will feel about their position.

So anyway, Dr Walt Brown has a challenge of a written debate to settle this question. So far argument has been refined to pockets of discussion that don't go far, and books published against each other. This would be a great opportunity if anyone was confident enough in evolution.

And here's a list of excuses you might try to use to avoid this challenge:
Excuses - pick one or roll your own

At any rate, STOP treating creationists like children. I have had many evolution discussions and there is very little evidence for evolution at all. The weight certainly seems to be on the creationist side (and yes I am biased). There is certainly enough evidence for creation theory to make it credible, and not the realm of fairy tales. At least, before you feel tempted to call creationism a fairy tale, consider the following:
20 problems

Not all of us who believe in creationism do so blindly. At least understand (because very few people I've argued with understand the creationist position - they just know we think that the earth is young and there was a flood. That's it) our position and consider it properly. When I see a creationist argument I think to myself automatically, "If I believed evolution, how would I answer this?". That is because I understand evolution, at least as well as the next person. But no-one seems to understand the creationist position.

Creation scientists claimed for a while the possibility of the speed of light decreasing. They were hammered about this from every quarter. Now it seems that it might be credible.

A lot of science done seems to be based on the assumption that the universe is billions of years old, and that the earth itself is around 4.5 billion years old (subject to change). Indeed, a lot of dating methods such as c14 rely on assumptions that can't be verified - that would actually be false assumptions if we accept the creationist model including a worldwide flood.

It seems to me that everyone could benefit from the creation vs evolution question being finally answered. Science can only go so far if it is based on a faulty foundation.

So for all you budding evolutionists that are so sure your theory is correct - Dr. Walt Brown proposes a challenge which has never been taken up. A challenge that seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you don't feel you have the skills, then maybe you know others that do. Either way, the longer this challenge goes unanswered, the more certain creationists will feel about their position.

So anyway, Dr Walt Brown has a challenge of a written debate to settle this question. So far argument has been refined to pockets of discussion that don't go far, and books published against each other. This would be a great opportunity if anyone was confident enough in evolution.

And here's a list of excuses you might try to use to avoid this challenge:
Excuses - pick one or roll your own

At any rate, STOP treating creationists like children. I have had many evolution discussions and there is very little evidence for evolution at all. The weight certainly seems to be on the creationist side (and yes I am biased). There is certainly enough evidence for creation theory to make it credible, and not the realm of fairy tales. At least, before you feel tempted to call creationism a fairy tale, consider the following:
20 problems

Not all of us who believe in creationism do so blindly. At least understand (because very few people I've argued with understand the creationist position - they just know we think that the earth is young and there was a flood. That's it) our position and consider it properly. When I see a creationist argument I think to myself automatically, "If I believed evolution, how would I answer this?". That is because I understand evolution, at least as well as the next person. But no-one seems to understand the creationist position.

What's interesting to me is the uniformly violent reaction of the "educated" crowd to creation scientists (e.g. read a few of the above posts). I'll admit they somewhat deserve it because of their history of intolerance and quackery but they have been correct about a number of things, many of which are still to be discovered.

Take for example the BS theories of evolution that were passed around as fact until recently. You know, the ones that said that evolution happens at a very slow rate. Creationists argued against this for years because of the nature of how fossils are created. Evolutionists finally caught on and now almost all the recent theories talk about periods of very rapid evolution.

It's true that a lot of what they're saying is shit. But its also true that traditional scientists are full of it too. All I'm asking is that before you blast it out of the water as religious ranting, consider that they probably have a much more critical view of accepted science than you. Consider whether you what to be the one defending the status quo.

You should read Dr. Brown's 20 questions for evolutionists. No true scientist can read the traditional "irreducible complexities" (like the Bombardier Beetle) without questioning current theories of evolution.

http://creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ12.html

This is exactly the case put forward by Dr. Walt Brown (Ph. D.).

Tell me why I should expect an atheist scientist to give credence to creationist theories if they had supporting evidence? Everyone has biases, and a discussion of origins is inherently philosophical and will include people's biases. When I said "I am someone who has to know the truth about everything - so I search for answers. If that truth happens to be that God created the world merely 6,000 years ago, then so be it" I was meaning evidence besides the Bible that affirms the Biblical record, not just the Bible alone. Clearly, if outside evidence showed the Bible dates were wrong I would have to accept that.

What happens when you study the watch and find contradictions? Ice cores [talkorigins.org] indicate an Earth well over 100,000 years old at an absolute minimum.

We either analyse those contradictions to see if they are perceived or literal. If real then we must reject the theory that contradicts the facts. I can quote for you dating methods which produce an earth age of a maximum 60 million years old, or 6,000 years old for our common ancestor, or other dating methods which produce a young earth. More about ice cores later. Follow this link and hit the next button to read various dating methods which produce very young maximum ages (remember that the age can usually be anything younger than this, but shows an absolute maximum). So this shows that the evolutionists watch has contradictions.

Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 1024 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 1027 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks (quote from talkorigins.org).

Question: is there any mechanism known (and I am ignorant) by which molecules may be created initially in order to form amino acids? You demonstrated that some amino acids form naturally, but what about the molecules they are formed from - do all 20 amino acids naturally form, or only some?
Comment on this: it talks about amino acids forming long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks, but proteins tend to break down rather than form naturally:
"To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated. However, the early oceans or atmosphere would have diluted amino acids, so the required collisions between them would rarely occur. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids. Furthermore, the proposed energy sources for forming proteins (earth's heat, electrical discharges, or solar radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed. The many attempts to show how life might have arrived on earth have demonstrated (a) the futility of that effort, (b) the immense complexity of even the simplest life, and (c) the need for a vast intelligence to precede life. "
Reference
There is much more in the reference you gave on probabilities that I don't understand. I don't really want to comment on it because there's a fair bit more I obviously need to learn in that situation.

Of course, that isn't an issue anyway, amino acids can form far more rapidly than that, even in the constraints of a lab experiment, let alone the oceans of Earth or however other similar planets exist. Only one planet in the universe has to end up with life for that life to then wonder how it got there, right? Hey, I managed to get this post back on-topic for the original thread, sort of.

Note that the improbabilities article I quoted said under the best possible conditions with the most favourable temperature - indicating that this improbability was calculated taking into account the natural formation of amin acids - or that's how I see it. I guess we'd have to contact the creation-science author to be sure.

The interactions are not random though - thanks to the structure of the atoms involved, fairly complex carbon-based molecules are inevitable.

Remember that some processes work against evolution - organisms tend to move from complex to simple, proteins tend to break down to amino acids rather than form, etc So while randomness makes evolution impossibly unlikely, and non-random interactions make it likely - something like this tendancy to work opposite to evolution makes it impossible, not unlikely. And we only need to find one step in the evolutionary trail where the trend is the opposite of what is needed to demonstrate evolution as impossible.

Only one had to evolve for life to exist, and to point out its improbability after the fact is meaningless. Like in poker - the odds of drawing any particular set of cards are very poor, but the odds of drawing a 'winning hand' are not.

Agreed, and I try to keep this in mind.

It's just that I believe the design process was guided, not 'miracled', and that it took place in a natural, physical way that we can understand if we study it.

Since I believe that creation 6000 years old earth is true, I also believe that it is logical and understandable, that everything we observe can make sense and fit into that model. Creation was a once off event and the world was set into motion - we were given desire to reproduce so that God did not have to tell us, the earth produced fruit and vegetables for us to eat of it's own power, etc. But we also believe that the existence of the universe is inexplicably tied to our Creator - and without Him nothing can exist. Evolution seems to me to be nonsensical, and to me that creates a world that is irrational and not understandable, but you feel that way about young earth creationism. Again, subjective argument :)

Asking 'why' to evolution almost always yields the answer 'because it helps them reproduce'. Asking 'why' about creation almost always yields the answer 'because it is part of God's plan'. That's just the different nature of scientific reasoning versus religious reasoning.

Really? Some questions for evolution:
* Why do humans shun rape as a sickening act?
* Why do humans practice self-sacrifice for the love of another that is not necessarily their own offspring?
* Why do humans sometimes feel prone to compassion towards the weak and unpriviliged?
These three questions of the human mind and heart seem completely contradictory to evolution. And why would God use one method to create His masterpiece (murder, rape, greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc) and then later declare these attributes to be sickening and morally wrong? It is obvious that those things happened and were necessary for natural selection, yet under evolution you must presume that they were natural and good processes (Genesis 1:31).

I've enjoyed the site you provided - I think I've seen it before but never explored in great detail. I wish they had a search function, because I couldn't find an answer to the ice cores there. If you know where it is, let me know.

From what I could see ice core dating was based on assumptions of other dating methods (such as C14), so you should probably check out the section on the site that deals with those dating methods and then extend the conclusions from that to ice-core dating. On the main site in the bottom left corner is an index which can be useful. Just go to http://www.creationscience.com instead of the links I give you, since the links I give you don't have frames.

I've found some other interesting tidbits on there. Some really aren't good arguments, or are based on theories or measurements that the scientific community has already revised or discarded. Some of them raise legitimate questions, for which I am still trying to find answers. I hope you find the site I linked to every bit as fascinating.

I think if you follow the footnotes you will see that there is more depth than is commonly accepted by evolutionists. Evolutionists tend to say that something has been "debunked" when it really has only in their mind. I think that evolutionists don't fully comprehend the creation theory and consider it. When reading creation information they must think with the mind of a creationist so they can see how everything fits together. I have to think like an evolutionist to fully appreciate their arguments when I read their websites - and I feel that evolutionists often miss this.

Tell me why I should expect an atheist scientist to give credence to creationist theories if they had supporting evidence? Everyone has biases, and a discussion of origins is inherently philosophical and will include people's biases. When I said "I am someone who has to know the truth about everything - so I search for answers. If that truth happens to be that God created the world merely 6,000 years ago, then so be it" I was meaning evidence besides the Bible that affirms the Biblical record, not just the Bible alone. Clearly, if outside evidence showed the Bible dates were wrong I would have to accept that.

What happens when you study the watch and find contradictions? Ice cores [talkorigins.org] indicate an Earth well over 100,000 years old at an absolute minimum.

We either analyse those contradictions to see if they are perceived or literal. If real then we must reject the theory that contradicts the facts. I can quote for you dating methods which produce an earth age of a maximum 60 million years old, or 6,000 years old for our common ancestor, or other dating methods which produce a young earth. More about ice cores later. Follow this link and hit the next button to read various dating methods which produce very young maximum ages (remember that the age can usually be anything younger than this, but shows an absolute maximum). So this shows that the evolutionists watch has contradictions.

Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 1024 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 1027 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks (quote from talkorigins.org).

Question: is there any mechanism known (and I am ignorant) by which molecules may be created initially in order to form amino acids? You demonstrated that some amino acids form naturally, but what about the molecules they are formed from - do all 20 amino acids naturally form, or only some?
Comment on this: it talks about amino acids forming long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks, but proteins tend to break down rather than form naturally:
"To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated. However, the early oceans or atmosphere would have diluted amino acids, so the required collisions between them would rarely occur. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids. Furthermore, the proposed energy sources for forming proteins (earth's heat, electrical discharges, or solar radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed. The many attempts to show how life might have arrived on earth have demonstrated (a) the futility of that effort, (b) the immense complexity of even the simplest life, and (c) the need for a vast intelligence to precede life. "
Reference
There is much more in the reference you gave on probabilities that I don't understand. I don't really want to comment on it because there's a fair bit more I obviously need to learn in that situation.

Of course, that isn't an issue anyway, amino acids can form far more rapidly than that, even in the constraints of a lab experiment, let alone the oceans of Earth or however other similar planets exist. Only one planet in the universe has to end up with life for that life to then wonder how it got there, right? Hey, I managed to get this post back on-topic for the original thread, sort of.

Note that the improbabilities article I quoted said under the best possible conditions with the most favourable temperature - indicating that this improbability was calculated taking into account the natural formation of amin acids - or that's how I see it. I guess we'd have to contact the creation-science author to be sure.

The interactions are not random though - thanks to the structure of the atoms involved, fairly complex carbon-based molecules are inevitable.

Remember that some processes work against evolution - organisms tend to move from complex to simple, proteins tend to break down to amino acids rather than form, etc So while randomness makes evolution impossibly unlikely, and non-random interactions make it likely - something like this tendancy to work opposite to evolution makes it impossible, not unlikely. And we only need to find one step in the evolutionary trail where the trend is the opposite of what is needed to demonstrate evolution as impossible.

Only one had to evolve for life to exist, and to point out its improbability after the fact is meaningless. Like in poker - the odds of drawing any particular set of cards are very poor, but the odds of drawing a 'winning hand' are not.

Agreed, and I try to keep this in mind.

It's just that I believe the design process was guided, not 'miracled', and that it took place in a natural, physical way that we can understand if we study it.

Since I believe that creation 6000 years old earth is true, I also believe that it is logical and understandable, that everything we observe can make sense and fit into that model. Creation was a once off event and the world was set into motion - we were given desire to reproduce so that God did not have to tell us, the earth produced fruit and vegetables for us to eat of it's own power, etc. But we also believe that the existence of the universe is inexplicably tied to our Creator - and without Him nothing can exist. Evolution seems to me to be nonsensical, and to me that creates a world that is irrational and not understandable, but you feel that way about young earth creationism. Again, subjective argument :)

Asking 'why' to evolution almost always yields the answer 'because it helps them reproduce'. Asking 'why' about creation almost always yields the answer 'because it is part of God's plan'. That's just the different nature of scientific reasoning versus religious reasoning.

Really? Some questions for evolution:
* Why do humans shun rape as a sickening act?
* Why do humans practice self-sacrifice for the love of another that is not necessarily their own offspring?
* Why do humans sometimes feel prone to compassion towards the weak and unpriviliged?
These three questions of the human mind and heart seem completely contradictory to evolution. And why would God use one method to create His masterpiece (murder, rape, greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc) and then later declare these attributes to be sickening and morally wrong? It is obvious that those things happened and were necessary for natural selection, yet under evolution you must presume that they were natural and good processes (Genesis 1:31).

I've enjoyed the site you provided - I think I've seen it before but never explored in great detail. I wish they had a search function, because I couldn't find an answer to the ice cores there. If you know where it is, let me know.

From what I could see ice core dating was based on assumptions of other dating methods (such as C14), so you should probably check out the section on the site that deals with those dating methods and then extend the conclusions from that to ice-core dating. On the main site in the bottom left corner is an index which can be useful. Just go to http://www.creationscience.com instead of the links I give you, since the links I give you don't have frames.

I've found some other interesting tidbits on there. Some really aren't good arguments, or are based on theories or measurements that the scientific community has already revised or discarded. Some of them raise legitimate questions, for which I am still trying to find answers. I hope you find the site I linked to every bit as fascinating.

I think if you follow the footnotes you will see that there is more depth than is commonly accepted by evolutionists. Evolutionists tend to say that something has been "debunked" when it really has only in their mind. I think that evolutionists don't fully comprehend the creation theory and consider it. When reading creation information they must think with the mind of a creationist so they can see how everything fits together. I have to think like an evolutionist to fully appreciate their arguments when I read their websites - and I feel that evolutionists often miss this.

Also, did you read my reference about proteins tending to break down into amino acids, the opposite of what is necessary for evolution? God would have had to have performed a miracle a minute for billions of years for evolution to have occurred - that seems far less logical and unrealistic than the creation approach.

On the website link you provided, a little bit through it talks about handedness of amino acids, so you may be interested in this. Amino acids look pretty simple, and that improbability statement I showed you, when you are doing something a billion times a second for 20 billion years, I think that amino acids would be formed more than once :) I think if we considered that amino acids naturally formed into that equation (if it wasn't already) then the chances would probably still be insanely high (thanks for backing up your claim with what seems like viable research).

Superb argument. It is equally true that you only find support for evolution on an evolutionists website. And don't quote some dribble about most scientists believing evolution - I have only been made aware of one study of beliefs, and it seems that it's split pretty much down the middle
Read question 4, and follow the footnote for the results of the study. Your hordes of evolutionary counterparts are probably just domestic science teachers and ignorant parents.

Wrong. The mitochondrial "Eve" lived somewhere around 200,000 years ago, according to archaeology.org [archaeology.org]. Shocked?

Arg! You are the second person to give that exact article, and the third person to give an article like that. I'll say to you what I said to the others:
Your article is out of date. A new discovery was made in 1997 that demonstrated mutation rates in mtDNA up to 20 times faster! Your article is dated 1996, therefore was written before this new discovery, therefore outdated! This just gets repetitive and annoying. Here is the article for your reference

Biological evolution has nothing to do with the age of the moon. But anyway, the old chestnut about depth of moon dust has been debunked quite thoroughly. Well, I can't say much of this except that evolutionists appeared to scramble for an argument, by saying that beneath the thin layer of dust is rocks, or by coming up with their own measurements for the intake of dust. I would love to read the article in which the new evolutionist supporting dust intake rates were calculated, and compare it with the creationist ones. You may be interested to read this article.

Wrong. Learn something about dominant and recessive traits. (Are you listening carefully?)

Ooh, great argument, I'm now convinced I was wrong!
Seriously though, where was I wrong about dominant and recessive traits?

However, you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt one of two things: 1) that you get all your information from creationist tracts, and outdated ones at that or 2) you are a troll.

Unlike you, who gets his information from outdated evolutionist websites

Superb argument. It is equally true that you only find support for evolution on an evolutionists website. And don't quote some dribble about most scientists believing evolution - I have only been made aware of one study of beliefs, and it seems that it's split pretty much down the middle
Read question 4, and follow the footnote for the results of the study. Your hordes of evolutionary counterparts are probably just domestic science teachers and ignorant parents.

Wrong. The mitochondrial "Eve" lived somewhere around 200,000 years ago, according to archaeology.org [archaeology.org]. Shocked?

Arg! You are the second person to give that exact article, and the third person to give an article like that. I'll say to you what I said to the others:
Your article is out of date. A new discovery was made in 1997 that demonstrated mutation rates in mtDNA up to 20 times faster! Your article is dated 1996, therefore was written before this new discovery, therefore outdated! This just gets repetitive and annoying. Here is the article for your reference

Biological evolution has nothing to do with the age of the moon. But anyway, the old chestnut about depth of moon dust has been debunked quite thoroughly. Well, I can't say much of this except that evolutionists appeared to scramble for an argument, by saying that beneath the thin layer of dust is rocks, or by coming up with their own measurements for the intake of dust. I would love to read the article in which the new evolutionist supporting dust intake rates were calculated, and compare it with the creationist ones. You may be interested to read this article.

Wrong. Learn something about dominant and recessive traits. (Are you listening carefully?)

Ooh, great argument, I'm now convinced I was wrong!
Seriously though, where was I wrong about dominant and recessive traits?

However, you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt one of two things: 1) that you get all your information from creationist tracts, and outdated ones at that or 2) you are a troll.

Unlike you, who gets his information from outdated evolutionist websites

Superb argument. It is equally true that you only find support for evolution on an evolutionists website. And don't quote some dribble about most scientists believing evolution - I have only been made aware of one study of beliefs, and it seems that it's split pretty much down the middle
Read question 4, and follow the footnote for the results of the study. Your hordes of evolutionary counterparts are probably just domestic science teachers and ignorant parents.

Wrong. The mitochondrial "Eve" lived somewhere around 200,000 years ago, according to archaeology.org [archaeology.org]. Shocked?

Arg! You are the second person to give that exact article, and the third person to give an article like that. I'll say to you what I said to the others:
Your article is out of date. A new discovery was made in 1997 that demonstrated mutation rates in mtDNA up to 20 times faster! Your article is dated 1996, therefore was written before this new discovery, therefore outdated! This just gets repetitive and annoying. Here is the article for your reference

Biological evolution has nothing to do with the age of the moon. But anyway, the old chestnut about depth of moon dust has been debunked quite thoroughly. Well, I can't say much of this except that evolutionists appeared to scramble for an argument, by saying that beneath the thin layer of dust is rocks, or by coming up with their own measurements for the intake of dust. I would love to read the article in which the new evolutionist supporting dust intake rates were calculated, and compare it with the creationist ones. You may be interested to read this article.

Wrong. Learn something about dominant and recessive traits. (Are you listening carefully?)

Ooh, great argument, I'm now convinced I was wrong!
Seriously though, where was I wrong about dominant and recessive traits?

However, you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt one of two things: 1) that you get all your information from creationist tracts, and outdated ones at that or 2) you are a troll.

Unlike you, who gets his information from outdated evolutionist websites

As for the flood changing everything, this doesn't strike me as the best answer. One could just as well argue that Merlin changed everything. Without evidence that a global flood (or a wizard) has altered the earth, it isn't really much of a arguement (at least in the scientific sense).

As for evidence of the flood, well, creationists give the following (among others I have not heard/forgotten):
* Fossil record - the great number of fossils worldwide
* Memories of a worldwide flood in cultures and tribes worldwide (from Aboriginee's in australia, to Hindu legend, and more I'm sure).

Still, my point wasn't evidence for the flood, just that lots of evidence becomes questionable once different assumptions are made.

for example, why is human DNA very similar to chimp DNA, when other similar creatures such as sharks and dolphins very different - evolution explains this well, whereas I can't see how creationism can

I can't say much about those ex-Christians. I like to understand an issue first. My understanding of creation theory has progressed a long time from the early days when I first began reading, and even now I know very, very little. How much did those guys know? Eg, I think some Christians denounce natural selection because they think it is evolution. Natural selection is observed and demonstrated...it's just the way things work, and doesn't contradict the creation model in any way.

If you are interested I found another site of Creation researchers who produce a peer reviewed journal. They have a list of 20 challenges to those who believe evolution...you may or may not be interested to read them:
http://www.creationscience.com/
Cya around.

I've often wondered why so many evolutionists are reluctant to question their foundations. Thanks for clearing that up for me!

Maybe I can clear it up a little further.

"Questioning my foundations" is what led me to reject creationism, and favor evolution, in the first place.

It is the height of arrogance to assume that someone is closed minded just because they have reached a conclusion different from yours.

After all, if we hold a view, it's usually because we think it is correct. Each side would do well to remember that this is true of the other side as well. I can't count the number of times I've been guilty of this error myself.

Five-year-old Mary was obliged to undergo an operation, and lost so much blood that it was necessary to resort to blood transfusion. The blood of thirteen-year-old brother Jimmy was found by test to match exactly the little patient's. "Will you give your sister some of your blood, Jim?" asked the doctor. Jimmy set his teeth. "Yes, sir, if she needs it." He was prepared for the transfusion. In the midst of the drawing of the blood, the doctor observed Jimmy growing paler and paler. "Are you ill, Jim?" he asked. "No, sir, but I'm wondering just when I'll die." "Die?" gasped the doctor. "Do you think people give their lives when they give a little blood?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy. "And you are giving your life for Mary's?" "Yes, sir," replied Jimmy.

I've always wondered why creation theory is always laughed at and not actually pondered more on sites like Slashdot. I mean, isn't part of an education and learning about the world around us being at least open to discussion of opposing viewpoints?

But nowadays, it's almost cliche to condescendingly deride a person or idea of faith.

Instead, how about reading a bit about Creationism or arguments against evolution.

I know this will be modded down since the idea of God is verboten among the /. intelligentsia, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently that it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this law by claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes.

Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution. Rarely, if ever, is a mutation beneficial to an organism in its natural environment. Almost all observable mutations are harmful; some are meaningless; many are lethal. No known mutation has ever produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability than its ancestors.

All species appear completely developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing.

Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by capturing and editing the animals' successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer's hidden promptings. ) Chimpanzees have not demonstrated these skills in the wild and do not pass their skills on to other chimpanzees. When a trained chimp dies, so does the trainer's investment. Also, trained chimps have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No evidence exists that language evolves in nonhumans. Did language evolve in humans? Charles Darwin claimed it did. If so, the earliest languages should be the simplest. On the contrary, language studies reveal that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, and verb form. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler rather than more complex. Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.

Speech is uniquely human. Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that speech appears to be learned only from other humans. Apparently, humans do not automatically speak. If this is so, the first humans must have been endowed with a speaking ability. There is no evidence that speech has evolved.

Many single-celled forms of life exist, but there are no known forms of animal life with 2, 3, 4, or 5 cells. Even the forms of life with 6-20 cells are parasites. They must have a complex animal as a host to provide such functions as digestion and respiration. If macroevolution happened, one should find many forms of life with 2-20 cells as transitional forms between one-celled and many-celled organisms.

Fossils all over the world show evidences of rapid burial. Many fossils, such as fossilized jellyfish, show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions that they were buried rapidly, before they could decay. Many other animals, buried in mass graves and in twisted and contorted positions, suggest violent and rapid burials over large areas. These observations, together with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly--not over hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, almost all sediments were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of the rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood. The fossil record is not evidence of slow change.

Did the early earth have oxygen in its atmosphere? If it did, the compounds (called amino acids) needed for life to evolve would have been destroyed by oxidation. But if there had been no oxygen, there would have been no ozone in the upper atmosphere, since ozone is simply a form of oxygen. Without ozone to shield the earth, the sun's ultraviolet radiation would destroy life. The only known way for both ozone and life to be here is for both to come into existence simultaneously--in other words, by creation.

Living matter is composed largely of proteins--long chains of amino acids. Since 1930, it has been known that amino acids cannot join together if oxygen is present. In other words, proteins could not have evolved from chance chemical reactions if the atmosphere contained oxygen. However, the chemistry of the earth's rocks, both on land and below ancient seas, shows that the earth had oxygen before the earliest fossils formed. Even earlier, oxygen would have been produced by solar radiation breaking water vapor apart into oxygen and hydrogen. Then some hydrogen, the lightest of all chemical elements, would have escaped into outer space, leaving behind oxygen. To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated. However, the early oceans or atmosphere would have diluted amino acids to the point where the required collisions between them would rarely occur. Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids. Furthermore, the proposed energy sources for forming proteins (the earth's heat, electrical discharges, or the sun's radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed. The many attempts to show how life might have arrived on earth have only demonstrated the futility of the effort, the immense complexity of even the simplest life, and the need for a vast intelligence to precede life.

The simplest conceivable form of single-celled life should have at least 600 different protein molecules. The mathematical probability that only one molecule could form by the chance arrangement of the proper sequence of amino acids is far less than 1 in 10^450 . (The magnitude of the number 10^450 can begin to be appreciated by realizing that the visible universe is about 10^28 inches in diameter.)

If sexual reproduction in plants, animals, and humans is a result of evolutionary sequences, an absolutely unbelievable series of chance events must have occurred at each stage. The amazingly complex, radically different, yet complementary reproductive systems of the male and female must have completely and independently evolved at each stage at about the same time and place. Just a slight incompleteness in only one of the two would make both reproductive systems useless, and the organism would become extinct. The physical, chemical, and emotional systems of the male and female would also need to be compatible. The millions of complex products of a male reproductive system (pollen or sperm) must have an affinity for and a mechanical, chemical, and electrical compatibility with the eggs of the female reproductive system. The many intricate processes occurring at the molecular level inside the fertilized egg would have to work with fantastic precision--processes that scientists can only describe in a general sense. The environment of this fertilized egg, from conception through adulthood and until it also reproduced with another sexually capable adult (who also "accidentally" evolved), would have to be tightly controlled. Millions of species must have had a similar string of remarkable "accidents."

I found some questions here. Click on the word ?Evolution on the left. There are some questions in there I can't answer. Maybe some of you can.