Evolution in Action

An anonymous reader writes "A new species of plant came into existence about 30 years ago. It is a fertile hybrid which cannot breed with either of its parent species."

Comments

Imaginary Scientist-Creationist dialogue

[Mazzaroth]

I wonder what would be the next Creationist's intervention in this imaginary dialogue I just created...

What do you think?

Creationist: God created everything 8000 years ago.

Scientist: A lot of evidences indicate that the Universe is a lot older. Astrophysicists and Cosmologist, armed with giant telescopes, estimiate the universe is 13 billion years old. Geologist are saying Earth is about 4.5 billion years. Paleontologists have dinosaurs's bones 200 millions years old. All physical and verifiable evidences prooves you wrong - the universe is older than 8000 years.

Creationnist: God simply created the universe and everything already old and ongoing. Everything have been created 8000 years ago. He created the stars already old, the bones in the rocks, everything.

Scientist: If everything has been created already old like you say, how do you differenciate between the real old (your 8000 years) and the faked old (my 13 billion years)? Since I am sure God did not do any mistake, the faked old is probably perfect. How can you proove then that everything has been created 8000 years ago and why would God deceive us that way?

Creationnist: The real old is 8000 years because it is written in the Bible. It is written that God created the Universe in 6 days. If you add the numbers up (with the generations describe in the Bible and so on), you reach about 8000 years. Why would God do such thing? It is impossible for us to know.

Scientist: Let me use your reasonning. How about this then: God created everything 10 seconds ago. Everything have been created already old and olgoing - our conversation and our memories included. Even the Bible have just been created 10 second ago with the intent to make you believe everything have been created 8000 years ago. The Universe have also been created 10 seconds ago with the intention to make me believe everything has been created 13 billion years ago.

Creationnist: How can you proove this?

Scientist: I can't. In my reasonning, God is perfect and created everything perfectly. There is no difference between the faked and the real. I simply just got a revelation.
You see, the problem with such a reasonning is that everything become arbitrary. We are the puppets of a God that deceives us into believing whatever He wishes so. We can then believe everything we wish (or got 'revealed'). The only common ground become the faked reality, the one where Astrophysicists, Cosmologists, Paleontologists and so on agrees on - 13 billion years Universe. The faked reality then become the only real one...

Definition of real science

[bigmattana]

Real science presumes that the answer is *not* known, and tries to guess an answer based on what is actually evident in the world.

Those who believe in evolution and in creation are obviously both trying to come up with guesses based on what they have observed in the world! The only difference is that their experiments are not simple but based on an entire lifetime of observations. I do not see evolutionists changing their mind every time a discovery is made that seems to go against evolution. Why? The same reason a Creationist doesn't -- An entire lifetime of observations.

Historically, science has not limited itself to the idea that there is no possibilty of God, outside forces, etc. Newton was sure of his theories only up to the point that God or outside forces could be working. It was not until the last hundred years that the scientific community has assumed the nonexistance of God in scientific theories. (This doesn't mean that they took a stance saying there is no god, but that the assumption that no gods can be interfering with the "laws" of the universe is required or else nothing can be determined to be always true.) While this idea makes some sense, it also means that what you are calling SCIENCE CANNOT BE USED TO DISPROVE GOD OR ANY OF HIS ACTIONS! Any scientific theory that is not assumed to be accompanied with the phrase "Unless there is an unseen god or "force" extrenal to the universe" is BY ITS VERY NATURE CIRCULAR REASONING. This means evolution is a valid theory as long as the hand of God (or some other intelligent "being") played no part in species development. Even if a new species is observed today, does that prove that a god did not have an unseed hand in creating the mutation?

The idea that God created all species in a progression is a perfect answer to what is observed in nature, but is not considered a scietific explanation based only on the modern definition of science.