Evolution or Creationism?

Originally posted by Decebal If we say instead: In the beginning there was DNA, and DNA was with God, and DNA was God. Or perhaps: In the beginning there was DNA, and everything which has DNA is a part of God, and DNA is God himself. All of a sudden, we have a very modern statement, which today's science has difficulty refuting.

Science has no problem at all refuting it. The idea that DNA was present at the birth of the universe - or even at the birth of Earth - is ludicrous.

While your statement is a very nice thought out extended metaphor, if DNA is "THE WORD" , why is it in fierce competition with ITSELF? In this case, because it all originated as "THE WORD" or God. Are you saying God is engaged at war with Himslef? Or was it all his plan from the beginning?

At the root of evolution there is also a held 'belief' that life came from simple self replicating chemicals. Although it hopes to explain the subsequent events it does not satisfactorily deal with the 'origin of life'.

If we start talking about "he" and "it", we should think of what it was originally in Greek. To my knowledge, I don't think that Greek makes such a distinction: it was the translators who decided to pick "he" instead of "it", based on the interpretation you presented.

Anyway, I don't really want to get involved in a detailed theological debate. My main point was that religion in general and christianity in particular can be made to at least not contrast, perhaps even largely coincide with the scientific view of the universe: it's simply a matter of interpretation.

My take is this.

There was nothing and then there was somthing, for this to happen there must have been some "power" which caused our world, the universe and so on to be created. This "power" is the all-mighty, creator of everything and has many names in many languages in many faiths.

The problem I have with Darwinists is that they have drifted from Science and into following it as a religion. The way Darwinists get so worked up and frustrated with those that don't "agree" with them, with those that don't follow their views is nothing but dogmatic behaviour. They have become a religion, they have "faith" in Darwin and are not open to anything that tries to proove otherwise.

This is against the fundamentals of science, if they were true scientists they would strive to learn more, investigate every avenue and not dismiss anything. Once upon a time some thought the world was square, that the universe revolved around us, we didn't know about electicity and didn't have telecommunications etc etc back then it would seem impossible what we have to today so we shouldn't rule out what we don't understand.

What Science claims today can change tomorrow, that's the beauty of science but some Darwinists find this hard to comprehend. The very mention of any kind of "creation" or the possibilty of God get's them all worked up, foaming at the mouth and shouting profanities.

According to Islam, basically there was nothing, then from a cloud of dust the Universe was created, Allah created the world in six of the creater's time periods (which could be any time-span).    

The Islamic viewpoint is not actually different to what Physics teaches today regarding the Big-Bang.

What is the Islamic understanding and outlook onto evolution?

here's the message i'm getting, you are saying that god exists because science can t explain everything, and to fillin the holes in our knowledge, we choose to belive in god???

I'm saying science and God are not mutally exclusive. In fact I think they are mutally inclusive, the existance of one implies the existance of the other.

A key strategy of the creationists (or the intelligent design movement) is to pursuade there general public that there is a debate within the scientific community between those support the theory of evolution and those that support intelligent design.  That is no such debate. The overwhelming majority of scientists support the notion that life has evolved.

Originally posted by Bulldog The problem I have with Darwinists is that they have drifted from Science and into following it as a religion. The way Darwinists get so worked up and frustrated with those that don't "agree" with them, with those that don't follow their views is nothing but dogmatic behaviour. They have become a religion, they have "faith" in Darwin and are not open to anything that tries to proove otherwise.

The theory of evolutoin is not based on faith, far from it, it is based on solid scientific evidence and explains much of the diversity and richness of life that we observe today.
If you are to accuse science of being dogmatic because it does not take seriously those that defend creationism, you do not know the first thing about scientist. No scientist would waste his time debating on religiousl issues on the existence of supernatural being. Science aims to build models based on experimental and observational evidence, and to use these models to explain or predict the behavior of  complex systems. Scientific theories are falsifiable and can be shown to be wrong. Creationism and religion are not falsifiable as they are simply a matter of belief.  Creationism or the theory of intelligent design are unscienfitic because they do not meet any of the objectives that science is supposed to follow, they cannot be used to model or predict the complex ecological systems, they merely put all this complexity under the rag by claiming that there is a supreme being that has created it all.
This is not science, it is religion.
 
There can be no debate with theologicians, because any debate format would give the false impression that there are two sides to a scienfic disagreement. Creationist would have in effect won their goal when a real scientists agrees to have a debate with them and grant them the propaganda victory that they crave.

This is against the fundamentals of science, if they were true scientists they would strive to learn more, investigate every avenue and not dismiss anything.

How exactly do you investigate the existance of God? And how is such an investigation useful?
It is none of a scientists business to undertake such an investigation.

According to Islam, basically there was nothing, then from a cloud of dust the Universe was created, Allah created the world in six of the creater's time periods (which could be any time-span).     The Islamic viewpoint is not actually different to what Physics teaches today regarding the Big-Bang. What is the Islamic understanding and outlook onto evolution?

Regardless of Islamic understanding, evolution is a complete scientific theory. Like all scientific theories it is a falsifiable theory, and there is no evidence so far to suggest it is false, but plenty of evidence in support of it.


Edited by bg_turk - 06-Jan-2007 at 20:10

Bg_Turk
The theory of evolutoin is not based on faith, far from it, it is based on solid scientific evidence and explains much of the diversity and richness of life that we observe today.

It's turning into one about faith, exploring or even considering alternate avenues is considered to be a scientific "sin" by some hardcore Darwinists.



If you are to accuse science of being dogmatic because it does not take seriously those that defend creationism, you do not know the first thing about scientist.No scientist would waste his time debating on religiousl issues on the existence of supernatural being.

And if you think that no scientists investigate or are open to the possibility of the universe being "created" by a "power" then you obviously don't follow science very well.

What you are mentioning is "dogmatic". The rejection of ideas primarily because one subjectively "believes" them to be "a waste of time", is nothing but dogmatic unscientific behaviour.


Bg_Turk
Science aims to build models based on experimental and observational evidence, and to use these models to explain or predict the behavior of complex systems. Scientific theories are falsifiable and can be shown to be wrong.

Exactly and this means that what Science says today can be refuted tomorrow. For this reason alone the concept of a creating power cannot be dismissed untill "proven" to not exist.


Creationism and religion are not falsifiable as they are simply a matter of belief. Creationism or the theory of intelligent design are unscienfitic because they do not meet any of the objectives that science is supposed to follow, they cannot be used to model or predict the complex ecological systems, they merely put all this complexity under the rag by claiming that there is a supreme being that has created it all.
This is not science, it is religion.

Your missing the concept. Regarding Islam, Science is not seen as an obstacle or a problem, it is encouraged, aquiring knowledge and progressing in science in emphasised. This is because the human brain cannot comprehend what it does not understand. As Allah created everything in the universe the only way to attain the knowledge to even begin to get close to understanding the beauty and harmony of this is through science. The more scientifically developed, the better we understand how Allah created everything and how everything works and occurs. The enlightenment of the mind brings us closer to the understanding of the creater.



There can be no debate with theologicians, because any debate format would give the false impression that there are two sides to a scienfic disagreement. Creationist would have in effect won their goal when a real scientists agrees to have a debate with them and grant them the propaganda victory that they crave.

This is paranoia.




How exactly do you investigate the existance of God? And how is such an investigation useful?

It's like asking 500 hundred years ago, how can we investigate flying into Space? it would have seemed ridiculous to the "science" of the day, however, its not absurd or an impossiblity as science has advanced and we have the means to conduct such research and investigation.


     


    

Why is it an insult on science? Science is always changing, what was an insult to sceience today may be proven tomorrow. I just pointed out that the more knowledge we aquire the closer we will get to understanding into things like how we, the world and universe were created. Depending on your religion, it can be percieved as getting closer to understanding the wonder's of the creating power.

The problem Christian Creationists have is that they believe the world was created in 7 days which causes a conflict with meainstream scientific views.