Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site qubix.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!sun!qubix!lab From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Let's have scientific evolutionism too Message-ID: <1339@qubix.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 22:50:49 EDT Article-I.D.: qubix.1339 Posted: Thu Aug 23 22:50:49 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 29-Aug-84 01:08:58 EDT References: <3388@cbscc.UUCP> <7518@unc.UUCP> <697@opus.UUCP> Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA Lines: 85 [Modern man is the missing link apes and humans :-] Origins. How did what is get to be the way it is? Unless there are eyewitnesses, there is no scientific "proof" of what occurred. We can formulate models, test them against one another, and see what accounts for the evidence better, with fewer secondary assumptions. Too many assume evolution is *proven*. Forget it - that evolution has occurred as evolutionists would like us to believe *cannot* be *scientifically* proven. Neither can creation. What has been done is that a *model* to explain the evidence has been set forth, and now a challenging model has also been set forth. What are they? Basically: NATURALISM: the features that are present have arisen wholly from present laws and processes; SUPERNATURALISM: present laws and processes are inadequate to explain current features; therefore, supernatural intervention must have occurred. According to the ideas of many, "science" cannot allow for supernatural intervention. (Indeed, if there were whimsical supernatural intervention, scientists should probably pack up and find other jobs.) However, if a naturalistic model requires secondary assumptions that are either numerous or improbable, a supernatural model should be considered if it is *scientifically usable as a model*. Further, since the two models are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, evidence against the naturalistic model compels consideration of the supernatural one. Evolution presents itself as the naturalistic model. Time, influx of energy from the sun, natural selection, and other things are seen as enabling this to occur. But the evolutionary model has a multitude of secondary assumptions - things that the model does not *predict*, and thus must be *explained* - and many of these tend toward the improbable. Can a supernatural explanation provide a simpler solution: more predictability and fewer secondary assumptions? The idea "It was all formed ten seconds ago just as it is" does not qualify as a scientific model, for it gives no value for predicting the kind of evidence we should expect to find. If the intervention is not orderly, the model becomes useless. Scientific creation proposes a usable model. (I have yet to see or hear of any other supernatural *scientific models*.) Its concept of the supernatural activity is: "...a period of special creation in the beginning, during which all the basic laws and categories of nature, including the major kinds of plants and animals, as well as man, were brought into existence by special creative and integrative processes which are no longer in operation. "Once the creation was finished, these processes of creation were replaced by processes of conservation, which were designed by the creator to sustain and maintain the basic systems he had made. "...a basic principle of disintegration now at work in nature." Morris, _Scientific Creationism_, p12 The creation model also posits a catastrophic source for geologic features - "formed rapidly over a short period of time" [Morris, p91] - rather than uniformitarian (slowly over long periods of time). What kind of evidence should one expect to find from such a model? The Laws of Thermodynamics are an obvious conclusion, and fit well within the model. The large and *systematic* gaps between kinds of plants and animals also is predicted by the model. Life should arise only from life; new kinds should not be appearing. Rock formations should be similar throughout what are call geologic "ages." The fossil record should have systematic gaps. Mutations should by and large be harmful rather than beneficial. A model can also be tested by what it allows, i.e., what fits within its range and does not have to be "explained." Some example of this for the creation model are: fossil structures could extend through several sedimentary layers; strata would not have to appear in a particular order; the earth could be fairly young; "living fossils" indicating a fixity of kinds. Creation *does* stand on its own scientific merits. The evidence is there. The only difficulty is in accepting a supernatural model, which can occur only when the naturalistic model fails - which the evolution model has. -- The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford {amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.