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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: a creationist returns to the net
Message-ID: <2224@mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Sep-84 14:18:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcnc.2224
Posted: Sun Sep  9 14:18:22 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Sep-84 20:43:16 EDT
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 78

I am glad to see the return of Ray Miller to the net.  Last spring,
before the political upheaval in this part of the world, he and I were
in the throes of a fairly heavy debate.  Since I seem to have been
returned to the net in a more stable position, I am more than happy
to take up where we left off.  There has been a great deal said in
net.origins in the past few weeks and a great deal more said that I
was not in a position to read.  I will try to deal with some of Ray's
points.

On the relative 'scientific' merits of creationism and evolutionary theory:


>>The point Larry Bickford was trying to make was that strictly speaking,
>>science must be *repeatable* so that it can be *testable*.  No one was
>>around for the origin of the earth.  No one was around for the origin
>>of life on this planet.  Thus, creation and evolution are in the same
>>boat.  Whatever happened occurred in the past and thus falls outside
>>the scientific method.  That is not to say science cannot investigate
>>the matter.  Model, and not proof, is a better word for the study of
>>the question of origins.

Well, not quite.  Evolutionists maintain that the fundamental
relationships and processes which govern the universe are unchanging.
Given the same initial state the process is repeatable without outside
intervention.  Creationists, on the other hand, maintain that at some
point or for some period a series of *special* laws were in effect due
to outside intervention.  For the process to be repeated this agency
must choose (?) to intervene again.

On the mutual exclusivity and exhaustivity of creationism and evolutionary
theory:

>>Obviously then, you haven't read any creationist material at all.  The
>>reason this is true is that either: naturalistic laws are sufficient to
>>explain all we can see and measure are they aren't; all of life
>>developed from a single source or it didn't; random processes acting on
>>organic matter are sufficient to add the amount of information
>>contained in the DNA program of the human body or they aren't; the
>>fossil record paints a picture of an upward growing tree or it doesn't;
>>etc. etc. etc.

Ray, stop setting up straw men!  Evolutionary theory as we understand
it no more subsumes all possible naturalistic models of origin than
Creationism covers all possible non-naturalistic models.  (Creationists
continually deny the validity of the notion of life on earth being
"seeded" by an outside by otherwise naturalistic agency even though the
"evidence" for that is indistiguishable from the "evidence" for
creationism.)  This is one of the sillier nonsequitors that creationism
offers us.

>>On the contrary, it is precisely *because* of the scientific data that
>>I'm a creationist.  I'm GLAD the fossil record is the way that it is.
>>Some of you already know via personal mail that I used to be a theistic
>>evolutionist.  Upon hearing: 1) alternative, but valid, explanations
>>for well known data and 2) data that is somehow, um, er, not covered in
>>classrooms dominated by evolutionists, I was forced by compelling
>>evidence to change my religious interpretation of Genesis.  So no, I
>>no longer have a "test" of my faith when I look at the record of
>>paleontology, geology, biology, etc.  It simply confirms it.

Clearly, I find the evidence less compelling than you do.  (You never did
take up my challenge over the Paluxy datum.)  While there are seemingly
large numbers of seemingly anomalous observations when reported a site at
a time, they really only cover a few pages when listed separately.  Were
the evidence *confirming* the evolutionary viewpoint listed similarly it
would, and does, constitute volumes upon volumes.

When confronted with explanations for these 'anomalous observations' that
are consistant with evolutionary theory, creationists seem just as bad
about dismissing them out-of-hand as they accuse evolutionary theorists
of being about their datum.  Well, I rejoin the argument as one who will
listen, and make some serious effort to refute fairly, such 'evidence.'
I expect the same sort of fairness from you.

-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				          {decvax|akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch