Creation

Creation is the divine act by which, according to various religious and philosophical traditions, the world was brought into existence. In terms of the Christian faith it includes the clear statement that almighty God, the one and only true God created everything that is at a specific point of time 'in the beginning.' This is how creation has always been understood both in Jewish and later in Christian theology. Jesus took the words of Genesis literally as did His contemporaries. This is one area, where there is no recorded conflict between Him and the teachers of His day.

As such it specifically excludes, in terms of its normal definition, reference to evolution, since this is, by definition, a naturalistic process which excludes all and any aspects of divine creation or intervention. Some people who believe both The Bible and in evolution attempt to marry the two, although the two beliefs are diametrically opposed. In so doing they reinterpret the Bible to fit the evolutionary paradigm, contrary to its clear meaning.
Creation is the act of bringing the world into ordered existence by God.

Creationism is scientific evidence, belief in Creation or arguments put forth to show the inportance of what God Created. Evolution is always trying to counter Creation because of the belief of God creating the universe. In evolutionists view point, creation is a mere lie. And one thing you can tell about an evolutionist is this:

An evolutionist always believes that a Creationist uses the bible for answers.

However, if we weren't there in the past to observe events, how can we know what happened so we can explain the present? It would be great to have a time machine so we could know for sure about past events. Christians of course claim they do, in a sense, have a 'time machine'. They have a book called the Bible which claims to be the Word of God who has always been there, and has revealed to us the major events of the past about which we need to know. On the basis of these events (Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, etc.), we have a set of presuppositions to build a way of thinking which enables us to interpret the evidence of the present. Evolutionists have certain beliefs about the past/present that they presuppose, e.g. no God (or at least none who performed acts of special creation), so they build a different way of thinking to interpret the evidence of the present. Thus, when Christians and non-Christians argue about the evidence, in reality they are arguing about their interpretations based on their presuppositions. That's why the argument often turns into something like: 'Can't you see what I'm talking about?' 'No, I can't. Don't you see how wrong you are?' 'No, I'm not wrong. It's obvious that I'm right.' 'No, it's not obvious.' And so on. These two people are arguing about the same evidence, but they are looking at the evidence through different glasses. It's not until these two people recognize the argument is really about the presuppositions they have to start with, that they will begin to deal with the foundational reasons for their different beliefs. A person will not interpret the evidence differently until they put on a different set of glasses-which means to change one's presuppositions. I've found that a Christian who understands these things can actually put on the evolutionist's glasses (without accepting the presuppositions as true) and understand how they look at evidence. However, for a number of reasons, including spiritual ones, a non-Christian usually can't put on the Christian's glasses-unless they recognize the presuppositional nature of the battle and are thus beginning to question their own presuppositions. It is of course sometimes possible that just by presenting 'evidence', you can convince a person that a particular scientific argument for creation makes sense 'on the facts'. But usually, if that person then hears a different interpretation of the same evidence that seems better than yours, that person will swing away from your argument, thinking they have found 'stronger facts'. However, if you had helped the person to understand this issue of presuppositions, then they will be better able to recognize this for what it is-a different interpretation based on differing presuppositions-i.e. starting beliefs. As a teacher, I found that whenever I taught the students what I thought were the 'facts' for creation, then their other teacher would just re-interpret the facts. The students would then come back to me saying, 'Well sir, you need to try again.' However, when I learned to teach my students how we interpret facts, and how interpretations are based on our presuppositions, then when the other teacher tried to reinterpret the facts, the students would challenge the teacher's basic assumptions. Then it wasn't the students who came back to me, but the other teacher! This teacher was upset with me because the students wouldn't accept her interpretation of the evidence and challenged the very basis of her thinking. What was happening was that I had learned to teach the students how to think rather than just what to think. What a difference that made to my class! I have been overjoyed to find, sometimes decades later, some of those students telling me how they became active, solid Christians as a result.

Ken Ham ^

ID can refer to either a pseudo scientific concept, a philosophical argument, or a political/ideological crusade against science and naturalism. I will explain the arguments against each.

The pseudoscientific concept is pseudo scientific because it is not testable empirically, and has no potential to ever be falsified. The scientific method (observe, hypothesize, predict, experiment and invite peer review) cannot and has not been brought to bear on it, but it's supporters want it taught in science textbooks anyway, and are using the political process to bypass the scientific process, making it the very definition of pseudoscience.

The philosophical argument is that life, the universe etc is too complex or too orderly to have arisen by any means other than intelligence. While I myself do not agree with that logic, this is the most respectable and logical form ID takes. The next and last is the sleaziest. The political/ideological movement known as ID is a movement intent on undermining science and naturalism. The organization leading the ID movement in the US, the Discovery Institute, had leaked an internal memo called the Wedge Document (available on the internet, google it and you will find it in about 10 seconds) which they first denied was from their organization, and later admitted to. It laid out their plans to undermine the teaching and public acceptance of evolution based on clear religious motives. They blame scientific naturalism for every bad thing that's happened in the past several centuries and want to open science up to include non-natural explanations, which of course cannot be tested by any scientific means. This last form of ID is particularly awful because it seeks to lie to children (teach them false science) and uses all manner of lies, manipulation and deception to meet it's goals. The leaders of the ID movement routinely lie about their religious motives, lie about the state of scientific acceptance of their arguments, and lie about their true motives. If they wanted to come out and argue that naturalism or science is responsible for this war or that social trend, that would be fine. They would be wrong, and would be shown to be wrong very easily. But at least it would be an honest mistake or an honest opinion, not a dishonest propaganda campaign.

Intelligent design says we were made by something smart. Science says we evolved; Science has no opinion one way or the other as to whether or not something intelligent and supernatural was involved in that evolution. Basically, the reason some people would prefer that ID not be taught in school is because it's religion, and it's a waste of time in a science classroom. If God was involved there's no way to prove or disprove that - so why deal with it in a class solely devoted to things you *can* prove or disprove? Religion's what your parents and church are for, not school. There's a place for ID, but it's not in a science class. Basically scientists are upset that religious people want to say religion is a science when the religious answer is usually "it's a miracle". Nobody will ever learn anything new if the answer is "it's a miracle". Science wants to know why; if the answer is "don't ask questions, that's God's business" that's not really useful, so scientists want to keep the two firmly separated.

Another Answer

I will be anwering their points in order to demonstrate arguments against Intelligent Design, because arguments against ID consistent entirely of deconstructing ID's nonarguments.

Here is their first point: ---- "Any argument against intelligent design would have to demonstrate how information and design, including irreducible complexity, can arise by chance processes." ---- >>>>This sounds very much like someone who has bought the ID sophistry line, hook, and sinker, as even the very first sentence has many things wrong with it. First, 'information' in ID has never been a coherent concept. In fact, in the case of Dembski's attempts to mislead, using definitions of information from information theory shows that specification (which is a reasonable substitution for the responder's 'design') is the antithesis of information. On that same note, irreducible complexity is also a highly misleading term, and one which is quite simply inane. How does 'irreducible complexity' work, you ask? Well, let's just see how the originator (and definer) of the term goes about showing it: take a biochemical process with multiple parts, declare that taking out any part would make the process no longer perform its current function, and then declare that because of this, it could not have evolved. This is a deceptively convincing argument, but there is nothing that forces evolutionary changes to always add parts to a process, which is what one must assume to find Behe's argument a reflection of reality. If we were to take an example at a larger scale than Behe usually concentrates on, we could look at horse's digits, of which four have been lost from their ancestor, which posessed five. However, maybe that's not complex enough for someone convinced by ID's nonsensical ideas, so instead we will take the example of a European Mayfly's front limbs, which are used for mating. Does it really make sense to look at this fact and declare that because of this, the Mayfly could not have arisen through natural evolutionary mechanisms? To use the reasoning of Behe, we'd have to start declaring that four legs cannot support a Mayfly, certainly during the transition (denying contingency). The answerer also used the classic Creationist terminology: it isn't evolutionary explanations that need to be offered, but 'chance processes'. The problem here is that 'chance' can mean various things depending on the context. Many people in this discussion call 'chance' anything that doesn't involve something like a deity. However, there's no need to use that language if that's the case. Instead, it is used to mislead by implying that evolutionary mechanisms are 'random', like static or flipping a coin, when in fact natural selection is constrained by the environment, heredity, contingency, etc, all of which fit nicely under the term 'deterministic'. But I've gone on quite a while on ID's general weaknesses. The more obvious problem, still with the very first sentence, is that it is very likely an argument from ignorance. It's an essential declaration that unless there is an evolutionary explanation for X, there aren't arguments against ID. This at best assumes ID's accuracy and at worst is presented as a cogent argument. Well, that took a while. Hopefully the rest won't be so verbose! ---- "It would probably also need to demonstrate how the genetic code and the 'reading' of that code as well as its repair and replication mechanisms could all arise simultaneously by chance processes."

---- >>>>This should be familiar by now. They're using the creationist rhetoric of 'chance processes' and the assumption of their own accuracy to demand answers from others. If they don't get them, this person thinks ID 'wins' by default because they've entirely skipped the very first problem with ID: none of the arguments for its accuracy are interesting, let alone sound. Many are based on obvious fallacies, some (like Behe's) on pure, arrogant ignorance. So, time for some labels: this one's an argument from ignorance or a denial of the burden of proof. ---- "Any argument against ID would need specifically need to be on a scientific basis, as ID proponents specifically deny any role for religion in their 'movement' which is why most Creation scientists, while appreciating the work done by ID scientists, distance themselves somewhat from them."

---- >>>>Why should the arguments against ID be on a scientific basis when ID itself is not just pseudoscience but illogic? It doesn't take an in-depth familiarity with biology to realize the vacuity of ID, just a little bit of the vocabulary of logic. ID proponents lie. The responder may want to get used to this, because despite denying any role for religion in their 'movement', these pesky things like the Wedge Document and Casey Luskin in general keep popping up. Or 'Of Pandas and People'. Or Dembski's declarations of his motives and how he wraps up ID into his Christianity. ---- "All the arguments used by ID are scientific and scientifically verifiable and so arguments against ID would need to do the same." ---- >>>>The responder would have to demonstrate a single one. However, they can't, because ID simply does not have 'scientifically verifiable' arguments. It has no predictions, in fact in many cases the logic is so vague and twisted that it's entirely untestable even with speculation. I would recommend to readers that reading the 'party line' of ID and the short responses of those defending science is not enough to understand why ID isn't scientifically verifiable. For me, it helped significantly to read about the scientific method and the scientific blogs which argued, quite well, how ID's arguments do not fit the bill. ---- "Just so' stories about a hypothetical primordial soup in which life arose by chance from chemicals, contrary to the scientific law of Biogenesis would not disprove ID anymore than it does Creation." ---- >>>>Now it's very apparent that the poster is likely a creationist unwilling to openly admit their opinion. Even the major ID proponents recognize the difference between abiogenesis and evolutionary theory and anyone who finds the above nonsense convincing can simply read any definition of 'evolution' (biological) and 'abiogenesis' to see the difference. The relevance of all this is that ID is sold as an alternative explanation for evolutionary mechanisms, not those of the origin of life. However, if we are thinking that God is doing this, you can see how easy it would be to insert the creation of life in there. ---- "One of the problems with arguing against ID on the part of some is that they fail to understand that it is, in large part, an argument by analogy ." ---- >>>>This would be because it is not an argument by analogy. It's an argument by sophistry. However, rather than getting into that explanation, anyone can see that an argument by analogy is not scientific because it's an admission of having no empirical evidence. Why is this? Because there is no analogy necessary if the empirical evidence is actually there. The author may have meant 'inference', however even in that case it is again easy to see that it's an appeal to intuition most of the time, pretending that the invention of a 'designer' actually explains the things we see in biology. It doesn't: the designer ID proponents always point out, man, would design things quite differently, and this is where 'stupid design' comes in. Man designs things without the level of contingency we see in biology. Man, by planning ahead, can avoid silly actualities like the laryngeal nerve which takes what any designer would call an unnecessarily long and looping path. Why is this significant? Contingency in evolution explains these things, as evolutionary mechanisms tinker, they do not design. Parts can fold in on themselves (on an evolutionary time scale), they can change shape, etc, moving parts like nerves up, around, twisted... But a designer? No, that 'analogy' and 'inference' just lost all its supposedly intuitive explanatory power. This is why Dembski et al have presented a reductionist version of ID with incoherent concepts of 'information' and 'specification': they know that the general 'designer' does not act like a person, so they've attempted to cut off all other properties of the person outside of the mythical creation of 'specified complexity'. ---- "What this means is that we take an example of something that we know to happen and use this as an analogy for something about which we wish to theorize. This is done, for example in the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial) program where the argument goes like this - 'We know that no signal from outer space could arise by chance, it must come from an intelligent life form, therefore if we detect one, we have discovered extraterrestrials.' This is essentially the type of analogy used by the ID people." ---- >>>>First, it is not an analogy. Second, it is not the inference made by ID proponenets. In SETI, the generic hypothesis goes like this: if intelligent life exists out in the cosmos, our only current way of getting even a hint of that directly is to scan EM frequencies. Similarly, the only intelligent life we have to go on, or at least the only intelligent life capable of creating such signals is us. In order to communicate with these signals, we must do certain things with them. Therefore, our best bet to find things out there like us is to look for signals like ours. How is the ID "analogy" like that? Well... it's not. Sure, it has the comparison to people, however it is not couched in the honest ignorance of those in SETI. It is not presented as, 'well, if a designer exists, we'd expect to see X, Y, and Z. Let's look for that.' That would be reasonable. It would also require ID proponents to actually do some science on ID, which we all know is far too much to ask. ---- "They are essentially saying 'we know that complex systems which are irreducibly complex and therefore require a whole lot of things to fall into place simultaneously do not happen by chance in the real world.'" ---- >>>>There's that weasel word again. "by chance". This is a concept which was disposed with all the way back at the origins of a mechanistic evolutionary theory with Lamarck and Darwin, both of whom had ideas of how lineages changed which depended on a deterministic environment. A short explanation of things wrong with the responder's point: irreducible complexity is a nonsense (and misleading-named) term. Similarly, in 'the real world', the poster is trying to appeal to one's everyday experiences. They may not have realized this, but a huge amount of evolution's history, and therefore the contingency which impacts current systems, occurred over vast amounts of time, periods which are almost unimaginably large. Unimaginably large periods of time are clearly not everyday experience and have significantly impacted what we see today in biological systems. ---- "Secondly, biological systems are also much more complex than the technology we observe to be designed, therefore, the conclusion is that these systems have been designed by an intelligence." ---- >>>>Now, this doesn't make any sense at all if we try to pin down the ideas of complexity and then look at the actual real world. It almost reads like bad religious apologetics in its blurring of what its terms mean. 'designed by an intelligence'? If you weren't appealing to intelligence as part of the 'designer' "explanation" in the first place, what is any ID proponent then referring to? How does the latter part of the argument follow from the first? More complex = smarter? If we take Dembski's version of complexity, which is garbled and non-explicit, and use the common information theory idea of information and specification, we'll find that increasing information means increasing the uncompressibility (randomness) of the set in question, something accomplished nicely by static or entirely random things. Now we get to throw the straw man of evolution as 'random' back in the ID proponent's face, as their obfuscatory terms result in a designer who maximizes randomness. However, there's also specification, which is the antithesis of that, so in the end the 'designer' is, by analogy, simultaneously hot and cold, also hungry and not hungry, as those things which possess these two contradictory properties are made by people, right? Apologies for the ramble. Yes, sarcasm was rampant throughout. ---- "This analogical argument is the central piece of argumentation supporting ID. It needs to be shown to be false to disprove ID." ---- >>>>Why disprove that which isn't disprovable and is based on a large slew of pseudophilosophy, pseudologic, and psueodscience? The problems with ID are so deep that 'disproven' is likely impossible, because ID hasn't even started to get an inkling of offering a 'proof' of any kind. The examples like the laryngeal nerve, the example of contingency or even the remaining function of a mousetrap tie clip are attempts to show how ID's declarations are not just wrong, but are deeply ignorant and illogical. Looking at how ID proponents deal with criticism is the best evidence for its lack of scientific, and logic credibility: a short slew of nonresponses followed by a declaration of how much the others 'don't understand', followed by an explanation of their position which is either consistent with the one criticized or so vague as to be meaningless. ---- "In other words, it needs to be demonstrated that life, in a very complex way can arise by chance." ---- >>>>This is just getting sad. Evolution is not abiogenesis. ID isn't even presented as a challenger to abiogenesis and all the poster is doing is exposing their underlying opinions, ones they'd prefer to keep secret. "This would basically be another form of 'spontaneous generation' disproved by Pasteur and formulated as the scientific law of Biogenesis - life only comes from life." ----Pasteur's experiments disproved the notion that entire flies arose from broth spontaneously, etc. These are entire, large organisms that by popular convention were often held to simply pop into existence, like mice being a product of improperly stored hay as opposed to the result of successful parentage. It is quite common for creationist to exaggerate the situation to the generality of 'life does not come from nonlife', though, as if scientists were not aware of Pasteur. It is a rather insulting idea, when you get right down to it. "It would also need to show, not just the spontaneous generation of life but the spontaneous development of complex structures in the DNA blueprint itself in an organism, in order for it to develop these irreducibly complex systems." ---- Another argument from ignorance/shifting of the burden of proof. The problem with ID is that it doesn't explain anything, it has no specific predictions which follow from its ideas. Even if there were absolutely no scientific explanation for how life changes or began, it would not make ID the default 'correct' answer nor would it fix the deep flaws in ID logic. "These are arguments against ID which remain to be proven, especially since they go against known scientific laws." ---- This is a perfect example of the arrogance ID inspires: it gives people the impression that scientists are unaware of Pasteur, it relies on an ignorance of scientific terminology and the scientific method, and first and foremost fallacy. Hopefully that wasn't too painful for everyone. To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there', or "Life was always there', and be done with it. --Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design p. 141 "In December 2005, federal Judge John E. Jones III ruled that ID must meet the same fate that creationism met in 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled religious doctrines can't be promoted in secular institutions under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Judge Jones wrote in his decision regarding a policy of the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district that added ID to the school's biology program: The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy...." " Two scientists often cited by defenders of ID are Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press, 1996), and William Dembski, author of Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1998). .... However, their arguments are identical in function to the creationists' arguments: rather than provide positive evidence for their own position, they mainly try to find weaknesses in natural selection. As already noted, however, even if their arguments are successful against natural selection, that would not increase the probability of ID." Excerpted from "Intelligent Design". Please see link..

Presumably, a really intelligent designer would always produce the best design. Yet the world is full of imperfect designs that could only be explained by evolution - the exact opposite of what is usually proposed by advocates of intelligent design. * Why would aquatic creatures such whales and dolphins have lungs, when gills are more suited to aquatic life? Science tells us that whales and dolphins evolved from land-based mammals. * Why do tree-dwelling koalas have their pouches opening downwards, risking the lives of their young? Science tells us that koalas evolved from burrowing marsupials similar to wombats, which have backward-facing pouches that avoid dirt getting thrown into the pouch. * Why do humans have: sinuses that drain upwards, causing so many people to suffer sinus problerms; poorly supported diaphragms; skeletons so unsuited to walking upright. Science tells us that when our distant ancestors walked on all fours, sinuses drained normally, diaphragms were supported appropriately and our skeletons were well suited to the task. If we answer the Intelligent Designer has been existing all along, then why not go a step further and state that everything has been in existing all alone. Intelligent Design does not provide good arguments to begin with and because of this its proponents usually attempt to shift the burden of proof. One of the answers above did just this, beginning with the argument from ignorance: if you don't explain how something arose, my answer is correct. This is how many of Intelligent Design's arguments work, it's fallacious, and it mirrors its antievolution creationist roots. The vast majority of Intelligent Design arguments are in fact arguments from ignorance, including Irreducible Complexity, the idea that a complex structure is too complex to have evolved with stepwise mutations. To be able to say this with any certainty, someone like Michael Behe, Irreducible Complexity's resurrector (see Paley's Watchmaker), would need to demonstrate that he has gone through all the possibilities and ruled them out. He does not do this and as such Irreducible Complexity relies entirely on shifting the burden of proof. When he could be doing research, he writes popular books that are easily refuted. It is this type of behavior that leads some to call Intelligent Design a science stopper. William Dembski, however, has provided a hypothetical argument that is not an argument from ignorance, something known as "specified complexity" and the "design inference". The little he has given in support of his idea has been thoroughly criticized by mathematicians and information theorists, however the strongest objection to his claims is that "specified complexity" is never openly-presented or fully explained, always to be found in his next book. Given his many predictions about the demise of "Darwinism", one would expect that if his ideas had any validity, he would release them over a ten-year period! Most of the arguments for specified complexity involve vague explanations of what specification and complexity are individually and describing designed objects as having high specified complexity. At no point is specified complexity presented as would be expected for any slightly-rigorous mathematical concept: in full, with work shown and clearly defined. There is scant else in the repertoire of arguments for Intelligent Design. A large number of the arguments are simply criticisms of mainstream evolution, usually based on lazy scholarship, which in no way establish Intelligent Design as anything better. In addition to this, Intelligent Design follows none of the rigors of science: there are no clear hypotheses, no testable predictions from those nonexistent hypotheses, and very little research done on the topic. The few "peer-reviewed" articles the Discovery Institute (the main political arm of the Intelligent Design movement) lists have been forced through in scandal without proper peer review (see the Sternberg controversy) or are from very strange journals, often with dubious connections, academic integrity, and little respect (like Rivista di Biologia). Some are often not peer -eviewed scientific papers and are rather opinion pieces while others have little or nothing to do with Intelligent Design. Essentially no papers by any Intelligent Design proponent include any original research, the bread and butter of any truly scientific enterprise. The next argument against Intelligent Design is how it is presented in the public sphere. Rather than acknowledging its flaws as unscientific (and often antiscientific), many fellows of the Discovery Institute, including Behe and Dembski, tout the strength of their ideas in the media, going so far as to postulate conspiracies within science as an explanation for why no one respects their ideas. They go even further and promote teaching Intelligent Design in public schools, self-publishing texts marketed to high school biology teachers and students as an obvious attempt to use political means when their efforts to convince scientists utterly failed. This partially led to Kitzmiller v Dover, which ultimately threw shame upon the town and cost the school district over one million dollars. The Discovery Institute's language also finds its way into a number of "academic freedom" bills in an attempt to undermine science education. As such, we can see that not only is Intelligent Design deeply flawed and unscientific, it is presented in a largely dishonest and fallacious manner to the public and scientists and undermines science literacy and good science education.

Panspermia is theory that life on Earth may have originated through microorganisms from outer space (foreign/alien life) , and that these living organisms may have delivered life to other parts of the universe that have the right atmospheric conditions.

A gradual process in which the genetic makeup and physical traits of an organism develop and evolve into different and separate organisms. With this Theory Man may be one such organism, whose existence is based on the gradual transformation of organisms before him.

== == A divine act where every species in the World was created perfect and 'as is' from g-d; Therefore man was created from scratch by g-d and put on Earth.

It was basically Dawrwinism, natural selection survival of the fittest that sort of thing, vs. God creating everything.

The scientific meaning of "Evolutionary biology" is that life changes and over time, that harmful changes will die out and that beneficial changes will be preserved and multiply, and that all of the life we see on earth today can be traced back to a common ancestor billions of years ago.

Note that evolutionary biology does not make any claims about the origin of the universe, just as chemistry doesn't make any claims about the origin of the universe, it does not even make any claims God, just as chemistry makes no claims about God, and evolutionary biology makes no claims about the origin of life, just as chemistry makes no claims about the origin of elements. Evolutionary biology starts from a point with life already existing and describes how life changes, just as chemistry starts from a point with elements already existing and explains how those elements interact. The origin of elements is explained by the theory of nuclear fusion, and the field of abiogenesis attempts to explain the origin of life. Abiogenesis is currently a poorly developed and poorly supported field of science.

The definitions of Creationism and Evolutionary biology above pretty well define the two sides in the debate. The central point of argument is whether God individually and separately created "kinds" of life in largely their current forms (perhaps allowing lions and tigers to have a common "cat kind" ancestor), or whether dogs and birds and whales all came from a common ancestor. Note that while some on the Evolutionary biology side are atheists, the vast majority are Christian believing that God created the universe and that evolution merely describes "how" God created the various species just like optics describes "how" God created rainbows. People who believe God created the universe and used evolution are generally not considered Creationists, "Creationism" normally means the special separate of each kind of creature with limited change.

There are many conflicting claims and conflicting arguments in this debate.

Setting aside such claims and arguments, the unarguable fact is that every national or international science academy on earth with an official public position statement on the subject has the position that evolution is valid science supported by the evidence, and that all of the claims against evolution are false and all the arguments against evolution have been scientifically refuted. Over a hundred major science academies have issued such statements, and every single one confirms the valid scientific status of evolution and the unscientific and erroneous status of the Special Creationism claims.

Rounded to the nearest full percentage point, 100% of biologists confirm evolution. If you want to go into decimal percentage points, it's about 99.9% of biologists on the evolution side vs about 0.1% denialists. There is a public debate over evolution, and a political debate over evolution, but scientifically there is no actual debate over evolution. Every scientific body with a public position is on the evolution side, and the tiny handful of evolution denialists in the scientific community are considered unscientific and considered to be No as credible as the holocaust denialists.

1. (Science,22 July 2005, p.560)

That depends entirely on one's point of view. Some opinions follow.

Creationists have no problem with "operational" science--that is, observations about the world around us. That's why creationists do not believe in a flat earth, as some would claim; the shape of the earth is observable repeatedly in the present. Creationists do have a problem with speculations about how things got this way being presented as equally scientific.

For much fuller, better informed and better written answers, check the Related Link "Answers in Genesis Science Q&A" at "Answers in Genesis," my favorite Creationist web site.

Obviously, I would take issue with much of what is said in the next answer, but this is certainly not the place. I simply want to say that one might compare and contrast the two websites, talkorigins and answersingenesis, and get a pretty thorough view of both sides of the debate.

Thus we see, with the above two comments that it really depends on a person's presuppositions, as both sides have access to the same body of evidence. The problem is that despite the assertions of the evolutionists, nothing has been found in the creation movement which contradicts science. In fact it is evolution which contradicts known scientific laws such as the two laws of thermodynamics and the law of Biogenesis.

In fact, the more research that is conducted the more evidence points conclusively to the creator. This is in every field of scientific endeavor and demonstrates the great faith that evolutionists need to continue to believe.

Creationists, like the many founders of modern science before them, are seeking to investigate the orderly and amazing universe that God has created. The evidence from science, when interpreted correctly, does not fit evolution. Thus it is rejected because it is not scientific.

When modern science was in its infancy, some religious leaders refused to believe that the earth revolved around the sun, or that the planets were worlds just like our own earth. Galileo proved them wrong, to his own cost.

Even decyphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs was opposed, because some religious leaders knew that, if they showed the Egyptian civilization to have had existed continuously for thousands of years, this would undermine literal belief in the story of Noah and the Flood.

Now, it is the turn of evolution. However, to their credit, some major religions are showing a willingness to accept evolution as a valid theory, as shown by the following two examples:-

The position of the Catholic Church: Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Humani Generis (1950) that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith and that he considered the doctrine of "evolutionism" a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study equal to that of the opposing hypothesis; Pope John Paul II, in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (1996), said that new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis; Pope Benedict has refused to endorse "intelligent design" theories, instead backing "theistic evolution" which considers that God created life through evolution with no clash between religion and science.

The position of the Episcopal Church: The Episcopal Church has said that Darwin's theory of evolution does not conflict with Christian faith. In 2006, the General Convention affirmed, via Resolution A129, that God is creator and added that "the theory of evolution provides a fruitful and unifying scientific explanation for the emergence of life on earth, that many theological interpretations of origins can readily embrace an evolutionary outlook, and that an acceptance of evolution is entirely compatible with an authentic and living Christian faith."

The creationist movement does not find it scientific, regardless of any presuppositions or premises, to suppress, deny or otherwise avoid any evidence which contradicts the evolutionary paradigm. This is real evidence which is available for anyone to see and test for themselves. Such is not science. The evidence which contradicts evolution is growing by the day, much of which is admitted by evolutionists themselves.

The real evidence of modern science has no problem reconciling genuine science with a world-view that incorporates belief in a literal creation and flood. This is also true for a great many of the founders of modern science. Creationism is in one sense a reaction against a wrongful linking of scientific endeavor with atheism. It is also seeking to put forward a fuller picture, unfettered by evolutionary, humanistic or atheistic dogma, regarding the facts of what is. There is no need to deceive or make anything up. Nor is there a need to suggest that creationism is religion and evolution is science. If creation scientists were not engaged in real science, they would have nothing to do. If creation scientists had no real evidence then the evolutionists would be able to successfully refute their arguments. If evolutionists have all the science and creationists only faith then evolutionists would always win the debates with the facts.

Personally, (and creationists are also highly self-critical like this as well) I am not interested in anything that is not scientifically defensible. If the Bible does not reflect the world that is, then it cannot be true. Unfortunately many people, unwilling or unable to investigate things for themselves believe all they are taught. In one sense they cannot be blamed for this since they are only ever taught one side of the story as absolute truth, when it is not. When evolutionists frequently resort to straw man arguments to attack creationism they indicate that they neither understand science, nor what creationists are actually saying. If it is necessary to label creationists as 'flat earthers', which none of them teach or believe, since it is false, this reveals a desperate and sad attitude to both science and the proper way to conduct a civilized discussion.

To say that this gives creationists' scientific arguments a solid basis in the real world is absolute rubbish. It would appear you do not understand science.

In science, you start with facts. A theory then takes evidence+experiments+logical arguments to arrive at a conclusion to explain other facts, or predict facts to be found in the future.

This is not a static state of affairs. Other scientists come along to try and find fault in this process. If they do, then the theory falls down and eventually another theory is constructed. It is an ongoing process through which we learn more about ourselves and the universe. That is science, not faith.

Creationists use the bible to prove the bible. That is faith, not science.

Someone earlier stated that evolution contradicted the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the law of Biogenesis. It doesn't. Evolution has nothing to do with thermodynamics. I assume you are talking about the Big bang -In which case you should get to know more about quantum mechanics which predicts that matter can be created from nothing.

Also the Law of Biogenesis is a slight red-herring. This "law" is from the work of Pasteur, who only said that life cannot be spontaneosly created. He said nothing of Abiogenesis, which proposes that it may be possible to create life from chemical reactions. Also, a "law" which "proves" that something cannot be done is an anathema to science as it is very very difficult to prove a negative. All you can say is that with current technology and knowledge it cannot be done. But what does the future hold ?

A few hundred years ago scientists "proved" that man could not fly. The same writer said that the more research is carried out the more it points to a creator. I don't know what journals you're reading, but ALL scientific research has and is reinforcing the theory of evolution.

It observes a fact such as a fossil, and then tries to find a theory to explain how it got there. (Evolution?) It then takes other facts (fossils) to see if the same theory also explains how they got there. All of these facts (fossils) are open to examination by anyone (i.e., repeatable). If they can come up with a better theory, then this will be followed by the scientific community and not the first theory. Obviously to try to find the age of the fossils may enhance any theory. So scientists (perhaps not the same ones) will come up with methods (perhaps several) to try to determine the ages. Over time these methods will be refined to date the fossils more accurately. From this a third theory may emerge. And so the scientific process goes on. None of this is faith.

I have yet to see a creationist present any up-to-date research or evidence that can be independently examined. I HAVE seen them present parts of 20-, 30-, and 40-year old papers from scientists that have since been disproved by later evidence, sometimes refuted by the original authors.

NO MODERN independent research contradicts evolution theory ("by natural selection").

To say that there is scientific support for evolution is to assert that there is repeatable experimental support for a number of hypotheses:

1) That non-living materials can organize themselves into a living, reproducing cell.

2) That the information content of these cells, primarily the DNA, can be increased by random mutations.

3) That these outrageously improbable mutations occur with enough regularity and in just the right order to construct ever more complex organisms for natural selection to operate on. Natural selection itself does not give rise to new structures, organisms, or species; it selects the more fit from those already existing.

These are the primary ones that come to mind, and I submit that there is no meaningful experimental support for any of them, and plenty of experimental falsification. The Miller-Urey experiments from the 50's attempted something like #1, but showed only that an intelligently designed apparatus could synthesize a handful of simple amino acids, which would be preserved only if the apparatus isolated them from the environment that produced them.

Given the level of improbability of any of the 3 hypotheses above, I'd say that it takes less faith to believe in a Creator God than to believe in them.

No. I personally feel very strongly that the only planet that can support the HUMAN life is the Earth.Other planets may support other types of life but not the HUMAN life.

By science, there's no evidence that any of them can support it.

more importantly, when reading many verses of the holy Quran I could feel of the uniqueness of the Earth as the suitable environment for the life of the mankind.

*("He Who has, made for you the earth like a carpet spread out; has enabled you to go about therein by roads (and channels); and has sent down water from the sky." With it have We produced diverse pairs of plants each separate from the others.

54. Eat (for yourselves) and pasture your cattle: verily, in this are Signs for men endued with understanding.

55. From the (earth) did We create you, and into it shall We return you, and from it shall We bring you out once again)

Holy Quran,(20:52-55)

*About Adam & Eve, Allah says:

(They said: "Our Lord! We have wronged our own souls: If thou forgive us not and bestow not upon us Thy Mercy, we shall certainly be lost."

24. ((Allah)) said: "Get ye down. With enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling-place and your means of livelihood,- for a time."

25. He said: "Therein shall ye live, and therein shall ye die; but from it shall ye be taken out (at last)")

Holy Quran,(7:23-25)

*('See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another,

16. "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp? 17. "'And Allah has produced you from the earth growing (gradually),

18. "'And in the End He will return you into the (earth), and raise you forth (again at the Resurrection)?

19. "'And Allah has made the earth for you as a carpet (spread out),

20. "'That ye may go about therein, in spacious roads.'" )

Holy Quran,(71:15-20)

- I think the speciality of the Earth as a homeland to the mankind can be felt very strongly when observing the verses above that obviously express the strong relationship between the humanity & the Earth.

- Even in the Arabic language,when a preposition comes at the beginning of the sentence it mostly indicates or assures some kind of speciality, that's found in the previous verses, like for example:

(ON Earth will be your dwelling-place....)

- Another thing, there's a verse in the holy Quran that says in Arabic:

( All praise is for Allah, the Lord of all Creation)

& other times, it's translated as :

( All praise is for Allah, the Lord of all Worlds)

Holy Quran,(1:2)

- Yes, Allah is the Only Lord of all Creations, & of all worlds, the world of humans, the world of animals, the world of plants.etc. So, it doesn't necessarily mean or indicate that there must be another human world outside the Earth.

- I think that searching for the HUMAN life resources on other planets is nothing but a waste of both time & money. I strongly tend to believe that it's only the Earth that can support the human life.

Allah knows best.

"Believe"? "Could"? Perhaps; with hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies beyond our own, is it "possible"? Yes.

Likely? Not so much.

However, Sir Fred Hoyle (the the British astronomer who invented the term "big bang") also came up with the idea of "panspermia" - the idea that life did not originally arise here on Earth, but MAY, PERHAPS, have come from elsewhere, via comets or interstellar dust. If so, it's vaguely possible that there may be MANY planets bearing some incredibly distant "cousins" of ours. So far, there is precisely ZERO evidence of this; but we have ventured but a little way into our own solar system and we have NO idea of what might be "out there".

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Sometimes, holy writ can answer questions of a scientific nature even outside the gambit of presently-known science. For instance, via holy Christian writings as well as those gathered into 'The Bible' - writings used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for instance, we may be able to learn the following:

... that God has created "worlds without number" ... and "the inhabitants thereof are as numberless as the sands upon the seashore" [Moses 1:28] ... 'and the inhabitants thereof, are begotten sons and daughters unto God', ... "But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you ... For behold there are many worlds ..." [Moses 1:35]

The objectives of any religion are based on the following main directions:

1. Faith
2. Creation
3. Morals
4. After life

These four directions are detailed as follows:

1. Faith: Any religion calls its followers to have faith in God and God attributes and to have faith in the religion leader and his breaching.
2. Creation: Any religion gives highlights on how the universe (including mankind) was created
3. Morals: Any religion guides its followers to morals that governs the relations among its followers and among the relevant religion followers and non followers
4. After life: Any religions explains what is expected to its followers after their current life ending.

Fortunately, the direction of Morals (which deals with the humankind living in our planet and deals with their interactions and common life) is the only direction that is, basically, does not differ from one religion to another. Something that leads to the principals that all people, irrelevant to their religions, should live together in peace, harmony, and kindness and that they should cooperate for the benefit of humankind and nature.

== There are no similarities whatsoever. == Creation is the why, big bang is the how. == The above answer relates to those who wish to believe in both at once - to believe that God created through the Big Bang.

In reality, they are two completely different theories of cosmic origins. The former is naturalistic, the later is supernatural. The former posits billions of years for the origin of the universe, the latter only a day.

Any similarities are entirely superficial, although they both have the same data before them in terms of what we can observe from our limited viewpoint on earth. The presuppositions behind each are literally worlds apart.