Hi Nancy,
Well, after readings on both sides of the debate, I had a big headache. I flunked biology in college, and find Science as magical in its way as religion. So after trying to sort through more arguments than you hear in divorce court, I have decided to leave this to the scientists, but I did note a couple of things that intrigued me.
I agree with you that evolution is still theory, although there were many who stated that it is accepted within the scientific community as fact. But even allowing that both sides are theories, in scientific creationism one has to accept a supernatural power to even begin and there's no way that's "provable" and really that alone makes creationism more of a religious theory than a scientific one. The entire basis of the theory rests on religious faith.
Thus most of the creationists' arguments focused on disproving evolution rather than proving creationism. THey have no testable, scientific theory with which to replace evolution. Even if evolution turned out to be wrong, it would simply be replaced by another scientific theory.
The creationists have several specific areas on which they focus:
1) the leap from non-living matter to life
2) the lack of transitional fossils
3) the violation of the Second Law of ThermoDynamics, which you mention
4) micro- vs. macro evolution
This was a site that went into a lot of detail about these issues.
talkorigins.org
In 1977, a Physics Nobel Laureate, Prygogine, showed that systems can import energy and that also systems which are not in equilibrium can move toward order, which somehow meant that entropy wasn't necessarily a given in certain situations. (I'm probably REALLY screwing this up)Anyway-that site was
www.natcenscied.org/bakken.htm
and was way beyond me, but it went into great detail discussing how this Second Law wasn't violated.
I really tried hard to find some scientific evidence FOR creationism but most of what I found revolved around the questions debunking evolution; there are plenty of articles written pro and con and I'm not scientist enough to figure them out. The questions should be asked, for we just don't have all the answers, but Creationism (as much as I could ascertain) has not got hard evidence FOR it.
Before you use Einstein as an example, you might want to read some of his writings on God and religion. They differ significantly from your belief in a personal God who is involved with man and is active in our lives. He certainly believed the greatest scientists were religious, but he did NOT believe in an anthropomorphic, paternalistic, God answers our prayers deity.
It is this mythical, or rather this symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science. Thus, it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuance of the religious aims.
The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between
religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world.
Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by
means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at
present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its
anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.
Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an
omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
The main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science lies in this concept of a personal God. It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required--not proven. It is mainly a program, and faith in the possibility of its accomplishment in principle is only founded on partial successes. But hardly anyone could be found who would deny these partial successes and ascribe them to human self-deception. The fact that on the basis of such laws we are able to predict the temporal behavior of phenomena in certain domains with great precision and certainty is deeply embedded in the consciousness of the modern man, even though he may have grasped very little of the contents
of those laws. He need only consider that planetary courses within the solar system may be calculated in advance with great exactitude on the basis of a limited number of simple laws. In a similar way, though not with the same precision, it is possible to calculate in advance the mode of operation of an electric motor, a transmission system, or of a wireless apparatus, even when dealing with a novel development.
To be sure, when the number of factors coming into play in a
phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases
fails us. One need only think of the weather, in which case prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
THe problem is, at least what I kept encountering in my brief foray into this debate, was a propensity to take statements out of context (such as the Einstein one which many did) As George mentioned earlier, all these arguments are moot because we have no agreed upon definition of God.
Until there is some proof of Creationism that doesn't hinge on that first premise fo faith, I don't see how we can teach it as a scientific theory. On the other hand, I believe the continued search for truth about evolution is necessary also. As I wrote earlier, we have not yet arrived at absolute truths in our knowledge.
I think I have a headache again, and have probably given you one.
And btw, you're not on a high horse, you are a woman of faith and a charming humility. I enjoy talking with you.
penni |
