Creation and Evolution

[Orias]

Aside from all of the biblical nonsense.

What's stopping evolution and "creation" from coexisting?

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Only a literal interpretation of many creation myths prevents their integration; metaphorical interpretations on the other hand are generally quite readily compatible, preserving the major premises of the myths while still enabling a perspective which rationally incorporates rather than irrationally discounts or ignores scientific knowledge of the origin of life (no I do not think faith is irrational, I believe it is nonrational - I do however think rejecting evidence because it contradicts faith to be irrational).

 

[strikeviperMKII]

Yeah...nothing. Or maybe just the people behind them both...

 

[Breathe]

I agree with what has been said.

In addition, I do believe that some anti-theists have encouraged a rejection of evolution though, by saying God and evolution are not compatible, and so on. Those who don't understand evolution too well are probably going to avoid it because of that. Some theists, however, do not understand the concepts of allegory or myth, and think that they must either be literally true, or therefore wholly false.

 

[Madhuri]

I think people mostly have trouble conceptualising evolution without atheism. It's beyond me why this happens but sometimes when I think the person finally understands, they very quickly go back to assuming evolution = no God.

Aside from this mental block, there isn't any reason why evolution and creation can't both be true. It may be that only one or the other is true. But there's no logical reason why they couldn't both be true.

 

[idav]

What's stopping evolution and "creation" from coexisting?

Because the chicken and egg don't come to exist at the same time. Or do they?

 

[Valjean]

They're not necessarily incompatible, but the ToE posits observable, understandable mechanisms to explain observed changes, utilizing the known laws of physics, chemistry, &c.

Creationism, on the other hand, seems to be an assertion that an invisible personage temporarily suspended said laws to create de novo the living things we see in the world -- apparently by magic, as no mechanism is proposed.

 

[A Troubled Man]

Aside from all of the biblical nonsense.

What's stopping evolution and "creation" from coexisting?

It's kinda like asking if science can coexist with superstition.

 

[Madhuri]

It's kinda like asking if science can coexist with superstition.

Not really, no. Because the OP question is dealing in a hypothetical nature. The question is, logically, could evolution and creation both be a reality. Nobody really knows what is or isn't true. So hypothetically speaking, could they both be reality? I think the answer is yes.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Ahhh but they CAN. You just have to have the implicit understanding that the myth is meant to be taken allegorically, or, has been constructed in such a way as to be unfalsible.

 

[rusra02]

Aside from all of the biblical nonsense.

What's stopping evolution and "creation" from coexisting?

The fact that evolution is not real. Paleontologist Robert Fondi said: "If we picture a genealogical tree of evolution, only the leaves and a few branches exist but no knots or trunk. It is a tree that cannot stand!" (Quote from g92 4/22 p.29)
The Bible, on the other hand, provides an accurate history of Creation by God, and explains what Evolution cannot, how life began.

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[Dirty Penguin]

The fact that evolution is not real. Paleontologist Robert Fondi said: "If we picture a genealogical tree of evolution, only the leaves and a few branches exist but no knots or trunk. It is a tree that cannot stand!" (Quote from g92 4/22 p.29)

Fondi is a hack and stands in the minority with those like him and they're up against a mountain or testable evidence. So it's hard to even take him serious. As we can clearly see below...he's completely wrong.

The Bible, on the other hand, provides an accurate history of Creation by God, and explains what Evolution cannot, how life began.

We've explained to you over and over and over that Evolution is not about the (origins) of life. It deals with the change in life over time. Evolution isn't one thing. It encompasses many mechanism. One of them is (Descent With Modification). With that alone I have shattered your assertion that ("evolution is not real"). I don't need to introduce any other evidence than that. The fact of the matter is NO ONE disagrees with that mechanism. Not creationist and certainly not biologist.

 

[Valjean]

What's more, rusra, the Bible, if taken literally, gives a nonsensical story of the order of creation over those six days, nor does it "explain" the mechanism by which life began.

 

[The_Evelyonian]

The fact that evolution is not real.

You want to talk facts? Okay, here are a few facts:

• All life shows a fundamental unity in the mechanisms of replication, heritability, catalysis, and metabolism.
• Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy pattern, or groups within groups. We see just such an arrangement in a unique, consistent, well-defined hierarchy, the so-called tree of life.
• Different lines of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. We get essentially the same results whether we look at morphological, biochemical, or genetic traits.
• Fossil animals fit in the same tree of life. We find several cases of transitional forms in the fossil record.
• The fossils appear in a chronological order, showing change consistent with common descent over hundreds of millions of years and inconsistent with sudden creation.
• Many organisms show rudimentary, vestigial characters, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
• Atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism's immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms' evolutionary histories.
• Ontogeny (embryology and developmental biology) gives information about the historical pathway of an organism's evolution. For example, as embryos whales and many snakes develop hind limbs that are reabsorbed before birth.
• The distribution of species is consistent with their evolutionary history. For example, marsupials are mostly limited to Australia, and the exceptions are explained by continental drift. Remote islands often have species groups that are highly diverse in habits and general appearance but closely related genetically. Squirrel diversity coincides with tectonic and sea level changes (Mercer and Roth 2003). Such consistency still holds when the distribution of fossil species is included.
• Evolution predicts that new structures are adapted from other structures that already exist, and thus similarity in structures should reflect evolutionary history rather than function. We see this frequently. For example, human hands, bat wings, horse legs, whale flippers, and mole forelimbs all have similar bone structure despite their different functions.
• The same principle applies on a molecular level. Humans share a large percentage of their genes, probably more than 70 percent, with a fruit fly or a nematode worm.
• When two organisms evolve the same function independently, different structures are often recruited. For example, wings of birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects all have different structures. Gliding has been implemented in many additional ways. Again, this applies on a molecular level, too.
• The constraints of evolutionary history sometimes lead to suboptimal structures and functions. For example, the human throat and respiratory system make it impossible to breathe and swallow at the same time and make us susceptible to choking.
• Suboptimality appears also on the molecular level. For example, much DNA is nonfunctional.
• Some nonfunctional DNA, such as certain transposons, pseudogenes, and endogenous viruses, show a pattern of inheritance indicating common ancestry.
• Speciation has been observed.
• The day-to-day aspects of evolution -- heritable genetic change, morphological variation and change, functional change, and natural selection -- are seen to occur at rates consistent with common descent.

Furthermore, the different lines of evidence are consistent; they all point to the same big picture. For example, evidence from gene duplications in the yeast genome shows that its ability to ferment glucose evolved about eighty million years ago. Fossil evidence shows that fermentable fruits became prominent about the same time. Genetic evidence for major change around that time also is found in fruiting plants and fruit flies (Benner et al. 2002).

The evidence is extensive and consistent, and it points unambiguously to evolution, including common descent, change over time, and adaptation influenced by natural selection. It would be preposterous to refer to these as anything other than facts.

Source

Creationism cannot explain any of the above. Evolution, on the other hand, can and does. Evolution, despite your assertions to the contrary, is quite real.

The Bible, on the other hand, provides an accurate history of Creation by God, and explains what Evolution cannot, how life began.

No, it doesn't. The Bible merely asserts that god magically poofed everything into existence. It doesn't explain anything.

Beyond that (and this is something that has already been explained to you numerous times) evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution simply deals with life's diversity.

To say that evolution is flawed because it doesn't explain where life came from is no different than saying that meteorology is flawed because it doesn't explain where the Earth came from. It's dismissal by false association.

 

[A Troubled Man]

Not really, no. Because the OP question is dealing in a hypothetical nature. The question is, logically, could evolution and creation both be a reality. Nobody really knows what is or isn't true. So hypothetically speaking, could they both be reality? I think the answer is yes.

Then, hypothetically speaking, can superstitions be a reality?

Actually, yes, there are people who know what is and isn't true.

 

[RisingKnowledge]

It's kinda like asking if science can coexist with superstition.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein

 

[A Troubled Man]

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can change this."

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."


Albert Einstein

 

[RisingKnowledge]

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can change this."

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."


Albert Einstein

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
Albert Einstein

 

[The_Evelyonian]

1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a quote war!

 

[RisingKnowledge]

1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a quote war!

Haha it is fun sometime you are welcome to join