The constant argument between the evolutionists and the creationists is an unending one. While the creationists believe that organisms are product of purposeful intelligence from a divine creator, evolutionists believe organisms arose as a result of descents with modifications from common ancestors. While the former is based on faith, the latter is based purely on scientific evidences. Accusations and counter accusations have been flying around between the two groups.
Regardless of whether you're a creationist or an evolutionist, if you disagree with the stereotype, you're condemned and "exposed" as a religious fanatic who is secretly trying to pass religion off as science or, even worse, trying to disprove science in order to redeem a ridiculous, unscientific, religious worldview
How possible is it to be religious at the same time be a scientist?
This is the dilemma of a lot of scientists that are religious. I can remember vividly one of my professors that taught me evolution in my undergraduate days:
I am just teaching you all these things, I have zero belief in them
An uproar of laughter greeted the comment. Not necessarily because the comment was funny, but because most of the students (including myself) found it ridiculous that a professor of evolution does not believe in what she teaches. Another professor of mine, someone I have serious respect for seemed to have carved a way out for himself. During one of his classes in genetics, he cited evolution as one of the ways in which new traits are added into the gene pool. He gave an exclusive example in the evolution of rice (Oryza species), specifically how Oryza longistaminata came into existence as a result of natural crossing between Oryza barthii and Oryza glaberrima. In his words, he said
God did not create everything, but he created something that gave rise to everything.
As a scientist and a religious person, I could not agree less with him even if this will pit me against core evolutionists. The basis on which evolutionists built their theory is the hypothesis of primeval atom, also known as the big bang theory which hypothesized that the universe was created from nothing. Among all the theories of origin of life, the chemo-synthetic theory takes the center stage when it comes to the belief in evolution. I do not have anything against these theories but I simply do not agree that they are enough to prove beyond reasonable doubts that organisms exist only by evolution. My argument is very simple and straight forward;
If life arose from nothing, who created nothing?
This is why up till today, I am still in agreement with my genetics professor that said God did not create everything at a go, but put mechanisms in place that will bring about everything. So what does this makes me? Someone that believes partly in evolution and partly in creation. I will prefer to call myself and my professor CREAVOLUTIONISTS.
I will like to see contributions from my fellow scientists on this platform, but being a newbie on steemit, I do not know any except @suesa .
I'm by no means a scientist, but it seems to me that you have clearly misrepresented evolution here. Evolution is a process which leads to biological diversification, adaptation and change. How life started is not the subject of evolution.
Also, evolutionist is not a useful term as people don't support evolution because of ideology, but because of clear and specific evidence.
Creationism on the other hand is in fact an idiotical and religiously motivated belief that attepts to discredit well-established scientific fact because it contradicts the person's indoctrination.
If you are a scientist, you probably are aware of the overwhelming and conclusive evidence that shows that evolution is in fact the way biodiversity was achieved on our planet, right? What evidence do you have for a creator and are the mechanisms that allow a creator to exist so clearly and reliably outlined as evolution? Do you not see the clear gulf in substantiation between the two?
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I think I am being misconstrued. I am not going to look science in the face and say I do not believe in evolution. However, the right question to ask is, what forms the basis from which other things evolved? How did these things come into being? Unless we want to go back to side with Aristotle's theory of spontaneous generation. Something somewhere brought about the life that later evolved to give rise to others. Instead of clear gulf, what I see is a link between the two.
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I'm not sure in what way and I didn't understand that from your comment, so I'd appreciate a more on the nose clarification. ;)
That is indeed a fascinating question, but while it has some connection to evolution, it is not withing the scope of evolution. Whatever the answer to that question is, it's unlikely for it to discredit the ideas we have about evolution because they are clearly supported by evidence. It's the process that takes life from simplicity to complexity and we have very good reason to be certain this is what indeed happened with life on our planet. It's a fairly well understood mechanism and we can also simulate it in other contexts and see that it works reliably on the proper scales.
There are things in science we have discovered and things that we are yet to discover. Our ideas about how life started (if that's what you are talking about) are slowly taking shape and we are constantly finding new pieces of the puzzle. What's important to understand is that when we don't know something yet, it is illogical and unreasonable to assume an imaginary make-belief answer to put in place of it. When the answer is "we don't know yet" this is by no means a proof of the existence of god, a creator or anything else. Before we understood how lighting worked, it was attributed to all kinds of deities, but we now know those assumptions and leaps of imagination were unreasonable and more importantly blatantly wrong. We shouldn't be repeating this mistake over and over. If you are a scientist, you should start getting comfortable with the idea that there are indeed things we don't know because the job of science is to start chipping away at them, not to try and insert a fairy-tale as the answer instead.
When we don't know, we don't know. You don't assume anything before you know - it's as simple as that. Everything else tends to be faulty logic.
Don't you see how much of non-answer this is? What created that something that everything started from? It doesn't solve anything, it just pushes the question one step further down the line without providing a real answer or even worse, into an infinite regress. I asked you some very clear questions and you for some reason chose not to address in any way. What you are implying here is an assumption that I argue is unreasonable and fallacious. That's why I'm asking you again, what direct evidence do you have to make that assertion?
I'm honestly not sure what you mean here. What's the gulf and what are the two things on either side of it?
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Interesting argument. Points well taken. That however will not change my belief as much as I am sure my post will not change yours. At what point in our lifetime do you think science will discover the origin of life? If it does happen in my lifetime, perhaps I will change my belief, If not, well....I will rather take the status quo to my grave. Nice engaging you
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Why would you be sure of either and why do you say it as if that's OK. A scientist should be able to change any of their belief in light of evidence. If I didn't think minds cannot be changed, I wouldn't engage in conversation. On one hand, I hope you could be swayed by evidence and logic (you are scientist after all, right?) and I know for certain I am ready to abandon any of the positions I currently hold if I am presented with convincing evidence. Anything you have decided to hold true no matter what is a detriment to your scientific effectiveness as this means that you are willing to overlook contradicting evidence and that's not how you do science.
Quite possibly, your religious beliefs don't have a direct reflection on your field of study and you might be doing proper scientific work, but put your religious beliefs under the same rigor as evolution has been subjected to and tell me if they hold up. In all of my comments, I ask you for evidence and you have firmly decided not to provide any. I guess at least to an extent you realize you don't have any and that holding religious beliefs is actually unreasonable.
There is a very clear difference between simply mentioning that all the evidence points to the fact that evolution is indeed the process which directly led to us being here now and making the unsubstantiated assertion that it was some specific god that made it all. One is based on evidence and is reasonable and the other one is ideological belief based on indoctrination. That's why I think trying to present evolutionist and creationist as similar in any way is fallacious and possibly intellectually dishonest.
There's no way for me to know that, how could I ;) But it's not like we have zero knowledge about it. You might want to look into what we know already and what processes that might have taken part in that we are slowly starting to understand. It's really fascinating stuff.
The big question that I think you should ask yourself is why would you hold a specific belief before the evidence is in? Why would you want to believe something you don't have a good reason to?
There is no status quo on the matter really...
Same here. :) Though I have to admit that the fact that you didn't even address my questions and calls for evidence is a bit frustrating ;)
I can only hope that the scientist in you would win over.
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OK. I guess I missed your question unintentionally. Can you please go over it again?
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That can certainly happen with comments of this length ;)
I guess my questions boil down to "What is the evidence you have for a creator?" and if it's anywhere near the evidence we have for evolution.
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Well. Let us say I do not have any scientifically tenable evidence. The basis of evolution that has not been evidenced for is what we religious people normally refer to as creator. You can call it a mere hypothesis but that is what I am holding on to until proven otherwise. I hope I have honestly addressed your question
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This is me....I guess we might get along really well.
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hopefully. you are welcome
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