Talk:Creationism

See also: Creation science.
Until that article acknowledges the existence of proof, please do not claim it exists.

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Contents

1 Archives

2 POV problems in 'Miscellaneous critique of creationism' section

3 Miscellaneous critique of creationism

4 Debate within scientific circles

5 Deleted the "misc critique" section

5.1 Miscellaneous critique of creationism

POV problems in 'Miscellaneous critique of creationism' section

I think the whole section headed 'Miscellaneous critique of creationism' is problematic from a POV standpoint. It reads to me like an extended diatribe against creationism from someone engaged in advocacy, rather than the presentation of a neutral account of a controversy. Specifically, I see problems with the following:

It should also be noted that throughout human history there have been huge numbers of origin myths that attempt to explain the origins of humanity and of life in general.

Why mention explicitly that it should also be noted? We're noting it by including the passage; telling the reader explicitly that he should be noting it is an attempt to strengthen the argument beyond what the argument itself would achieve on its own. Similarly, the phrase "throughout human history", the "huge" numbers of origin methods, and the characterization of them all as "attempting" to explain our origins, all seem like advocacy, not meaningful content. I think I'd be happier with a sentence more like this:

Historically, there are many different creation myths that have provided explanations of the origins of humanity and of life in general.

I'll be more happy with

Historically, there are many different creation myths that attempt to explain the the origins of humanity and of life in general. No myth is reality, so, it can't explain anything. Project2501a 11:00, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Returning to the section as it reads currently:

The form of creationism advocated by young earth creationists is simply a literal interpretation of one religion's beliefs of creation, as described in Genesis, which in itself is just one of a large number of origin myths which pre-date modern science. (emphasis added)

"Simply" and "just" are operating as classic weasel words here. The assertion being made is that young earth creationists are just wrong in their beliefs, because those beliefs are not, as they contend, an accurate version of our origins, but are, in fact, nothing more than myth, as the scientific version of our origins contends. That's POV. It happens to be POV I mostly agree with, personally, but it's POV nevertheless, and the article would be stronger without it.

For these reasons, and simply because of the overwhelming evidence for evolution, creationism is not respected as a serious theory explaining the origins of life.

"Simply" and "overwhelming": more loaded language. The passage states that creationism "is not respected," but fails to say by whom it is not respected. The implication that it is not respected by all right-thinking people. That's advocacy.

I could go on, but I don't think there's really any point. The whole section reads like this. For what it's worth, my own take is that the whole section should just be removed. We already have the (much better, from a NPOV standpoint) section on the 'Scientific critique of creationism'. The 'Miscellaneous critique' seems to merely restate the scientific critique in less-neutral language.

I'm not going to delete the whole section myself; I don't want to add fuel to the fire of those currently engaging in rev/counter-rev with respect to isolated passages within it. But I'd be very curious if those who believe this section belongs in the article could articulate some of their reasons for thinking so. Thanks. John Callender 00:08, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I also think that adding words as the ones you mention loads the text up emotionally, without adding more content, which in turn gives ammo to the fanboys ^_^ I'll do something about this section this weekend. Project2501a 11:00, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Miscellaneous critique of creationism

I tried to replace the POV disagreement over the section with the following.

"The motivation behind animated attacks of the Young Earth creationist movement towards evolution stems from their belief that the first eleven chapters of Genesis should be understood as a literal description of the origin of the universe and everything it contains."

But I'm not sure my rewording is any better than the previous. I prefer animated over aggresive but I don't like the attack insertion. The entire sentence should probably be redone completely in order to get a more precise and short sentene. Falphin 17:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I had a go and came up with variants on "Because Young Earth creationists believe in the literal truth of the description in Genesis of divine creation of every "kind" of plant and creature during a week about 6,000 years ago, they dispute evolution which describes species developing without a need for divine intervention over a much longer time, and take particular issue with the implication of common descent that humans are descended from "lesser creatures". " but decided that this whole section describes creationism rather than the critique of creationism, and is largely redundant, so added by sentence to the young earth creationists section. I propose deletion of the Miscellaneous critique of creationism section. =dave souza 11:07, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Debate within scientific circles

Rossnixon changed this passage:

"Because of this and other evidence, there is no 'debate' within scientific circles as to whether evolution is a fact or not. It is only in the public sphere"

"Because of this and other evidence, there is little 'debate' within scientific circles as to whether evolution is a fact or not. It is mainly in the public sphere".

Can you give an example of such a debate within scientific circles about whether evolution is a fact or not? Or is this just a hidden POV - a claim that creationism is science? --Hob Gadling 16:12, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Their are a couple thousand scientists that doubt the validity of evolution which is probably no more than 5%(maybe less) of total scientists so technically there is some debate. So I could see the wording either way. Falphin 18:44, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A couple thousand? Are these scientists biologists? And are they religious? Could you please cite a reference?

Many are religious and others not. I was mostly refering to the OEC, Yec, and ID movements. I can't find my reference so I looked up some o these, while they don't give a couple thousand they do give enough proof that their are scientists with valid degrees in your area you mentioned. Also, I imagine their are easily 50,000 scientists total in the United STates, probably a lot more, making the creationist number very small compared to the total in the world. .

[1] (http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/biologicalscientists.html)

[2] (http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/physicalscientists.html)[3] (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/),

[4] (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1555) Falphin 18:14, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this seems to hardly prove or even suggest that there are thousands of creation scientists. The first biochemist on the list, the first who isn't in the employ of ICR, got a B.S. in Biology from Liberty University, a Christian correspondance school known as, or suspected of being, a diploma mill.

The Discovery Institute was able to list 40 Texas scientists to sign this statement:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." Heck, I'm not just skeptical of random mutation, I understand the Theory of Evolution enough to know that it isn't based on randomness, as such. And careful examination is always a good idea.

The list posted by AiG seems genuine enough, though the introductory text is incredibly biased. Still, I see no evidence for the idea of thousands of scientists believing in CS. -- Ec5618 02:35, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this latest language from the introduction is as neutral as it could be. Yes, that's how science, good science, at least, should be practiced. But I could see someone from the creationist side arguing that:

creationism is also based on evidence (admittedly, different kinds of evidence compared to what science looks at, and a narrowly constrained set of it relative to what science looks at, too, but ev[idence nevertheless).

some of what even mainstrain scientists would accept as "science," broadly speaking, doesn't seem to involve a very direct connection to the scientific method. That is, in the actual practice of science by human beings, there are frequent cases of pettiness, professional jealousy, ideological resistance to new ideas, and so on. While not religious doctrines per se, these examples of "bad" science are an undeniable part of science as it actually is practiced.

I could also see a creationist arguing that he or she arrived at a creationist view through the scientific method: examining the world, constructing multiple working hypotheses to account for its features, eliminating untenable hypotheses through a process of experimentation and deduction... Yes, a true scientists could make valid arguments against that characterization, but that doesn't mean a creationist would be convinced by those arguments.

I get a sense from the sentence quoted above that it is being spoken by someone who is steeped in the view that scientific explanations are inherently superior to religious ones. As a result, I think NPOV's call for "Fairness and sympathetic tone" in depicting the other side's views isn't being lived up to very well.

A recent version of this sentence read:

This interpretation is rejected by mainstream scientists, who say that it is incompatible with evidence from many scientific disciplines.

For myself, I think that version does a better job of avoiding actually arguing the issue in the article, but simply stating what the criticism is, and who it is who's making it. And at least for me, the evidentiary criticism of creationism in this older version is stronger than the methodological criticism of the current version, especially given my doubts about the ability of science as it's actually practiced to always live up to the idealized characterization given in the current version. John Callender 08:21, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Deleted the "misc critique" section

Per the discussion we've been having, and in the absence of anyone having offerred a reason for keeping it, I went ahead and deleted the "Misc. critique" section just now. I'm pasting it below, in case anyone wants to salvage something from it. -- John Callender 09:59, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Miscellaneous critique of creationism

It should also be noted that throughout human history there have been huge numbers of origin myths that attempt to explain the origins of humanity and of life in general. The form of creationism advocated by young earth creationists is simply a literal interpretation of one religion's beliefs of creation, as described in Genesis, which in itself is just one of a large number of origin myths which pre-date modern science. For these reasons, and simply because of the overwhelming evidence for evolution, creationism is not respected as a serious theory explaining the origins of life. Creationist responses to the success and prevalence of evolution range from belief in a world-wide atheistic conspriracy that has managed to successfully hoodwink almost everyone in the scientific community (including the vast number of scientists who identify themselves as being Christian), to the acceptance of some or even most of the relevant facts (regarding the age of the earth and theories of common descent, for instance).

The motivation behind animated attacks of the Young Earth creationist movement towards evolution stems from their belief that the first eleven chapters of Genesis should be understood as a literal description of the origin of the universe and everything it contains. These creationists believe that to deny the validity of a literal reading of Genesis is to deny the validity of the entire (Christian) Bible, and therefore to deny the validity of Christianity itself. Because the theory of evolution is incompatible with a literal reading of the Biblical creation story, many Young Earth Creationists insist that evolution is an intrinsically atheistic theory. Moreover, they assert that evolution and Evolutionism are one and the same thing, and that therefore the theory of evolution (via Evolutionism) excuses and even promotes atheism and immorality. Although this view is most prevalent, and most explicitly promoted, in the more extreme varieties of Creationism (Young-Earth Creationism in particular), it is the driving force behind all anti-evolution movements that define themselves as Christian in origin, which includes many, but not all, members of the Intelligent Design movement. Evolutionary Creationists, in common with other Creationists, oppose Evolutionism, sometimes known as materialistic evolution or atheistic evolution, which supposedly makes an ideology out of the scientific theory of evolution.

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