Anakha, perhaps you haven't been following this too well but in another thread I have indeed said that how a person chooses to interpret the evidence is based on what that person wants to believe and already believes. Now before I go on, know that I have already provided evidence here. The flaw is that one side assumes neutral evidence belongs to them so they ignore my evidence very much the same as they claim I just ignore theirs.
I am only talking about this thread. I agree with you regards to interpretation different people will have different interpretations but if it works within the definition of the word then the one who says otherwise must accept that they are wrong. I see the problem that your side has, we have multiple sources and evidence to support our case yet when we ask the same for Creationist's what do we get? Where are the multiple tests carried out by multiple parties all getting the same conclusion? Neutral evidence belongs to all however if you want to use it then as I have said above it must be backed up by other sources. This is how the logic works, evolution is a theory not a fact however the theory has a lot of credible evidence vs creationism that (from what I can Google) has very little in the way of evidence. So I ask you, as someone who wants to further their knowledge, what is your evidence of creation? And as a side question, are you a full on supporter of creation or do you support the idea of a blend between creation and evolution? I lean toward evolution myself because I can get sources with different tests that end up with the same result.
You say I have refuted examples with word play. I deny that. I have pointed out that interchangeably using words with different meanings amounts to a fallacy, something which they would do themselves. That was ONE example and if you check you will see that I also refuted it by pointing out that mutations don't prove an organism can evolve from a bacteria to a professor AND by providing counter evidence. I have already asked this: show me which evidence I simply ignored between all the ad hominems and attacks. This must be evidence and not whole subjects.
Point taken. I will leave it to Riax to provide the answer for the bacteria one since he has way more knowledge than myself. As a point of agreeing with you, you have taken a lot of undue flak and I commend you for staying in the "fight".
Creationism does not stand up to scrutiny either? Well let's see, my position is that the argument for evolution is just as weak and relies as much on faith. So the pot calling the kettle black in this case is more like the pot calling the kettle just as black as he is because the kettle refuses to come to that conclusion himself.
You see here you get it wrong. Evolution does not rely on faith, we rely on our physical evidence to support the theory. Until we get something that either A: Conclusively proves evolution or B: Disapproves it it shall remain a theory. Our fossil history points and leads up to many changes to get to our "final" stage. How does Creationism explain the fossils? What is your take on the dinosaur fossils? How do they fit into the puzzle? Evolution can explain through a timeline the majority of events that have occurred however how does Creationism explain the events? Are you a young earth creationist?
The evolutionist makes the unfair demand that something must be disproven with evidence but point this out as a fallacy when someone else makes that demand. Here is the dilemma. By believing that life wasn't created the evolutionist erroneously includes creation in the argument and believes that creation, and by inference God, is being proven by attacking evolution. The fact is that there doesn't have to be just one alternative or even an alternative. The argument for evolution is rightly being attacked to make it weaker and during the course the same evidence is used to strengthen the argument for creation but that does not infer who the creator is.
As far as I am aware, I would prefer to have something proven with evidence rather than have it disproven. The goal is for your side (and ours) to provide enough evidence to prove that they are correct. When that happens it will disprove the other side by default. I am having a hard time understanding what you mean by the evolutionist attacking evolution, it does not add up
. If I am not mistaken the case for evolution has grown stronger with every decade, I have not seen any evolutionary evidence supporting creationism. Can you give me a few examples please?
The evolutionist is the one who is blind to the errors and weaknesses of his own argument in contrast to the person who merely believes the evolution argument more but can see and admit the flaws.
For this I would like to ask, where are we blind to our own errors and weaknesses? Please show us so that we can attempt to make the understanding better and to correct our errors. One cannot learn without criticism.
And finally what is wrong with Kent Hovind? He is just as credible as any proponent of evolution.
Really? Read this:
http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/ba ... thesis.htm The man is not credible when his own work does not add up.
Read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind#Science and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind#Creationism
Yes it is wiki but it has sources to back up what is written. The mere fact that other Young Earth Creationist do not support his theory makes me nervous to accept him.
Read this also:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
A large part of the reason why Creationist arguments against evolution can sound so persuasive is because they don't address evolution, but rather argue against a set of misunderstandings that people are right to consider ludicrous. The Creationists wrongly believe that their understanding of evolution is what the theory of evolution really says, and declare evolution banished. In fact, they haven't even addressed the topic of evolution. (The situation isn't helped by poor science education generally. Even most beginning college biology students don't understand the theory of evolution.)
The five propositions below seem to be the most common misconceptions based on a Creationist straw-man version of evolution. If you hear anyone making any of them, chances are excellent that they don't know enough about the real theory of evolution to make informed opinions about it.
Evolution has never been observed.
Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
There are no transitional fossils.
The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance.
Evolution is only a theory; it hasn't been proved.
Explanations of why these statements are wrong are given below. They are brief and therefore somewhat simplified; consult the references at the end for more thorough expla
"Evolution has never been observed."
Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population over time. One example is insects developing a resistance to pesticides over the period of a few years. Even most Creationists recognize that evolution at this level is a fact. What they don't appreciate is that this rate of evolution is all that is required to produce the diversity of all living things from a common ancestor.
The origin of new species by evolution has also been observed, both in the laboratory and in the wild. See, for example, (Weinberg, J.R., V.R. Starczak, and D. Jorg, 1992, "Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory." Evolution 46: 1214-1220). The "Observed Instances of Speciation" FAQ in the talk.origins archives gives several additional examples.
Even without these direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn't been observed. Evidence isn't limited to seeing something happen before your eyes. Evolution makes predictions about what we would expect to see in the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. The number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming.
What hasn't been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow. This is not a problem for evolution because evolution doesn't propose occurrences even remotely like that. In fact, if we ever observed a frog turn into a cow, it would be very strong evidence against evolution.
I struggle with debates to correctly use the words to get my point across so please bear with me. In saying that I would really like to see, even if you have to copy n paste from another thread, your evidence/views on why creation is the right way. I probably missed it but for the sake of this thread and for this debate to continue both sides need to show their cards as it were.
/really wish I had my old job because then I could debate with you but between day shift and night shift I have little or no time as it is. Started typing this out straight after you posted and look at how long it has taken me to respond...