The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #155384   Message #3666022
Posted By: Bill D
04-Oct-14 - 11:55 AM
Thread Name: BS: Special thread on Evolution & religion
Subject: RE: BS: Special thread on Evolution & religion
"... creationists freely admit their presuppositions, and faith, though supported by scientific and logical argument. evolutionists however refuse to admit presuppositions and their faith...."

That, Pete. is at the core of our disagreement. "Freely admitting" your presuppositions does not give them special status.

Here is the problem: you state that 'evolutionists' also have some. That is not a good way to describe what 'scientists' begin with, but even if we allow that term, we need to understand that presuppositions come in more than one flavor.
You begin with presuppositions about unverified 'facts'. Old documents are data, not 'truth'... they must be tested, examined & translated and compared to other data... not merely copied and inserted into a corpus of beliefs.

We... and science... begin with presuppositions about how to IDENTIFY and test facts. That is, we assume nothing about the data that is not looked at from various angles by multiple experts and that is correlated with other facts/data. Old documents are subject to the same rigor as old bones and old rocks.

When you are presented by science with data & logic which seems to cast doubt on your beliefs, you specifically look for ways to defend your set of beliefs no matter what the data & logic show, which leads to
1) equivocation over terms (creationist 'scientists'), Anyone whose basic premise is religious is not acting AS a scientist in that context.
2) flawed interpretation of evidence (dino 'footprints' which are proven not to be what you need them to be'),
3)nit-picking over time scales and detail (claiming that slightly different measurements cast doubt on the entire system),
   3a)assertions that disagreement over detail by scientists casts doubt on their overall conclusions.
4)really, really bad logic/reasoning trying to accuse scientists of the same fallacies you employ. (argument from authority...etc.) (which is also an equivocation on 'authority') Science does NOT accept something simply because they read it in a book, or because someone famous said so.... and if some individual scientist does so, science in general is designed to correct it!)
   4a)assuming what you wish to prove in your premises: "you can't have something from nothing, therefore there must have been a creator". It has a certain ring to it, but is essentially only a feeling. We can only speculate about that. We can measure a lot about the Universe, including general age and development, but beginning? *shrug*

I could, of course, expand on all those points in various ways... and have done so in the past... and could define the numbered points in various ways.

I DO understand the force of belief as to 'creation' and metaphysical concepts, but as you know, millions of 'good Christians' also accept, as Wolcott did, the idea that God 'revealed himself through evolution.