Is evolution creation? Is creation evolution?

Question

Give me some facts. No sermons or classroom conversation.
I do not need links. Only logic. I will show you how logic is far superior to researching others missconceptions right or wrong.

Answer 1

Concerning the debate going on about intelligent design and evolution: is it possible that the final answer about which of these two seemingly opposite ideas is correct could simply be yes?

With one position firmly held by the believers and the other just as fearlessly defended by the non-believers, if you happen to be in a position somewhere near the middle, it does not look all that complex. From this position, you wonder why either-or has to be the answer.

If you believe that some higher being created the universe by intelligent design, what more elegant and intelligent design could there have been than a self-regulating system that continually checks its own errors and makes its own corrections in mid-stream as an integral part of the process.

This all seems quite logical to me although it probably won’t satisfy the believers because they are afraid to see any truth other than the one they have been told to believe in. Inversely it certainly won’t satisfy the non-believers because it leaves them stuck with a god that they are so obviously terrified of.

To sum up this view from the center, it might be most easily be explained by saying perhaps the designer was intelligent. Problem is, the designer was likely so intelligent that those seeking to prove that it is intelligently designed may be incapable of ever understand it well enough to see it for the elegant self regulating design that it has always been.

The nonbelievers will be similarly handicapped due to the internal terror the have about the idea that there may be a God. Neither side being able to leave their entrenched position for fear they may have to admit they were wrong. While the rest of us stand by trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. Personally I don’t think anyone is wrong, I just feel both sides are about half right.

Love and blessings
don

Answer 2

Excellent opinions from all members above. Congratulations on your scholarship.

However there still seems to be some confusion about the two words "creation" and "evolution" and both can be very simply explained so that both opinions are satisfied.

First "Creation", World experts have come with a delineation of "creation". It is :

Since the universe is something, it had to have a "creator", not a person but a force. Let us call it :

The Architect of the Universe

There you have it, just a force with no chosen people, no favorties, just a creative force. Now this "universe" can change over time, break into galaxies and planets, be covered with water, allow simple chemical reactions to fuse together into primitive life forms which "evolve" into more complicated life forms, into plants and animals and finally human life forms.

There you have it, creation by the architect of the Universe and "evolution" or change of all things in that universe.


This explanation has always satisfied science followers like myself and religious followers who need a spiritual component in their lives in order to seek meaning and truth.

Answer 3

Traditionally, when the term "creation" is used in this context, it refers to the intentional creation of matter and life by an omnipotent super-being (the Biblical God, for example) that exists beyond the laws of nature. If you mean creation in this way, then the answer is almost certainly no. There is, and has never been, a single piece of objective evidence provided to support this claim -- only religious mythology.

If, however, we wanted to use the word "creation" in a different and less restrictive sense -- say, to mean only the act of something being produced -- without specifically stating that it had to be produced through supernatural causation, then I suppose "creation" could be acceptable.

Realize, however, that the debate about evolution always entails people using the word "creation" to refer to the supernatural sense of the word. This is why scientists insist on avoiding using ambiguous words like "creation" or "design" when discussing the origins of life. Those words are simply too easy for people to manipulate to serve their religious purposes.

Understand -- evolution, as a biological process of genetic change, is an observed fact of nature. There is no debate about that. The "theory of evolution," however, is the scientific explanation for how that process of change is accomplished in nature. Evolution and the theory of evolution, then, are two different things. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that evolution is only theoretical -- it isn't. There is the fact of evolution, and then the theory explaining how it happens.

Many religious people will insist that because there exists debate among scientists about evolution, that evolution is therefore shown to be false. This is a common trick the religious use to discredit evolution theory. The debate among scientists, however, is not about whether evolution happens -- after all, we've observed it countless times in nature. The debate is about HOW evolution happens.

You could apply the same tricky reasoning to gravitational theory. There is much debate, even to the present day, about gravity. But the debate isn't about whether gravity exists -- clearly, our personal experience tells us it does. The debate, rather, is about HOW gravity works.

But when was the last time you heard a religious person challenging gravitational theory? Probably never. But why is that? If religious people who are so against evolutionary theory are doing so, as they claim, because they simply want "good science," why not challenge other areas of science instead of just evolution? Surely there are other areas of modern science that are on far skakier ground than evolutionary theory. It is, after all, 150 years old. Plate tectonics is only 40 years old. Why not challenge that, too?

The answer is this: religious people (not all, but many... especially in the United States) argue against evolution NOT because they disagree with its scientific merits (quite frankly, none of them even know its scientific merits), but because evolution contradicts what is, for them, a prior religious obligation.

The Bible doesn't say anything about gravity, nor plate tectonics, so religious people are all-too-willing to accept those ideas. The Bible does, however, say something abou the origins of life. Because evolutionary theory weighs in on the subject, too (and says something COMPLETELY different than the Bible), the religious feel the need to attack it.

Their dilemma is this: as more people begin to accept the fact of evolution, it makes their religious beliefs look all the more primitive, superstitious, and quite honestly embarrassing. If I were them, I'd be scared, too.

Make no mistake -- the argument over evolution from the religious perspective is NOT about science, no matter how times they try to persuade others by claiming that it is. The argument is over their fear of having to admit that their religious convictions are flat out wrong.

Answer 4

If we define creation as making something, like creating a pot or pan, then evolution creates species, sort of. Evolution describes the changing of genotypes as a result of differential reproductive sucesses over thousands of generations and when they change enough, the changes of species. By these definitions, evolution is creation. Creation is not evolution, because things can be created in a static process and remain that way, evolution, by definition, is a dynamic process.

Answer 5

Logic: Carbon dating has an error factor of approximately 20%. This means that if we determine that a given piece of rock is 10 million years old, it could be as much as 12 million years old or as little as 8 million years old. It CANNOT be 6500 years old no matter how you spin it.

Logic: We have found variations of the same species that have adapted to their distinct environments by evolving genetically. It is not guesswork, it is fact.

Logic: Intact cro-magnon and neanderthal skulls have been found. They are not homo-sapiens, they are not mistakes, they are not fraudulent, they are real. Ergo, mankind was not always in his current form.

Is that enough? How much more time need be wasted?

Answer 6

Have you ever encountered evolution that wasn't created and have you ever found creation that didn't evolve? The answer is no, you have not. You may have a partial and finite understanding and thus refuse to see the whole picture. Therefor if you do encounter such a situation you will know that is not the picture it is you.

Answer 7

The problem is that people reduce it to a simple either-or type of argument. Each would be incomplete without the other. The simplistic approach is seldom the correct approach. The Allies existed before Hitler. They merely had no need for fighting. Caesar would have continued to rule Rome. God exists outside of time and, therefore, did quite nicely without Satan.

Answer 8

Take the overwhelming unlikeliness that the scientific evidence supporting evolution is incorrect

Add the near impossibility of it happening without a guiding hand

And I believe that you have two completely reconcilable theories of how we got here. Everyone's right on this--we just don't know that we're all right yet.

Answer 9

Pure logic can lead you in to gross error. That is why the scientific method adduces the evidence.

Answer 10

no creation is making from nothing something evolution is just development of something