Why do creationists (with which I'm referring to certain specific dogmas
rather than "christians" or "believers" in general) continuously confuse
two completely different and separate fields of science, namely astronomy
and biology?

  You constantly hear claims like "evolutionists claim that the universe
began with a 'big bang' from nothing" and such.

  The so-called Big Bang Theory is part of the field of science called
astronomy. The Theory of Evolution is part of the field called biology.
Astronomy and biology are both natural sciences, but that's approximately
where their commonalities end. Otherwise they don't have about anything
in common. They are completely different fields of science.

  It seems that there's a misconception among creationists that "the theory
of evolution" is a catch-all term which encompasses, among many other things,
the Big Bang theory, stellar evolution, abiogenesis and biological evolution.
All kinds of claims are made about the "theory of evolution" which have
nothing to do with it and belong to completely unrelated fields of science
such as astronomy and astrophysics.

  Of course "evolution" is a relatively narrow field of science (compared
to the whole) which encompasses a lot less than creationists seem to think.

  Another (perhaps "lesser", but definitely more common) misconception seems
to be that the theory of evolution claims that life formed from non-organic
elements. Of course the theory of evolution says no such thing. They are
confusing it with abiogenesis, which is the theory of how and why life could
have formed from non-life. The theory of evolution only encompasses *already
living* groups of organisms, not how they became into existence in the first
place.

  But that confusion can be forgiven, as the subject matters are quite
related (namely, how modern life came into existence). What is less
forgivable is confusing two completely different branches of science
which have nothing in common (ie. biology and astronomy).

  Do they do that on purpose or something?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2010-07-17 14:54, Warp wrote:
>    But that confusion can be forgiven, as the subject matters are quite
> related (namely, how modern life came into existence). What is less
> forgivable is confusing two completely different branches of science
> which have nothing in common (ie. biology and astronomy).

Because the question of evolution fundamentally boils down to "where did 
we come from?"...er..."whence came we?"  Vocal atheists play the same 
card with 'then who created God?'

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> writes:

>   You constantly hear claims like "evolutionists claim that the universe
> began with a 'big bang' from nothing" and such.

First I heard of it.

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Warp wrote:
>   Do they do that on purpose or something?

They hear the arguments from someone who does it on purpose and don't know 
enough about even the basics of the science to realize they're being lied to.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Tim Cook wrote:
> Vocal atheists play the same card with 'then who created God?'

Only when the argument is "the universe must have been created by an 
intelligence." :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    C# - a language whose greatest drawback
    is that its best implementation comes
    from a company that doesn't hate Microsoft.

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   You constantly hear claims like "evolutionists claim that the universe
> began with a 'big bang' from nothing" and such.
>

The Young Earthers don't even get the Big Bang right. Cal Thomas once made a
reference to "the Big Bang theory, which claims that the universe began from an
eternally pre-existent cosmic egg."

There's two flavors of Creationists,  Old Earth and Young Earth.

Here's a link to the podcast of the Old Earthers. They've got some pretty
scientifically sound stuff.  Take a listen if you hope to make informed
judgments about "creationism."
http://podcasts.reasons.org/newsflash/podcast.xml

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Because the question of evolution fundamentally boils down to "where did 
> we come from?"

  Maybe according to creationists, not according to the theory of evolution.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Neeum Zawan <fee### [at] festercom> wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> writes:

> >   You constantly hear claims like "evolutionists claim that the universe
> > began with a 'big bang' from nothing" and such.

> First I heard of it.

  Try for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ljORZcfQs

(At 1:25): "And yet many evolutionists would have us believe that in the
name of science: There was no creator, no space, no energy, no matter, there
was nothing, and then there was this big bang and out came the sea and the
land..."

  The "big bang" is not part of the theory of evolution. It's part of
astronomy.

  (And, in fact, the big bang theory doesn't actually say that there was
nothing and then suddenly something appeared. It just says that everything
was initially compressed in a singularity. AFAIK there's currently no
widely accepted theory about what happened *before* that.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   Why do creationists (with which I'm referring to certain specific dogmas
> rather than "christians" or "believers" in general) continuously confuse
> two completely different and separate fields of science, namely astronomy
> and biology?

  Another curious things is that many creationists seem to think that they
know what "evolution" is better than evolutionists themselves.

  A very typical argument between a (young-earth) creationist and an
evolutionist goes like: "Can you give me even one single example of
evolution having been observed?" "Yes, there's for example xyz."
"That's not evolution."

  Wait, now creationists define what "evolution" means and are, basically,
claiming that evolutionists don't even know what it really means?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> 
> (At 1:25): "And yet many evolutionists would have us believe that in the
> name of science: There was no creator, no space, no energy, no matter, there
> was nothing, and then there was this big bang and out came the sea and the
> land..."
> 

I'm not sure I see anything in this quote which implies that the big 
bang is part of evolution.  The most natural interpretation seems to be 
that "evolutionist" is used as a blanket term which can be used as a 
label for one who holds a set of related viewpoints of which evolution 
need only be a part.

But don't take my word for it.  About 10 seconds of Google leads to the 
Conservapedia article on Evolutionism, which seems like a pretty 
reasonable place to learn what the people who actually use the term 
"Evolutionist" seriously think it means.  Here's one quote:

---

"Biblical Young Earth Creationists hold both terms in philosophically 
equal light, up to a certain point. They would say that the term 
"Evolutionism" has the same or very similar meaning to "Creationism" as 
it relates to a supposed philosophical/foundational starting point or 
question (does God exist?). They say the term "Evolutionism" refers to a 
subset of a combination of world views, while the scientific theory of 
evolution is the result of the Evolutionist presupposition. In other 
words, they say that Evolutionism is the collective world view behind 
the scientific theory of evolution. However, that's where the 
similarities end with Creationism."

and another:

"Some Creationists point out that they see various religious aspects, 
not in the theory of evolution itself (although they don't exclude that 
necessarily), but in the Evolutionists themselves"

And another:

"Evolutionism is a world-view, which seeks to explain every aspect of 
this world in which we live. It encompasses a wide variety of topics, 
from astronomy to chemistry to biology. At its core, it teaches that 
there were different stages in the evolution of our universe."

---

Now, I'm sure not every bozo who owns a blog or who can post a youtube 
video has bothered even considering these points, or learning what 
evolution actually is, but I don't think that sort of ignorance is 
limited just to Creationists, but rather it's just the sort of thing 
that you now expect in any argument on the internet.

Also, this marks the first time I have ever seriously linked to 
Conservapedia as a reference, and it is feels sort of strange.

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