# Creationism vs evolution **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 12, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281 "2012-08-12T17:06:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![M.Wilkinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@M.Wilkinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M.Wilkinson)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281/61 "2013-01-17T23:18:49Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > What practical knowledge does “god did it” add to our understanding of evolution and biology? If god created the mechanism in such a subtle way that his interference or design would never be testable, observable, or ever look any different at all from what would naturally occur, what does adding the “god did it” component to our understanding of evolution actually accomplish? > > If nothing, why does it need special treatment? Do we say “here’s how the planets orbit around the sun, and here’s a totally natural explanation for how it came to be, but also god did it”? “Here’s how gravity works, and the way this bowling ball will fall when we drop it is exactly in line with our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe, but god did it”? > > You’re right that religious people could be more rational and less ridiculous by using your rationalization, but it doesn’t add anything to our understanding of the world. It’s eliminated as part of the explanation by the actual proper use of Occam’s razor (which, by the way, is almost always misused). It’s an unnecesary component to the explanation that doesn’t add anything to it. Yeah believing God did it doesn’t improve our understanding of the details of biology, but the point here is the reality of the universe. You can believe in God and study the universe. The point here is that if God actually did it, then we should give credit where it is due. But that doesn’t stop us from being able to study medicine, physics or engineering. Some people prefer to explains things using God and others want to explain things without God, but if he does exist, then we should be conscious of that. ---
**Author:** ![M.Wilkinson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@M.Wilkinson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M.Wilkinson)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281/62 "2013-01-17T23:23:26Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You have defined the particular version of Young Earth Creationism that is popular among many Christian groups in the U.S. today. > > However, there is also Old Earth Creationism that inserts long periods into the reckoning to give geology and paleontology some breathing room, while still insisting that God was the specific agent in every act of creation. Such folks reckon the Earth to be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of years old and they are very definitely Creationists. > > There are also Jewish, Muslim, and other Creationists who have their own sets of beliefs. (Judaism is currently celebrating year 5772, so they clearly came to a different reckoning than Bishop Ussher. In addition, various other Christians took a crack at calculating the date of creation and they have come up with a number of dates that do not match 4004 B.C.E.) I also want to make a point here: when judaism is celebrating the year 5772, that could just mean that they are celebrating an event, but not necessarily the beginning of the earth. For example muslims have the hijra calendar which is in the year 1433 now. This calendar started when the muslims migrated from makkah to what is now known as medina 1433 years ago at the time the Prophet Muhammed was alive. Basically the earth existed and the humans existed well before the start of any formal calendars. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281/63 "2013-01-17T23:26:19Z")
> [@M.Wilkinson](#): > > Yeah believing God did it doesn’t improve our understanding of the details of biology, but the point here is the reality of the universe. You can believe in God and study the universe. Not very well. Eventually people tend to either give up religion or give up science. They contradict each other too much. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281/64 "2013-01-17T23:32:51Z")
> [@M.Wilkinson](#): > > Yeah believing God did it doesn’t improve our understanding of the details of biology, but the point here is the reality of the universe. You can believe in God and study the universe. The point here is that if God actually did it, then we should give credit where it is due. But that doesn’t stop us from being able to study medicine, physics or engineering. Some people prefer to explains things using God and others want to explain things without God, but if he does exist, then we should be conscious of that. Occam’s razor is commonly misunderstood to mean “the simpler of two answers is usually the right one”, but that’s not really what it was about. It’s actually better paraphrased as “when creating an explanation, use the fewest amount of new assumptions possible” So “Life evolved through the process of natural selection” is a better explanation than “Life evolved through the process of natural selection except God was secretly guiding it in a way so subtle that we’d never be able to detect it nor ever make changes that could not have happened naturally anyway” Studying how things work in the universe, and then describing them, and then adding “But… God did it” does not add anything to our understanding of the universe. It’s equivelant to saying “But… leprechauns did it” If we can explain these things entirely through natural processes, and not only do we not require God, but in order to believe God was involved you would have to think that he acted with such subtlety that we could never detect that God was involved, it adds nothing to our understanding of the universe, and becomes quite implausible as an explanation. Basically a never ending series of special pleading. ---
**Author:** ![SirGalahad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/71c47a/32.png) [@SirGalahad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirGalahad)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281/65 "2013-01-18T05:40:03Z")
That there are gifts under the tree Xmas morning is a given. According to Science, Mom and Dad are responsible for the presence of the presents. The Santa-ists insist a supernatural being, Santa, flies all over the world in one night and distributes toys to every household. Describing how this happens in a way that Santa creates the concept of gifting, and nudges parents for hundreds of years to slowly develop a more and more efficient method of wrapping and presenting said gifts is as inelegant a concept as suggesting a Supreme Being “created” evolution and let it run it’s course according to the Laws of Science. When will Creationists enjoy Church and Sunday School, instruct their children in the charming stories and Parables in the Bible, and let schools teach Science without trying to throw both concepts in a blender. Religion has nothing to do with Science, and Science will never bear out these Mythologies; and Science has nothing to do with Religion and is useless in explaining the ideas forwarded by Religion. I’m not, by the way, opposed to Creationism being taught in public schools, and certainly not for the reasons involving the “separation of church and state” implied in the First Amendment; as long as it’s taught as Mythology … Comparative Religion. Don’t teach it as Science, as an alternative to Science (there isn’t one), or worst of all, as “working with” Science, corrupting both philosophies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationism-vs-evolution/631281.md?page=3)