This is a co-worker?
Stop arguing. It won’t end well. You’re not going to convince him, he’s not going to convince you, and someone is going to end up mad. It isn’t worth the effort to try and reason him out of something he didn’t reason himself into. Nothing anyone here says is going to help. Save yourself the frustration, drama, and lots of other things that can happen because this is a co-worker, and walk away.
That’s a good start. I would suggest pointing out the things that the believer already accepts which are contradictions to his Bible:
The Bible describes a firmament above us which separates the higher waters from the lower waters. God opens windows in the firmament when he wants it to rain (Genesis 7:11). Does your cow-orker object to the “water cycle theory”?
The Bible says that a hare chews its cud (Deuteronomy 14:7).
Is the Earth supported by pillars? Is Does it have four corners? Can you stand on one mountain and see all the lands of the Earth?
Why would someone accept these even though they contradict the Bible, yet reject another science?
I think I know the answer - it’s because if everything evolved naturally, it deflates the whole concept that humankind was planned. That’s what’s really bugging him, but you should be able to use the above to at least get him to question his own acceptance of the Bible over science. Especially the water cycle.
The change in the general understanding of the evolution of the horse from a “ladder-like” lineage to a “bush-like” lineage has been picked up by the anti-evolutionists (God knows why) as a central argument in their “evolution is wrong” (and sometimes also the “see, even the scientists think evolution is wrong”) argument.
For example, The Non-Evolution of the Horse":
The site uses a bunch of jargon and cites various bits of (usually totally irrelevant) actual research, which probably helps makes their argument look impressive and scientific to the layperson (needless to say, from a biologist’s perspective it has so much stupid on it it’s frightening).
JRB
Pshhaaawww. That ain’t nothin.
I once taught at a college where an astronomy prof was a young earth creationist.
Stick that one in your pipe and try to smoke it.
Ah, yes. This reminds me of the old office poster: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
Maybe you could get a small one and post it. It would be safe. He’ll never think that it applies to him.
Here’s a strategy: Explain that many, if not most, scientists actually believe in a theory some (not many, but some) are calling “Biblical Gradual Change”. In this theory, and the evidence appears to support it, instead of evolution, God has explicitly setup a mechanism so as not to interfere with the environment and it’s impact on the organisms on the planet. This mechanism of non-interference can be traced all the way back at least 6,000 years.
Just mention that the scientists don’t want to come out and publicly mention that God must have setup this non-interference mechanism.
What’s wrong with the idea that God created the Earth, not in seven literal days, but in seven periods of time, and gave animals in innate ability to evolve over long periods of time for the betterment of each species?
Why does evolution and creationism have to be mutually exclusive?
Philosophically? Nothing. And, they don’t.
That’s basically Intelligent Design, give or take the timing and extent of the godly ‘steering’ of the evolutionary process.
Well, ‘creationism’ is typically understood to mean that god ‘poofed’ the animals into existence, or in some other way definitely did magic to make it happen. However, even ID is antievolutionary because evolution argues that present and historical animal (and plant) forms are explainable, and best explained, by purely unsteered, naturalistic processes. Hitching a Creator to that wagon is like explaining that cars work because all the little parts in there are being pushed back and forth and around and around by out-of-work Keebler elves - it denies the causes being posited by the naturalistic theory, even if it doesn’t deny most of the mechanisms.
What if the big bang was god sneezing? He a-choo’s the universe into existence, setting the ball rolling. Everything thereafter happens due to the naturalistic causes we’ve uncovered, in a setting and environment he created which was perfect conditions for the world as we know it to evolve. My husband is a molecular biologist, and often posits this scenario in similar discussions. It’s a beautiful and complex system we have–do you think god isn’t powerful or intelligent enough to have set this system in motion?
There’s no reason you can’t add magic as a root cause–of course there’s no reason to believe there’s magic at the core based on the evidence we have available, but nothing we know necessarily eliminates god if you want to see his hand at work.
To the OP: Start small and don’t expect results. Try to ignore him.
In a totally different context, at some time when you were NOT discussing creationism or evolution, teach him about the scientific method. Say nothing more and do NOT connect SM with creationism. Make sure you don’t move past this step until he gets it. Then at some later time, and again disconnected, teach about peer review, and crackpot theories.
You need to teach him the basics and let him draw his own conclusions. As people have pointed out, he believes what he believes because he wants to believe it. If you deal with the basics, he’ll come to change what he wants to believe all on his own.
Not necessarily. If God created a proto-horse and various other animals and several grains and then let everything alone for a few thousand years, doesn’t that allow for both? I agree that there are some conflicts (how does humanity fit in?), but I don’t necessarily think that one disallows the other.
“Ah-choo’s”? “Ah-choos”? “Ah-chooes”? “'Ah-choo’s”?
Ladies and gentlemen, I think this wins the thread.
Hee hee hee!
IMO, which is equally valid here, science operates according to a set of axioms, such as:
-Our perceptions are of an objective, physical universe: it is not the case, as some Buddhists claim, that the physical world is illusory.
-Relevantly similar causes under relevantly similar conditions beget relevantly similar effects, and will continue to do so.
-The basic principles of formal logic apply to our universe: if P is true, then ~P is false.
There may be others.
A creationist may choose to reject these, in favor of another axiom, such as:
-Everything in the King James Bible is literally true.
If you argue against it using scientific axioms (The Bible states both P and ~P, and both of these cannot both be true), you will fail, unless the person you’re arguing with accepts the axiom that the principles of formal logic apply to our universe. More often than you might think, YECs don’t accept the principles of formal logic as a valid tool by which the Bible may be critiqued.
My suggestion, then, is to find out what axioms y’all can agree on. If you can’t agree to accept the principles of formal logic and reason, then your starting points are too far removed from one another to engage in a fruitful discussion.
If you can get your co-worker to accept the three axioms I listed above, however, and if you want to argue, then my suggestion would be to set some ground rules. Ask the co-worker to present a single argument that he considers to be a strong argument against the theory of evolution by natural selection. Get him to agree to discuss only that argument for the time being. Then refuse to engage in any side arguments, relentlessly, boringly, returning to his one argument until either he concedes its fallaciousness, you concede its accuracy, or the two of you agree there’s no progress to be made.
Don’t let him move to another area!
Daniel
Evolutionary theory reaches back beyond the proto-horse, though; At the point where the creationist theory starts to disagree, it starts to disagree, even if prior to that point it doesn’t.
It’s sort of how some creationsts claim to believe in “microevolution” but not “macroevolution” - despite there being no functional difference between the two processes whatsoever. If you’re throwing out bits, you’re changing the theory.
AFAIK, the theory of evolution is the theory of a process. Taking that back further and positing a beginning scenario based on that theory is a different theory. I agree that they’re often lumped together, but my point is that I don’t see why the ID concept and the evolutionary process theories can’t coexist.
Hmmm, well, I suppose it depends on how you roll the ID. If all the god’s doing is deciding which people are getting together (free will? Breeding program!), then I suppose one could sort of merge them, if you squinted your eyes nearly shut when looking at things like mutation. But not if they’re into that ‘irreduceable complexity’ stuff, no way. I mean, we have standards here.
But they can and do. We’ve intelligently designed dog breeds, and Darwin studied plant breeding and animal husbandry extensively.
Where present day ID has a problem is that it posits a designer where none is necessary, and without any evidence of this designer. When Behe is writing for the Times and not for creationists, he admits that evolution accounts for most of our development. If there was no religion involved, there would be no need for the ancient designer hypothesis.
Now, what most people consider ID of course is creationism with a s/creationism/ID/g script applied., as was the case of the textbook that Behe supposedly reviewed.
Never forget the wise words of G.B. Shaw: “You cannot rationally argue out what wasn’t rationally argued in”. This could save you a lot of wasted time.
I would be careful against assigning unnecessary axioms to the scientific method.
Don’t get me wrong; many scientists would agree with your axioms. But IMO, when Creationists then claim that science is arbitrary, or somehow based on Biblical principles, because of such axioms, they very nearly score some points.
Consider the axioms you mentioned:
I don’t know how you’ve come to the conclusion you have.
In terms of it being an axiom though, there’s no reason for it to be: there’s no intrinsic reason why we can’t do science in The Matrix.
Even in the situation where the programmers are deliberately trying to frustrate our attempts to learn about our (fake) environment: we could still learn about the behaviour of the programmers.
This is definitely one that a lot of scientists would agree with.
But imagine a Universe where things often behave predictably. Or where some things are not predictable. Science could still be a useful tool in such a Universe; just not as useful as it is in our universe (so far). This implies it is not a necessary axiom.
We could say that an axiom therefore is “some things must behave predictably”. But I don’t think there’s any point: how would we know that nothing is predictable without doing science first?
We could go into a discussion of whether logic is something “out there” but still, the essential premise, that the universe behaves logically, is a meaningful statement I believe.
Therefore I’ll let you have this one.
