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What Does epicidiot Believe?
I’m an evidentialist, in that I go wherever the evidence leads. It doesn’t matter to me personally if we evolved from lower forms to our present form, or if we were created in our present form. Neither method changes my spiritual beliefs or values. It's the same basic attitude I have for cars. I don't really care how cars work, but I like reading car manuals and tinkering with them because I'm curious how they work. If it weren’t for an overactive curiosity that makes me want to learn things, I wouldn’t be involved in the origins debate.
The evidence seems clear that life on this planet started out in simple forms, and over a long period of time, new and more complex forms have been gradually added, while other forms have died out. The fossil record (go here for a further explanation), as pathetic as it is, at least makes this much inherently obvious. I just don’t see how anyone examining the evidence can say otherwise. This was recognized long before the Theory of Evolution was proposed. Even Intelligent Design (ID) advocates such as Behe, of Irreducible Complexity fame, plainly state this. (This is something that a lot of people who support ID don’t seem to realize.) The Theory of Evolution was proposed to explain this evidence, and whether it correctly explains it or not, the evidence still remains the same.
So, the big question is “How did these new and more complex creatures come about?”
These are some of the beliefs that allow for the emergence of more complex life forms over a long period of time: Certainly various people and groups define these with some differences, but these represent the gist of these beliefs.
- Theory of Evolution: Provides a naturalistic explanation. It doesn't have all the answers, but scientists like it because it explains much of what we do know and offers the possibility of explaining the rest without the need for supernatural intervention.
- Intelligent Design: Provides a supernatural explanation. I know some claim otherwise, but if you read what the leaders of the ID movement write, it always work its way back to a supernatural being of some sort, in that it requires a being that works outside of nature. Even the alien proposition is for an alien with supernatural powers. See Intelligent Design
- Deism: Life evolved, but was initiated by a deity (or God), who then stepped back and let it work on its own. The point at which the deity quit intervening in the formation of life varies, with some saying it happened at the Big Bang, and others saying after the formation of the simple cells.
- Theistic evolution: Life evolved, but was initiated and guided by a deity.
- Biblical Allegory: Just as the Bible uses parables to present other information, the Genesis creation account is an allegory to describe how man should relate to God and His creation and to teach valuable life lessons. It was never intended to be used as science lesson and does not refute and old Earth or evolution.
Here are some of the beliefs that deny the gradual emergence of increasingly complex life forms and believe that life forms were created essentially in their current form:
- Young Earth Creationism: The creation took place in six literal 24-hour days about 6,000 years ago as described in Genesis.
- Old Earth Creationism: The six days are long epochs of time, with creation happening some undetermined time in the past.
- Gap Theory: Genesis describes and old Earth and Universe that were created some time in the past, but the Earth was destroyed and then recreated about 6,000 years ago with modern life.
These are the biggies, but of course there are literally hundreds of others. Also, there are other variations of these.
So where am I? Theory of Evolution (ToE) best explains what we know, but leaves a lot to be desired and lot unexplained. However, I don't know of anything that violates the Theory of Evolution. There's plenty that hasn't been explained, but not having yet explained something and not being able to explain something are two different things.
The Theory of Evolution doesn’t say one way or the other whether or not a God-like being was involved. This is an area of much confusion. The ToE only states that God needn't be involved, but it doesn't claim he couldn't be involved. It simply looks for naturalistic explanations. This follows the definition of science as accepted by the scientific community as a whole (not just evolutionists) where only natural explanations are allowed. Science is about what can be done naturally. Things that are done supernaturally are for other fields of study. Many complain that this automatically excludes alternate explanations. But, scientists want to be able to do things with what they learn. If you are making a new vaccine, you can’t say “Psst, hey God, come here a second. I need you to do that miracle thing you do to make cells.” What good is it if you have to call on God every time you need to perform an experiment or make a new batch of drugs. That in a nutshell is why scientists as a group are so vehemently opposed to supernatural explanations. Supernatural explanations have no practical value, even if true.
From What's So Funny About Science?: Cartoons from American Scientist
If scientists can figure out a naturalistic method for how life could evolve, then they have something they can work with, even if it wasn’t the way it actually happened. And that’s one of the main goals of the Theory of Evolution: The discovery of practical, useful, information. The other goal of course, is to figure out how it actually happened.
The reason why 99% of biologists like the Theory of Evolution, is that even if it’s not completely correct, it’s highly useful and good science. This is another misconception of science. A theory is valued according to how useful it is. It doesn’t have to be 100% correct to be useful. Newtonian physics isn’t 100% correct, but it’s highly useful. The Theory of Gravity isn’t complete, but it’s highly useful. The General Theory of Relativity isn’t complete, but it’s useful. Do you see the point?
Again, this is why scientists, in general, don't like theories that require supernatural intervention. If a cell requires supernatural intervention, then where do you from there? How do you work with something, if by definition if requires supernatural intervention? It may be useful for explaining things, but it has no practical value beyond that. Some might argue that this is wrong-headed thinking by science, and arbitrarily excludes possible explanations, such as God, but this is how science works.
What are my religious beliefs? This isn't a religious site, so you just have to figure that out on your own. Sorry.
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