DARWINIST: How do you know God created life?
CREATIONIST: I don’t, I believe because I have faith. How do you know evolution is true?
DARWINIST: Because there is so much physical proof that it shouldn’t even be considered a theory anymore, it’s a fact.
CREATIONIST: You mean like advances in DNA research?
DARWINIST: DNA research supports evolution, but it isn’t considered proof all by itself because it is still dependent on a theoretical framework to make sense of the data. In other words, no matter how hard a biologist looks at genetic code, he can’t see the past—only mutations. But by using Darwin’s principle that life evolved from a single germ, a biologist can then compare the differences in DNA and figure out how far back on the evolution tree they go, or where two species branched. But the concrete evidence is not found in a lab, it is found in the earth itself. For example, we have an excellent fossil record for Perissodactyls, like the horse, zebra, and rhinoceros. Same thing for Elephants.
CREATIONIST: Uninterrupted since the Paleocene period?
DARWINIST: Well, between early Oligocene and early Miocene, there are several million years with no Perissodactyl fossils at all, but that just means we haven’t found them yet.
CREATIONIST: But they’re out there?
DARWINIST: Of course.
CREATIONIST: How can you be sure?
DARWINIST: It’s just common sense. We have a fossil record that shows other animals evolved, the elephant isn’t any different.
CREATIONIST: So evolution is a commonsensical theory? I always thought of it as purely analytical.
DARWINIST: It is analytical, but the process of fossilization is too haphazard to make a full analysis possible. Even the very recent Pleistocene period which has the best fossil record of all, is still missing species-to-species transitional fossils for 80-90% of modern mammals. So we have to take what evidence is available and use common sense conjectures for the rest.
CREATIONIST: Kind of like observing the perfect order in the universe and concluding an intelligent being must have created it?
DARWINIST: No that’s speculation. I’m talking about using concrete evidence.
CREATIONIST: The periodic table, the earth’s orbit around the sun—that’s not physical evidence?
DARWINIST: Yes, but the conclusions you are drawing are wrong.
CREATIONIST: What about bats?
DARWINIST: The first known fossil was already a fully flying animals and very similar to modern bats. In fact, there are no bat fossils from the entire Paleocene period.
CREATIONIST: But you believe bats had un-winged ancestors even though there is no physical proof?
DARWINIST: Of course, for the reasons I already stated.
CREATIONIST: When you believe something exists even though you’ve never actually seen it, isn’t that called faith?
DARWINIST: No, it’s called common sense. Why would Perissodactyls evolve and not Chiropterans?
CREATIONIST: I never said your reasoning was flawed, just that it sounds a lot like Paul’s definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
DARWINIST: Scientists don’t have faith, we base our knowledge on facts.
CREATIONIST: What about guinea pigs and cavies? I heard they appeared out of nowhere in their modern forms during the late Oligocene period.
DARWINIST: For the last time, just because I can’t prove that cavies evolved from a common rodent ancestor doesn’t mean that they didn’t!
CREATIONIST: Sounds a lot like faith to me:)
DISCLAIMER!!! This is not an attempt to disprove evolution. It may very well be true. The point, in case you missed it, is that the majority of what we believe is based on the principle of faith. I am not talking about blind faith, I am talking about faith as a product of reason. The reasoning goes that all experiments can be duplicated in a laboratory setting, so if you really wanted to prove everything in a science text book you could. But in reality, students only perform a fraction of these experiments, for all the rest, they have faith in the testimony of other scientists. Hence, the majority of all our knowledge is faith-based.
CREATIONIST: I don’t, I believe because I have faith. How do you know evolution is true?
DARWINIST: Because there is so much physical proof that it shouldn’t even be considered a theory anymore, it’s a fact.
CREATIONIST: You mean like advances in DNA research?
DARWINIST: DNA research supports evolution, but it isn’t considered proof all by itself because it is still dependent on a theoretical framework to make sense of the data. In other words, no matter how hard a biologist looks at genetic code, he can’t see the past—only mutations. But by using Darwin’s principle that life evolved from a single germ, a biologist can then compare the differences in DNA and figure out how far back on the evolution tree they go, or where two species branched. But the concrete evidence is not found in a lab, it is found in the earth itself. For example, we have an excellent fossil record for Perissodactyls, like the horse, zebra, and rhinoceros. Same thing for Elephants.
CREATIONIST: Uninterrupted since the Paleocene period?
DARWINIST: Well, between early Oligocene and early Miocene, there are several million years with no Perissodactyl fossils at all, but that just means we haven’t found them yet.
CREATIONIST: But they’re out there?
DARWINIST: Of course.
CREATIONIST: How can you be sure?
DARWINIST: It’s just common sense. We have a fossil record that shows other animals evolved, the elephant isn’t any different.
CREATIONIST: So evolution is a commonsensical theory? I always thought of it as purely analytical.
DARWINIST: It is analytical, but the process of fossilization is too haphazard to make a full analysis possible. Even the very recent Pleistocene period which has the best fossil record of all, is still missing species-to-species transitional fossils for 80-90% of modern mammals. So we have to take what evidence is available and use common sense conjectures for the rest.
CREATIONIST: Kind of like observing the perfect order in the universe and concluding an intelligent being must have created it?
DARWINIST: No that’s speculation. I’m talking about using concrete evidence.
CREATIONIST: The periodic table, the earth’s orbit around the sun—that’s not physical evidence?
DARWINIST: Yes, but the conclusions you are drawing are wrong.
CREATIONIST: What about bats?
DARWINIST: The first known fossil was already a fully flying animals and very similar to modern bats. In fact, there are no bat fossils from the entire Paleocene period.
CREATIONIST: But you believe bats had un-winged ancestors even though there is no physical proof?
DARWINIST: Of course, for the reasons I already stated.
CREATIONIST: When you believe something exists even though you’ve never actually seen it, isn’t that called faith?
DARWINIST: No, it’s called common sense. Why would Perissodactyls evolve and not Chiropterans?
CREATIONIST: I never said your reasoning was flawed, just that it sounds a lot like Paul’s definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
DARWINIST: Scientists don’t have faith, we base our knowledge on facts.
CREATIONIST: What about guinea pigs and cavies? I heard they appeared out of nowhere in their modern forms during the late Oligocene period.
DARWINIST: For the last time, just because I can’t prove that cavies evolved from a common rodent ancestor doesn’t mean that they didn’t!
CREATIONIST: Sounds a lot like faith to me:)
DISCLAIMER!!! This is not an attempt to disprove evolution. It may very well be true. The point, in case you missed it, is that the majority of what we believe is based on the principle of faith. I am not talking about blind faith, I am talking about faith as a product of reason. The reasoning goes that all experiments can be duplicated in a laboratory setting, so if you really wanted to prove everything in a science text book you could. But in reality, students only perform a fraction of these experiments, for all the rest, they have faith in the testimony of other scientists. Hence, the majority of all our knowledge is faith-based.