tim@unc.UUCP (05/24/83)
Hmm. Apparently not just idiots misunderstood me, so it must be my fault. Apologies to those who failed to understand the point of my recent article entitled "Creationism and Negative Evidence". If that article upset you, or even if it didn't, please read this one as well. I have striven to make all my points as clear as possible in this inpersonal medium. Most of the article was a set of questions about the Biblical account of creation. These questions were not presented in order to inspire people to look for answers to them publicly. They were intended to demonstrate a point, and to serve as evidence for that point by their very existence. Apparently, I did not make this clear enough. So that you don't have to go back and re-read the article, here is the point. Creationists often cite unanswered questions about evolution as evidence for the creationist model. In fact, this line of argument is only valid if the creationist model presents fewer unanswered questions, and a means of answering them that is at least as good as the means of the other model. If you are not following me here, please try harder. The above paragraph is as clear as I can make it, and it is the cornerstone of the entire article. Now in fact, this is not the case. The Biblical account of creation leaves many questions unanswered. Notice: I did not say "unanswerable". I am not using these questions as evidence against creationism. I am using them as evidence against the validity of a particular form of argument often used by creationism. Again, if you're not following me, please reread what I've said. At this point, you can either trust me or go back and look at the body of the article for the questions I'm referring to. An example question is "When were fungi created?" Creationism does not contain fewer gaps than evolutionary theory. The questions, and the literally thousands more that could be presented, demonstrate that. However, if creationism provides a way to answer its questions that is superior to the way evolutionary researchers answer their questions, then the usual creationist argument (citing the gaps in evolutionary theory) is valid. It doesn't. The only way to answer the questions is to make up answers and hope they don't contradict the Bible. We can say "fungi were created with vegetation", but we can never know if we are right. On the other hand, with evolution we can check the fossil and biological records. We are capable of getting more data to verify or refute our answers. Creationism limits us to the Bible and revelation. As we all know, revelation is inherently unreliable, and the BIble leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The method of creationism is inferior in this respect, and is unjustified in using the negative argument I've referred to. That's it. I'm sorry it was unclear the first time. I do not retract any statement in the previous article, and this article is just a more verbose explanation of the original. If it was clear the first time, I'm sorry you've wasted your time reading this. Tim Maroney P.S. One person did try to answer my questions. I thought the answers were pretty dumb, honestly. "Where did the cosmic background radiation come from?" "From the universe." What a blinding flash of insight that must have been. I'm certain that someone could make up better answers, but remember, there is no way to check the veracity of them! The point is that they are not clearly answered in the Bible, not that there are no possible answers.