You have assumed this singular identity, I feel free to say creation without mentioning a creator. Nature creates without a defined definition. Nature exists, its the force that evolves and urges life to succeed. It created life in my opinion. I dont see a conscious being as we imagine consciousness but i wont deny there might be some other consciousness, just because I cant find it, comprehend it.

But evolution is not about the start of life. Isn't that true? I don't care much about whether creationism is about diversity.

While this debate is often framed the way you have, only creationists argue as if there is some kind of direct debate between the two. Evolution advocates aren't "dismissing" creation as a cultural story of great importance. But it MUST be dismissed as a natural story of earth and its inhabitants absent empirical evidence -- and this is the sole domain in which evolutionary biology makes its arguments.

This matter of evidence - if there were to be evidence for 'intelligent design', what would it consist of? Scientists often say that there is 'no evidence' of a higher being or the like. So what would you look for?

..the Christian conception of God as the author of all truth and the notion that the aim of scientific research is the truth indicates that there can be no fundamental incompatibility between the two. Provided we understand Christian doctrine properly and do our science well, we will find the truth-not a religious truth and another scientific truth-but the truth, the way things actually exist and function. Yet, what about the apparent conflict between notion of creation from nothing and the scientific principle that for every natural motion or state there is an antecedent motion or state?

Thomas points out that the judgment that there is a conflict here results from confusion regarding the nature of creation and natural change. It is an error that I call the "Cosmogonical Fallacy." Those who are worried about conflict between faith and reason on this issue fail to distinguish between cause in the sense of a natural change of some kind and cause in the sense of an ultimate bringing into being of something from no antecedent state whatsoever. "Creatio non est mutatio," says Thomas, affirming that the act of creation is not some species of change. So, the Greek natural philosophers were quite correct: from nothing, nothing comes. By "comes" here is meant a change from one state to another and this requires some underlying material reality, some potentiality for the new state to come into being. This is because all change arises out of a pre-existing possibility for that change residing in something.

Creation, on the other hand, is the radical causing of the whole existence of whatever exists. To be the complete cause of something's existence is not the same as producing a change in something. It is not a taking of something and making it into something else, as if there were some primordial matter which God had to use to create the universe. Rather, creation is the result of the divine agency being totally responsible for the production, all at once and completely, of the whole of the universe, with all it entities and all its operations, from absolutely nothing pre-existing.

Strictly speaking, points out Thomas, the Creator does not create something out of nothing in the sense of taking some nothing and making something out of it. This is a conceptual mistake, for it treats nothing as a something. On the contrary, the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo claims that God made the universe without making it out of anything. In other words, anything left entirely to itself, completely separated from the cause of its existence, would not exist-it would be absolutely nothing. The ultimate cause of the existence of anything and everything is God who creates, not out of some nothing, but from nothing at all. Emphasis added.

Then why are you posting in this thread? The thread is predicated on the fact that creation and evolution at some level are incompatible with one another. The incompatibilities are different to creationists than they are to evolutionists. So if you are going to meaningfully comment on the topic in this thread, then "not caring much" about what creationism is about is neglecting the whole topic in the thread.

Your mind, your thoughts, the causal efficiency of your will (assuming you think you have free will) likewise can not be demonstrated in a way that meets scientific epistemological standards.

The "origin of the species" would seem to have something to say about the "origins of life" as well.

I don't understand your question. You mean that I cannot point out the evolution/creationism issue is a pseudo-problem, since they are not in real dispute?

Creationism is mostly a thesis about the creation of life. Evolution is not. So they are not in important conflict. Why is it inappropriate to say that on this thread?

It has often happened in the history of philosophy that an apparent conflict between two theories turns out to be a pseudo-conflict. And in science too. Why dispute endlessly about what there is no dispute?

But the existence of intelligent humans can EASILY be demonstrated scientifically.

How's that working out for string theorists?

Godel did a pretty admirable job showing that even math taken in isolation is rational. Math applied to the world is yet less rational.

Yeah, but Einstein was a physicist. He's known for his physics and not his metaphysical speculation, and he was no more omniscient than the rest of us.

Neither is the flying spaghetti monster or the tooth fairy. So are we to believe in something just because it's not excluded??

Fear, hunger, pain, and love are also universal parts of human experience, and none of them are rational.

But this isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about epistemology. Our conclusions about the physical world are usually based in scientific epistemology. Maybe it's not irrational or illogical to have a conception of God, but it doesn't meet the same evidentiary standards by which we believe in trees or rodents.

---------- Post added 12-12-2009 at 11:03 AM ----------

But it doesn't. Even the very word species directly means specific, a kind of life. Not all life. Darwin didn't write "On the Origin of Life on Earth".

---------- Post added 12-12-2009 at 11:06 AM ----------

As is your habit, you're completely misreading my post and putting words in my mouth. That's neither what I said nor what I meant.

There is a CULTURAL debate between evolution and creation. There is no SCIENTIFIC debate between the two. There is variably a THEOLOGICAL debate between the two, depending on whether you take creation stories literally or not and which natural processes you ascribe to God's agency.

To say you don't care about creationism's conception of this or that may be legitimate in a discussion of the PROCESS of evolution. But it's not a legitimate contribution to a discussion about how we come to believe things.

All this is true. And in fact it's fairly similar to what I said in my very first post in this thread. What was inappropriate to say is what I SAID was inappropriate when I made that comment.

Am I mistaken in thinking that evolution explains the diversity of life, and not the creation of life?

No. The creation of life lies outside of what is explained by evolution. The field that tries to explain that is called abiogenesis.

So the dispute between C. and E. is a pseudo-dispute?

Not necessarily, according to what I've been thinking. As the creationist could simply dispute that evolution was the way in which humans came to be. They could say that, instead of genetic change over time, God directly created humans (in his own image and likeness). This, I think, would not be a psuedo-dispute.

Yes. It depends on what the doctrine of Creationism is about. If it is just an explanation of how life came about, then there is no dispute. But, if it is more than that (as you say) then, of course, in that respect of special creation, there is dispute. The trouble is that Creationism is mostly not a theory. It a mostly the denial of a theory, along with the implication that some other theory must be true. But just what that theory is, is unclear. Its vagueness makes it difficult to criticize it.

I'm not sure what is vague about it, unless you are pointing out that God creating anything is vague. Otherwise, it appears to be very clear to me: God created the universe. At least, this is what I think the Christian version entails.

I added more in my last post, sorry for not typing fast enough.