Instigator / Pro
Swagnarok's avatar
0
Swagnarok
1515
rating
7
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#3346

Creationism is as valid an explanation for life on earth as Evolution

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
1

After 1 vote and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Tags
Religion
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
RationalMadman's avatar
1
RationalMadman
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description

***DEFINITIONS***

Creationism: The position, reached by conventional interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, that life on earth originated approximately several thousand years ago and was the product of acts undertaken by the Biblical God. Such related concepts as Quranic Creationism (or that of any non-Christian religion) are beyond the scope of this current debate.

Evolution: Here a catch-all term for the general framework arising from conventional modern science, establishing that life on earth first originated and then diversified by such processes as natural selection, being unguided by any sort of conscious intelligence, and over substantially larger spans of time than those posited by Creationism.

Round 1
Swagnarok's avatar
Swagnarok
Pro
#1
I thank my opponent, RationalMadman, for his timely acceptance.

In holding this debate, my aim is to establish that the Creationist position is cognitively viable and not precluded by the application of empirical or scientific method, despite what academic and popular consensus will otherwise claim. Should I succeed, I hope that, for the purposes of some at least, this fact will constitute a major step forward after a long period of general setbacks. And should I fail, that does not make the task impossible. It may simply be the case that I wasn’t up to the challenge, or that I lacked the experience to succeed on my first attempt.
In any event, I ask that my opponent and any prospective voter keep an open mind, judging our words by their naked merit and being minimally influenced in this matter by prejudices.





Let’s begin with a most elementary question:
What is science?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes thus of the scientific method: “Among the activities often identified as characteristic of science are systematic observation and experimentation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories.” (Stanford University 2021)
Granted, many definitions will attach a clause about the “natural world”. But for the vast majority of scientific history, natural science and philosophy were not separate fields of study. One of the first great minds to inquire about the natural world was Aristotle, who made no necessary distinction between his work on mammalian anatomy and that on teleology or politics. It can reasonably be said, then, that research into any branch of learning can be called a science so long as said researcher follows the scientific method.

Hermeneutics is “the science of Biblical interpretation”. Rabbinical exegesis of the Old Testament dates back earlier than the time of Hillel the Elder, who lived in the century preceding the birth of Christ. (Jewish Virtual Library n.d.) In fact, it may go as far back as the prophet Ezra, who “had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord” (Ezra 7:1 [NIV]).
Theologians and the authors of textual commentaries are the scientists of this field. They draw from the available evidence found in scripture to either produce maps of understanding or add some contribution to existing maps. And there’s a lot to unpack: the Bible (excluding the apocrypha) has 66 books, nearly 1,200 chapters, and in excess of 30,000 verses. 

Hermeneutics more or less deals with a closed body of evidence. The words written in the Bible are static as opposed to dynamic, which means it’s impossible to run true experiments. However, it includes the other listed hallmarks: observation, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the formation and testing of hypotheses and theories. 
To name just one example: sure, Jesus was crucified and resurrected, but what exactly did he mean to accomplish? On one hand, a huge number of different atonement theories have been put forward. On the other hand, there can be substantial differences between two proposals of the same theory. Included below is a contrast between fellow penal substitution theologians. (And as you can see, the topic makes for a 400+ page dissertation.)


What’s clear is that, even as we approach the 2000th anniversary of the world’s current largest religion, Biblical study has not exhausted itself of new insights. 
But what is the purpose of Hermeneutics? Again, it is to produce maps of understanding. This means an understanding which is maximally comprehensive, internally congruent, and ultimately helpful toward the end for which the Bible was revealed to mankind.

I would like to clarify something that many people fail to understand. Congruence means sifting through possible interpretations to separate the wheat from the chaff. Interpretations (born either from ignorance or willful obstinacy) that yield textual contradictions, reduce overall understanding if adopted, or detract from the intended message of the Bible must be pruned away. Natural science, on its part, would be completely ineffective if not for this same process; hypotheses that contradict the known facts of science and so would render calculations impossible are purged with this same degree of professional zeal. The goal is always to increase understanding and applicabilitiy within the framework of what a given science sets out to do.
This is why, for example, critics who point to Genesis 2 as contradicting Genesis 1 are not practicing Hermeneutics. Even a reasonable layperson, never mind a trained expert, would interpret Genesis 2:19 as in part recapping an earlier creation of animals that happened prior to man’s creation, but said critics deliberately choose the most illegible reading in service of their own cynical motives.

If, until now, my words have seemed but tangentially related to this present debate, that’s because I haven’t gotten to the point yet. My words now are meant to lay the groundwork for Round 2 and beyond. What I want most is for Con to make his case before I go any further. What I’m going to ask, however, is that you keep Round 1 in mind as we proceed.
Thank you.






References:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Scientific Method.” Accessed February 26, 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/.

Jewish Virtual Library. n.d. “Hermeneutics.” Accessed February 26, 2022. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hermeneutics.

RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#2
In the Comments section, Pro has encouraged me to post by mentioning the following:
Dude.
This is gonna be really awkward if I have to go into Round 2 with nothing to try to rebut.
If there's no other way to meet the deadline, copy and paste from some webpage (I'm sure there are thousands). I and the voters will excuse it this once. You have permission.
I thank Pro for the permission to be lazy and will opt for it but not by pasting much (though that is genuinely what I do some debates but by quoting, not plagiarising and I often can win anyway). Instead, what I am going to do is precisely aim to give Pro nothing to rebuke, I will leave absolutely zero room for rebuttal and make this as 'awkward' as possible because this is a war between Pro and I, just that it's intellectual.

==

Problematic semantics of the resolution

To resolve this debate in favour of Con, one could even read whatever Pro presents and conclude that Creationism is more valid than evolution and then declare Con victorious. That is why Ragnar mentioned the following in the comment section:
I have a bad feeling about where this will go...
To help with the semantics of 'valid' I will provide what Pro did not, a definition to help us analyse the two theories in terms of their validity.

I found the Merriam-Webster dictionary to provide the best secondary definition in relation to this debate:
  • well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful
  • logically correct

Alternatively, I am okay with this definition:
sound; just; well-founded

I preemptively will dispute if Pro goes for the 'able to be accepted' or 'widely accepted' definitions because that is semantic abuse to alter the resolution into a truism and clearly has nothing to do with the theories as anything that isn't directly self-contradictory is 'valid' under such a loose definition which is way beyond the scopes of what's being debated here.

It is also very clear that Pro didn't want such a definition since he ruled out Quranic creationism and stuck to Judeo-Christian Creationism, meaning he wants a clash of theories not just a semantics dispute.

==

Creationism is based on imagination and has quite a few 'what do you mean' aspects to it

Trigger warning: I am using 'male' and 'female' to refer to sexes, not genders in this section.

If you didn't know, we are all female in the womb until males alter themselves via the y-chromosome to begin to have the penis, so on and so forth. I can provide proof for this but similar to Pro, I want to exert minimal effort and just lay out foundation (or an outline) for my case in Round 1. If God took the rib of the male Adam, after realising he'd screwed up providing him with the succubus Lilith that didn't fit his needs, and proceeded to create Eve as the first adult human female, then why is it that in every biological sense it appears the default human body is female and that it is males that are the deviation?

There are actually many such peculiarities and direct violations of biological clues and principles in the Biblical creationism storyline. Another is that it implies that humans were created first and other animals were created to fit us and serve a purpose to us. I then ask you why amongst the oldest humans discovered in the Serengeti (if you adhere to the 'out of Africa' theory) that humans were actually quite pathetic really to the ecosystem. The apex predators were lions and actually the only reason that humans were able to thrive there is that there weren't massive gorillas, chimpanzees or other aggressive and big primates in the region, instead there were just baboons and monkeys which let humans be the sort of 'second in command' in the area. If you think I'm lying, do your own research. My question is this; if the first humans were created to then have all animals relative to them, why is it that in the ecosystem of the Serengeti, humans appeared to barely be significant at all?

They were basically like Cheetahs; able to survive because of a unique edge, cowering around lions and leopards as well as avoiding crocodiles and such. Furthermore, there is a significant issue with biblical creationism; incest would lead to the decline of our species. It is well-established in science that especially in primate DNA (and we are primates, not some non-animal classified thing), incestual reproduction leads to significant ailment, decline and other DNA-based issues while variation leads to excellence.

This would not work if humans came from an original pair because think about it for a second, even socially each tribe would stick to their own kind (it's human instinct especially back then when we knew barely anything). A much better proposition is that over time creatures in between apes and us kept reproducing and the ones that were built with brains like ours needed less brutal strength to succeed and had genes excelling their communication, meaning over time they reproduced with each other over and over. As to how and why we lost hair that's more a sheer coincidence than anything but given that the oldest humans were probably in Africa-type climate, it merely was prefereable to have a lack of body hair so as to lose body heat easier and not die to too much sweating and/or overheating.

Creationism is so vague on this entire matter that you literally can create the identically intricate theory, replace the God with Allah, Vishnu, Zeus and whoever else, make it so that the original humans had another pair or group than Adam and Eve and you already have a competing theory just as intriguing (or non-intriguing, depending). Darwinism, on the other hand, observed data and patterns without even having any kind of sophisticated knowledge of DNA and hypothesised what later was proven definitively true by DNA analysis.

The more that scientists scrutinised and tried to prove Darwin wrong, the more he was proven correct. That is what made the theory so scarily valid. At the time, the pro-Creationist authorities would have done anything at all, clung to any excuse at all to declare his theory false but they literally couldn't because it was so irrefutably likely to be correct and over time kept being proven more and more tangible and likely, as opposed to ridiculous or unfounded.

I also wonder why this all-good, all-loving God couldn't use the fact that it was omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent to ensure nobody fell for the lies of evolution (if they are lies) and knew the truth. Did God really think it was a good idea to let large portions of humanity be born into Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and even secular and Sikh/Buddhist/Jain etc families? Did God really think that was a good idea and a fair test of one's faithful devotion to Jesus and the 'true religion'? How could God let so many be raised believing lies and then judge them fairly on their faith and devotion? This sounds like a God that isn't all-loving, isn't all-good and certainly isn't a person fit to judge and run a fair experiment to separate the faithfully devoted from the sinful and weak-spirited.

If anything, it takes a whole lot of courage and devotion to be Darwin in the face of Catholic and Christian authority bullying him into silence about what he believes in than it takes to be a sheep that kept your mouth shut and prayed while secretly wondering about how little sense creationism made about biology and the world. If God really had designed an experiment to determine who was the most courageously devoted to their faith, he sure had a significant flaw with poeple like Darwin as they were so faithful and dedicated to oppose him in the name of what they saw as true, refusing to lie in order to appease the Christian authorities preying on fear and peer pressure to make them conform (much like the devil and demons would).
Round 2
Swagnarok's avatar
Swagnarok
Pro
#3
Welcome back to Round 2.
Con has brought into question what “valid” is here. While, as I wrote, I’m not interested in fixing definitions in stone (so as to not leave an otherwise passing argument buried under the weight of a crushing semantic loss), we seem to more or less be in agreement as to the meaning of the term. If the Creationist position is shown to be well-grounded or justifiable to the same extent as Evolution, or if it can’t be established that it probably isn’t, then I will have satisfied my end.
Before I continue, let it be noted: I did not set out to assume a one-sided burden of proof by the mere fact of having taken the initiative of setting up the debate with a necessary statement of contention. Even if I am listed as pro to that positively asserted, RationalMadman is listed as con to the same, which is an assertion just as for me. This could just as easily have been phrased as “Creationism is not as valid an explanation for life on earth as Evolution”, with me being Con, and no matter of substance would’ve been affected.

In Hebrews 12:1, the author of this book speaks of a “great cloud of witnesses”. In Chapter 11, the names and stories of those witnesses flash and scroll before one’s eyes. Abel, Enoch, and the other so-called heroes of the faith.
Con alludes to a similar cloud. Though he set out to give me scant little to debate, he said enough. He wrote:

“The more that scientists scrutinized and tried to prove Darwin wrong, the more he was proven correct. That is what made the theory so scarily valid.”

Con stands on the shoulders of giants. He is empowered by the contributions of those who passed before him, whether now dead or still alive. Though presumably no smarter a person than I, he could in a moment link to great mounds of scientific literature refuting Creationism and upholding Evolution. Without doing so, he has veritably confessed that he can.
But the rub is, that cuts both ways. I stand on the shoulders of giants too: Moses, the author of the Pentateuch; Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and all of the rest not mentioned here by name.
I really needn’t bog you down with their writings. But as some are yet under the impression that Creationism is the modern invention of modern “fundamentalists”, let me assure you that, from a Nicene Christian point of view, the aberrants are those today who have denied the plain account of creation while professing to believe in the God of the Bible.

“Most true are the examples of the first creation. Adam’s flesh was formed of clay.”
-Tertullian, “A Treatise on the Soul”

“For if the heathen believe in their gods, which are idols, that they can do all things, though they be but devils, as saith the Scripture, ‘The gods of the nations are devils’, much more ought we, who hold the right, excellent, and true faith, to believe in our God, since we also have proofs [of his Power], first in the creation of the first man, for he was made from the earth by God”.
-Justin Martyr, “Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection”

“As, then, after those first discussions which, according to the requirements of the case, we held at the beginning regarding the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it seemed right that we should retrace our step, and show that the same God was the creator and founder of the world.”
-Origen, “De Principiis, Book 2”

“For in Adam the hands of God had become accustomed to set in order, to rule, and to sustain His own workmanship, and to bring it and place it where They pleased. Where, then, was the first man placed? In paradise certainly, as the Scripture declares…and then afterwards when [man] proved disobedient, he was cast out thence into this world.”
-Irenaeus, “Book V”

“He placed him amid the happiness of Eden, as it were a protected nook of life, with the intention that, if he preserved his righteousness, he should thence ascend to a better place. Thence, after his sin, he was driven into exile, and by his sin the whole race of which he was the root was corrupted in him”.
-Augustine, “The Enchiridion”

“The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules, and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider’s web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency! It is because they knew not how to say ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that all was given up to chance.”
Basil of Caesarea, “Hexaemeron, Homily I”

Having gotten this out of the way at last, you must be aware by now of the unequivocal position of Scripture and Nicene theology on the matter of creation. That position conflicts with the modern consensus that life on earth came about through natural and evolutionary processes.

In Round 1, I called hermeneutics a science. Some who saw this might have thought to accuse me of conceptual stretching. After all, were there enough of a public and scholarly interest in the works of Jane Austen, it might be labeled the science of “Austenology”. That would no more render it non-fiction than it stands today. In one respect, science is just a word that anyone can use in reference to anything.
The difference between the Bible and a Georgian-era novel is that one’s the product of a fanciful writer who made no pretenses of being more than that. The other was composed by dozens of authors spanning centuries (if not millennia) and with one unified message, which they claimed was given by God.
You might retort that similar claims have been made by others. What sets apart the Bible from the Sutras, the Surahs, or Vedas?

And my answer is, what does it matter? Granted, it matters, but not in this debate. The cosmological and theological claims of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism might all be viable, even if ultimately just one explanation can be the true one. It’s not my job to discern between these. So long as the Biblical creationist account, taken by itself, remains viable in the face of natural and evolutionary science, my work here is done.

“But how can you do even that?” you might wonder. I have dusty old prose on my side while you have stacks and stacks of peer-reviewed, academically published articles on yours. The evidence speaks volumes against me. So where is my evidence?

If this is you…

Then you’re asking the wrong questions.

Were I to try to refute evolution by quoting Bible verses, you would scoff. So then, why do you quote scientists to refute me?
But let’s back up some more. What do we even know about natural (“hard”) science?

In Round 1, I listed the qualities and aims of hermeneutical study. These are: [1]. To produce maps of understanding; [2]. For those maps to be maximally comprehensive within the framework of what it sets out to do (that is, its measurable scope); [3]. For such to be internally congruent; and, [4]. To be ultimately helpful toward the ends for which it is practiced.

Replace “hermeneutics” with something else and the above could readily be copy/pasted and applied to any field of study, including hard science.
So then, what do we know about hard science? [1]. Scientists are doing research to produce maps of scientific understanding; [2]. Everything that can be studied according to known laws and processes is studied to the extent that there’s interest in doing so; [3]. The laws and processes of hard science are tools that yield remarkable congruency when applied; and [4]. The practice of hard science is practically useful in more ways than could be spelled out.

That sounds like a lot. And it is. 
But that’s also it. 
Natural/hard science is no more, and can be no more, than what I just described. 

The truth is, science is a closed system just like hermeneutics. It can yield findings but any sense of broader context is impossible. The scientific method only deals with known variables and anything outside of these must be ignored. This does not mean “observable variables”, as if to imply some things might be there but completely invisible and (by implication) irrelevant. No; I mean “measurable variables”. The visible findings we have right now might be totally compromised by variables beyond our ability to measure, which precludes their observation.
To help the reader wrap their minds around this, imagine that you were a scientist in the 17th century. You conducted experiments, made useful contributions to the craft, but were at the helpless whim of variables you knew little of. The modern scientist, if he were to set his pride and biases aside, would admit to daily taking it on faith that this age is behind him and his peers. There is neither answer nor mundane possibility of answer to this question.
In a nutshell, all that we know is that hard science, done right, appears to never contradict itself. But then again, neither does the Bible when hermeneutics are done right. That fact does not defeat the possibility that the Bible is myth and neither should it for science.

Being that I was a big dummy who capped this at 10,000 characters, I can go no further than this. As for the points that Con raised, I hope he’ll excuse me if I’m late to answering them. For now I am finished. 
Thank you.
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#4
I could sum up the overall Round 2 of Pro by the following statement:

  1. Not every scientist is necessarily a genius or even much smarter than a standard human being.
  2. Science deals with known variables, therefore if Pro and creationists invent a fairytale explanation, it's as valid as the scientific theory because we are both entering fantasy realm.

The problem with the first premise is that I don't need scientists to be necessarily intelligent, I just need to discuss the evidence found and unless Pro can prove intentional deceit or erroenous conclusion, you will yourself be intelligent enough to at least grasp what I'm writing and the theories formed. Where you may struggle is with the ins and outs of carbon dating, DNA sequence analysis, alleles, animal sociology and biology (known collectively as zoology) so on and so forth. While it's true that somebody severely inept in intellect would not excel in the fields of science, there's plenty of room for mediocre minds in science without there needing to be anything wrong with it. I may sound demeaning saying 'mediocre minds' as if I am from a standpoint of intelligence however I am not speaking from arrogance here, you see Pro's stance is demeaning you as a reader to be incapable of reasoning yourself from the presented evidence and conclusions given to you. I am not asking you to be a professional scientist, I'm asking you to reason.

Pro completely ignored my Round 1 other than fixating on my definition of 'valid', so honestly I am just going to overall ignore his own Round 1 as it was just rhetoric. It's time to actually show you facts, data and the known things that scientists analysed and used to conclude that Biblical Creationism is not nearly as valid a theory of explanation of life as it is today, as evolution.

Carbon Dating and the actual age of the overall Earth vs that of Humans

Question: Does outside archaeological evidence confirm theC-14 dating method?
Answer: Yes. When we know the age of a sample through archaeology or historical sources, the C-14 method (as corrected by bristlecone pines) agrees with the age within the known margin of error. For instance, Egyptian artifacts can be dated both historically and by radiocarbon, and the results agree. At first, archaeologists used to complain that the C-14 method must be wrong, because it conflicted with well-established archaeological dates; but, as Renfrew has detailed, the archaeological dates were often based on false assumptions. One such assumption was that the megalith builders of western Europe learned the idea of megaliths from the Near-Eastern civilizations. As a result, archaeologists believed that the Western megalith-building cultures had to be younger than the Near Eastern civilizations. Many archaeologists were skeptical when Ferguson's calibration with bristlecone pines was first published, because, according to his method, radiocarbon dates of the Western megaliths showed them to be much older than their Near-Eastern counterparts. However, as Renfrew demonstrated, the similarities between these Eastern and Western cultures are so superficial that
 
- page 29 -
 
the megalith builders of western Europe invented the idea of megaliths independently of the Near East. So, in the end, external evidence reconciles with and often confirms even controversial C-14 dates.
One of the most striking examples of different dating methods confirming each other is Stonehenge. C-14 dates show that Stonehenge was gradually built over the period from 1900 BC to 1500 BC, long before the Druids, who claimed Stonehenge as their creation, came to England. Astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins calculated with a computer what the heavens were like back in the second millennium BC, accounting for the precession of the equinoxes, and found that Stonehenge had many significant alignments with various extreme positions of the sun and moon (for example, the hellstone marked the point where the sun rose on the first day of summer). Stonehenge fits the heavens as they were almost four thousand years ago, not as they are today, thereby cross-verifying the C-14 dates.

Question: What specifically does C-14 dating show that creates problems for the creation model?
Answer: C-14 dates show that the last glaciation started to subside around twenty thousand years ago. But the young-earth creationists at ICR and elsewhere insist that, if an ice age occurred, it must have come and gone far less than ten thousand years ago, sometime after Noah's flood. Therefore, the only way creationists can hang on to their chronology is to poke all the holes they can into radiocarbon dating. However, as we have seen, it has survived their most ardent attacks.

The biggest question (which I alluded to in Round 1 from another angle) is that the Biblical Creationism makes out that humans were made first and other creatures were made afterwards to 'fit' them. If evidence points to the planet outdating our species (homo sapiens) by far, it begins to poke a major whole in the idea that even metaphorically God would have created the planet in a seven-step process where shortly after giving light to the world, suddenly humans were made.

warning gory description in the below paragraph

There is so much about the ecosystem of the world that was not human-centric and also was not 'good' in any specific way. Is there some kind of 'good' or moral value in a creature eating another? If I were to go up to you and hold you down and dig my teeth in, ripping your veins, arteried and neck apart am I a good person or a lunatic who needs mental help? That only depends on if you're a gazelle and I'm a leopard vs me being a human and you a human.

When the Bible says:

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

One has to wonder what was good exactly about this nature he created. In fact, why is it that when God then proceeds to create humanity, he never sends Jesus until a whole 'edition' or 'testament' later to fix the errors that this omniscient being didn't see coming with the first testament?

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

This passage is actually intriguing because it makes us wonder why humans had to claw our way from completely unsophisticated cavemen and tribespeople to slowly evolve our ways of life, hunting, thinking and ironically science to only then after many generations even begin to have the 'rule over' other species that was granted. When God designs a five year old baby who dies of cancer who was already infected with many ailments from 2 months old onwards, this is much easier to explain if the god has designed a harsh system of evolution to function as opposed to specifically crafted creation with a purpose.

As for 'validity' I don't even begin to comprehend the validity of simple Creationism. If I tell you that we all came from an original Bobo, Surala and Cleopatra and that Bobo was actually a Homo neanderthalensis and cleopatra was a unique entity able to turn hybrid homo-types into Homo sapiens by God's will, while Surala turned them into variants such as Homo Erectus is this a sound theory too? No, it's not.

Nothing here is valid if it's just us typing things on a computer that make our theory seem 'please don't hate me not all scientists are geniuses.' That means nothing for the theories explored.

When scientists, doctors and archeologists all discover lifeforms having a strong link and that the clues imply dinosaurs and others were here way before us and that Earth itself far predates humans, there's a clear, concrete issue with the validity of Creationism when held in comparison. Creationism doesn't explain life at all it only tells you something to feel like all the bad things in our lives are thanks to Eve screwing it up and eating an apple, which is just misogyny at its finest since when Adam eats it (and note that God carefully created Eve specifically for Adam and is omniscient so he knew how things would pan out), we don't blame Adam, it gets stuck in his throat and that's why men have these amazing Adam's apples and women are the original sinners who are told to 'serve their husbands' as their meaning in life.

If we really are to take this fairytale rooted in sexism and simplemindedness as a serious, valid explanation of life, Pro ought to present to us a clear, concrete explanation of what Creationism is.

Evolution is as follows:
In biology, evolution is the change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and relies on the process of natural selection.
  • The theory of evolution is based on the idea that all species are related and gradually change over time.
  • Evolution relies on there being genetic variation in a population which affects the physical characteristics (phenotype) of an organism.
  • Some of these characteristics may give the individual an advantage over other individuals which they can then pass on to their offspring. 

It's that straightforward in what the theory posits. It doesn't take a genius to grasp the concept, nor authoritarian scientists. Instead, Creationism doesn't explain life at all. Pro hasn't once explained how life originated and how lifeforms deviated.
Round 3
Swagnarok's avatar
Swagnarok
Pro
#5
Con has construed my arguments for Round 2 in this way:

[1]. Not every scientist is necessarily a genius or even much smarter than a standard human being

This is not what I wrote. What I am saying is that even the smartest scientist in the world is dealing with something that has hypothetical limits, and which might fall short of being able to objectively answering certain questions.
Now, at first glance this might sound less than credible. After all, (hard) scientific means will consistently uphold and reinforce trust in accepted (hard) scientific theories. But even if you were to remember nothing else I wrote in Rounds 1 and 2, let this point alone be hammered into your mind: do not mistake internal congruence within the bounds of a science for objective proof of its claims. Many Bible verses affirm and reinforce Genesis but, as you say, Genesis could still be a myth. The assumption that hard science doesn’t have to acknowledge this same weakness is rooted in your biases. My biases too, if I’m being honest.

[2]. Science deals with known variables

I will admit: in hindsight, I regret having written that segment. I wasn’t thinking clearly, or maybe it was that I was too short on time to just stop and think (100% my fault for being a shameless procrastinator). 
While this could well be true, it distracts from my main point. This isn’t a question of scientists having incomplete knowledge of the closed field of science but of science’s closedness by itself, however complete one’s knowledge of science.

In 1997, the famed biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote of science and religion as being “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” (NOMA). That is, science cannot answer religious questions and religion cannot answer scientific questions.

Gould, an atheist writing in ironic part to rebuke creationists, didn’t fully understand the implications of his own idea. He assumed that, at least per the telling of an acceptably liberal Christian, man could be both the product of natural selection and endowed with a soul, and that the issues pertaining to an invisible God who reigns over an afterlife could be sorted out in the afterlife.
The practice of hermeneutics will clue you in that this is logically, theologically, and narratively untenable. If man is a natural product, from whence came the Imago Dei? And when? What did man need saving from? Why did God sit out 99% of the history of H. Sapiens before revealing himself? If hell is of no concern, why the need for Moses to impose radically austere laws of holy conduct on a reluctant populace? And of the burnt offerings, by which unblemished lambs saw death before their time? For what did Jesus have to die?
Admittedly, there have been attempts to reconcile this, such as the BioLogos project. But to date, none have given satisfactory answers to these pressing questions. Only within the historic and comprehensive Biblical framework can Biblical questions find their proper resolution.

Still, Gould’s concept of NOMA lends a worldly intellectual’s credence to what I’m trying, if stuttering hopelessly, to describe. 
An explanation for the world’s origin is claimed by science and the Bible. There seems to be an overlap, and at first glance it seems Gould’s description will hold only if religion makes a strategic retreat. But I think Gould had too little faith in himself and in his idea, for NOMA requires neither tweaking nor pragmatic assumptions. It’s true under real-world conditions no matter what either side does.
Scientific and Biblical explanations do not “compete” in the truest sense, for they deal with different bodies and with different types of evidence altogether. These do not touch, lying always at parallel distance and orientation. Therefore, science may have its explanations and the Bible its own. One poses no threat to the other in this age.

…Or so I contend. There’s still work to be done before the reader’s objections will be satisfied. So let’s get back to Con. He writes:

therefore if Pro and creationists invent a fairytale explanation, it's as valid as the scientific theory because we are both entering fantasy realm.

This is a fair question: without relying on internal congruence as objective proof, what is potentially valid and what isn’t? What measuring stick can we use, if measuring sticks aren’t useful beyond their native scope? How do we draw the line between religion and children’s fables? And why?

In Round 2, I made it clear that I haven’t presently found myself in the position of having to debunk foreign religions. Yet, the diligent reader will note that, if my words thus far are taken at face value, the range of things that now “could be valid” might span from time-tested international faiths to the patently absurd, such as belief in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

Before speaking of the yet-unclear objective truth, perhaps it’s better to ask what guidelines one follows in the pursuit of truth. Certain things will be excluded for certain reasons, and some heuristic rules will be applied. There are biases toward believing in normative values instilled by parents and society, in that which a sizable crowd believes in, in ancient as opposed to novel ideas, or in novel as opposed to ancient, in that which conforms to your private notions of sound logic, and so on.
The vast majority of people will, by whatever means, eventually arrive at a map of understanding reality which is workable for the practical purposes of living. And most will self-select against believing in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, general fancies of the overactive imagination, etc. It’s not my job to determine how this happens, or that said selections are objectively correct or incorrect.

Some, like myself, would assume that a valid framework must set out to answer the big questions without glaringly holes or contradictions when optimally interpreted, was first intended as a literal claim rather than a work of fiction, originated from some external source (not my imagination) that’s at or above some baseline of perceived credibility. For example, a religion believed in by billions and founded by dozens of authors spanning centuries who claimed to have received divine revelation, buoyed by periodic claims of miracles by rank-and-file adherents across 2,000 years.
But that’s just me. Not everyone will follow the same guidelines. Regardless, even if this question goes unanswered here, it’s beside the point for the purposes of this debate. I never had to replace your trust in “science alone” with new epistemological solae. I worked to open the otherwise shut door to other possibilities and that is all.

For now, that’s all I have to say about this. I’ll use my remaining characters to answer just a few of Con’s minor points against Creationism:

“We are all female in the womb until males alter themselves via the y-chromosome to begin to have the penis, so on and so forth. If God took the rib of the male Adam…and proceeded to create Eve as the first adult human female, then why is it that in every biological sense it appears the default human body is female and that it is males that are the deviation?”
Adam and Eve were created with the DNA needed for having children as people do today, as God did not expect to repeat their creation. Whatever the early stages of prenatal development look like are factually irrelevant to this matter.

“If the first humans were created to then have all animals relative to them, why is it that in the ecosystem of the Serengeti, humans appeared to barely be significant at all?”
One could ask why the Bible has accounts of people being killed by animals. Man’s dominion over animals is an ideal, and one that he generally has the capacity to realize. However, there was no divine promise that humans would be the clear apex species in all corners of the earth at all times.

"Incest would lead to the decline of our species."
Inbreeding raises the likelihood that recessive traits which otherwise would lay dormant in, or even disappear from, the gene pool will surface. 
But first of all, there is no guarantee of such. Countless people have been conceived from incestual acts, even father-daughter rape, who were born healthy.
Second, the first generation of humans would carry no recessive traits. Noah was of the 10th generation, and his grandchildren would be of the 12th. These don’t sound like bad odds when you start from 0 defects, and divine providence could’ve improved those odds even more.

"I also wonder why this all-good, all-loving God couldn’t use the fact that it was omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent to ensure nobody fell for the lies of evolution"
One could just as well ask why God allowed any doubt as to his existence and to his Biblical message. The conventional answer is that God expects humans to live by faith. The aforementioned question of evolution is simply derivative of this same dilemma. Same as to false religions.

 "Is there some kind of 'good' or moral value in a creature eating another?...One has to wonder what was good exactly about this nature he created."
In Genesis, we see not only creation but the fall of creation from God’s design. Humans would not have to suffer in the world if not for that, and one might infer that it was the same for the animal kingdom. The cruelty and ruthless (if you’ll mind the expression) Darwinism of nature as it stands today presumably would be absent if not for the fall, and descriptions of nature as “good” were found in passages preceding those of the fall.

"When God designs a five year old baby who dies of lung cancer who was already infected with many ailments from 2 months old onwards, this is much easier to explain if god has designed a harsh system of evolution"
God does not form the body of each individual. That happens naturally, and the natural world is, of course, prone to various defects and mutations. God simply does not intervene and mainstream doctrine makes it clear that we’re entitled to no such intervention.

RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#6
So far, Pro has spent 3 Rounds actively avoiding telling us what Creationism claims about life's origin, how it reaches that conclusion and how it is any more valid to back Biblical Creationism than either a fairytale or another religion's Creationist story.

In the meantime, Pro's case is that Creationism could be valid and could be true and that Con can't disprove this. I have actively proven the absurdity of it, especially the idea that the default being is a male human (as opposed to female human). I also explored the idea that the storyline is absolute nonsense since back then carbon dating implies dinosaurs were around, not humans or the kind of mammals and birds described.

Let's be very clear here, Creationism is not the claim that Adam and Eve could be the first 2, nor that the storyline laid out in the Bible is plausible. It is the claim that it is true and that we know it to be true. In fact, the faith required to adhere to Biblical Creationism must be so firm that no evidence can sway one from it. In contrast evolution claims two simple ideas; traits are inherited and those that are most adapted to their environment thrive (overall these are the two core claims) but it also is willing to adjust its timeline and specifics of which traits are inherited vs gained via nurture.

In fact, this is why the resolution of the debate, in Pro's favour, inherently can't be true. Creationism claims much less yet demands much more rigifd faith, it also bases on far less, when compared with evolution. It would be impossible for it to be 'as valid as' evolution because it quite literally says nothing more than some fairytale-like storyline and then demands absolute blind faith in it or you will go to hell for being a false believer. Evolution, as a theory, has reasoning behind each and every part of it and the only faith it demands is to not completely ignore findings.
Round 4
Swagnarok's avatar
Swagnarok
Pro
#7
So far, Pro has spent 3 rounds actively avoiding telling us what Creationism claims about life’s origin,

That much was laid out in “Definitions”, which I wrote. Even if I hadn’t, just about everybody would’ve known anyway.
But, as I wrote before, a framework ought to answer the big questions. Creationism obviously cannot do this by itself, so it must be understood as one doctrine of Scripture. A lynchpin doctrine for sure, without which much of the rest will unravel, but the Bible doesn’t end at Genesis 2.

 how it reaches that conclusion,

Again, it does that through “conventional interpretation of the Old and New Testaments”, as I wrote in Definitions. The science of said interpretation is called Hermeneutics, which I described at length.

and how it is any more valid to back Biblical creationism than either a fairytale  or another religion’s Creationist story.

I believe I covered this in Round 3.

especially the idea that the default human is a male human (as opposed to a female human). 

I covered this already. The Bible describes Adam as being created first, but nowhere (to my knowledge, anyway) does it contend that, over the course of natural human conception and gestation, the anatomical default is a male form. Con imagined this but I don’t know where he got the idea from.

I also explored the idea that the storyline is absolute nonsense since back then carbon dating implies dinosaurs were around, not humans or the kinds of mammals described.

Carbon dating merely gives us hard science’s findings as to what the early past looked like, just as Genesis gives us the Biblical view thereto. Both are reconstructions that may or may not be founded in reality, and neither amounts to an actual time machine that lets us see and confirm what really happened. I trust that I needn’t further clarify this in Round 4.

Creationism is not the claim that Adam and Eve could be the first 2, nor that the storyline laid out in the Bible is plausible. It is the claim that it is true and we know it to be true.

Creationism is the position that the Biblical Genesis account is true. With any position, believers will occupy any place on the spectrum from very unsure belief to hardcore, absolute assurance that they can’t be wrong. Creationists are no different.

In fact, the faith required to adhere to Biblical creationism is so firm that no evidence can sway one from it.

“The same is true for non-Creationists. No matter how many Bible verses are quoted to them, they won’t come around. Evolution is a position rooted in rigid faith, since it demands that you deny the mountains of Biblical evidence.”
…See how this works? All you have to do is define “evidence” on your own preferred terms. Anybody can do this, so its value is questionable.

Evolution, as a theory, has reasoning behind each and every part of it and the only faith it demands is to not completely ignore findings.

“Every Biblical doctrine has reasoning behind it, and verses to support it. The only faith it demands is to not completely ignore Biblical findings.”
See? Same schtick.

Alright, so. Before I’m finished, there’s one last thing I’d like to touch on.

For lack of remaining characters, thus far I’ve had to dodge two principal objections: First, that of all possible sciences, hard science has the advantage of being the most tangible and immediate. You can see and measure gravity at work, whereas the doctrine of atonement is words on a page that could’ve been written by anyone. Isn’t the bias toward such appropriate and rational? Second, that most elements of hard science, such as modern technologies, aren’t challenged by Creationists or practically anyone else, which begs the question of whether a framework can be partially valid and partially invalid.

On the Nearness of Hard Science
“I trust what I can see, hear, and touch with my own senses.” If asked, a lot of people will tell you this.
Now, one could argue that 99% of the public doesn’t really mean this. They barely know what the world is but are less than well-informed about how the world is. Whatever the principles behind observable phenomena are irrelevant to them. They don’t know jacksquat about the intricate details of science, or often so much as the basics.
The Biblical Moses is said to have ascended Mt. Sinai, draped in a cloudy veil that concealed the divine presence thereupon from the rank and file Hebrews. All but him were forbidden from touching even the foot of the mountain under pain of death. And then, after a time, Moses returned carrying the laws of Heaven in his arms.
One could argue that, from the standpoint of the lay American or lay Briton in 2022, science is handed down by “experts” in a similarly mystical fashion. They themselves are in no position to verify what they’re being told. Therefore, they do not trust in “what they can see” but in what they cannot see.
For this vast majority, science is automatically as valid as, and no more valid than, Creationism. They might be conditioned, or at least inclined, to think that Creationism is nonsense, but they arrived at this belief simply because they chose to believe one unknowable authority and not the other. They could just as easily choose to believe in the alternative. That they don’t cannot be called anything other than arbitrary.

But I digress. Suppose, rather, that one “owned” his education and became learned enough to run tests of the highest standard, confirming for himself the results published in scientific journals. What then?
Well, to him I say congratulations. He has made ample use of a tool designed to be used and observed through a combination of reason and the bare senses. Others are designed to be used and observed through different means. For example, moral philosophy is known more or less by “reason” (thought processes and the receiving of ideas from an outside source) alone.
But that doesn’t answer the question. If there’s a blatant contradiction between that known by reason and the senses, and the other by reason alone (assuming you’ve never had a vivid “spiritual encounter with God”, as isn’t very uncommon in the United States), shouldn’t the former take general priority?
To be clear, there’s no reason why the former must be true. Discoveries of counterintuitive facts are as old as man himself. But as a rule of thumb, isn’t it best to assume that much until proven otherwise?
I say there’s no proof of this. For all the talk of philosophical razors, the bias toward what you can see is one of likely primitive and base origins. Indeed, much of the point of learning itself is to overcome the biases one was either born with or brought into. 
(For example, take Occam’s Razor. If you’re a Russian, “that which requires the fewest assumptions” is that the highest authorities in your society wouldn’t be lying about the need to “de-nazify” Ukraine. Throwing out everything you were raised to believe is a wild leap. A huge assumption, if you will. Hence, Occam’s Razor perpetuates intellectual neanderthalism and aggressive nationalism. Enlightenment is to escape from the yoke of said razors.)
Bias is no proof that whatever you’re biased toward deserves elevated priority. And among other things, this applies to the belief that the tangible holds greater weight vs the intangible.

Trusting and doubting the same in one breath
There’s nobody who doesn’t already trust in the hard sciences for 99% of what they need. I’m writing this on a laptop, which I expect will soon be transmitted across the internet to the server which hosts DART. I don’t doubt the laws which make electronic and digital telecommunications work.
Yet, hard science also denies Creationism. How does a Creationist whose life is augmented constantly by science reconcile this?

One might consider hard science to be the science of something that exists on some terms and to some limit. Those terms either overlap perfectly with objective reality or they do not. Even if not, it can still be useful for human purposes either to the imperfect degree of factual overlap or by some unknown coincidence.

By analogy, the English language “does not exist”. It’s an idea and nothing more. However, its grammatical and syntactical organization and detail are of such quality as to facilitate mass communication. Thereby, something that would otherwise be “random noise” is profoundly useful. We might assume the same of hard science. It’s either the true record of cause-and-effect itself or one of several languages written into observable reality, utterable but not the only cosmic tongue. If the latter, we might pragmatically speak one language where it’s most useful and switch to speaking another when it outlives its usefulness, such as veering into the bounds of promoting heresy.

Conclusion
Aaaaaaaaaaand the fat lady has sung. I’d like to thank my opponent for indulging me these 4 rounds. But before I end this, I would like to make one important request:
If you’re reading this and you plan to vote, PLEASE DON’T UNDER YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND THE ARGUMENTS I MADE HERE. If my writings in this debate came across as rambling gibberish, then give it another read. Once you’ve got it, then by all means, cast a vote. But not before.
That is all.
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#8
It may surprise you that both sides barely went into the details of proof behind their theories but I would like to point out that in Round 1 I established an interesting question and dynamic that Pro has never once properly handles or weaseled his way out of. Creationism became less believable the less power that authorities had to silence scientists and theorists. On the other hand, despite every single authoritative figure at the time of Darwin wanting to silence him and stamp out the idea of natural selection and evolution, it became more and more irrefutable the longer that scentists had to scrutinise it and escape religious authority.

The dynamic set out implies that these are completely opposite ends of the validity spectrum, for sure. However, it would be possible for them to be equally valid perhaps, if Pro could justify that both are as logically sound as each other. Instead, Pro has been continually defending a notion that I reiterate is not Creationism. 

Creationism does not state a maybe, it states a definite. It is completely insufficient defense of Creationism to defend the idea that it could be true, instead one needs to prove that it is true and at least is equally likely to be true as the theory of evolution which has practically every single expert within biology and archaeology backing it up. The fact is that we inherit things through genes, which they didn't know when they wrote the fictional tale known as the Bible. There has been absolutely no addressing of this issue from Pro during this debate on that matter other than the fact that it may be true.

During this debate, Pro has failed to establish the specifics of Creationism or even fundamental ideas on which it's based. I asked Pro several times to distinguish the core principles of Biblical Creationism from any other fairytale or religious depiction of the origin of life. Pro not only failed to do so but keeps trying to deflect onto evolution. What makes evolution different isn't that it's 100% definite (though to genetic experts and archaeologists it basically is a known thing), instead it's that you can't just replicate the theory of evolution in an equally valid and differing format.

The reason that Creationist stories are so easily replicable is that they have zero basis beyond imagination. Everything about it is just putting together a story, not at all analysing, studying or justifying. The reason evolution is more valid than Creationism and that they can never be deemed equal is that Creationism has literally zero ideas to it beyond 'god made us in this way and you have to take this scripture's word for it!'

There's no established thesis, no way to go about proving it right or wrong and definitely no obstacle to making a literally equally convincing Creationist alternative by replacing characters and whatever one's imagination fancies inserting into their Creationist tale.

Natural selection is so obvious, even for non-scientists. If you have a group within a genepool and they are less adapted, they die out, those that are most adapted will reproduce and maintain healthy offspring the most, per generation establishing their gene's tendencies to remain widespread in the genepool. This idea is so sound logically that the only way Creationists can handle debating against it is by turning their 'definite idea of Creation' into a 'maybe' in order to try and project the same doubt onto evolution.

Pro did not successfully do so. We are yet to see a single solid explanation of what Creationism in the Bible claims or purports that differentiates it from any child's imagination of how life may have begun, let alone adult's.