On Tuesday night UT hosted a debate/discussion on Darwinism and Creationism. The two main players in the event were Dr. Hugh Ross, of Reason to Believe (reasons.org), and Dr. Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine (skeptic.com). I have to say that I found both of their presentations very interesting, as they both engaged the audience from a scientific standpoint. Attending this event, I was afraid that the Creationist would eventually argue science until some point, at which he would simply say, "and take the rest on faith". While that is true (because we cannot scientifically prove God), it's almost a cop-out answer to someone who is arguing against you. That answer gives the opposing side no chance to counter-argue.

A little background on the organization of "Reasons to Believe". They are a Christian apologetics organization who desire to show that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. With regards to the creation of the universe, they have written up scientific hypotheses that when answered will point towards Creationism or Darwinism. For example, "Are humans traced back to a single man and woman?" or "Does the appearance of animals in the history of the fossil record happen suddenly or gradually from simpler organisms?" Answers to these questions can potentially be catastrophic towards one scientific view or the other.

To my surprise Hugh Ross pretty much had an answer to everything thrown at him. It's not to say that he had figured out everything about God, but it was clear that he had read up about the issues, and thought about it himself. While he did use the Bible for some of his arguments, most of his points were discussed through scientific observations. Examples being that science shows that the existence of a "prebiotic soup" could not have existed due to the harsh conditions of early earth; if it did exist, the concentrations of amino acids present would have been so low that it would have been virtually impossible for them to combine to form proteins. Dr. Ross's made the point that there is an element of "fine-tuning" required in the universe that exceeds the most powerful super-computer on earth by a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion times. That is, certain scientific constants must be what they are in order for life to exist and that they appear to be created with some sort of logic. However, he also addressed the possibility of probability given enough time for life to appear. I don't remember the math but he showed that it would have required something on the order of 10^50 trial-and-error processes PER SECOND from the beginning of the earth in order for life to show up (assuming that the earth is some billions of years old).

Dr. Shermer brought a scientific view that he said was not "contaminated" by religion. Science and religion don't mix at all. He stated that if you want to believe something is true, you will find evidence to make it true. He cited many tabloid headlines stating that "Nostradamus had predicted 9/11", AFTER it happened! I agree with that. In that sense, you are being postdictive, rather than predictive. Anyone can do that. But I don't agree that just because people say those kinds of things means that science and religion can't be intertwined.

Well, I'm going to cut this blog entry short because I could go on and on and on. One of the biggest questions asked during the night was when Dr. Shermer asked the question,

"If it ends up being shown that the Creationists are wrong and that a god didn't create the universe, will the Christians here give up their faith?"