Greetings Independent,
I can understand why you might feel that there is enough uncertainty around TOE to withold judgement. However, I think you are not appreciating the balance of where there is certainty, and where there is not. The Creationist attack on TOE reminds me of the OJ Simpson defence, if you remember that case. Throw enough mud at the wall, confuse the jury with long technical digressions, and in the end cast enough doubt that they fall back on their existing sympathies.
I think it is unfair to paint the picture that Creationism is blind to the obvious and to reduce its arguments to simply casting enough doubt. We need to also consider how evolutionists are misleading in their selective presentation of information and evade genuine criticism. Analogies to concepts like gravity are unhelpful because these are phenomena we witness and experience on a daily basis, whilst there is far less certainty and clarity on minute details having occurred millions and millions of years ago.
Most people on this forum are getting all their information from Creationist critiques of evolution - they're not reading anything from the source material. It's equivalent to condemning the Qur'an using wiki Islam as your sole source.
In my skimming through of this thread, I did not find any source material that could be referred to, other than google searches and the odd website. The real source material seems to be inaccessible for the average reader, therefore this makes it more difficult to make any judgement on it. In the case of the Qur'an, at a basic level, the source material together with explanatory texts is widely available to anyone so there would be no need to consult dubious sources or rely on an unqualified interpretation.
To make any kind of fair assessment of TOE you need to read a large number of central texts - but plainly you're not going to do that and why should you? You have other things to focus on.
All I ask is that you give TOE the benefit of the doubt, as you ought to do without genuine scholarship. Leave science to the scientists, and theology to the theologians. That's it really...
Without genuine scholarship, it would seem more correct to withhold judgement. I don't think any scientist accepts a theory by simply giving it the benefit of the doubt. I am happy to leave the science to the scientists. I know that in the case of those who believe in God whilst understanding evolutionary processes in detail, it only serves to increase their faith. But my contention is with the way that TOE is being presented and used to challenge Creationism in this thread. Science is being used to attack theology.
I see your arguments against Creationism as carrying a very flawed approach. There isn't a detailed theory within Creationism explaining the fossil record, so there isn't anything to refute. We are not told through revelation about all details or reasons, therefore questioning God is neither here nor there. Moreover, there are many things in Creationism which science does not have the power to confirm or deny. There is also a desire to combat what is regarded as certainty (in Creationism) with doubt (debated scientific hypotheses). There also seems to be a disparity in our methodologies: in creationism, a combination of internal and external sources complement each other. If through one particular angle there is something unclear, there may be clarity through all of the others. On the other hand, proponents of evolutionism seem to limit themselves in their source of knowledge and understanding, affecting their ability to find real answers.
I see the 90ft man has been brought up a number of times. This is an example of taking something from the Creationist account and subjecting it to scientific scrutiny, which cannot always work. Muslims believe that the moon was split into two, regardless of whether science confirms or denies it; it was a miracle, so by its very nature, such an occurrence would not conform to scientific laws. God creates and does whatever He wills.
