WHY CAN'T WE CHANGE THE DEFINITION OF CREATIONISM? ALMOST A BILLION HINDI PEOPLE ARE EXCLUDED FROM THIS DISCUSSION SIMPLY BECAUSE WE INCLUDE THE "Genesis" CLAUSE. CREATIONISM DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SUPERNATURAL -- SCIENTIST CAN BE GOO TOGETHER, ZAP IT WITH LOT'S OF ELECTRICITY AND FORM THE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE. WE COULD BE A BIG TEST TUBE EXPERIMENT FOR ALIENS (ROCK ON HEAVENS GATE!). AND AREN'T MANY SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS "externally directed"? WE CREATE THE ENVIRONMENT TO TEST SHIT SO THAT WE CAN PREDICT RESULTS. AND I THINK EVOLUTION IS PURPOSEFUL. UNLESS YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THEORIES THAT THINGS CHANGE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO. HRMM NO COMMENT ON "...complete." 

Okay, now that we have straight was creationism is, let's get on to the ruling in the 1980s which ruled that creationism is not science. Judge Oberton tried to come up with a cultural definition of science by bringing LOTS of people to testify as to what science is. Oberton found that science is: 
1) Guided by natural law 

AREN'T MANY PHYSICS THEORIES BASED UPON ACTIONS IN A COMPLETE VACCUUM? BUT, UM I THOUGHT THERE WAS NO SUCH THING, NATURE ABHORS VACUUMS. 

2) Explanatory by reference to natural law 

OKAY--SCIENTISTS CAN TRACK THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS FROM ONE STATE TO ANOTHER...BUT FOR MANY (NOT SURE BUT HUMANS AND WHALES AND MANY MAMMALS) THERE ARE PORTIONS OF THE CURVE TO WHERE THERE IS NO SLOPE. UMM, WE CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR HOW HUMANS JUMPED FROM WHATEVER homo ? TO homo sapien sapien (a la MISSING LINK). WE HAVE TO INFER. I CAN ALSO INFER THAT A "CREATOR" DECIDED TO UPGRADE FROM MOUSE 1.0a TO TIT MOUSE 2.0.1. I REFERED TO THE NATURAL ORDER FOR THE PATERN, BUT MY CONCLUSIONS -- WHICH ARE NOT FINAL -- WERE A BIT DIFFERENT. 

3) Has to be testable in/against the empirical world 

YOU JUST WAIT TILL THE SECOND COMING OR SOMETHING. 

4) Conclusions are tentative in science (IN SCIENCE NOT NEEDED) 

HRMM CONCLUSIONS ARE "under terms not final or fully worked out or agreed upon" (www.dictionary.com) IN SCIENCE. CONCLUSIONS ARE TENTATIVE IN SCIENCE BECAUSE WE'D BE NAIVE TO THINK THAT WE UNDERSTOOD THINGS ON EVERY LEVEL. BUT EVOLUTION SOUNDS PRETTY FINAL -- THINGS CHANGE BECAUSE THEY ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENTS. I'M NOT SAYING THAT "THINGS CHANGE BECAUSE GOD WANTS THEM TO" IS ANY LESS FINAL, BUT...I DON'T KNOW. 

5) Conclusions are falsifiable in science (IN SCIENCE NOT NEEDED) 

I AM ATTACHING A SEGMENT OF PART I CHAPTER 8 OF A. EINSTEINS BOOK RELATIVITY 15TH EDITION (1952). THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IS SOMETHING I'D LIKE TO FOCUS ON: 

"That light requires the same time to traverse the path A->M as for the path B->M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own free will in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity." 

"...BUT A STIPULATION WHICH I CAN MAKE OF MY OWN FREE WILL IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT A DEFINITION..." WE CAN'T TEST A LOT OF THE SHIT THAT'S OUT THERE NOW, BUT IT'S STILL SCIENCE. TO SAY THAT CREATIONISM IS NOT A THEORY BECAUSE WE CAN'T PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS LIKE SAYING THAT MANY PARTS OF RELATIVITY AREN'T THEORIES BECAUSE WE CAN'T PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF VACUUMS OR DARK MATTER OR SOME OTHER SHIT (DID THEY PROVE THAT DARK MATTER EXISTED OR DID THEY JUST USE MATH TO SUBTRACT A COUPLE OF NUMBERS AND REALIZE THAT THERE'S A HUGE REMAINDER?). 

Because Creation Science is untestable and irrevocable truth as stated in Genesis, it is not science. After an appeal, the Supreme Court heard the case again in 1987 and again ruled that balanced treatment was unconstitutional. 

IN SUMMATION YOUR HONOR, EDUCATION IS NOT THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH, IT'S ABOUT KNOWLEDGE (INDIANA JONES ANYONE? DR. x'S PHILOSPHY CLASS IS RIGHT DOWN THE HALL). I'M NOT QUESTIONING WHETHER "CREATION SCIENCE...AS STATED IN GENESIS" SHOULD GO, BUT ALMOST EVERY CULTURE HAS SOME VARIATION ON HOW LIFE STARTED. I KNOW THAT BY SINGLING THIS OUT BY CULTURE IT MAKES IT A SOCIOLOGY ISSUE OR AN ANTHROPOLOGY ISSUE OR SOMETHING ELSE. BUT I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A COOL MEDIAN LINE WHICH CAN BE REACHED. TO SAY THAT A THEORY DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE IT IS RELIGIOUS IN NATURE, IS KINDA VALID, BUT AT THE SAME TIME KINDA WEAK. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DISPROVE SOMETHING THAN DO IT, BUT IN MY MIND THE STATEMENT "GOD DOESN'T EXIST" SUCKS. NOT BECAUSE I'M RELIGIOUS, BUT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DISPROVE IT BY _YOUR OWN DEFINITIONS_. "GOD" DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SUPERNATURAL, IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT IN THIS PARTICULAR COURT'S DEFINITION IT IS. 

LIGHTNING has struck the rails on our railway embankment at two places A and B far distant from each other. I make the additional assertion these two lightning flashes occurred simultaneously. 
If I ask you whether there is sense in this statement, you will answer my question with a decided "Yes." But if I now approach you with the request to explain to me the sense of the statement more precisely, you find after some consideration that the answer to this question is not so easy as it appears at first sight. 
After some time perhaps the following answer would occur to you: "The significance of the statement is clear in itself and needs no further explanation; of course it would require some consideration if I were to be commissioned to determine by observations whether in the actual case the two events took place simultaneously or not." I cannot be satisfied with this answer for the following reason. Supposing that as a result of ingenious considerations an able meteorologist were to discover that the lightning must always strike the places A and B simultaneously, then we should be faced with the task of testing whether or not this theoretical result is in accordance with the reality. We encounter 22- the same difficulty with all physical statements in which the conception "simultaneous" plays a part. The concept does not exist for the physicist until he has the possibility of discovering whether or not it is fulfilled in an actual case. We thus require a definition of simultaneity such that this definition supplies us with the method by means of which, in the present case, he can decide by experiment whether or not both the lightning strokes occurred simultaneously. As long as this requirement is not satisfied, I allow myself to be deceived as a physicist (and of course the same applies if I am not a physicist), when I imagine that I am able to attach a meaning to the statement of simultaneity (I would ask the reader not to proceed farther until he is fully convinced on this point.) 

After thinking the matter over for some time you then offer the following suggestion with which to test simultaneity. By measuring along the rails, the connecting line AB should be measured up and an observer placed at the mid-point M of the distance AB.  
This observer should be supplied with an arrangement (e.g. two mirrors inclined at 90 degrees) which allows him visually to observe both places A and B at the same time. If the observer perceives the two flashes of lightning at the same time, then they are simultaneous. 
I am very pleased with this suggestion, but for all that I cannot regard the matter as quite settled, because I feel constrained to raise the following objection: "Your definition would certainly be right, if only I knew that the light by means of which the observer at M perceives the lightning flashes travels along the length ArM with the same velocity as along the length BrM. But an examination of this supposition 23- would only be possible if we already had at our disposal the means of measuring time. It would thus appear as though we were moving here in a logical circle." 

After further consideration you cast a somewhat disdainful glance at me -- and rightly so -- and you declare: "I maintain my previous definition nevertheless, because in reality it assumes absolutely nothing about light. There is only one demand to be made of the definition of simultaneity, namely, that in every real case it must supply us with an empirical decision as to whether or not the conception that has to be defined is fulfilled. That my definition satisfies this demand is indisputable. That light requires the same time to traverse the path A->M as for the path B->M 
is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own free will in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity." 

It is clear that this definition can be used to give an exact meaning not only to two events, but to as many events as we care to choose, and independently of the positions of the scenes of the events with respect to the body of reference (here the railway embankment).