The Eye: Evolution versus Creationism 1983
Sox2 writes "SciScoop is running a story about researchers in Germany who claim to have solved the "mystery" surrounding the evolution of the mamalian eye. The work, published in Science, goes some way to answering the issues raised in the "intelligent design" debate that has become the mainstay of creationist thinking."
Creationism is BULLSHIT (Score:0, Informative)
Mirror here (Score:5, Informative)
Um... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This won't change their minds... (Score:2, Informative)
No, it won't (Score:4, Informative)
This article supports what the Bible says about all humans descending from Noah in Asia (i.e. Noah's ark settled in Armenia after a global flood about 4200 years ago.)
Face It (Score:4, Informative)
The idea of the evolution is of a scientific one. It is continously checked against new findings, modified, refined and is open to scientific rebate.
Creationism is something that some people dreamt up and is pretty much based on only two thing: "because the Bible says so" and "it is highly unlikely" (well, try telling a lottery winner, that because it was utterly unlikely to win, he, in fact, did not win), and it is unlikely, because they think it is).
Yeah, no difference, right?
Re:Arguing with a creationist (Score:3, Informative)
In the Old Testament, you have the Law, what Jews call the Torah and Christians call the Pentateuch. In those 5 books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers), Moses gave the people laws by which to live there lives (don't murder, steal, covet, love God and love your neighbore). Additionally, some laws found in those books are not politically correct in the current day and age (men should not sleep with other men, not to fornicate, not to have sex with animals).
Many of these laws had stern consequences, some would say even Draconian consequences. (i.e. stoning a woman who cheated on her husband)
Christians believe that the punishment of these laws are no longer valid, because of Christ's death which covers our sins. This is evidenced in Christ's own forgiving of the woman who cheated (when he said, "he who is without sin should throw the first stone").
Most Jews believe these laws and punishments are still valid, but they have no secular law to enforce them.
Both Jews and Christians believe that these laws were given by God to Moses, in order to establish an absolute moral standard, hence giving the people a lawful and ordered society in which to live.
Frequently Encountered Criticisms (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Darwin got it right... (Score:3, Informative)
As you said the 'animal' with poor vision and smell is at a disadvantage and more likely to be killed by a predator. So now in the remaining population the 'mutations' giving better sight or sense of smell will reproduce more in comparison as the weak 'animals' have been culled from the herd as it were.
If you're talking about just one individual yes it's contradictory as they can't reproduce, but rarely are entire species wiped out quickly enough to stop the mutations from having a positive effect. (ignoring our own human influences on nature of course!)
Before people lumping all creationists together... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the Big Fuss (Score:3, Informative)
"Ahh... moon... and earth... it's beautiful. You know... if I start this moon spinning like this... and the earth movement like this... they will never get to see the other side! Lets see them explain how that just 'happened to occure'"
Here you're showing the trouble that most people who "debunk" science show, ignorance of the facts.
Its called "Tidal Locking"
e.g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
Read that and understand why the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth.
Re:No, it won't (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and take another look at the Tasmania example at the end of the article.
Re:Darwin got it right... (Score:5, Informative)
No species evolves in a vacuum, and evolution (effectively) is constantly trying to find the most advantage for the species within a given environment. Even laying aside the argument that just because one thing is increased doesn't mean another is decreased (some creatures have good sight, good smell, and good hearing, for example), it is the environment, not the species that dictates what path evolution takes a species.
Consider a massively pungent environment, where all smells are rendered undetectable against the background within a metre or so. If you hunt over large distance, your species will likely only use smell for identification within social groups. Sight, hearing, maybe sonic radar, whatever will become far more important, and therefore more prominent to your species.
Consider the opposite - a constantly foggy environment. Here sight (unless you evolve a radio-sense) will be pretty useless, smell and hearing will take control.
The real world is neither of the above extremes, but given the prey and lifestyle of any given species, it is highly unlikely to ever result in a *real* stagnation in evolution. Even if so (hah!) there is more to it than just evolution at work - if you read Stuart Kauffman's 'The origins of order' (and you manage to finish it, which took me a few tries), he derives theories that both place limits on what evolution can acheive, and shows how jumps can be made from the stable state to a worse or better state across fitness landscapes.
People think that apes/chimpanzees/whatever are less evolved than humans, which is rubbish. People are more intelligent, but apes are just as evolved - a human wouldn't survive anywhere near as long as a great ape in the ape's natural habitat. Evolution and environment go hand in hand.
Simon.
Re:It wasn't proven (Score:3, Informative)
It's not so much a hypothesis as it is supporting evidence for evolution. Evolution makes the hypothesis that a complex structure like the eye can't come from nowhere, and since there are a bunch of animals with eyes out there, that there's probably a common ancestry.
What the researchers have found is that an organism that essentially stopped evolving a long time ago has photosensitive areas (read: extremely primitive eyes) that use extremely similar molecules as our eyes. This doesn't lead to any new hypothesis, but it does support the hypothesis that eyes evolved.
It's very similar to looking at the similar genetics and body chemistry of apes. Any animal that is 1% different from us is probably very closely related.
Finally, science never 'proves' anything. There's lots of supporting evidence for things like relativity, evolution, quantum physics, etc., but they've never been (and can never be) proven to be true. They work very well right now, but there may be a theory or method that comes along to usurp them (much like relativity usurped Newtonian physics in describing motion).
Re:Evolution vs. Creationism (Score:4, Informative)
Evolution theory does not cover the ultimate origins of life. The ultimate origins of life is a matter not in any way addressed by evolution, "macro" or otherwise. This is a common Creationist misconception, but they repeat it anyway because ignorance of the facts is no barrier for them.
Re:Darwin got it right... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and here is another fact: In the zebrafish, despite their retinas being much more complex and sophisticated than ours, can repair their retinas from damage whereas we are currently screwed if our retinas go bad.
IAAVS (I am a vision scientist), and neuroscientist.
Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye.. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, no. Human eyes have blind spots, which would not be present if the eyes were better designed. Cephalopod eyes evolved independently, and don't have blind spots. Their eyes are very good indeed, and can see a wide range of colours (Octopuses and Squid hunt using binocular vision).
Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim (Score:3, Informative)
Definitions: Get your belief out of my facts (Score:5, Informative)
or
"God exists" is a belief, not a fact.
No matter how much you believe it, it doesn't make it a fact.
Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim (Score:5, Informative)
1) The bible is the literal, breathed, inerrant Word of God. For this to be the case (so the argument goes), the stories of creation in Genesis cannot be mere alegory, they must be literally true. Otherwise, who's to say what else is not literally true. Yes, I realize that this is a weak argument.
The second, and IMHO, MUCH stronger argument is the following:
2) Fundamentalists believe in a literal heaven where you go to live after you die. That's not metaphorical. They also believe that non-believers literally go to a hell after they die, which is also not metaphorical. In fundamentalist Protestantism, the only thing that will get you into heaven is belief in Christ. That's it. End of story. But the fundamentalists have to explain WHY this is (in other words, if I live my life in a good way, why do I still go to hell if I'm not christian?). Here's why (again, so the argument goes):
- God is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that He must not allow imperfection in his sight. To avoid this, all those who are not perfect go to a place without God (Hell) and so will not be in His site.
- The fall introduced evil into the world. In so doing, God's creation (Mankind) was made evil. That's ALL of his creation, not just the original "evil doers" (that would be Adam and Eve). As the new testament says "All fall short of the glory of God." And "Man's best deeds are but dirty rags." So basically, since you are inherently imperfect (hence away from God, or "sinful" technically) there is nothing you could possibly do to earn your way to heaven. Woo hoo! We're all going to hell!
- But, what if God made a sacrifice to atone for the fall on behalf of all mankind? The argument is that Jesus did this. In so doing, whomever would accept that Christ did this for him would basically have their own sins atoned for by Christ Himself (who was also God), so that when that person stood before God in Heaven, God would see the atonement of Christ (himself) instead of that person's sins. Hence, heaven is possible, but only for believers.
There's protestant theology in a nutshell. Now, here's where creationism comes in (again, so the argument goes):
If there was no literal first man and woman, then there was no talking snake to tempt them into eating an apple. If that didn't happen, there was no literal fall (the fall had to be by CHOICE, protestants don't accept that God just made humans imperfect from the start). If there was no literal fall, then mankind is not in need of redemption. If there is no need for redemption, there is no need for Christ. This would basically invalidate protestant Christianity.
Usually this combined with the first argument about biblical literalism ensures that it will indeed be a cold day in Hell before protestants can reconcile their beliefs with mainstream science.
Just thought you'd like to know. Christians, feel free to correct me if any of the details are wrong.
Re:The mammalian eye & the cephalopod eye... (Score:1, Informative)
You are absolutely correct that cephalopods have quite lovely single-chambered eyes in which much of the anatomy evolved independantly of the vertebrate eyes. The cephalopod photoreceptors are pointing "outwards" and thus are not covered by several neural layers as in vertebrates. As a result, cephalopods have no blind spots (the blind spots of vertebrates occur where the photoreceptors must be pushed aside to permit passage of the neural axons that will form the optic nerve... there are many nice diagrams to be found via Google I'm sure).
Many cephalopod species have eyes that provide quite high resolution (Nautilus being a wonderful exception with its pinhole eye), but of those whose retinal photopigments have been characterized, few have been found to have colour vision. I am aware of only one squid that has more than one pigment (the firefly squid). However, some cephalopods are known to perceive the polarisation of light. This is not colour vision as we know it (which is based on the wavelength of light), but it is possibly _perceived_ by the animal in a similar fashion to our perception of colour. They certainly do exhibit binocular vision though.
And while I'm here... I find there's a great deal of misinformation to be found on animal perception. I've come across many a' webpage devoted to explaining what animals see, and the majority (that I have investigated) offered information that was outright false, even one offered by an alledged PhD (anyone that claims raptorial birds are monochromats is nuts). I know it's asking a lot, but I urge anyone with an interest in animal vision (and animal perception in general) to be very suspicious of information obtained outside of academic literature, textbooks (Animal Eyes by Nilsson & Land is awesome and accessible to the non-specialist), and first-hand accounts by one who has worked in the field.
Should anyone have any questions pertaining to animal vision, I will make myself available to reply to followups in this thread.
Cheerio
Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking" (Score:3, Informative)
Creationism and Evolution are NOT compatible (Score:2, Informative)
Here, let me make it *very* clear.
Creationism is a *belief*. It is something that is proposed in the *Bible*. Creationism is not based in facts, it is based in beliefs. Saying that creationism is another "theory" is a disgrace to both religion and to science.
Evolution is based on scientific *observation* of how things change as they adoped to different environments. There is no belief here - it is based on observations of life in different places and see how it adapted to the environemnt. This is based on current observations of life as well as fossil and geological records.
Creationism states things from beginning to end. From moment of creation to now. It talks how the environment was shaped for life.
Evolution states things from end (now) to the past. It talks how life is shaped by the environemnt.
Creationism basis in the real world is on equal footing of that of the Greek gods. It was *believed* that only gods could make water flow downhill. Well, now we know better and gods responsible for water flowing down are not relevent anymore.
Whenever the church wants to impose creationism on a theory of evolution, it will just embarrass itself. Only a decade or two ago the Roman Cathlic church finally admited that Galileo was not spreading heresy when he was talking about Earth not being the center of the universe!
So please. Don't mix the two. They are NOT compatible.
Re:Darwin got it right... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Arguing with a creationist (Score:5, Informative)
21:18: If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20: And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21:21: And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
Or, in logo-illustrated form [thebricktestament.com] for the biblical-language-challenged.
Re:Arguing with a creationist (Score:2, Informative)
There was confusion about this in the early Church. St. Peter had a vision from God which showed him that ceremonial cleanliness (and in general the distinction between Jew and Gentile) had been mitigated through Christ. Read up on the history of the Judaizers to get a better feel for this struggle in the early Church.
For further reading (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's the Big Fuss (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/Gal ileoAffair.html [catholic.net]
"Origin of Species" not "Origin of _the_ species" (Score:3, Informative)
It a very important point to be aware of. It greatly affects the meaning of the title.
That work discusses how it is that species develop. There is virtualy no reference to humans in it as would be inferred by a title which referenced "The Species".
Here is a link to a copy of that work:
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/
Octopus eye vs human eye (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No entry found for mamalian. (Score:3, Informative)
FAQ: Do editors moderate? [slashdot.org]
Guess what? They're all called editors.
Re:No, it won't (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's the Big Fuss (Score:2, Informative)
There is a huge amount science doesn't know, surely. But science has a proven, successful framework of learning new stuff, of expanding our world view and better comprehending the universe that we live in.
I happen to believe that the universe was created by a loving God, who cares for me personally, and who likes it when I try to understand His creation. That is an article of faith: It is not open to scientific rebuttal. Science is irrelevant to my faith. There is room in my faith for science. "God did it" is not a satisfactory answer for "Why are things this way?".
Why is this so contentious?
1950 encyclical Humani Generis (Score:3, Informative)
The nautilus (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Arguing with a creationist (Score:3, Informative)
Kings 2: Call a prophet bald, be eaten by bears
2:23: And he (Elijah) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24: And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Psalms: Why hit them with stones, when you can hit them against stones?
137:9: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Isaiah: But be sure to let the dads watch! Or at least blame them.
13:15: Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
13:16: Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
---
14:21: Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
You can split hairs about how it's done all you want. The fact remains that the old testament details a vengeful god, just like all of the farming tribes had around 1000-800 BCE. There are quite a few bits and pieces that go against a modern, civilized society. Well, a society not founded on religious fanaticism anyway; these kinds of things fit right in with radical Islamics.
Re:Frequently Encountered Criticisms (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, I don't see that. (Score:3, Informative)
You said: "Incorrect. Unless there are other people to breed with there, they should have the same DNA as the original tribe."
I say: No!
Once there is no more mixing of 'A' and 'A.1' because 'A.1' has migrated away, their DNA lineages _would_ diverge, even if A.1 bred exclusively among _themselves_. This is because the mutations that A.1 accumulates will have almost no means of being transmitted back to A. And the mutations that A accumulates after A.1 brached off have few ways of being transmitted to A.1.
Your own bias is clouding your thoughts. If you can't accept that 3 braches converge to 1 original, what makes you accept 7 branches converge to one of the 3?
It's obvious also that the research underlying the article done by scientists who _agree_ with mainstream genetic and evolutionary theory, not with a earth created 5000 years ago as stated in the Bible.
Re:Mandatory comment: Evolution != (neo)Darwinism (Score:2, Informative)
I happen to disagree with you when you say that natural selection is wrong. There is indeed a large amount of proof showing that natural selection does take place. Simple experiment: take a petri dish of bacteria, load with antibiotics. There will be some bacteria that will survive to reproduce. Viola! Thats the basis of natural selection. How was that wrong?
Where's your evidence stating that nothing has proven natural selection to take place?
Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim (Score:4, Informative)
Years ago, Richard Dawkins pointed out that 1) simple light sensitivity is an advantage over none at all, as (for example) if a predator is swimming over you it may mess with the light source at which point you might decide to "freeze" or hide, 2) that some simple light sensitive cells in a small depression can confer some directionality sensitivity which is better than not having any, 3) larger depressions with more cells are even better at it, 4) a depression that becomes a "pore" can confer some level of pinhole-camera vision, and a 5) pore that fills with mucus can provide further improvements over that. Each of these steps have more useful light sensitive mechanisms over the previous step, and with EACH of them, there are examples of actual animals in nature who have such features.
There's no "poof" here at all, that suddenly we've "magically" figured it all out--, multiple progressive incremental scenarios exist and it's not new news. All that is new here is a specific detail has been filled in.
creationism vs. evolution (Score:3, Informative)
Evolution is a real part of a real science field - biology.
There is nothing to discuss regarding this particular so-called "controversy".
Re:No, it won't (Score:1, Informative)
Also note that the existence of a mitochondrial Eve or a Y-chromosome Adam does not imply the existence of a population bottleneck. In fact, there is evidence that there was no such bottleneck at those times. (There is evidence of another bottleneck, mentioned in the article you cite, but it was at a different time.)
Re:Pimping Evolution (Score:2, Informative)
logical, and forensic evidence to support that
Jesus rose from the dead then there is to
support that macro evolution has occured even
once."
Are you serious.... physical,scientific and logical, evidence that a man rose from the dead, how many years ago! I'm going to resist the temptation to to dispute that claim outright and ask you to put your money where your mouth is. Show me!
As for your claim that most scientists reject the possibility of religion outright, that may be true, but only because science is based on following logical progressions from one proven step to the next until an answer is reached. Not faith that some previously accepted notion (read: religion)is true. If it's true, let science proove it. You NEVER start a proof by assuming what you're trying to prove is true.... makes no sense.
Science only tries to move the ball forward one yard at a time, and whenever it seems to be at a stand still, in step the religous folk and say "see... after this it must be God". Sorry... that's not proof! If you don't need proof fine, but I do. I have never accepted anything on blind faith in my life and never will.
Re:Darwin got it right... (Score:2, Informative)
However, you also have to read the Green Herring and the Blue Herring to get the complete picture.
Oh, and the fourth Herring... it is about tetrachromacy after all.
Re:The "mammalian" eye trumps "cephalopod" eye. (Score:2, Informative)
From an engineering point of view, it's totally retarted. But evolved organisms have this kind of kludge all the time, because once you have a structure locked in, it's really hard to get away from it by mutation.
This has been a favorite example of imperfect evolution over intelligent design for ages. Dawkins made a big to do about it in 1986 and everyone pretty much took him to his word. The fact is that it's false. The cephalopod retina doesn't have the same cellular constraints on it as ours do. It is true that the vertebrate retina, unlike that of cephalopods, places the photoreceptors at the back of the retina underneath nerve fibers and blood vessels which can cast shadows on the photoreceptors below. Furthermore the photoreceptors themselves are inverted, such that the photosensitive end is pointed away from incoming light.
An intelligent retina design, it is said, would place the photoreceptors at the very top of the retina with blood vessels and nerves below. With limited facts such an arrangement makes intuitive sense, after al the eye's prime function is the capture and transduction of light. However this argument ignores the basic cellular biology of vertebrate photoreceptors.
Transduction of light into a neural signal depends upon disc shaped structures in the outer end of the photoreceptor cell. These discs contain the photopigment whose breakdown by incoming light is at the very root of the transduction process (ie: light to nerve impulse). As the photopigment in these discs is broken down by incoming light to generate the neural signal, the discs themselves must be quickly shed and renewed. This function is accomplished by the retinal pigment epithelium which holds the photoreceptors in place and recycles their shed discs while supplying them with the necessary nutrients to regenerate more discs.
A cephalopod retina organization would restrict photoreceptor's ability to quickly regenerate discs of photopigment, causing frequent photoreceptor bleaching and ultimately reducing visual acuity under strong light (ie: daylight). Furthermore shed opaque photopigment discs would float above photoreceptors and impede light much more than the mostly transparent nerve fibers and occasional blood vessel that currently sit above the photoreceptors.
Such an organization does leave vertebrate with a blind spot were the optic nerve is collected and projected back into the CNS. This spot lies away from the fovea and as such it's effect on vision is negligible. Particularly in vertebrates whose visual fields overlap (ie: eyes at the front, not sides of our heads).
So our retinal design is in fact the best design given that our photoreceptors have to remain embedded in the retinal epithelium.
Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim (Score:3, Informative)
Often, you can tell from context which was referred too, sometimes you can't
The effects of drinking wine to drunkeness are described in several places in the Bible. There are also other references to wine that are obviously non-alchoholic.
To be more precise, the Bible does not ever condemn the drinking of wine (oinos), but it does condemn drunkeness in most situations as well as strong drink. Dunkeness in the form of anethesia is specifically recommended in at least one passage.
It is amazing how many people that claim to be Christians (not to impune their motives) are in fact quite ignorant of what the book says. One would expect non-Christians to be generally ignorant of the Bible, but if you claim to base your life on it, you ought to at least know something about it.
The Grass is Greener: The Other Side (Score:2, Informative)
The phenomenon of creationism's lag in decades past was due to overwhelming propaganda - not sheer scientific reasoning. All of the evolutionary evidence of yesteryear that students were nursed off of has now fallen by the wayside. Piltdown Man. Nebraska Man. Java Man. Heidelburg Man. Neanderthal Man. Cro-Magnon Man. All of these have been shown to be relics of the past - composed of scattered fragments of skeletons: sadly some even hoaxes (Heidelburg Man was 'scientifically' constructed from an extinct pig's tooth). Carbon dating has been shown to be way off - even in known cases (Live penguins at 900 years old). Ernst Heckel's embryonic drawings were faked (even his contemporaries knew this - and he got in trouble for it). The Miller experiment no longer holds up when under scrutiny (the gasses he used are no longer believed to be present in earth's early atmosphere, and when 'correct' gasses are used, the experiment yields cyanide and formaldehyde: key elements in embalming fluid.) Even Archaeopteryx is no longer accepted as a transitional fossil. As Alan Feduccia, the world's leading expert on birds, said: "[Archaeopteryx] is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of "paleobabble" is going to change that." So to say that overwhelming evidence drove creationism away is to be intellectually dishonest. The 'science' part of science just happens to be catching up, that's all.
Secondly, a demonstrable difference between microevolution and macroevolution can be shown. In fact, there are actually six definitions of evolution, to be precise. They are:
Cosmic- Big Bang
Chemical- all elements evolve from H and He
Stellar- stars form
Organic- primordial soup
Macro- ape changes to man
Micro- slight variations within a kind
Only the very last, microevolution, is scientific by definition. The rest are theories that cannot be tested or proven in normal laboratory science. They are part of what is know as Origins Science - the study of today's universe as to determine what has happened in the past to cause us to be here.
Finally, as to the eye article, the fact that the mechanisms for light-sensitive cells exist in worms does not therefore mean we evolved from worms. The latter is simply the evolutionary interpretation of the facts. In truth, this data could also be interpreted as common design. Just as GMC puts the same lug-nuts on several vehicles which did not necessarily evolve from each other, an Intelligent Designer could have created different creatures using the same mechanisms to perform the same function. You see, there's a difference between the fact, and the interpretation of the facts, based on one's worldview. The latter is simply the creationist interpretation.
What the scientists did not do is solve once and for all evolution's problem with the eye. They may have found similar structures, but they have yet to propose how such a system could have arisen by chance. The fact is, the eye is nearly an irreducibly complex system - if any of its parts are missing, it is useless. The challenge is to explain how something like that - a complex network of interlocking systems - could evolve via Darwinian evolution. For anyone who doubts the biochemical complexity of the human eye, I would highly recommend Michael J. Behe's "Darwin's Black Box." The fact is, the conceptual evolution of how the human eye might have evolved is plausible. The actual physical process of getting there is much more difficult.
As to the posts about the nonexistence of good creationist literature and argumentation out there, I humbly point you to:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/ [answersingenesis.org] - Check out their Technical Journal (TJ)
no, you're not quite understanding this (Score:3, Informative)
Science is not a belief. Science follows the scientific method. Accepted principles in science can be independently verified by testing and re-testing hypotheses using the scientific method.
Yes, that is true of *science*. Historical "science", however, doesn't satisfy those characteristics. Measure the percentage of a radioactive decay child in a sample, sure, that's science. Imagine what the original percentage of the parent radioisotope was, to "prove" how old the sample is, that isn't the same process.
Both evolutionists and (technically inclined) creationists use theories to fit data (the *same* data) to a worldview. For evolutionists, that worldview is the absence of a Creator. This means that extremely improbable events need to have happened (and the very first self-reproducing cell must have been an *event*, not a "process"), so the only way to even make that remotely plausible is very, very long periods of time. But the long periods are required by the worldview, not the data.
The use of science to explain a worldview *is*, to use your terminology in this context, a belief.
And now, a parody of your words:
Except evolutionists are not true scientists, because they come to the table with a hypothesis, the truth of which they are highly invested in proving(1). That is not the scientific method, because they do not approach their hypothesis with neutrality. Therefore, they find exactly the answers they seek. That is not science.
(1) That there is no Creator, and only currently observed natural processes operating over immense ages can be allowed to explain the complexity of life and the universe.