no evolution for you...

Discussion in 'Spirituality & Religion' started by msilverstein47, Dec 31, 2013.

  1. HerthaBerwyn

    HerthaBerwyn Member+

    May 24, 2003
    Chicago
    Isnt Chellini one of those obscure pastas? there are like fifteen hundred of them.

    I still dont understand how creationism is considered a reasonable alternative to evolution on the terms anti-evolutionists cite.
     
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  2. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    the most basic reason is the there is no explanation of the existence of Life that is either testable or is not rooted in assumptions that are no more fanciful than to believe that a Higher Power created it. the specific process of creation, as exemplified in the Bible, is not the issue for creationists. many creationists are Christians, but that's not the real point. evolution demands sexual reproduction, mating pairs, and that phenomenon doesn't have an explanation that is not rooted in unsustainable assumptions, either.

    look at it this way: in order to have sexual reproduction, there must be independent, undirected development of two completely compatible systems. how is that a reasonable assumption?

    so, the question is this: where is the foundational science?
     
  3. HerthaBerwyn

    HerthaBerwyn Member+

    May 24, 2003
    Chicago
    Youve expressed your objection to evolution. To tat my answer is "Ill find out". However, How does your dismissal of evolution support scientifically whatever unverifiable mechanism you purport?
     
  4. benztown

    benztown Member+

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    It's the old "I can't think of anything else" fallacy, in other words, an argument from ignorance. Which actually fits in more than one way, as the objection to evolution is based on ignorance in the first place.
     
  5. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    it doesn't. neither does your endorsement of non-science.

    and, seriously..."i'll find out??? you'll find out how Life happened? you'll find out how sexual reproduction developed. two independent, entirely compatible systems that had to occur with a measure of simultaneity that has no reasonable explanation other than "it must have happened, cuz it's how it is."
     
  6. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    and, to extend the statement, you are absolutely ignorant of how Life began. and you always will be because there will never be a test that proves the how.
     
  7. benztown

    benztown Member+

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    Sexual reproduction isn't the mystery you make it out to be. Look here for a start:
    http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB350.html
    Follow the references for more.

    What you should try to wrap your head around is that it's enough to have a functioning mechanism.

    Why did the glass I dropped the other day fall to the ground? Maybe angels dragged it. We'll never know why that particular glass dropped in that particular instance. But we know of a natural mechanism to explain it: Gravity. That is enough.
     
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  8. HerthaBerwyn

    HerthaBerwyn Member+

    May 24, 2003
    Chicago
    Ill rephrase. Ill search out the terms of debate on that issue so as to address it. What I write is far from your contention that I am being absolutist. We dont know yet how life began. Yet. If we shrug and say it must be a magic beyond our understanding, we never will.
     
  9. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

    Jul 12, 2005
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    Except that no one who understands evolution is a fact claims to know how life began. They're reserving that judgment until there is sufficient evidence to form a solid hypothesis, and then hopefully, a final product (theory). You don't know that it's an unknowable question any more than one of us can know it isn't. Diff is, "goddidit" isn't a satisfying answer for us.

    What's most puzzling about your "evolution isn't science" rants is that evolution is independently supported by several other fields of science. Geology makes quite clear the earth is not young. Various radiometric dating techniques (NOT just carbon-14) do the same. Rocks in different strata in the same location have their molecules aligned to different orientations because the magnetic field had flipped from one epoch to another. Extinct fossils are never found in the same strata as extant ones, and extinct fossils from different eras are never found in the same strata either. The fossils of aquatic creatures are found in places oceans haven't existed since time immemorial. Astronomy shows us objects that are billions of light years away.

    It takes a special kind of "Nobody witnessed it, therefore it can't be" denial when it comes to the age of earth and the universe. To then state, because we don't know, your belief that life began at the hands of a celestial being, that's certainly a hell of a lot more reasonable than denying all of the stuff we do have Everest-sized mountains of evidence for.
     
  10. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    here is a quote from the talkorigins cite:

    i didn't read anything that explains the emphatically claim

    Gravity is testable.

    you seem completely willing to deny the fact that there isn't a testable model for the origin of Life, that is more than pure speculation. faith in science undergirds your position, yet you are disdainful of the fact that i have faith in another explanation. your explanation for the origin of Life isn't scientific.

    is it?
     
  11. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    i've never claimed the earth is young.

    when you have a testable model for the origin of Life, let me know. i don't have one either, to be clear. but you don't have one and that makes us completely even on that score.
     
  12. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

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    I've never claimed that a god didn't create the earth and initiate life on this planet billions of years ago, either. Evolution--even guided evolution (although we haven't uncovered any evidence for it)--is not incompatible with that at all.

    We can test gravity, yes, but it doesn't mean we have any idea what the mechanism for it is. 'Cause we don't--we don't know WHY gravity happens. It may very well be that angels are everywhere, creating downward forces on everyone. Are we really going to be satisfied with that answer, or look for a different explanation?

    Also there are several species around the world that have more than two sexes, which is just sort of an interesting aside that I'm not sure many people realize.
     
  13. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    no sensible creationist denies that natural selection plays some part in divergence among species, but no sensible creationist believes that the mechanisms that Darwin postulated account for the development of entirely separate genera. the reason is simple. while it may look like it happened that way, we don't see the process as it happens. the argument that minute changes over millions of years are the basis for the theory doesn't jibe well with two things: the Cambrian explosion and the fact that Darwin's tree of life is wrong side up.
     
  14. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

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    No one views it as a tree of life anymore.

    Can you clarify what you mean about the Cambrian Explosion?
     
  15. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    suddenly appearing in the Burgess shale dig are a plethora of life forms that had not been previously catalogued and the phenomenon of such an enormous number of apparently contemporaneous and also new to paleo diggers is difficult to evaluate from a Darwinan/naturalistic perspective. it's not like there are no proffered ideas as to how the C explosion may have occurred, but such theoretical constructs are a bit of a stretch, at least to the thinking of creationists. again, it is manifestly not pure science that supports the C explosion hypothesis
     
  16. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

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    Okay sorry, I know what the Cambrian Explosion is, haha.

    But profferring a general explanation is not difficult at all. Why didn't the animals we find in the strata marking the Cambrian Explosion exist in the previous four billion years of strata? Answer: they hadn't evolved yet. Where were animals at all, or fungi, or complex plants the previous three and a half billion years or so? Answer: they hadn't evolved yet. Where else would they be? Why else would they suddenly appear? Being a larger, more complex organism was a new evolutionary "idea." With it come great advantages. It is not a surprise either that biological diversity would really start to take off once sex was introduced into the equation--it just allows for so much more mixing of genes.

    Even more so, where did all these things go? If new species didn't evolve they'd all be gone due to multiple mass extinction events. The lucky ones that just happened to barely be well-suited enough to survive those events would have had new ecological niches to fill. And as we see everywhere we look, they always do. Bacteria that evolved to eat nylon did so in decades. Multiply that genetic variance by hundreds of millions. If you lack the imagination to do so, then fine, but imagination and curiosity and the desire to learn are the hallmarks of science. Those things necessarily include hypothesizing and testing.

    Personally, I don't buy into the idea that there are any theories on the origin of life at this point--only hypotheses. Nothing is well supported enough yet. But by contrast, all these things we've discovered since the time evolution was first conceived--all of which fit very well to the predictions of the various strains of theory--cannot be ignored. Well, they shouldn't be, but sadly, they are.
     
  17. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    the statement "the hadn't evolved yet" is so sweeping and ultimately without real explanation. it pre-supposes that evolution as you suggest takes place accounts for the amazing proliferation of new genera. it's totally circular reasoning.

    i'm not suggesting that new species didn't evolve. i buy that whole-heartedly. but that's the end of the buy-in.

    your bacteria example isn't compelling. they were bacteria. they still are bacteria. they aren't something other than bacteria.

    point taken.

    prediction is a wonderful tool. it looks like it confirms. but if a creation model is true, the predictions would also be true under that model.
     
  18. benztown

    benztown Member+

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    Well, then there you have a great starting point to do more research. You know, to read and learn, to understand.

    On the other hand, you can of course go on to tell experts on evolution that they're wrong about what their own theory says without having any clue whatsoever.


    I haven't come up with an explanation for the origin of life, so since I don't have one, it can hardly be scientific. I have however pointed you towards such models and they very much are testable as well as scientific. None of these models may have the confidence necessary to elevate them to the status of a "theory" yet, as opposed to gravity or indeed evolution, but these models do exist, they are testable, and so far they have not been refuted.

    Once again, instead of just parading your ignorance, you may want to educate yourself, like with the sexual reproduction mentioned above.
     
  19. benztown

    benztown Member+

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    Ok, let's take a look at this:

    God wants to create humanity, so in order to do that, he first creates a place for humanity to live in: The Universe.
    If the entire purpose of the universe was to house humanity, then it is excessive beyond comprehension. At most, we'd need our solar system, but even that would be excessive given that god could tweak the parameters whichever way he wanted to, so in fact, applying Occam's Razor, we would predict a geocentric universe consisting of the earth and a sun orbiting it. And if god likes, he I don't mind him throwing in a couple of lights at night like the moon and the stars on some celestial sphere, just for the kicks.
    What we wouldn't expect it a universe so vast, it boggles the mind. Billions of solar systems like ours just in our galaxy, billions more of these galaxies just in the observable universe, the vast majority too dim to see with the naked eye at night, and most likely an actual universe that is billions of times the observable portion that we have access to. All of that just for humanity? That would violate any sense of proportion, it only shows how self important some people are when they want to stick to this story.

    The same goes for time. We know that time as we know it began about 14.7 billion years ago. And it took god almost that entire time until he finally created man? Really? Absolutely doesn't fit the hypothesis.

    Next, looking at life, there are countless examples why a creation story doesn't make sense.
    Just to name a few: If god created life, he wouldn't have made bad designs, like having the light receptors in our eyes pointed into the wrong direction, like having certain arteries take very impractical paths, or making the human female pelvis too small for a baby to fit through comfortable, leading to lots of complications and deaths over the history of humanity. And of course the list ist endless. There's tons of bad design that we wouldn't expect under a creation model.

    But there's more, we also would expect that all the animals were created in their ultimate form. God after all would have thought things through. What we see however is that there's a clear progression from simple life forms to more complex ones over billions of years and once we got complex life forms, theres also a clear progression that shows gradual change over very long time scales. If all animals were created, we would expect to see their fossils just as they are today, everywhere in all layers. Instead we see that 99% of all life that ever existed is extinct, that the fossils we find are distinct in each layer that there's a clear progression going on, etc. This is clearly at odds with a creation model.

    And all that is before we even get to humanity. If the creation model were true, we would expect all of humanity to share the same religion and the same beliefs. After all, god should be capable to communicate his message globally and across time. Instead, we see tons of different beliefs most of them mutually exclusive and they get ever more fragmented instead of converging on one truth. Once again this is something clearly at odds with a creation model.

    Next, we have the problem of evil. Why does god let innocent children horribly die from blood cancer? Why does he let his people get killed by natural disasters? Why did he create diseases like Ebola or the Plague? Again something that is clearly at odds with a creation model, at least with one that postulates a good god who cares about his creation.

    So, to sum it up: Not only have the predictions of your creation model failed, reality is pretty much the opposite of what we'd expect if there were a god who was behind it all.
     
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  20. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

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    i'm sorry to say this, because it gives me no pleasure, but your crushing ignorance about the person of God, your unwillingness to apprehend his goodness, your lack of humility in the way you categorize him ( which is what we would normally expect from a person, based on the Genesis 3 account of The Fall, so not terribly unanticipated ), all of these factors and more have created in you the notion that your sense of how things ought to be is the correct one.

    Man was created to have an intimate relationship with God, to enjoy his presence, to commune with him, but Man gave that up in favor of the proposition that he could be like God by distrusting and disobeying him. if you trust God and obey him, you can have the promised communion, but that requires faith, and you have chosen to place your faith in no more provable, testable, reliable phenomena that i have chosen to place my faith in.

    pointing me to information that is ultimately circular in reasoning doesn't move me closer to understanding the truth. it obfuscates the truth.

    Proverbs 1:7 says that the beginning of wisdom is an attitude of reverential fear toward God. since you don't have that, you see everything thru a particular lens.

    may good fortune befall you.
     
  21. benztown

    benztown Member+

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    You posited that the god as creator hypothesis predicts the reality we can observe. I addressed that claim. It doesn't require humility, or anything else, it's rather straight forward. The fact that your little story doesn't fit in at all with the real world isn't my problem, it's yours. Either your god is not only incompetent, but also malicious and above all hiding, or he does not exist. There's no other way to reasonably interpret the reality we see.

    Your only way out of this is to say that god's ways are mysterious and we can't see his great plan or whatever. But as soon as you say that, you automatically wave your previous claim goodbye, that your god predicts the world we live in, on the contrary, by saying that his ways are mysterious, you admit that the world we see isn't compatible with what we would expect from your god or he wouldn't be mysterious.

    Where is your humility when it counts? How can it get any more presumptuous than to believe yourself to be the crown of creation, the one species picked by god? That the entire universe was only made for YOU!
    Though looking at your own story, man (or rather woman) was right to distrust god. God was lying after all and the serpent was telling the truth.
    But even ignoring that, even assuming that they did the wrong thing, they were in no position to know that before eating from the tree and learning the difference between good and evil.

    It's obvious that this story comes from an older tradition, one where Yahweh wasn't the all powerful monotheistic god he is today. In fact, it's very similar to other mythical stories, like that of Prometheus who gave fire to the humans which was the big secret of the gods and wich made mankind like gods and for which Prometheus and humanity were punished, etc. This is a common theme in ancient religions.
    Your perspective on the story is one that is tainted by Neo-Platonism, which tried to allegorize lots of things, but which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

    As with the evolution of life, the evolution of your believes can be traced rather well, if only you bothered to find out.
    Oh it is. Just take evolution for example. It is testable and so far every single test in every possible field of human endeavor has supported it, not one refuted it. Whereas your little story makes no sense at all and the only way to save it is to retreat behind god's mysterious nature. Congratulations, this is the height of arbitrariness, everything and its opposite can be explained by god's mysterious ways.

    You keep deluding yourself, but it won't get you any closer to any truth.
    Once again, you have things backwards. There is absolutely nothing circular about anything I've pointed you to. If there is, please point that out and I'll adjust my views and/or arguments.

    Neither evolution, nor gravity or abiogenesis are circular arguments, they are straight forward theories that come from the data we can actually gather.

    You on the other hand have the ultimate circle at the foundation of all your claims. When we cut off all the fat, what remains is this:
    Q: Why do you believe what you believe?
    A: Because the Bible says so.
    Q: Why do you trust the Bible?
    A: Because it's god's word.
    Q: How do you know that?
    A: Because the Bible says so.
    ...

    and round and round we go.


    See above. The validity of this claim is dependent upon the Bible being the word of god, which you support by presenting this claim. THIS is circular.

    dito
     
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  22. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

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    No see, it's not circular anyway, but it's also a prediction of the theory, and here's why.

    When evolution was first conceived we didn't have all this rich fossil data. Darwin admitted that was a problem for his theory--he was shocked at the lack of fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer and even said that if none were ever found, that would be a serious argument against his ideas. But we eventually discovered a crapload of fossils in it.

    People only thought the earth was maybe a hundred million years old even well after Darwin's time--Kelvin used the rate of earth's cooling to estimate it, unaware of radioactivity, in the late 19th century. This was also an issue because of the rate of speciation. Obviously, we now know that the earth is over four billion years old.

    Long before we had the technology to observe human fetal development, it was predicted in the eighteenth century, pre-Darwin (proto-evolutionary ideas had been developing already), that humans ought to have a bone that runs kind of from behind the nose down into the middle upper jaw, called the intermaxillary bone. Other mammals had it--even apes, so it would only make sense. Ironically, a Dutch doctor and creationist posited that because there was no intermaxillary bone in humans, that was a clear anatomical difference that separated human from beast. Goethe, after much observation, believed he had found it. His belief was vindicated by technology, as the intermaxillary bone is quite distinguishable during fetal development, until it fuses into the skull.

    Theorists predicted early on that extremely important features for survival ought to evolve independently several times, and therefore differ significantly in their functional parts if not the basic functionality itself. Eyes are an excellent example. Arthropod eyes are set up much differently than mammalian eyes, and I dare say they're superior because their retinas aren't wired up backward so they don't have blind spots. You see different versions of ears that are in no way related to each other all over the place too. Insects often have ears on places other than their heads.

    The examples go on and on.

    Though I've only given one example of a prediction creationism made that was not correct, there are scores more. Irreducible complexity is a modern example.
     
  23. Justin Z

    Justin Z Member

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    Any response to the above examples, or are we accepting them?
     
  24. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

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    #174 RichardL, Jul 20, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2014
    As said, you don't appear to have any idea what circular reasoning is.

    People don't believe in evolution due to extinctions/new species appearing. Evolution is a hypothesis put forward to explain that happening, and the similarities between differing species.

    Scientists speculate how specialised organs formed. They say through evolution, and speculate on the process of how it might have happened, but they don't say evolution proves it happened the way they say.

    And having tested facts backing up your hypothesis is not circular reasoning. By that definition, proving that Germany won the world cup using the hypothesis that the winners of the word cup final are the winners, would be circular reasoning too.

    Circular reasoning is using the results of your own assumption to prove your own assumption. For a non-bible example, I'll go back to 2005 when many on the yanks abroad forum were irate at Bobby Convey not getting into the Reading team. The thinking there was "Steve Coppell is biased against Convey/American or he'd be in the team" and the fact that he wasn't getting in the team "proved" them right.


    The thing is, even if the actual process of evolution turns out to be different, and it's found that species did make sudden big jumps rather than gradual ones, that doesn't invalidate evolution. It just refines the theory.
     
  25. HerthaBerwyn

    HerthaBerwyn Member+

    May 24, 2003
    Chicago
    Just as a word cannot be used in its own definition the Bible cannot proclaim itself divine.
     

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