In my discussions with people of various viewpoints about evolution, one of the most common claims is that evolution does not "increase" genetic information. The claim that evolution is causing us to "devolve" from some Platonic idea prior to the Noachian Flood is discussed in my other post "Is evolution genetically impossible?" and although this claim is related (if you can have new genetic information, you can correct for deterioration caused by mutations) it has different implications. In a way, it mirrors the creationist claim that the 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes evolution, which is not at all true. The thing that creationists often forget is that the 2nd law is not applicable to open systems (essentially where there is new input of energy into the system), and the earth most certainly is an open system. They seem to hold a similar idea about mutations and genetic information, in that the original created "kinds" in the Bible had the all the genetic information that would every be needed to cause all the variations that we see today. It is known that a creature doesn't need brand new information to be different (often mutations cause changes of what already exists) but creationists have offered up no explanation as to how an animal could have all the information needed for all the future generations of that "kind" and not be some unlikely monster exhibiting all kinds of odd traits in its phenotype (physical appearance). Even beyond this, the creationist claim is vauge and easily shifted around to mean just about anything, but perhaps that's why it's so succesful with some people.
Thanks to films like Jurassic Park many people they have a good understanding of genetics, which is DNA=blueprints=information. This may be true in a very superficial sense, but rarely do I come across someone who is able to explain loci, alleles, chromasomes, telemeres, etc. It is also why Sarfati's claims are so easy to swallow, because to someone not familiar with the topics (who only knows that DNA is information) it's easy to make that mean almost anything. Genetics is such a complicated science that it is out of reach for people who have not familiarized themselves with it, and I myself am among them. My primary areas of interest are in more "traditional" areas like paleontology, compartive anatomy, behavioral biology, and the like, but that does not excuse me from overlooking the mechanisms by which evolution works at a genetic and molecular level. Thus, after some searching, I came to find that genetic information can indeed be added, mutations being able to do and undo various things in the genome of an organism. A very helpful talkorigins.org page on this specific topic (with paper references) explained that scientists have witnessed an increase in genetic variety in a population, increases in genetic material, new (or novel) genetic material created, and new abilities regulated by genetics. Furthermore, gene duplication seems to be able to increase genetic information via mutations and about 3,000 papers on the subject are listed on PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez). The mechanism for increased information in gene duplication occurs when DNA copies a segment with point mutations occuring that change one or both of the copies. Dealing with this topic, there is an interesting paper on PubMed by Ohta from 1987 (a decade before Refuting Evolution was published, giving Sarfati no excuse not to know about it) called "A model of evolution for accumulating genetic information." In the paper, genetic information is defined as "the sum of distinct functions that the gene family can perform," and what the researchers found was (assuming a few gene copies and unequal crossing-over) that natural selection would automatically favor more variability brought about by increases in genetic information. The more diverse a population is, the more likely they are to survive, adapt, find new niches, etc. so not only does mutation cause an increase in genetic information but such increases are favored by natural selection over organisms that do not have as much variability. As stated earlier, the creationist view is that the perfect organisms in the Garden of Eden had all the information needed for all the variations within "kinds" we see today, but it has never been said how this information is organized (coding DNA? junk DNA? something else?) nor how these genes are selected or passed on or why some and not others.
Essentially, the idea that evolution does not produce novel genetic infomation has been shown to be false, and even if we do not as yet know all the details, creationists have offered up no counter-hypothesis, no mechanism for their "created kinds," no pattern of gene dispersal or anything of the kind. The idea persists because it seems logical to those unfamiliar with evolution or genetics and because scientists have not done a good job explaining these studies to the public. If you're interested in the field and can "speak the language," then many of the refutations to creationists are easily at hand, but scientists have not translated their findings and shared them with the public. Many are either not interested in the debate, do not have the time, or feel their obligation is to put out papers to further the establishment but not share with the layman. That's why creationism and ID are so hard to beat, because both those groups have good public relations and put a lot of effort in getting their ideas across to the public. Even among the scientists who do speak out against creationism, you can only make some ideas so simple, and some ideas and theories do require people to be familiar with science. Creationism and ID on the other hand try to use logic and misleading statements that are readily understood, essentially showing that you can make a really stupid statement in 10 seconds but it may take an hour to explain how that assertion is incorrect. In any event, I hope this essay has helped those of you who are unfamiliar with some of the genetic concepts behind evolution, and I would encourage you to visit PubMed and do some searching. You may be quite surprised at what you find.
I'm glad you posted this, I think I will go to PubMed and see what I can find.
My new favorite view for reconciling what Sarfati sometimes refers to as "goo to you" evolution with Scripture is the fact that the Bible states God made man out of dirt, or mud...
On the other hand, Christianity seems to have two conflicting views on man: that he is a humble sinner who is nothing, and that he is a noble creature, the crown of God's creation. If we didn't used to be human, but used to be monkeys, the second bit kind of goes down the drain...
Unless I'm right in thinking that in the "family tree" of evolutionary history, there is shown the common ancestor, then the common ancestor of mammals, then a split between the creatures that would become modern monkeys and humans? So even if we looked similar in the beginning, we never descended directly from monkeys?
And why would God do lots of fits and starts and "dead ends", with random mutations? From a human perspective, that doesn't make any sense...
Lol, sorry, didn't mean to ramble; maybe I need to do my own posts on evolution, concerned not with, as yours are, the mechanics, but rather the possible agreement between religion and science... so far the best explanations I've found are from and Evangelical, seems to me like there's need for a definite Catholic opinion too. :)-
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
Thank you once again for your reply. :) I actually remember something from Bio 101 when we mentioned origins that clay might have had the correct properties to aid in abiogenesis (the first life), but I don't remember much more than that (I'll post if I do). You're right in that there is a duality about man in the Bible that humans are the crowning acheivement, but that was before the Fall of course, making us the "humble sinners." At least that's the view of AiG. As far as people and monkeys, we came from the primate lineage (starting with things like tarsiers and such) but we didn't necessarily come from monkeys as they are today (that's why they're still around). For whatever reason, the primate lineages went one way and the lineage leading to man went another, which primarily had to do with bigger brain size and thinking ability (see my hypothesis about facial structures and descent I did a few days ago). It does make a problem though, but to me, I don't try to think of it contrary to Biblical teachings because even though we are related to primates, we acheive things above and beyond anything they can do- we are indeed special, but yet we are irrevocably connected to nature through our ancestry. That's how I see it anyway.
You're also right that there seem to be a lot of dead ends and other such things in evolution. This isn't to say these organisms don't have "purpose" however, in that they interacted in an ecosytem and many (mostly indirectly) helped shape the world and biota that lead to us. Organisms change other organisms, so perhaps all the dead-ends don't mean the designer is foolish, but there is another purpose for those organisms existing at that time. That, however, is a purely philosophical argument and requires knowing the mind of God, which I definitely do not.
It's interesting that you've been finding the best reconcilations between science and religion from evangelicals (I assume Protestant) Christians. Traditionally it's been Catholic theologians who did not see a conflict with evolution, even the late Pope John Paul II. As I suggested before, check out Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller, as he does a good job reconciling the two, as well as Gould's essay on Non-Overlapping Magesteria. The opening essay of Scientists Confront Creationism (and the closing essays as well) gives some history of the debate and mentions more than a few theologians who didn't have a problem with evolution at all. In fact, Darwin himself was a creationist and ultimately gave up his faith when his daughter died, as well as people telling him that evolution went against God's laws (what would have happened if they weren't so strict, I wonder?).
In any case, keep on digging. The philosophical implications can be difficult, but I think they can be resolved (I know I do). Often times, though, the theological and philosophical matters will have many different views because they all attest to know God's will, and I know that I don't... I can only work with what I know, and the rest I'll leave up to him. Just some food for thought, and thanks for posting, as always. :)
I enjoy reading and responding to your posts; it's been part of the inspiration for me to learn much more about the ID/evolution debate, and anything that broadens my perspectives so greatly (and positively) is okay by me. : )
As far as who's reconciling faith and evolution, though--I have to admit the sad fact I don't really know the Church's opinion on the matter. You'd think that would've been the first thing I checked, but... no, the only opinion I found that was Evangelical that I agreed with was Zabilka's book Scientific Malpractice. And I liked the ideas of Van Till, in the one short essay of his I read, but I don't know his religious preference. The only online bio I found of him mentioned just a professorship and such...
Good point, though, about not knowing God's will--that's something I tend to forget sometimes, and I think most people forget ALL the time... how does the quote go? "Many people want to serve God, but only as advisors." lol.
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
I'll be very brief.
There are basically only three kinds of mutations:
a) those that lose genetic information e.g. elephants without tusks
b) those that duplicate genetic infomation e.g. animals with two heads
c) thoes that are errors in the copying process e.g. gene sequences in the wrong order.
ALL repeat ALL of those mutations are harmful, and do not add new genetic information, one of the key problems with the whoe theory of evolution (not to mention those 'missing links', none of which have ever been found). No-one on this site can tell me of even one helpful i.e. successful mutation that has ever been found or described.
As far the great variety that there can be within the created kinds, it's a reasonable (though not perfect) analogy to think in terms of ecah original pair being dealt a 'pack' of genes, like a pack of cards, if you will. From that original genetic potential has unfolded the variety we see today - take dogs, huskies, wolves, foxes and dingoes - all almost certainly derived from an original pair of wolves/dogs.
Now, subsequent generations may shuffle those up in all sorts of ways. But they can NEVER add a new gene, or 'card'.
In humans - and yes, we are all humans, all derived from an original pair - we have those with black, yellow, white/pink and brown skins, blondes, brunettes and black-haired people, round-faced, short, tall, blue-eyed, brown-eyed etc. etc.
But we can't add a sixth finger (the rare examples are mutations which don't survive), nor a third eye, nor an extra leg, nor indeed anything new. It will nevr happen, and it has never happened. We coud not for example produce blue-skinned people, nor ones with naturally purple eyes or hair - BECAUSE THESE THINGS ARE NOT IN THE ORIGINAL GENE POOL, OR 'PACK'.
Surely it's time to move on from racist bigot Darwin's theory that we descended from apes or a 'common ancestor' - the theory that led the deluded man to brand certain 'races' like the Tierra del Fuegans and even the Irish as 'less developed savages', and so helped lay the groundwork for Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'?
That's all, but I'll be very happy to expand those points if anyone has any queries or points.
Tony Bennett
U.K.
0044 1279 635789
ajsbennett@btinternet.com
So you're saying, first, there's no way for the gene pool to be added to, and second, out of the millions and millions of genes we must have, it's impossible for a new combination to emerge that's actually beneficial or lasting?
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
Hooray for critical thinking! I'm proud of you :) Keep an eye out for my reply to Tony's comment, including evolution of novel abilities (bacteria that can eat nylon, when nylon is something that didn't exist until we made it). Anyway, well done, and thank you.
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
Aw, thanks. :) Lol, I guess you've made a convert--I may not know all the evidence in detail (nylon eating bacteria is new to me) but I'm learning the questions to ask. Four years of debate finally pays off in real-world application; my coach would be shocked. ; )
Btw, don't know if I mentioned, but I meant to--I love the Pratchett quote.
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
Well, to put it simply, I'm just glad when people think critically, regardless of wether they agree or disagree. It wouldn't do me any good to convince everyone and have everyone agree with me; how could I ever strengthen my own arguments and learn then? And I'm sorry if my 1st comment I ever posted on your blog about evolution was forceful- I can get like that sometimes, but I appreciate your correspondance and thoughts. You're definitely among the people I most look forward to correspondance from on here. And thanks for the compliment about the Pratchett quote... I'm starting to think I've crammed so much in I'm going to start losing memories from my childhood if I learn anything new, but hopefully it'll all be for the better. :) Thanks again
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
With all my due respect for the author's primary areas (paleontology, comparative anatomy, behavioral biology and the like), I think it might be serious error to use a term without proper definition.
"Genetic Information", see http://www.junkdna.com/new_citations.html,
comment to the new government program on Informatics in Biology, is one of the terms that most biologists directly borrow from probability theory, without due diligence on what it means.
See the comment there, but there is a whole lot more there about "junk DNA" on the site.
pellionisz_at_junkdna.com
Thank you for the link. I looked at it, but it's so huge I couldn't pick out the part I was initially suppossed to see. In any event, even though I know I don't know very much about genetics my point was that creationists misuse the term so they can have it mean whatever they want it to mean and goal-post shift as they see fit. I will try to be better about this in the future, however, as you're correct in that I shouldn't be mentioning something I can't readily define myself.
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
I appreciate your awareness of reason for caution. The direct link to the article (on a tiny new government fund for Bioinformation training) is at
http://www.junkdna.com/new_citations.html#genetic_information
I also copy here my comment, to save readers from the truly staggering amount of knowledge on "junk DNA":
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There is much talk about the "Information" of "Genome(s)" - and at the same time there are still who BELIEVE there is zero information in the "junk". Why is that? Well, one reason is that "Information" is perfectly defined (by Shannon) in probability theory as "the negative 2-based logarithm of probability" - but is very ill-defined in biology in general, and in Genomics, in particular. Thus, the definition of information is clearly applicable to probabilistic systems, but may be totally inappropriate for deterministic systems, such as those addressed in chaos and fractal theory. Look at the fractal pattern of the "Mandelbrot set" on the root page of this news column. Each pixel on the screen is either blank or colored. If you define "information" as the "number of colored pixels" (each is "one bit", as the "probability" of either pixel to be colored or blank is 1/2), the "information content" of the maddeningly complex-looking picture, IF it is considered as a probabilistic phenomenon, very clearly increases with the ever-increasing number of fractal iterations. Simple, isn't it? Yes, but fundamentally wrong. A fractal process (not totally unlike the emergence of species...), like the Mandelbrot set, is deterministic. At any number of iterations, it is fully determined by the Z=Z^2+C equation that Mandelbrot designed. The fundamental question may be, therefore, if some natural phenomena are probabilistic or deterministic. Mandelbrot's thesis in his "Fractal geometry of Nature" appears to be that clouds, mountains, ferns, shells of snails, etc (on Barnsley's book, a human face...) reflect an underlying fractal geometry. What if we are not using the mathematical definition in biology based on a sound set of axioms? Would the $75 million (over 5 years, scattered to 20 institutions) result in e.g. any re-definition of what "Genome information" is? Unlikely. We need a program directly aimed at the core problem of "Junk DNA", for instance to do first things first, define "Genomic Information" - comment A. J. Pellionisz, 21st of November, 2006
There appears to be a vibrant pro-evolution community here, and I've already got my hands full leading the charge on Free Republic. If you want to engage me in the debate, give me a holler over there.
However, I'd like to point out that it's not about increasing genetic information. With random mutations, slicing and dicing of the DNA, new arrangements exist, different arrangements. But nothing new has been added.
Think about it like a bookshelf. I have 30 books. I can arrange or rearrange the books on the shelf. Some books are behind others (recessive genes) and some are in front (dominant). I can switch them around, move the front ones to the back, back to front, etc. I can even rip up some of the pages and create "new" information.
This is not positive, new information being added to the genetic code. No matter how many different ways I rearrange those books, it will simply be a rearrangement of what was already present.
By the way, did you see where evolutionists just recently admitted that Darwin's tree of life doesn't exist? "Yet"? (Don't worry...they have faith that by 2050, it will be found.)
Hi Dave,
I will have a look at Free Republic sometime and see what I have to add. Between this site, work, college, and writing my book, I've got my hands pretty full myself (not to mention my current debate with Tony Bennett, which I reccomend you look at as it further expands on this post).
I'm not sure you can say that nothing new has been added to DNA or to a genome without some kind of prior assumption about the process of evolution. For your model to work, then all the organisms that there are have to have the same pool of genetic information to be working from, or at least share common genes with the original "kind" (if you ascribe to creationism that is). Thus far no one has been able to give me a model or mechanism or process by which these genes are shuffled around and nothing new is added.
Your bookshelf analogy doesn't work, either. Not everyone has the same "books", the same amount of "books," and there's no reason why new information can't be added that was not present previously (the genetic equivalent of going to the bookstore in your framework). What about insertions or frameshift mutations? I admit that they are not always beneficial, but they are not always bad either. And what about gene duplications, allowing the duplicated genetic material to mutate at a faster rate and produce something novel? This would be akin to copying a chapter from "On the Origin of Species" and then (since you already had the original) playing around with the spelling, grammer, spacing, etc. until you got "The Blind Watchmaker." This may be a poor analogy as well, but I'm trying to work within the framework of your previously stated metaphor.
In real time, what is your explanation for nylonase producing Flavobacteria? Nylon is man-made and not close to anything found in nature, and yet in the space of 40 years bacteria evolved a novel (new) enzyme to break down nylon. I also challenge your assumption that all mutations are bad, and I suggest you read Making the Fittest by Sean B Carroll as he discusses pseudogenes ("fossil" genes) and how a "deleterious" mutation may actually be beneficial to an organism.
Further, I have not seen where evolutionary scientists admitted that Darwin's tree of life metaphor doesn't exist, because the "tree of life" is precisely that- a metaphor for the fossil record and common descent. If you could link the article or give me a reference I'd appreciate it, but as far as I can tell, life still evolved from a common ancestor and "branched out" into the forms present today via various radiations, extinctions, etc. Check the Wikipedia entry for "Tree of Life" to see the actual text from Darwin's book, but in any case, the Tree of Life isn't a scientific term but a metaphor, so I have no idea what you're mentioning here. Thank you for your comments, and please do check out my already-posted reply to Tony Bennett for a break-down of genetics.
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
Hi Geek,
I'm a very active creationist debater (not a scientist, but an informed layman) but I put it all into the conservative forum FreeRepublic.com, so I can't stay too long. :)
You seem relatively nice, which means you wouldn't fit in with most of the evolutionists over there, but most have them just finished retreating anyway.
What kind of book are you writing?
I'm basing this on all prior observations of genetic mutation.
This is like Darwin's criterion for proving the eye couldn't evolve. All you have to do is demonstrate that it can't happen.
With apologies to Spock, that is illogical. You cannot prove a negative. Neither of us can disprove the claim "there are dinosaurs living on this globe at this very minute" because we would have to look everywhere at once to know for sure that one does not exist. It is up to evolutionists to show a model which adds new, positive information.
If you don't like the bookshelf analogy, let me give another example. I watched a fascinating science video in biology class a year or two ago. It talked about this plant that birds were attracted to. The flower needed the birds for the spread of something, pollen most likely. But the birds were unable to hover around the plant, and the plant was too weak to support them, so the video said. So the plant's stalk grew a little base (picture the head of a Cat-o-Nine) that the birds could perch on.
This was billed as "evolution" (even though the theorized mutation only changed the plant's structure, not the species of plant itself) but the point is, there was no prior existing information to build that. It was simply an assumption. It's like a blueprint or puzzle. You can only create rearrangements and mixtures of what you've already got.
Now, yes, mutations can be "beneficial." For example, Staphylococcus being resistant to penicillin, thereby benefitting the strain by allowing it to survive. But what causes that? A mutation that damages the regulator that produces penicillinase! A damaging mutation, but it turns out beneficial.
You get into tricky areas with the subjective term "beneficial." For example, a cancer cell mutates to resist treatment. Beneficial for the cancer cell, sure! But is it beneficial to the human carrying the disease?
The admission regarding the "Tree of Life" was published in the Public Library of Science Biology. (Yes, of course I understand that it is a metaphor.)
"But the problem with an open mind is that it's so drafty." - William Graves Perry Jr.
Thank you again for your reply Dave, especially on Thanksgiving. I also appreciate your civil tone- I find it's rare among creationists myself, so I'm glad we can have a sort of constructive criticism. As for the book, I'm writing a layman's guide to the evolution/creationism/intelligent design debate, as it's a topic I feel very strongly about and I feel scientists have not done a good job at explaining evolution and why it's relevant.
You say you're basing your assumptions on all prior instances of genetic mutation, yet you go on to later say it's impossible to say that there aren't, say, dinosaurs walking the earth right now because we can't look everywhere at once. This seems to be a contradiction. What genetic mutations have you observed or studied? What about the VAST amount of genetic mutations no one could observe because they happened before man came into being or wasn't looking? I respect that you are well-read, but I doubt that either of us has an all-encompassing knowledge of "all" observed genetic mutations.
As for my request for the process, mechanism, or method by which genes are merely shuffled without adding anything new, the argument still stands. There are observations, theories, etc. about genetic mutations and how they do change the genome, so creationists should be forthcoming with presenting an opposing model if they have the right answer. If a particular kind of animal (in the Biblical sense of kind, if that's what you're suggesting) never produces or evolves anything novel and there is some sort of genetic ceiling where evolution does not occur, then this should be described and a mechanism should be ascribed to it- that's simply the scientific method. If creationists are correct, that creatures only reproduce after their kind and are not capable of change, then the constraints that make this so should be described; I don't think that's too much to ask. I'm not asking anyone to prove a negative, but I'm asking creationists to prove that there is some sort of genetic constriction that prevents novel information, structures, or functions from being produced. If it's true, there should be some way to describe it scientifically.
As for the video you saw about plants, it is an interesting evidence of adaptation and response to the surrounding ecology, and it would fall into the realm of "microevolution." Even so, I haven't seen any creationist hypothesis as to why microevolutionary events or radiations would not accumulate to cause an organism to speciate and then change further. I've seen no creationist explanation as to how developmental changes could not lead to new structures or functions, I've seen nothing to explain frameshift mutations or gene duplications from creationists either. Further, the example you give is a view of adaptation, but that certainly does not rule out evolution- what you described may be one tiny step in a larger arc still being played out by the organisms in question. What I'm asking for is the reason why animals can't adapt, speciate, and evolve over a long period of time given different events and pressures like mutations, natural selection, sexual selection, extinctions, etc. It's odd that whenever there is an extinction event in the fossil record, the large and specialized creatures vanish, leaving behind smaller, usually more generalized creatures and then after some time there is a new radiation, featuring new varieties of creatures that survived the extinction. Dinosaurs died and mammals radiated out into their niches through the Cenozoic. If evolution does not occur, if mutations and selective pressures do not change and shape life, how is this possible?
You also are correct that not all mutations need to be adaptive or "beneficial" to be good. Read my reply to Tony Bennet, especially the bit about opsins. Also check out Sean B. Carroll's book "Making the Fittest" (and his prior work Endless Forms Most Beautiful) for more information on "fossil" genes. A mutation may be "deleterious" or take away some prior function but not be fatal and instead actually create an advantage, in that more energy is freed up to do other things (instead of seeing red when red fades quickly in the water column, as in the whale evolution example).
I also apologize for throwing around the term "beneficial"- it's thrown around so much in much of the creationist reading material I've seen that it causes little slips of mental processes here and there. In any case, yes, what is a beneficial mutation for me may not be so for a disease or bacteria and vice versa. As long as the mutation is not lethal (it may benefit the organism or be neutral) it still changes something that will influence further change in future generations.
I took a quick look at the PLoS paper you listed and from what I can see it does not claim what you may think it does. What it appears to be saying is that the fossil record and other studies can give us ideas of divergance but we don't have the exact dates or relationships absolutely defined. We know there's a transition from the water to the land involving tetrapods like Eusthenopteron, Gogonasus, Tiktaalik, Icthyostega, and Acanthostega, but we don't know EXACTLY when the changes took place or who the major players most certainly were. The previous fossils are all pointing to the transition, but exactly what their role was needs to be worked out further and the molecular studies people like Sean B. Carroll is doing will help further define the TOL model in terms of what animals, when, and what changes. His projected date for getting this refined view of the TOL is 2050 if not sooner, but regardless of if evolution can be mapped as a tree, bush, or coral branch, the authors are not denying evolution has occurred and in fact are giving us hope that we can further define our ideas of what happened through further analysis. I will read it more fully when I have time tomorrow and if I am wrong in my interpretation I will admit it, but from what I've seen of the paper thus far and from Sean B. Carroll's writings in the past, he's not saying evolution is on a shaky foundation at all- it's more about filling in the gaps we don't have all the data for yet.
Thank you again for your reply. I realize you are busy so I definitely appreciate the time you took to respond, and if you know of a proposed mechanism or process by which creatures are not allowed to adapt, radiate, speciate, and evolve please let me know.
Happy Thanksgiving, first of all.
Well, we'd best set that to rights as soon as possible...what's a debate without a little mudslinging? I'll start. You're a bonehead. Now. Your turn.
Interesting. I think a lot of people have done a poor job of it. A lot of pro-evolutionists ignored creationism and intelligent design for years, and look where it got them. They're having to play catch-up now, and making themselves look more and more like the evangelists they are.
Question, do you include ID and creationism under the same umbrella? That is an oft-repeated fallacy that I witness frequently in the evolutionist camp, and, I think, it is a fatal one. So I was curious what you believe.
Science (the true kind, of which I must honestly say I do not include neodarwinian evolution in) can only postulate based on what it already knows.
There is a difference between "science" and "science used to support." That is, neither creationism nor evolution is inherently scientific by nature, because both postulate outside the realm of current observation. Thus, inference must be made based on observed data. That's what evolutionists and creationists and IDers argue about.
Evolutionists (and creationists!) arrive at conclusions to support their beliefs using science, but neither belief is actually scientific at the core. Both begin with an assumption, a framework of interpretation if you will, to operate on. Evolution begins with "no God" while Biblical creationists begin with "One God."
One scientist I questioned on FR answered that if he found young-earth dates in his calculations, he would recalibrate them, because he already assumes an old earth. Some scientists didn't make that assumption, (Matthew Saltzman for example) and got their research published.
I'm off on a bit of a tangent, though, my apologies.
It's not a contradiction, and I'll show you how. I started by saying that science can only postulate based on what it already knows. Thus, while it is, in theory, possible that such mutations exist, we cannot formulate theories based on the idea that such mutations "might" exist.
I have not personally studied any mutations, as I am not a scientist. (Like I said, I call myself an informed layman.) But I do know that if you are aware of specific mutations which added positive new information and resulted in coding for a new feature, some of my creationist compatriots would be mighty interested to hear about it.
Precisely. We (and all of science) can only postulate based on what we know and observe. Since we have not observed the mutations required for large-scale evolution, we cannot scientifically arrive at a belief in macroevolution through genetic mutation.
Agreed, although if memory served me correctly, this theorized mutation would still violate all we know and understand about the operation of mutations.
Creationists believe and operate on the understanding of mutation and genetic change MINUS the theorized change that evolutionists imagine to compensate for the gaps in the theory. No competing theory needs to be put forth ... evolutionists have penciled in their suppositions to the existing model, while creationists think the one we already have based on observation works just fine.
Of course change takes place. Creationists have no problem with that. But again, they merely believe those changes have limits, based on observation. It isn't always constricted to just one set of "books," as mating and descent create new blends all the time.
Evolutionists believe the sky is the limit, and work creative wonders with theorized genetic change.
I can only conclude when they say "We submit that if the current efforts to assemble the TOL have, by 2050 (if not much sooner), assembled an arborescent bush of life, Dawkins' prediction will have come to fruition that the Tree of Life has not yet come to fruition. It also speaks again to the faith-based nature of neodarwinian thinking. They do not believe the evidence supports the Tree of Life, but they still hold to the belief that they will find enough evidence to support it in fifty years!
There is much scientific dispute about those transitions, and the specimens they are found. I imagine I don't need to direct you to the main sites which offer scientific objections to the evolutionary interpretations of these specimens?
I think I've inadvertently skipped over some parts of your post, but it's late and I'm too tired to comb back over my point-by-point responses to see which of yours I missed.
and
Again, I don't believe anything further needs to be provided by creationists on this front. From all of the observations, we have yet to find a mutation which adds positive new information to the genetic code and results in a new and 'beneficial' feature. These are simply the limits we observe, have observed, and do observe. It's just basic Mendelian inheritance, kind reproduce after like kind.
It does, in fact, return to proving a negative...proving that mutations won't some day be observed doing more. You're right, creationists cannot do that.
Until we observe such things, it's merely a belief, speculative conjecture. The same place evolution is. The same place that living dinosaurs are. (Except there are some hints that dinosaurs may be alive in remote regions we have not accessed.1, 2, 3, 4.)
Way to keep your involvement to a minimum, Dave...:-)
Hello again Dave, and a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. I had a look at the various links you gave me, and although they are interesting, I still think you've overplayed them a bit.
As for my stance on ID and creationism, I am writing about it in both senses of being seperate and connected to creationism. There is the Discovery Institute brand of ID that is trying to prove that intelligence was used to design life as we know it as some point, although we don't know when, by who, why, etc. To be it's a philosophical argument and bad theology as well, being that they claim we can't know who the designer is, their purpose, how they designed or itnerfered, etc. The "Wedge Document" is also disturbing because it says the main goal is to destroy materialism, not to enhance science or report discoveries honestly. I also realize that there are varied creationist camps, ranging from Old Earth to Young Earth to theistic evolutionists and the like. I do find it interesting, however, that the most vocal adherents of ID are usually creationists and have taken ID arguments and placed their own designer (God) in the place of the void DI leaves wide open. In any case, it seems ID is a transitional form between evolution and creationism, trying to have it both ways but not saying much of anything.
"Evolutionists (and creationists!) arrive at conclusions to support their beliefs using science, but neither belief is actually scientific at the core. Both begin with an assumption, a framework of interpretation if you will, to operate on. Evolution begins with "no God" while Biblical creationists begin with "One God."
Here you make the common mistake of misconstruing evolution with a belief system and saying that it starts with the assumption of no God. I'm a Christian myself, and I don't feel evolution and faith are mutually exclusive at all. Science is about natural explanations for observed phenomena, so belief in God or not is not very important to the scientific process. Even if someone believes in God, there's no way to know what He did or did not do, when He did, why He did, how He did, or anything like that unless allowing Scripture to be read as historically accurate truth. A scientist should not assume God (regardless of beliefs) because there's no way to verify, test, or even identify the supernatural. Now, sometimes the supernatural is replaced by a natural explanation (the earth going around the sun instead of the other way around, as some assumed because of the Bible), but in either case who can know the will of God? I think one of the biggest mistakes creationists make is to say that evolution is just another religion and try to put their ideas (always having to go through a narrow-lens of what they believe) on par with science.
The problem is this- scientists are not as always kind and objective as one would hope. When Goldschmidt came up with the idea of a "hopeful monster" and Eldredge and Gould came up with "punctuated equilibria" many scientists ridiculed them and stuck to old ideas. This is changing, however, and the new (and more accurate) ideas are replacing the old assumptions. Even though it is not always immediate, there is always at least the hope of correcting mistakes and providing new explanations where anything may be possible if proven to be so. Creationists, on the other hand, believe they have the answer based upon their interpretation of Scripture, so if something comes up that contradicts their faith, it must always be false. Everything must go through the lens of what is held as absolute truth, and that is not good science at all. There are creationist scientists, to be sure, but I see the method by which creation "science" is done almost like Jeopardy- They have the answer, they just need to find the right question. I firmly hold that evolutionary science is exactly that because we can look at what is happening and try to figure out how and why life is changing. Evolution is something that can be observed and verified, although it is much more difficult because often we're dealing with a 4th dimension (time) and being that evolution is an ongoing process, we can't pick out an endpoint and say everything is finished. It also bothers me that for many creationists, Biblical inerrancy (or inerrancy of their interpretation) comes first and then science is twisted to confirm their own preconceived notions. Science, on the other hand, allows for ideas and paradigms to be changed when they are shown to be no longer true and it can question anything (rather than believing it already has the answer and try to fit it back in). Evolution simply is the observation that ever since life has been on this planet, it has been changing, and to explain that observation various theories (natural selection, sexual selection, the red queen, punctuated equilibria, etc) have been proposed and will continue to change as we get a better picture of what is going on.
"One scientist I questioned on FR answered that if he found young-earth dates in his calculations, he would recalibrate them, because he already assumes an old earth. Some scientists didn't make that assumption, (Matthew Saltzman for example) and got their research published."
I can't speak for the scientist you spoke to, but if we're sharing anecdotes, I've spoken to several creationist speakers that have told me they're most concerned with saving people than accurate science. For whatever reason, evolution is seen as a threat to morality (although it makes no moral claims) and therefore it's something to be stamped out in order to save humanity, and I think that's really evidence of condescending paternalism on the part of many creationists. As for the Matt Saltzman paper, he didn't get young-earth dates but found that a formation that hadn't been restudied since the late 1880's actually formed in 2 million years instead of 10 million, changing the dates for the extinction of some species in the Silurian- he still got dates reaching back over 400 million years. Did it change the previously assumed view? Yes it did, but it didn't pull the rug out from under what we know about the age of the earth. I would suggest you check out the essays in the book Scientists Confront Creationism as they spend a lot of time discussion radiometric and other forms as dating, and while our methods need to get better to pinpoint when certain events occured (being able to say within a few hundred years instead of within a few million years, for example) all the data still points to an earth over 4 billion years old. We know the time span, but scientists need to get better at pinpointing exact dates and such projects are actively underway.
As for specific mutations that have occurred and helped an organism do something novel(and even create a novel enzyme) search PubMed for nylonase or Flavobacterium, Sp. K172. This is a variety of bacteria that within 40 years developed a novel enzyme to break down ("eat") nylon- a man made product that was produced starting in 1935 and does not have a similar makeup to anything found in nature. If these bacteria did not mutate and evolve a new enzyme to break down nylon, what then happened?
Also, scientists have studied many different mutations and their effects (on bacteria especially). Deletions, insertions, frame-shifts, chromasome area duplications, gene duplications, etc. are all known. I suggest searching PubMed for "gene duplication" and looking at the Wikipedia entry for "mutation" to get a better idea of what scientists actually know about mutations and what they can do.
"We (and all of science) can only postulate based on what we know and observe. Since we have not observed the mutations required for large-scale evolution, we cannot scientifically arrive at a belief in macroevolution through genetic mutation."
This is a pretty big assertion and I'm wondering what your idea of the interplay between mutations and evolution is. A weasel isn't going to give birth to a cat because of a genetic mistake, and patterns of speciation, extinction, and ecological factors all play into evolutionary change as well. Gene duplication is especially interesting in this respect, as if you have an extra copy of a gene, natural selection has more freedom to influence and mutate the extra copy (you've already got one that functions just fine) and thus change the organism. This is the kind of mutation that could lead to "macroevolutionary" change. Also, remember that evolution works on a continuum, working with (and changing) what is already present. It's not as if a dinosaur laid and egg and a chicken hatched out. Your demand for evidence of macroevolutionary change through mutation alone may never be met because it does not account for all the other influences on the organism and accumulation of changes (be they big or small).
(In reference to the plant adaptation) "Agreed, although if memory served me correctly, this theorized mutation would still violate all we know and understand about the operation of mutations."
So then what do you propose happened? I don't think it violates anything of what is known about mutations, and if an organism can't even change some characteristic of itself because of selective pressure, then the idea of all animals being descendants of created kinds also falls flat. Speaking of either framework, how are you suppossed to get all the variety seen today without small changes seen?
"Of course change takes place. Creationists have no problem with that. But again, they merely believe those changes have limits, based on observation. It isn't always constricted to just one set of "books," as mating and descent create new blends all the time.
Evolutionists believe the sky is the limit, and work creative wonders with theorized genetic change."
Well if change has limits, what is limiting it? There has to be some mechanism. You can't simply look at nature and say "Well, that doesn't happen because it just doesn't." You're right that mating and descent make changes, although I wouldn't say it could be called a "blend." Blend to me suggests that the genes are somehow randomly shuffled about, and if this is so it would need some sort of mechanism. I also reject your idea that scientists work under a "God of the gaps" paradigm where if we don't know something, we just say it's some genetic mutation and make things up. This seems to be more the case of creationists, where if something is not understood it goes back to "Well, God did it because He wanted to do it that way and we can't test God because He's outside of science." In any case, if organisms are confined to their "kinds" and have never given rise to new phyla, classes, orders, families, or even genera, then there should be some reason to explain this other than "it just does not happen," especially when observations from various fields of science tell us otherwise.
"I can only conclude when they say "We submit that if the current efforts to assemble the TOL have, by 2050 (if not much sooner), assembled an arborescent bush of life, Dawkins' prediction will have come to fruition that the Tree of Life has not yet come to fruition. It also speaks again to the faith-based nature of neodarwinian thinking. They do not believe the evidence supports the Tree of Life, but they still hold to the belief that they will find enough evidence to support it in fifty years!"
If you can only conclude from the last part of the paper that scientists are as faith-based as creationists, I'd say you might want to re-read the paper. Once again, after reading the paper it is not denying evolution has occurred or that is has a structure, and that in the coming years new discoveries and innovations in molecular biology well help define what organisms changed when and by how much. Wether this takes the form of a tree, bush, or something else will be continued to be worked out, but the paper is not denying common descent or evolutionary change. It's the same as the geology article you referenced about Saltzman- we are getting a more defined picture of what happened and it will change a few things, but it doesn't radically change anything either. I think you're reading something into the last statement that just isn't there, especially when read in context with the rest of the paper as it was meant to be.
As for the transitionary forms I mentioned, I have indeed seen creationist arguments against them and they haven't done anything to change my mind. The creatures I mentioned are showing a transition between land and water and scientists have actually used an evolutionary framework to predict where other "transitional forms" may be find (that's how Tiktaalik was found, after all). Do the fossils close the book on the transition? Not at all... we still have a lot to learn, but I think it would be foolish to look at these fossils that in every way show that tetrapods evolved from fish. I have yet to see any creationist argument that effectively shows that these animals are not somehow related or somehow contributed to the transtion from water to land. In fact, most invoke conspiracy or jabs at the scientific establishment in general without adding anything new to the debate.
You also mention Mendelian genetics. Granted, Mendel was very smart and provided the basis for genetics but he didn't get everything right (just as Darwin didn't get everything right either). You say "From all of the observations, we have yet to find a mutation which adds positive new information to the genetic code and results in a new and 'beneficial' feature." There are a lot of vague terms in here that lets this mean just about anything, and I admit sometimes I do the same (although I'm trying to move away from wishy-washy terms). I think this would be heavily disputed among geneticists and I would suggest that you contact Kenneth Miller at Brown or Sean B. Carroll with that assertion and see what they have to say- they would be in a better place than I to give you very specific examples. At any rate, mutations have aided to change organisms, and that change is called evolution. If there is some limit to the change that can take place, then it should have a mechanism or description other than "it just doesn't."
Again I disagree with your assertion that evolution is just speculative conjecture. We know it occurs, but how and why are still being hammered out and I have yet to see any creationist successfully refute that evolution has occurred without resorting to a narrow interpretation of Scripture.
I had a look at your dinosaur posts and links as well. Being a fan of cryptozoology myself (if for no other reason to see crackpot ideas come and go) I haven't seen any evidence for living dinosaurs other than (if you are a lumper rather than a splitter) birds. I've actually contacted David Woetzel about the pterodactyls in New Guinea, and although he was very nice, he wasn't able to provide me with any hard evidence. No pictures, no tracks, no spore, no claws, no teeth, no markings, nothing. All there is are some eyewitness account from natives. Also keep in mind that the variety of flying reptile (not dinosaur) described went extinct well before the dinosaurs did, and was even replaced by pteranodons (which are very different from pterodactyls). Even if living pterodactyls still living, this wouldn't somehow disprove evolution. It would be in the same ballpark as the pangolin, termites, or the horseshoe crab and I'm sure it'd make a splash in the scientific community. If a creature has found a niche and not bumped off by extinctions, then it may not have reason to change and this is not somethign new to science that would somehow discredit evolution at all. Even so, I've seen no evidence (even trace evidence) that such an animal exists so I remain skeptical. As for the well-preserved jaw in Australia you linked to, it's a very superficial article and all it says is that the jaw was well-preserved. There are plenty of fossils from animals alive over 65 million years ago (like Sue the T. rex) that are very well preserved, and what "well preserved" means is never explained by the article. In any case, it just seems to be a lucky fossil find and nothing more.
As for the "dinosaur" in the Congo, again I have the same problems as with the pterodactyls. There has been no spore, track, markings, photographs, or anything that depict such a create actually exists. It also bothers me that the description of the animal seems to vary on every expedition, especially in terms of the head. If I recall many sighting of lake monsters have similar descriptive problems. In any case, large animals like sauropods typically live out in more open areas like grasslands, and if one was moving through the forest it would knock over a lot of vegetation and maybe even cut out paths in the jungle. Even though footprints are mentioned on the site you listed, there's no picture or photograph, and I'm not inclined to take the person's word for it. Are there plenty of creatures we have not as yet found? Yes, most certainly, especially in the ocean, but I seriously doubt there are dinosaurs in hiding on the earth today, and if they are they're likely significantly different from their ancestors (what with surviving the ice age and all).
In any case, I appreciate the time and effort you put into your posts, although I still have not found your arguments to be very accurate or convincing.
Your post added up to about six pages according to Microsoft Word. I hope you don't mind if I take a bit of time to respond. :-)
Not a problem. I got on a bit of a roll myself- I think between reading the links and writing the post I was on here for about an hour and a half, so sure, take all the time you need. :)
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
I don't mean to interrupt the highly interesting and informative debate between evolutiongeek and DaveLoneRanger, but I would like to point out that while evolution doesn't necessarily have to support a naturalistic atheist point of view, it's hardly surprising that that Christians generally don't separate the two because many prominent evolutionary biologists--two names I came across in my research stick in my mind, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins--equate evolution with naturalistic atheism themselves, and promote it as such. The answer isn't putting God into science (creation science/ID) but taking the atheism viewpoint out of evolution. Both sides do, in many cases, start with presupposed philosophical assumptions--and that's fine, except where the debate becomes not about the scientific evidence, but about interpreting the data to support one side or the other. So saying scientists don't have presuposed viewpoints is just as foolhardy as saying a philosophical argument like ID is science.
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
I agree that it'd be foolish to say that scientists have no presuppossed beliefs, and I like the way you qualified this. You're right that there are rabid atheists like Dawkins, but I don't believe evolution and faith are mutually exclusive either. Everyone has their own belief system and presuppossed ideas about the way the world works, but I think one of the stengths of evolution is that people from a variety of worldviews (philosophically speaking), including both Christianity and atheism, are able to reconcile it with their belief system. I agree though that the scientific debate should be about science and not worry so much about the philosophical posturing like people on both sides are prone to do. Also, good on you for reading all the comments, lol... just be warned that listening to me may cause long term brain damage. Thanks again for the insightful comment, as always. :)
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
Only if by long term brain damage you mean a growing tendency to distrust unsupported assumptions and ask pointed, critical questions ;)
I can't help but read; my curiosity on the subject has been awakened, and isn't likely to go away any time soon.
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~I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.~
They weren’t exactly meant to be big magic bullet anti-evolution links.
But I believe you’ve forgotten, the protocol is to say something incendiary so we can make the debate more bitter.
Which is the great divide between it and creationism.
They make a philosophical assumption and posit that it can be proved/supported through scientific study.
I like to call ID the mushy middle. It's like political moderates; too spineless to take up a position for either side, and just arrogant enough to insist their non-belief/belief mixture the right place to be. They really wind up pleasing no one that way. Evolutionists shun them, and creationists only view them as an ally so far as their opposition to evolution goes.
I can only speak for Biblical Creationists, being one myself. (Again, just an informed layman.) I would disagree that most IDers are creationists. Informed Creationists do not want ID or creationism pushed in classrooms, primarily because we know the way classroom instructors will treat it. Like I said, their alliance only goes so deep as a shared opposition to naturalistic beliefs about evolution. I'm fond of using the analogy that America and the Northern Alliance formed an alliance based solely on a common enemy; the Taliban.
Science is based on a naturalistic worldview. Or so scientists say. Science is limited to the study of the observable phenomena using the five senses to explore, investigate and experiment. Using this criteria, evolutionists automatically eliminate God. Or as James Patrick Holding wrote, "The methodology of liberals is to proclaim premises as conclusions. That is, they claim that their scholarly research has shown that the miraculous events of the Bible did not occur. In reality, their research began with the assumption that miracles do not occur, so it would have been a miracle if they had concluded otherwise." (Why he says "liberals" instead of "evolutionists" I'm not sure, but they are frequently synonymous.)
So if I could prove to you Biblically that evolution and the Bible don't mesh, would you be convinced?
By the way, snide side note, but evolution and faith are not mutually exclusive at all. Evolution takes faith. But I know what you meant.
Then by token of this sentence, you agree with me that evolution as an answer to origins is not scientific.
Unless you allow Scripture to be read as historically accurate truth, there IS no such thing as Christianity.
But don't you see? Evolution runs into the same quandary eventually too. Non-living matter has never begat living matter. It's impossible. Either way, it had to be miraculous. IDers posit that you can discern intentional design from examining the design and finding irreducible complexity.
Evolution and creation are both faith-based. Evolutionists insist that theirs is more scientific though, because they insist their miracles do not require a deity. Most creationists are not trying to put creationism on par with "science" but rather pointing out that evolution is on par with creation, and that neither of them are observable science, but merely beliefs inferred according to different frameworks.
Well, however much He chooses to reveal to us in His Word is a good start.
I am glad we agree on this.
So you deem punctuated equilibrium to be the more accurate belief/assumption now? It is to me one degree below insanity. It is an admission that creationists are correct, the fossil record is pathetically dismal when it comes to supporting evolutionary transitions. But to postulate random bursts of rapid change to account for that is grasping at straws, in my opinion.
Again, may I point out, this is also true of evolutionists. Sometimes in the face of absolute fact, they are forced to change perspectives, but they rarely/never deviate from the original idea that man evolved over millions of years of bloodshed, mutation and natural selection. Creationists readily admit they begin with the assumption of God's Word. Hence, in a way, they are more intellectually honest about their assumptions. Evolutionists are far less forthright. (You are an exception. *Wink*)
That's what we're all doing. That's all any contemporary scientist can do is examine the results, and try to trace the chain back. Evolutionists begin by assuming no God, hence they need to create a giant trail of transition, hence they need an old earth. Creationists assume Almighty God, and (bonus!) His revealed Word in which He explains that He created it all.
If evolution is defined strictly as biological change, you'll hear absolutely no argument from me. But we still haven't observed the kind of evolution that would prove a goo-to-you scenario.
Upon what do you base this statement?
In a way, this can be viewed as a weakness. That which scientists insist is truth can easily be overturned the next day. They are on shaky ground to be dogmatically defending something so unstable.
Has life been changing, yes. Have we ever -- ever -- observed the evolution necessary to move upwards to another animal? Surely for evolutionists to rest an entire theory on the concept, there must be one observed, documented chain of change, even a small one! How about the poor fruit flies that scientists continue to mince, slice, dice, mangle and bombard with every living and inert substance known to exist, and every combination and concoction of said experiments, and yet all we still have is fruit flies with legs growing out of their foreheads, or four legs, or shriveled wings? They're still fruit flies.
And I'm with them on that. This does not mean science can go to the dogs, it means that in the grand scheme of life, I'd prefer any person believe in evolution and Christ, than be a stalwart creationist who meets his mortal end on earth without accepting Christ's saving grace. There's no doubt that a lot of creationists are also evangelical. A lot of them (including me) defend and debate the creation-evolution issues because they are used to undermine the Bible. A lot of evolutionists use evolution to do so. Evangelical atheists, they are.
Can you tell me where, if evolution is true, do we derive any sense of right or wrong? Richard Dawkins recently proved my point (thanks Dick!) when he wrote that eugenics may not be all that bad, and that if we tamper with the genetic code of animals, why not humans? This was the logic of Hitler. His logic is sound, but wrong. If humans are no different from animals, there is no morality, no higher plane of consciousness, no differing level of existence whatsoever, and we should be able to tamper with DNA (hunt, cook, eat, enslave, etc.) any person we are able to subdue.
According to evolution and survival of the fittest, if I'm bigger than you (which is likely) and am in a life-or-death competition for food, I am perfectly justified in killing you in order to preserve my life. That's evolution, that's what we've all got in our past. Only problem is, our conscience screams "WRONG!" at us, and we as a society would try such a person for murder.
It's not the numbers; it's the direction. *Grin* Again, that's not a magic-bullet proof of young-earth creationism. But think about the assumptions (such as the one Saltzman disproved) that were based on those numbers! And how many more of those errors are out there floating around, waiting to be reexamined?
I suspect neither you nor I are fully capable of debating the radio isotope and carbon-14 decay ages, dates, methods, technologies and techniques, so I won't try to go there. I know other minds far more astute than I are researching the flaws in that research. I know several creationists are into their RATE research, which is raising some eyebrows against the old-earth dates, if you're interested.
That's a pretty old example, and some of the details are above me, but I suggest reading this response for an alternate perspective: The adaptation of bacteria to feeding on nylon waste
We return again to my book example, though. Deletions, duplications, resplices and such are all just reshuffling of the traits already known to exist. If you have a mechanism for new genes being inserted or mutating, I'd love to hear about that.
Extra copies cause deleterious changes. Extra copies of chromosomes cause things like Klinefelter syndrome or trisomy X. Now yes, one mutation can cause "macroevolutionary" changes. Such as the one(s) that touch off Down Syndrome/other neurodegenerative diseases, or Haemophilia. But it's not those kinds of mutations that furthered our human race. Those are the kinds that kill members of our race off.
I did not demand evidence for change via mutation alone. I'm saying where those changes are posited to comprise evolutionary change, it should be backed up.
I'm not a botanist; I can't say for sure what happened. I'm fuzzy on the details enough as it is. :-P I'm just saying for a change to just spring out of the blue with some goal in mind (in the plant's example, to give birds a resting place) is not in keeping with scientific understanding.
There are all kinds of examples of rapid, small changes within a species to account for the grand variety. The Culex pipiens of London, or Darwin's Finches, or the more recent Anolis sagrei lizard observation (the results of which have gathered 688 replies on the Free Republic thread I started, with 8,969+ views), or the Poecilia reticulata in Trinidad. These are quite rapid changes in species populations. Creationists assert that rapid post-diluvian speciation accounts for the variety in species we see today. (Note we do NOT find the half-breed missing links alive today at all, and unearth only a handful of questionable speciments of dead ones.)
Well again, not to cop out, but I'm not a biologist. That sounds like an interesting concept for creationists to explore, although I'm sure there's some absurdly simple reason I'm overlooking in my ignorance. (Sometimes I wish God had given me a more scientific brain, but ah well.)
That was a prior conclusion supported by the claim that, while they haven't found what they're looking for, they hope to in fifty years.
Well of course they won't completely deny evolution. These people value their jobs, after all.
We only observe small-scale "evolution" and in that use of the term, I am fine. But I do not observe enough evidence to lend support to the claim that the assumptions and speculation and leaps evolutionists must make to accept their theory are well-founded.
It's not, to me, a big point to get hung up on. Whether or not dinosaurs survived isn't a huge point. It would be a big jar to the evolutionists who have been telling us they've all died out, but living fossils do that well enough anyway. We've found several "living fossils" that were supposed to have died out eons ago. Neoglyphea Neocaledonica, the Laotion rock rat, the Manipur Bush-Quail, the Chinese Hynobiidaes, Mus cypriacus, and the ancient lamprey found just this year. So finding a dinosaur would be far cooler than a blood-sucking lamprey or a little rock rat, but these are still damaging to evolutionary claims of extinction and/or evolutionary change. (IE, these things are essentially unchanged from the "ancient" fossils we find of them.)
You must admit, it would shake up some evolutionary ideas quite a bit.
Well, say you haven't found them convincing, but I haven't heard any inaccuracies pointed out.
Time and effort, nothing! This post took almost an hour, without even proof-reading! And I'm way over 90 AWPM. *Pants*
Thank you for all the time and effort you've put into your replies Dave. I definitely appreciate and respect it, especially when many of my critics either disappear after 1 comment or just write things along the lines of "you're an evilutionist." Even so, I'm still not inclined to agree with you on any number of points (shocking, I know) so here's my input on your latest.
"I would disagree that most IDers are creationists. Informed Creationists do not want ID or creationism pushed in classrooms, primarily because we know the way classroom instructors will treat it. Like I said, their alliance only goes so deep as a shared opposition to naturalistic beliefs about evolution. I'm fond of using the analogy that America and the Northern Alliance formed an alliance based solely on a common enemy; the Taliban."
As for ID folks, I think they are creationists in the most basic sense (there was a creator) but I agree they do not hold to a historically accurate Genesis account, most likely to not be too controversial. Some creationists may not want ID or creationism taught in the classroom (which, of course, is fine by me) but there are many that cry "Teach the controversy!" and do want the two philosophies introduced into schools. As for the "War on Terror" analogy, I think I'll leave it alone, but I agree that both IDers and creationists see evolution as a materialistic and "evil" worldview that needs to be stamped out. I disagree with the misconstrued view they hold of evolution, but like you said, I guess they can find some common ground. Also, as an afterthought, although young-earth creationists don't hold the same idea of the creator that ID advocates do (which is "I dunno"), I've seen them use the same philosophical and rhetoric strategy, which is "life is too complex to happen on its own" and fleeting references to highly complex systems. From what I can see there are many creationists that co-opt Intelligent Design "science" and repackage it, but then again the "watchmaker" arguments are very old in of themselves.
"Science is based on a naturalistic worldview. Or so scientists say. Science is limited to the study of the observable phenomena using the five senses to explore, investigate and experiment. Using this criteria, evolutionists automatically eliminate God. Or as James Patrick Holding wrote, "The methodology of liberals is to proclaim premises as conclusions. That is, they claim that their scholarly research has shown that the miraculous events of the Bible did not occur. In reality, their research began with the assumption that miracles do not occur, so it would have been a miracle if they had concluded otherwise." (Why he says "liberals" instead of "evolutionists" I'm not sure, but they are frequently synonymous.)"
I think you've taken what scientists do one step too far here. In science, God is not assumed because we can't test for God, and I don't think invoking the supernatural when we didn't have an answer would be very constructive. Sometimes, the supernatural becomes natural, as can be seen by the controversy Galileo stirred up. In any case, science does not say "we've scientifically shown there is no God" but rather that we can't assume God exists when doing out studies because there's no way to empirically prove His intervention, will, purpose, etc. Some scientists would say that if God exists and intervened in the creation and operation of the planet and all its laws, we should be able to test to see who the creator is, how they did it, when they did it, etc. In this case, yes, a naturalistic worldview can reinforce atheism, but science does not require a researcher to discount God from their whole life just because they can't look under a microscope and say "God made the eukaryotic cell on (insert day of creation here)."
"So if I could prove to you Biblically that evolution and the Bible don't mesh, would you be convinced?"
You could try, but I doubt I'd be convinced. If we're both reading the same book, believing we have a relationship with the same God, I don't really see what the problem is. We have different interpretations of the same truth, and personally I think that's one of the strengths of the Bible- that regardless of your background, interests, presuppositions, interpretations, etc. that the same truths can be seen. I may read Genesis as an allegory, but I still come away with the belief that God created and He did so in an order, but I'm not about to say such a belief is scientific.
I said: "Science is about natural explanations for observed phenomena, so belief in God or not is not very important to the scientific process."
You said: "Then by token of this sentence, you agree with me that evolution as an answer to origins is not scientific."
I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but the quest to find our origins and evolution are both scientific. It should not matter if the researcher is a Christian or not, as science makes no demand for God to exist or God not to exist. Once again, I'm simply saying science does not assume God's existence or intervention because there's no way to empirically prove He does or does not- that is the province of faith.
"Unless you allow Scripture to be read as historically accurate truth, there IS no such thing as Christianity."
This reminds me of the Answers in Genesis tagline of "Defending the Bible from the very first verse." The Bible is made up of many books written by many people over a large expanse of time, and we're not even sure who wrote all of the books (in the human sense, not in the sense of Divine Inspiration). Even if you wanted to split it into the Old and New Testaments, they were written at very different times and we have different proofs and information about both. In terms of Genesis, who was there but God? When the story was communicated to be written, could God have spoke in terms of allegory or metaphor or in a way that would resonate with His people? I don't know the answer to that, but whenever anyone reads anything, that writing is subject to interpretation. Some parts of the Bible (like the Psalms) are poetic, and others (like the accounts of Christ's death on the cross) are historical. In any case, everyone seems to interpret it differently, but like I said before we can come away with the same truths, and I do agree for Christianity to exist the Gospels need to be taken as historically accurate. Even so, I don't think reading Genesis as allegory or the Psalms as poetry preclude someone from being a Christian (at least it hasn't stopped me).
"Evolution runs into the same quandary eventually too. Non-living matter has never begat living matter."
As far as we've seen, you're right- life comes from life. Even so, how life first originated is the study of origins, not evolution (what life did after it first appeared). So far, we don't have an answer for how it happened and we're still trying to figure out what the early earth was like (a prerequisite for figuring out how life originated). So, assuming that life originated from the "prebiotic soup," that doesn't preclude God. We'll have explained how life originated, but the "why" is up for grabs philosophically, and once again, I don't think such a find precludes belief in God.
"Well, however much He chooses to reveal to us in His Word is a good start."
This is true, but can we be sure we're reading it right? We're all fallible, and although I appreciate that you haven't done so, I can't stand it when creationists say they believe a "literal interpretation of the Bible." Literal, by definition, means as the author intended, which we can't know, so then one view of the Bible or another is as the reader intends, which could be right or wrong. We can't know for sure, but regardless there is truth that is available to all regardless of interpretation.
"So you deem punctuated equilibrium to be the more accurate belief/assumption now? It is to me one degree below insanity. It is an admission that creationists are correct, the fossil record is pathetically dismal when it comes to supporting evolutionary transitions. But to postulate random bursts of rapid change to account for that is grasping at straws, in my opinion."
Yes, I do think punctuated equilibrium is a wonderful framework. Before I even was familiar with Gould's idea I came up with a similar hypothesis myself, being it's painfully obvious when looking at long-term change in the fossil record. There is definitely a pattern of life gaining complexity and adaptive radiation, only to be snuffed out by a mass extinction, and then new forms of life (interestingly enough, the survivors of the extinction) grow in complexity and radiate until the next extinction event. Evolution does not occur in a vaccuum, but is irrevocably tied with ecology. Let's take dinosaurs as an example. Dinosaurs had some big advantages over earlier tetrapods (legs being held under the body being the primary one) and were able to find all kinds of new niches in their environment. They were very successful, especially since there was plenty of food for them, but even so they seemed held down in their niches by earlier reptiles. When many of these earlier reptile groups went extinct in the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, this left the world wide open to the surviving gneralized and small dinosaurs, the sky being the limit. They adapted and changed into various groups, becoming more complex and specialized, with new groups replacing older ones that went extinct over time. All the while, little mammals were scurrying about, their niche being (most likely) noctural insectivores, not being able to adapt to any other niches as they were occupied by dinosaurs and there was too much competition for resources. Then, the dinosaurs went extinct, and being the dominant forms of animal life on the planet they left plenty of niches open, allowing mammals to radiate and adapt further (but not without some competition from birds early on). In any case, there is a clear pattern of extinction and radiation tied to open niches, showing a pattern of rapid change and then stasis. Think about it this way, the early dinosaurs and the mammals of the cretaceous were small, generalized, and most likely reproduced quickly and had many offspring. This allowed them to survive through the competition, but when the pressure was off, they could have more offspring (and stronger offspring) that had to spread out over wider areas to prevent crowding, leading to speciation and regional changes and adaptations, and also allowing for more mutations and changes to occur being more offspring were being produced. I don't see punctuated equilibrium as a cop-out or insane, but as the theory that best reflects the changes in life we see over its time on earth. I reject the notion that all evolution is gradual, leading from one species to another leaving all sorts of intermediates along the way. In some cases (quite possibly in Tyrannosaurids) evolution can occur in a "straight line" leading from one variety (Daspletosaurus) to another (Tyrannosaurus), leaving some characteristics we can trace. In other cases, change may be more rapid, and considering how lcuky we are to have fossils at all, I'm not surprised we don't have as many "transitions" as we'd like. Even so, we do have some and I think as time goes on and more fossils are collected we'll be able to get a better focus on how change occurred in various groups.
"That's all any contemporary scientist can do is examine the results, and try to trace the chain back. Evolutionists begin by assuming no God, hence they need to create a giant trail of transition, hence they need an old earth. Creationists assume Almighty God, and (bonus!) His revealed Word in which He explains that He created it all."
Once again, evolutionary scientists don't assume God, but do not say "no God"- they are trying to find out how, not why. The assertion that evolutionary scientists created the idea of an old earth so they could keep their theory is also absurd. Even before Darwin published his work, geologists had found out that life went extinct, the earth was much older than previously thought, and you could trace strata and the age of the earth by the fossils that were found in some layers and locations and not other. Charles Lyell, James Hutton, and William "Strata" Smith were key in these developments. As Huxley ("Darwin's Bulldog") put it, biologists defer to the geologists and physicists for the age of the earth, not the other way around. I often think of it this way; if a geology student was a young-earth creationist, they likely would not get hired very many places because they would need to work with dates going past 6,000 years for the age of the earth continually, especially if they wished to be hired by an oil company. Geology independantly verifies the age of the old earth, and evolutionists are not somehow making the dates up so they can keep their research intact.
"If evolution is defined strictly as biological change, you'll hear absolutely no argument from me. But we still haven't observed the kind of evolution that would prove a goo-to-you scenario."
Gah, "goo-to-you" is one of the phrases I've heard so much it nearly gives me nightmares. At this point, I have to ask what are your criteria to have evolution between groups of animals proven? Your assumptions preclude the wealth of research done by scientists in a variety of fields, so I wonder what do you need to see in order to say evolution has occurred beyond adaptive change?
I said-"Evolution is something that can be observed and verified"
You said-"Upon what do you base this statement?"
Other than my own opinion, cladistics and systematics is a great way to see evolutionary change. Looking at the changes in functional morphology and derived characteristics is ever giving us a better picture of how certain taxa are related to one another and how change occurred within groups. I'm not sure if I said it in a comment on here or elsewhere, but evolution requires a 4th dimension; time. Thus, we can't observe it like we observe a brief chemical reaction but have to put organisms in context of when they lived, what they lived with, etc. When this is done is becomes clear that evolution has taken place.
"In a way, this can be viewed as a weakness. That which scientists insist is truth can easily be overturned the next day. They are on shaky ground to be dogmatically defending something so unstable."
There are some things that are more certain than others, and I think a system that can be self-correcting is better than working backwards trying to match things up to a narrow definition of presuppossed truth. Also, I haven't known scientists to make too many claims about truth, as truth is something philosophical and the province of faith and worldviews. Scientists deal with facts and theories to explain those facts, thus getting at the "truth" of how nature works, but I wouldn't say they make any claims to greater philosophical truths.
"Can you tell me where, if evolution is true, do we derive any sense of right or wrong? Richard Dawkins recently proved my point (thanks Dick!) when he wrote that eugenics may not be all that bad, and that if we tamper with the genetic code of animals, why not humans? This was the logic of Hitler. His logic is sound, but wrong. If humans are no different from animals, there is no morality, no higher plane of consciousness, no differing level of existence whatsoever, and we should be able to tamper with DNA (hunt, cook, eat, enslave, etc.) any person we are able to subdue."
Once again, evolution does not make any moral claims- that's up to theologians, philosophers, and society. I don't believe that morality is the exclusive property of Christianity, nor that Christians are on the whole any more moral in practice than anyone else. In any case, I think of it this way. The 10 Commandments do have some faith-based rules, but most of them are simply operating rules for a society to exist and not kill each other. What are the major moral problems we see? Theft, murder, and adultery (sometimes all together), and do I believe God knew enough to put these rules forth not because they're "Christian" or theologically superior, but because people are prone to breaks just those kinds of rules. Luckily, we are no longer in a tribal-type society, and society at large has its own ideas of morals, values, and rules to abide by. There are plenty of wonderful people who are atheists who don't go around killing people or stealing, so if they don't believe in God, where are they getting their morals from? They may be more liberal, perhaps, but I think oftentimes Christians feel morally superior to the rest of the world when we're just as broken and fallible as anyone else.
I don't know what Richard Dawkins quote you're speaking of, and that's his view, but it represents just that- his opinion. Perhaps he should be a more respectful representative of science, but just because Richard Dawkins says such-and-such doesn't mean that that's how all scientists work. Science does not make any moral claims, that's up to the individual to work out for themselves, be that humanism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.
"According to evolution and survival of the fittest, if I'm bigger than you (which is likely) and am in a life-or-death competition for food, I am perfectly justified in killing you in order to preserve my life. That's evolution, that's what we've all got in our past. Only problem is, our conscience screams "WRONG!" at us, and we as a society would try such a person for murder."
This is the stereotypical view of evolution that is often trotted out to polarize people. First, "survival of the fittest" was a term developed by Herbert Spencer before Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" in reference to social structure and his assertions were largely rejected. Biologists do not use this phrase because it isn't accurate, and the fit don't always survive (you might be fit for your environment, but if a meteor strikes your patch of jungle, you're not making it out alive). Second, I don't know what the "I'm bigger than you" statement has to do with any of this, and I'm puzzled by its inclusion. Third, there is competition between animals for the same resources, but they don't go around killing each other for no reason at all. Humans, chimps, and dolphins murder their own kind, lions kill hyaenas when they get the chance, but nature isn't some kind of free-for-all. Wildebeest don't kill each other so there's more grass for them. Instead, herd-lifestyle helps their chance of survival. There is competition, but there is also cooperation and culture. Can nature be bloody? Surely- predators have to eat, protect territory, etc. Even so, that's not all there is to it and reducing it all to the unrelated idea of "Survival of the fittest" is utterly false. For what seems like the umpteenth time, evolution is not a moral system and does not make moral claims, and anyone who gets their morals from some skewed idea of natural competition is a loony.
"It's not the numbers; it's the direction. *Grin* Again, that's not a magic-bullet proof of young-earth creationism. But think about the assumptions (such as the one Saltzman disproved) that were based on those numbers! And how many more of those errors are out there floating around, waiting to be reexamined?"
I know it wasn't meant to be a magic-bullet link, but I still think you're reading more into it than is there. A particular formation formed quicker than was previously though, projecting a more accurate age for the extinction of some organisms. It's a refinement of how old the formation is, not "well, we need to knock off 8 million years from the overall timeframe." I welcome these studies and really do hope we get more exact dates and are able to recognize catastrophic changes in the earth's past more accurately. From the article, it seems the only assumptions that will be changed are the extinction dates for some animals, but that's about all.
"I suspect neither you nor I are fully capable of debating the radio isotope and carbon-14 decay ages, dates, methods, technologies and techniques, so I won't try to go there. I know other minds far more astute than I are researching the flaws in that research. I know several creationists are into their RATE research, which is raising some eyebrows against the old-earth dates, if you're interested."
I've looked into the RATE project before but haven't had time to look into it very deeply. I'm not an expert on radiometric dating, but I've been trying to get a better idea of how it works and why it's accurate, and I would reccomend the essay "Ghosts of the Nineteenth Century" in the book Scientists Confront Creationism for a breakdown of the history and mechanics of radioisotope dating, as well as specific refutations of creationists claims (claims that would require quantum theory, the theory of relativity, and others to be suspended in order to work). Also, even other creationists (of the theistic evolution stripe) are dubious of RATE's work. See this link-http://www.answersincreation.org/ratedeception.htm
Also, thank you for the nylon bacteria link. I'm going to read it again more carefully, but it doesn't seem to actually refute the idea that a frame-shift and gene duplication event could have produced a novel enzyme. Also, the conclusion smacks of ID (using the idea of irreducible complexity and the "black box" written of be Michael Behe) and philosophical (rather than scientific) reasoning saying that the bacteria were designed with such adaptations in mind, even though we haven't seen anything like it before. Hmmm...
As for our ongoing debate about genetics and "books" insertions, frameshifts, and gene duplications are ways to change genes and add information. Taking your book example, if you had "A Tale of Two Cities" and then added "ATG" to the last sentence, wouldn't that be an addition to what was already present? Evolution does work with whatever has been developed, adding, subtracting, and changing things. As I said before, in the case of fossil genes evolutionary change doesn't always need an increase in genes, but organisms can change by losing some previous ability (which might actually be a good thing as in the case of losing red opsins in adapting to water). We're likely to go back and forth over this, but these sorts of mutations are observed and documented, and looking back at the "junk DNA" of organisms we're able to see old genetic information that once coded for something but now is full of holes, showing us how they changed. In any case, I am not a geneticist and don't grasp all the theories and information there is to know about how mutations can change organisms, but from what I have seen, mutations on various levels can add, subtract, or mix information that help spur evolutionary change. Sometimes the mutations are fatal, other times neutral, and other times they may allow the create to have some new structure or function. In any case, I still don't see any reason to think that these mutations are only changes within an already existing "book" or "pack of cards" that are somehow just being doled out or reshuffled at certain times to create the diversity we see today. What good would carrying all the genetic information needed for your descedants do if you were of the original pair that made up a kind (if that were even possible)?
"I'm just saying for a change to just spring out of the blue with some goal in mind (in the plant's example, to give birds a resting place) is not in keeping with scientific understanding."
This is inferring purpose on the plants part, which we know isn't true. Could it be that it was an adaptive change to help the plant that also had a benefit for the bird, which ended up benefitting the plant even moreso? Little changes can have unexpected consequences, but I agree that it is not scientific to infer purposeful creation where there is none to be seen.
"There are all kinds of examples of rapid, small changes within a species to account for the grand variety. The Culex pipiens of London, or Darwin's Finches, or the more recent Anolis sagrei lizard observation (the results of which have gathered 688 replies on the Free Republic thread I started, with 8,969+ views), or the Poecilia reticulata in Trinidad. These are quite rapid changes in species populations. Creationists assert that rapid post-diluvian speciation accounts for the variety in species we see today. (Note we do NOT find the half-breed missing links alive today at all, and unearth only a handful of questionable speciments of dead ones.)"
I only have a cursory knowledge of the finches or lizards, and yes, change can happen quickly. Insects in different parts of the world are already changing their wing thickness to deal with changes caused by global warming. I will have to look into your lizard study, but I would be curious to see over what geographic areas and the makeup of all the habitats. Speciation and variation can change rapidly in response to the environment, and other times some body plans work better than others and don't change as much over long periods. For rapid change, it could be as subtle as different microhabitats around a caldera. Lets say there's a caldera (imagine a circle) with one species of salamander at the 6' o clock position. They're successful but there's not enough room for all of them, so a new population gets started at the 9 o'clock position. Repeat again until you have populations at 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock as well. All of these populations are seperated by land features (bushes, rocks, etc) that can only be travelled when its wet (which is how the salamanders spread out in the first place). Over time, they'll adapt to their individual pools and populations, until eventually at least one group won't breed with the others and speciate. The point of this is, even minor changes or isolations can cause a lot of variation in a small amount of time, but I don't think that's proof-positive for a young-earth creation model either. What about the big jumps that would have to take place? Hyraxes and elephants are related to each other, so what did the original "kind" look like? Where were they? Where are the other varieties of elephants that we should still see today if things worked this way? Surely, if man was around there should be some record of in what way these two animals originated and radiated.
"It would be a big jar to the evolutionists who have been telling us they've all died out, but living fossils do that well enough anyway. We've found several "living fossils" that were supposed to have died out eons ago. Neoglyphea Neocaledonica, the Laotion rock rat, the Manipur Bush-Quail, the Chinese Hynobiidaes, Mus cypriacus, and the ancient lamprey found just this year. So finding a dinosaur would be far cooler than a blood-sucking lamprey or a little rock rat, but these are still damaging to evolutionary claims of extinction and/or evolutionary change. (IE, these things are essentially unchanged from the "ancient" fossils we find of them.)"
I for one would be exceedingly excited if we found some sort of non-avian dinosaur alive today, and I bet a lot of evolutionary scientists and paleontologists would as well. This reminds me of the popular notion that the great white shark relative Charcharodon megalodon is still around, maybe surviving in deep water somewhere. Unfortunately, if C. megalodon survived by going into the deep sea, it doesn't look like it once did because of physiological changes that would be needed and couldn't be classified as C. megalodon anymore. If dinosaurs are still around today, I think they'd be very different than when they were in their heyday, especially with all the changes the earth has gone through in the past 65 million years. Saying dinosaurs are extinct isn't a matter of evolution; it's a matter of paleontology and geology. We don't find them after a certain point and they're not around (as far as anyone can tell) today- there's nothing dealing with evolution in that statement, and once again the age of the earth is determined by geologists and physicists, not biologists. Most "living fossils" end up being overlooked plants, small animals, or creatures in the sea. There have been some big creatures that have eluded us for some time on land (like the Okapi) but my main problem with cryptozoology is that so much is based upon eyewitness accounts (especially of natives) with no photographs of tracks, areas changed by the creature moving through, and especially no scat. There are people who follow tigers without ever seeing one, but can track them by following claw marks on trees and their scat, and if there are still pterodactyls or dinosaurs they would leave plenty of scat about as well, but no one's ever found any. If someone found some and analyzed it, showing it to be different than anything we know of living today, I would say that there's definitely in some value in trying to find the creature, but for now it just seems like there are just stories and nothing more. Either way, it wouldn't knock-down or challenge evolution, and in fact I think evolutionary biologists would be among the first to be interested to see how such a creature survived.
I think that's it for now. Thank you again for your input and comment Dave, and I hope this exchange is proving enlightening for you as well.
"The trouble with having an open mind is people insist on coming along and putting things in it"-Terry Pratchett
Yer not so bad yerself. :-) We still disagree (Whooosh-gong! Fox News Alert!) but at least we’re nice about it. That makes us better than everyone else. ;-)
I think that should be reversed. Creationists believe in Intelligent Design in a very basic sense (there was a creator) but develop it much further. (It follows, if there was an Intelligent Designer, then He would love his design, and no doubt reveal the purpose of creation to us)
Informed creationists do not want intelligent design pushed in the science classroom any more than they want evolution. The point is, evolution is just as faith-based as creationism or ID, therefore, on the part of some, it’s a “hey, if you’re going to include faith-based tenets of evolution in there, give equal time to all beliefs.” Not even the Discovery Institute demands that ID be taught. They even opposed the statement that brought about the Dover case!1
It follows completely that creationists and ID (sharing a common premise of a designer) would use the same arguments so far as that goes. When it comes to identifying the Designer, IDers usually say “all yours, mate, see you later!” to creationists. “Wimps,” creationists sniff as they continue on. (And I’d disagree with your assertion of “fleeting references” to irreducible complexity…)
Can’t beat the classics.
It’s more than “not assumed.” It’s “assumed not to exist.” There’s a subtle but important difference. Naturalism assumes only natural existence.
Just as there is no way to prove empirically (split that infinitive with a machete, why don’t you?) several things about evolution?
I believe the argument is not that we can test who the creator is, but rather use science to arrive at the need for a creator, and then reason through the abstract discussion of a creator.
Well…..one of us is wrong. Conceivably, both of us.
But truth isn’t subjective. We can’t both be right. Both our opinions differ far too much to be equally true at the same time.
Recall, I wrote that neither creationism nor evolution(ism) is scientific, but still supportable by science.
The trouble arrives when you begin with your perspective, and then fit the Bible into it. If you read the Bible, there’s no way you could ever get the idea that God created in millions of years. And once you start picking and choosing your “poetry/allegory” from your truth in the Bible, you launch down a slippery slope.
Do you not agree with me that the elements of evolution we disagree on took place in the unobservable past?
Agreed, for the most part. But can faith and science disagree? If the belief is true, the results will be borne out in observation. God’s not a divine trickster, saying one thing and making it look like something else.
And since neither you nor I are scholars, we should turn to those that are. And most of those scholars agree that Genesis isn’t written as poetry.
What is your criterion for those assertions? What makes the difference, what linguistic indicators are there to let you know “THIS IS POETRY” or “THIS IS HISTORY”?
Okay, I know this may feel like I’m setting you up, but can you explain the Gospel to me in very brief terms? (Just so I know we’re on the same page…)
In theory, you could have a misconstrued opinion so that you believe evolution and Christianity are congruent. I’m just saying that because “I don’t think” and “it hasn’t stopped me” aren’t very good arguments in the long run.
Nevertheless, evolution makes that assumption. I’m not sure I’m ready to buy the “it’s not evolution’s department, let me transfer you” cop-out of “evolution doesn’t address abiogenesis” (Berkeley’s page on evolution asserts otherwise2, and the Miller-Urey experiments are taught side-by-side with evolution) but evolution works on the grounds that life got here some how. So eventually, evolution runs into the difficulty either way. Whether they choose to admit and/or deal with it, evolutionists and their naturalistic perspective will have trouble with the Very Beginning no matter what. And if you can’t lay a foundation for the theory, then don’t bother working the theory itself.
Well, but once again, the Bible doesn’t talk about prebiotic soup, and it doesn’t say God formed man out of prebiotic soup.
That’s where peer review comes in. ;-) That, and trust in God’s sovereign will to preserve His words. (If he’s going to go to all the trouble to reveal them, do you think he’s going to smack his divine forehead and say “Dang it, those mortal humans screwed it up again”?) I would think that unless it’s extremely clear that it’s an allegory, then you would read the Bible as history. And when it’s so painfully distinct (“there was evening, and there was morning” etc.), I’m left with few other options.
To the extent I’ve studied it, I think it’s NUTS. But I think it’s an instrumental tool for showing how evolution itself must evolve to fit the evidence.
I’m curious, do you argue with the evolutionists who still insist on eons of gradual evolution? A lot of them are still waiting for the missing link, or hinging hopes on some dubious fossils.
I know of several successful geologists who are employed. Are you familiar with the concept of dog years?
Sorry. :-D Would you prefer “prokaryote-to-professor”?
An example would be nice…
I mean no offense, but almost everything you’ve said up until now has been very broad and general. No examples or references.
So we agree, evolution is not directly observable. This means it loses the first in scientific method, observable, testable, repeatable, etc. Instead, we (they) make inferences about the major parts of evolution after the fact. Which is, then, a belief, not a scientific theory.
Well, which parts of evolution do you consider stable, and which parts do you consider shaky?
I think we’ve already established, both sides are working backwards based on presuppositions.
Truth is philosophical? Where does that idea come from? Truth is truth. If truth doesn’t exist independent of either of us, then we may as well stop the debate right this minute.
Some of evolution’s most outspoken evangelists make plenty of philosophical truths. Think Eugenie Scott, signer of the Humanist Manifesto. Think Richard “Eugeneics may not be bad” Dawkins.
Evolution makes claims about what should happen in a given scenario, given that evolution is true. But conscience tells us that these things should not be. You cannot divide and separate the two simply because they are in conflict with each other.
Neither of which are claims I made. Morality is the exclusive property and creation of God. Whether Christians behave more morally is irrelevant.
But “You shall not murder” is one that contrasts what evolution observes and predicts.
So, am I interpreting you correctly that you’re saying we’ve…moved past the basic rules of the Ten Commandments?
May I take exception with the term “wonderful people.” This does not mean I believe all atheists are murderers. This means I take the Bible literally when it says that all have sinned, no one is righteous.
There is no prideful superiority over being justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Whether some feel superior, is not really relevant either. We can find any anecdotal example to prove such a statement.
Richard Dawkins: “Eugenics may not be bad,” Scotland's Sunday Herald, November 19, 2006. And it’s not just a simple matter of his opinion. Can his opinion be logically backed up by evolution? I’m a fan of arguing not according to personal opinion, but from a basis of the object we’re debating.
Is, or is not, natural selection/survival of the fittest used frequently to define one of evolution’s mechanisms?
It’s a hypothetical scenario in which I am superior in strength and size, and thus much more capable of “surviving.” It’s nothing personal at all, I assure you.
The scenario of which I speak falls under the heading of competition.
I did not say it was a free-for-all. I’m talking about the instances, be it only one, of murder to survive. Which evolution predicts and assumes, but conscience abhors.
Well again, you’re taking an exception. I didn’t limit my example to wildebeests (whose males, coincidentally, do engage in violent battles when competing over a female). I am talking about all of Kingdom Animalia. Bringing up one species which does not do battle over grass doesn’t negate the argument. And anyway, in that scenario, it is more beneficial for a creature to find other grazing lands. It is not like grass is terribly rare. Now water on the other hand…
Great. No argument here. Sometimes creatures act to preserve not only themselves, but the herd. From an evolutionary perspective, altruism exists, we can agree on that.
What about the specific scenario I listed?
Lots of those together can form a formidable argument against old earth.
Don’t get me started on junk DNA. :-) Junk DNA is code for “DNA for which we haven’t identified a purpose.” Slowly, humans are getting smarter, and as we learn more, we figure out junk DNA may not be so much junk after all.3, 4, 5
Then I should like very much to see an example of one that isn’t.
Well, technically, according to evolution, nothing has purpose. There is no “goal” or “intention.”
I’m a skeptic of manmade global warming, although there may be an observed short-term warming trend. That’s separate issue, but you might find my commentary here and here interesting.
Although most evolutionists have said it takes a long time. Creationists have said it doesn’t take that long.
There are paintings and indications of dinosaurs drawn by humans, but evolutionists dismiss this.
Well, maybe, but some of them would be a little shocked that dinosaurs have survived all this time. They didn’t expect the Wollemi Pine to either.
To live is to change, so of course a creature would change if it hasn’t been observed in a while. But it didn’t completely change species, just like fruit flies (mutated in every way, shape, form, fashion and method) are still fruit flies.
And while not as exciting as dinosaurs, still deliver a damaging blow to old earth beliefs.
I’m sure in a big jungle area, you can’t identify one scat from another. But again, I don’t place too much stock in such reports. I’m just saying.
Woo hoo, finally! And during finals week to boot!
“Evolution is a philosophical nightmare. It creates anarchy. It is much like the advertising expression for the Outback Steakhouse franchise, “No rules, just right.” How can there be rules without right? You end up with a cosmic game of Calvinball.”
Thank you for your new reply Dave; I realize it takes a lot of time to do thorough response so I certainly appreciate your efforts (once again). Now on to my reply
"Informed creationists do not want intelligent design pushed in the science classroom any more than they want evolution. The point is, evolution is just as faith-based as creationism or ID, therefore, on the part of some, it’s a “hey, if you’re going to include faith-based tenets of evolution in there, give equal time to all beliefs.” Not even the Discovery Institute demands that ID be taught. They even opposed the statement that brought about the Dover case!"
This is a bit of a bait-and-switch, as evidenced by the link you posted in your comment. The article (coming from a conservatively-biased source, which doesn't add to its reliability) states "'We want schools to teach more about evolution, not less,' said West." This is part of the "teach the controversy" wedge the Discovery Institute uses, where they claim they don't want intelligent design mandated but they do want what they perceive as gaing holes in evolutionary theory brought out into the light. The problem is, the controversy being referred to is that of intelligent design, and I find it curious that the DI claims little to no involvement but one of it bigwigs (Michael Behe) was on the stand as the prime defenders for ID and Casey Luskin came out with a book all about the decision and why it's wrong fairly quickly after the trial. Also, the Discovery Institute advised the defendants to be advised and defended by the Thomas More Law Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More_Law_Center) and the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (publisher of the creationist-turned-ID textbook "Of Pandas and People) has ties to DI as well. The DI had less involvement than originally intended as arguments with the Thomas More Law Center resulted in the testimonies of Dembski, Meyer, and Campbell withdrawn prior to depostion, although FTE wanted to be allowed to join the case and bring the testimonies of Dembski and Meyer back but were denied. In any case, the Discovery Institute had quite a bit of involvement in the case, and probably would have had more if it had not had arguments with the Thomas More Law Center. The wikipedia entry on the case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District) gives an excellent rundown of what occurred during the trial.
"It follows completely that creationists and ID (sharing a common premise of a designer) would use the same arguments so far as that goes. When it comes to identifying the Designer, IDers usually say “all yours, mate, see you later!” to creationists. “Wimps,” creationists sniff as they continue on. (And I’d disagree with your assertion of “fleeting references” to irreducible complexity…)"
Well, as far as creationists go I've seen them use the idea of irreducible complexity in lectures and on the web but never fully explain it, essentially taking the philosophy without the science. I'm not saying all creationists do this, but many do, and the argument of "It's too complex to have happened by chance!" it a common one. In fact, I just saw "Amazing creatures that defy evolution Vol 3" the other night and the entire program is based upon life being too complex to have happened other than by special creation.
"[God's existence is] more than “not assumed.” It’s “assumed not to exist.” There’s a subtle but important difference. Naturalism assumes only natural existence."
Again, I would disagree. Metaphysical naturalism assumes that only what we can naturally explain exists, while naturalism says that everything we observe can be explained via natural phenomena, including things deemed supernatural; i.e. a woman is paralyzed in a part of her body because of a past psychological trauma (only she doesn't realize this) and is "cured" by a faith healer. Her faith was strong enough to break the psychological barrier that caused the paralyzation, and although it may appear to be supernatural it does have a natural explanation.
"Just as there is no way to prove empirically (split that infinitive with a machete, why don’t you?) several things about evolution?"
What things? This is a pretty general statement.
"I believe the argument is not that we can test who the creator is, but rather use science to arrive at the need for a creator, and then reason through the abstract discussion of a creator."
How can you scientifically prove the need for a creator? Determining that some creator exists, but we can't know anything else isn't a very scientific argument and relies on philosophy than on empiricism.
"Well…..one of us is wrong. Conceivably, both of us."
Quite possibly so, and I have no problem with that.
"But truth isn’t subjective. We can’t both be right. Both our opinions differ far too much to be equally true at the same time."
We both agree that God was the creator and that he created in an order; that's agreeing on a truth. We may not agree on the details, but how can we say, one way or another, what's true about a historical genesis account and what is not? I don't think we can either way, so we both arrive at the same (and more important) conclusion. I'm looking at truth in a larger sense here, not as a verse-by-verse dissection.
"Recall, I wrote that neither creationism nor evolution(ism) is scientific, but still supportable by science."
Creationism is certainly not scientific, but evolution is. The only thing that allows you to make this comment is the preconceived notion that evolution is a religion.
"The trouble arrives when you begin with your perspective, and then fit the Bible into it. If you read the Bible, there’s no way you could ever get the idea that God created in millions of years. And once you start picking and choosing your “poetry/allegory” from your truth in the Bible, you launch down a slippery slope."
This is the classic "defending the Bible from the very 1st verse" technique employed by AiG. Who's to say that you're reading the same passages correctly? Saying "The Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true" is not a good argument, nor am I believer (like Jerry Falwell) that we should only read one book. I agree it's easier to just have blind faith than to question things, but it comes down to worldview and absolute truth; if you feel you have a corner on the absolute truth market and that everything else has to go through that lens or it can't be accurrate, it's a pretty biased way to look at things. Like I said, who's to say either of us have the correct interpretation of the book?
"Do you not agree with me that the elements of evolution we disagree on took place in the unobservable past?"
I agree that no one was there to observe them, but that doesn't mean we can no nothing about them. By this logic we couldn't prosecute an unseen murder because no one was there taking notes. Evolutionary and origins science can be like detective work; we might not have been there but we have clues and information from the events to help us figure out what happened. I don't accept the "We can't know anything" argument, because that isn't true at all. Should we be honest about what we find and what is hypothesis vs theory? Surely we should, but if we can't learn anything about past events, perhaps you should tell paleontologists, geologists, geophysicists, etc. that they're wasting their time. Might as well tell the oil companies not to try and find where more fossil fuels might be because we can't know anything about the past if we weren't there to see it. Of course, I'm using parody here; we may not know everything, but we are not entirely blind either.
"And since neither you nor I are scholars, we should turn to those that are. And most of those scholars agree that Genesis isn’t written as poetry."
I never said poetry; I said allegory. In such a case, it would also be important to look at the beliefs about Scripture as a whole. You haven't given me any names or references here, and as far as Genesis goes (since, like you said, it is the unobservable past) they're as much in the dark as anyone else.
"What is your criterion for those assertions? What makes the difference, what linguistic indicators are there to let you know “THIS IS POETRY” or “THIS IS HISTORY”?"
Well, using my examples, the Psalms are songs and poetry and prayers inspired by and dedicated to God; I don't personally know anyone who regards them as history. As for the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John document the same event from different viewpoints and the events were subject to the peer-review of the culture; i.e. there were still people alive who would've seen the events when the NT was being written and could say "Yes it happened this way" or "No, it happened another way." Jesus was very public, so if there was something in there that didn't occur, there would be plenty of people to say "Hey, this isn't right."
"Okay, I know this may feel like I’m setting you up, but can you explain the Gospel to me in very brief terms? (Just so I know we’re on the same page…)"
I do feel like this is a bit of a set-up, so I'm taking a pass on this one.
"In theory, you could have a misconstrued opinion so that you believe evolution and Christianity are congruent. I’m just saying that because “I don’t think” and “it hasn’t stopped me” aren’t very good arguments in the long run."
And I don't think it's the cheif argument to be used either (I did back up what my ideas earlier). Personally, I don't see any reason why God could not have created through evolution, and the major book of the Bible in contention here is one that relies heavily on pre-formed opinion and interpretation, so neither of us can say with absolute certainty what God really did or didn't do.
"Nevertheless, evolution makes that assumption. I’m not sure I’m ready to buy the “it’s not evolution’s department, let me transfer you” cop-out of “evolution doesn’t address abiogenesis” (Berkeley’s page on evolution asserts otherwise2, and the Miller-Urey experiments are taught side-by-side with evolution) but evolution works on the grounds that life got here some how. So eventually, evolution runs into the difficulty either way. Whether they choose to admit and/or deal with it, evolutionists and their naturalistic perspective will have trouble with the Very Beginning no matter what. And if you can’t lay a foundation for the theory, then don’t bother working the theory itself."
Like I said, life has to come from somewhere and origins science is related to, but not the whole of evolution. Regardless of how life first started, we can see the changes that have occurred over time (and continue to do so). It's important to know how life first came about, surely, and we have some ideas, but just because we don't know doesn't invalidate the entire argument. Creationists don't fare much better here, simply saying that God created, but don't scientifically come up with mechanisms or physical models of what was occurring when Adam was formed out of the dirt. All I'm saying is we don't yet have the absolute answer as to the first life on this planet, but it does not preclude studying the changes that occurred once present.
"Well, but once again, the Bible doesn’t talk about prebiotic soup, and it doesn’t say God formed man out of prebiotic soup."
Right, it mentions God forming man out of dirt, which I find it harder to swallow than a a group of self-replicating proteins.
"That’s where peer review comes in. ;-) That, and trust in God’s sovereign will to preserve His words. (If he’s going to go to all the trouble to reveal them, do you think he’s going to smack his divine forehead and say “Dang it, those mortal humans screwed it up again”?) I would think that unless it’s extremely clear that it’s an allegory, then you would read the Bible as history. And when it’s so painfully distinct (“there was evening, and there was morning” etc.), I’m left with few other options."
What you're essentially saying is "Since my prior assumptions are right, Genesis is a historical account by extension." Your standpoint requires unfalsifiable prior assumptions that you can't prove one way or another, so if you're left with "few other options" it's merely because you choose to see it the way you want to. This is the same circular argument as "The Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true."
"To the extent I’ve studied it, I think it’s NUTS. But I think it’s an instrumental tool for showing how evolution itself must evolve to fit the evidence."
Once again, you've said it's nuts and ignored my examples. What have you studied about it? What research have you done? Have you read Gould and Eldredge's inital paper on the topic and are you familiar with Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster"? You have nothing to back this assertion up other than your say-so.
"I’m curious, do you argue with the evolutionists who still insist on eons of gradual evolution? A lot of them are still waiting for the missing link, or hinging hopes on some dubious fossils."
In fact I do argue with scientists who feel that evolution is uniformitarian in nature; i.e. it goes at a slow, steady pace only accumulating micro-evolutionary change sharpened by natural selection. Missing-link is a dubious and out-of-use term and there are still plenty of fossils left to find. With every one that's found, we get a better picture of what life was once like. Remember, paleontology is a relatively young science compared to others, and evolution is even younger, so there's still plenty to discover and re-examine; fossils are coming out of the ground so fast that there's a huge backlog of things that even need to come out of their plaster jacket. The study of tetrapod evolution has been especially fruitful in the past 20 years, and scientists have actually found more fossils by using an evolutionary framework to predict where the next intermediate will be (that's how they found Tiktaalik).
"I know of several successful geologists who are employed. Are you familiar with the concept of dog years?"
I assume you mean they are creationists, since you don't mention it here. What do they do? I can't imagine they work for Exxon and say "Sorry boss, there's no oil here because this formation is only 2,000 years old." I am familiar with the concept of dog years, but this fails to really address the issue. I'm not saying a creationist geologist can't be employed by a fossil-fuel company, but I wouldn't think they can bring those beliefs out at work very much and stay credible.
"Sorry. :-D Would you prefer “prokaryote-to-professor”?"
Perhaps, but I think it oversimplifies the evolutionary process and is designed to make people scoff; essentially it's a rhetorical device used to make the process seem more unlikely and simple to understand than it actually is.
I said 'At this point, I have to ask what are your criteria to have evolution between groups of animals proven? Your assumptions preclude the wealth of research done by scientists in a variety of fields, so I wonder what do you need to see in order to say evolution has occurred beyond adaptive change?'
You said "An example would be nice…"
I'm giving you the option for any example you like. You claim geologists are wrong, geophysicists are wrong, biologists are wrong, paleontologists are wrong, etc. and continue to say that evolution does not occur. What I'm asking for is your criteria for determining if evolution has taken place or not; essentially what would make you think twice about creationism? To me, evolution is obvious, but we obviously disagree so I'm just wondering what your criteria is, when you look at a scientific study or idea, for saying "This is true" or "This isn't true."
"I mean no offense, but almost everything you’ve said up until now has been very broad and general. No examples or references."
You haven't fared so well either, and I don't think what I've said was overly general, but I have no idea if you've read any of the literature on current evolutionary thought (that isn't from a creationist or ID or conservative sourse) so I'm trying to make things easy to understand.
"So we agree, evolution is not directly observable. This means it loses the first in scientific method, observable, testable, repeatable, etc. Instead, we (they) make inferences about the major parts of evolution after the fact. Which is, then, a belief, not a scientific theory."
Once again you've misconstrued the issue and likened evolution to religion. Evolution is observation based, compiled from data in various areas and is subject to verification and testing. Genetics studies are particularly important in this respect, often making copies of certain genes and running various tests to see what has occurred or how change may be possible. You seem to mix the meaning of theory with what you think the scientific method should be, with the definition of theory being (via Wikipedia) "In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation." Evolution is just that; a model made from observation used to predict future occurance and explain certain natural phenomena. Remember,empiricism isn't the same as "able to recreate", but rather that the ideas must be held up against the observations and explain those observations without relying on simple intuition or revelation.
"Well, which parts of evolution do you consider stable, and which parts do you consider shaky?"
I think there still is much work to be done in terms of sexual selection and the behavioral influences on evolution, as well as the role of ecology. Genetics is also an area that is developing, but needs more development in that we need to know what changes can occur and how those can be selected for. Essentially, I do not find evolution shaky at all, but there is still much to find out and narrow-down, particularly in a historical aspect (which paleontology and phylogenetic studies assist with).
"Truth is philosophical? Where does that idea come from? Truth is truth. If truth doesn’t exist independent of either of us, then we may as well stop the debate right this minute."
Surely there is truth that exists outside of either of our opinions, but what I'm saying is that what is or is not truth seems to differ depending on who you ask. I'm not saying it does not exist, but rather I don't know if anyone can claim to absolutely know it.
"Some of evolution’s most outspoken evangelists make plenty of philosophical truths. Think Eugenie Scott, signer of the Humanist Manifesto. Think Richard “Eugeneics may not be bad” Dawkins."
This is true, but what I'm saying is that when an evolutionary scientist publishes in nature, they don't say "These chimps are promiscuous, so it's ok for us to be too." There are many outspoken atheists or humanists and even Christians on the side of evolution, but those views are their own and science doesn't make a demand that everyone in the field agree with those personal views.
"Evolution makes claims about what should happen in a given scenario, given that evolution is true. But conscience tells us that these things should not be. You cannot divide and separate the two simply because they are in conflict with each other. "
Conscience? This is a very vauge statement. What things should not be, according to conscience? And then we must ask, whose conscience? Yours? Everyone's?
"Neither of which are claims I made. Morality is the exclusive property and creation of God. Whether Christians behave more morally is irrelevant."
I don't know, there are plenty of Christians who are saying that evolution is destroying morality or against conscience, but yet even those who claim to know the truth about morality still aren't very good at listening to it. Many creationists seem to have this view that murder, rape, abortion, etc. didn't show up until Darwin published, but even a cursory glance at the Old Testament shows this not to be true. All I'm saying is that many creationists put forth a squeaky-clean image, trying to take the moral high-road, when even they aren't getting it right.
"But “You shall not murder” is one that contrasts what evolution observes and predicts."
Well, how are you defining murder? Is killing anything living murder? If so I've murdered plenty of blades of grass over the years. Are you talking about one species murdering members of its own kind? Even then, under what circumstances is it murder? Is war murder? If killing another person in war is murder then the Bible certainly has no problem with it from the amount of bloodshed early on.
"So, am I interpreting you correctly that you’re saying we’ve…moved past the basic rules of the Ten Commandments?"
I'm not saying we've moved past the 10 Commandments, but rather the basic tenents (not applying to faith) are hewn into the laws of most societies as they make sense and are agreed upon by most as a proper moral code. What I'm saying is you don't need to be a Christian to abide by the same rules; just because someone is an atheist doesn't mean they constantly think about raping, murdering, and robbing. All I'm saying is that civilization has essentially agreed upon those basic commandments for functioning society, regardless of religious affiliation.
"May I take exception with the term “wonderful people.” This does not mean I believe all atheists are murderers. This means I take the Bible literally when it says that all have sinned, no one is righteous."
I don't see why you would take exception with the term (oddly when I mention atheists too); all people are fallible, but that doesn't mean they are not good people. It's my own personal opinion and love for these friends regardless of their (and my own) shortcomings. I never said they never did anything wrong, only that they are just as kind, patient, and caring as anyone else.
"There is no prideful superiority over being justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Whether some feel superior, is not really relevant either. We can find any anecdotal example to prove such a statement."
You could have fooled me. It may not be inherent or God's desire for Christians to be pridefully superior, but it often happens. My point is that just being a Christian doesn't make anyone more or less moral than anyone else, but yet creationist organizations often seem based on this assumption.
"Richard Dawkins: “Eugenics may not be bad,” Scotland's Sunday Herald, November 19, 2006. And it’s not just a simple matter of his opinion. Can his opinion be logically backed up by evolution? I’m a fan of arguing not according to personal opinion, but from a basis of the object we’re debating."
I don't think eugenics is backed up by evolution because it's invoking artificial selection (not natural selection) and probably causing what would be a detrimental genetic bottleneck that would make society at large more susceptible to disease. I read the article and I don't see Dawkins as advocating eugenics, but rather in an age where there is talk of "designer babies" and genetically-modified-foods, when need to ask the questions of wether we should be doing this or not and what are the benefits and drawbacks. Eugenics is a seperate idea that actually was put forth by Spencer prior to Darwin and has since been tied to evolution, but in reality it's closer to the artificial selection used by farmers (so should we then say the advent of agriculture is to blame?).
"Is, or is not, natural selection/survival of the fittest used frequently to define one of evolution’s mechanisms?"
You should remove that / there. Survival of the fittest is no longer used as it is innaccurate, and natural selection is used because that is the mechanism Darwin came up with and it explains part of why evolution occurrs. The fit do not always survive; you can be the most perfect, specialized creature but if there's an environment change and the flower you fed on isn't around anymore, it's curtains for you. You can be the most successful generalist but if a meteorite hits the penninsula where your kind live, that's the end of that. Survival of the fittest is a relative and innaccurate term, while natural selection is a framework of cooperation and competition for resources that is a large part of evolutionary theory, but it doesn't advocate the teleology of "What is fit will always survive and what survives will always be the most fit."
"It’s a hypothetical scenario in which I am superior in strength and size, and thus much more capable of “surviving.” It’s nothing personal at all, I assure you."
Even so, you're using the hypothetical out of context to any environment; you are simply assuming that the biggest or strongest will always survive, and this has been observed not to be the case. You also seemed to have a murder implication in your first statement on this, akin to "Since I'm bigger, I'm going to kill you" which is not the case either; animals don't go around killing smaller members of their own kind left and right because the "weaker" ones are perceived as deadly competition.
"I did not say it was a free-for-all. I’m talking about the instances, be it only one, of murder to survive. Which evolution predicts and assumes, but conscience abhors."
Once again, you fail to define murder or give an example of what you consider to be murder.
"Well again, you’re taking an exception. I didn’t limit my example to wildebeests (whose males, coincidentally, do engage in violent battles when competing over a female). I am talking about all of Kingdom Animalia. Bringing up one species which does not do battle over grass doesn’t negate the argument. And anyway, in that scenario, it is more beneficial for a creature to find other grazing lands. It is not like grass is terribly rare. Now water on the other hand…"
Now I'm being too specific, sheesh. Males often battle over females, yes, but in many cases males that are not equally matched do not fight. If anything, there is usually some sort of ritual or event where males can size each other up wherein the weaker male knows he's outgunned; why fight when I know I'm going to lose and risk injury or death? Further, many fights between males are more strength competitions than anything else, and the animals take as much care as possible to avoid being maimed in the process. Even in competition, there is cooperation to an extent. You say you're talking about all of Animals as we know them, which encompasses everything from corals to ourselves (by way of invertebrates, cephalochordates, fish, amphibians, etc.), so that's a pretty general statement to make. What basis do you have for your argument? You haven't given me any example. (And as a side note, wildebeest are picky about the grass they eat, preferring some patches over others)
"Great. No argument here. Sometimes creatures act to preserve not only themselves, but the herd. From an evolutionary perspective, altruism exists, we can agree on that."
I never suggested they were in it to preserve the herd, but rather the herd is a byproduct of wanting to protect themselves. Even so, yes, altruism can be explained via evolutionary framework.
"Lots of those together can form a formidable argument against old earth."
This still doesn't hold true; just because we can show a formation formed faster than others doesn't negate to evidence for an old earth, and we're still talking a 2 million year timeframe here, which is far greater than what Ussher came up with and is now accepted dogma.
"Don’t get me started on junk DNA. :-) Junk DNA is code for “DNA for which we haven’t identified a purpose.” Slowly, humans are getting smarter, and as we learn more, we figure out junk DNA may not be so much junk after all.3, 4, 5"
I never said it was all junk or had no use, but rather some of it is degraded genes that point to the evolutionary past as I discussed by way of opsins in cetaceans.
"Then I should like very much to see an example of one that isn’t."
I've already discussed nylon developing a novel enzyme, and it turns out bacteria have developed a way to break down TNT as well. Further, there are dogs with webbed feet (Amazonian bush dogs and the Newfoundland breed of domestic dogs), which would have to be novel structures if not held in that initial "pack of cards." You still haven't come up with any mechanism to hold all this genetic information or identify how it is dispersed, so I'm not going to assume your framework when it has no mechanism.
"Well, technically, according to evolution, nothing has purpose. There is no “goal” or “intention.”"
Saying "nothing has purpose" can be misleading, given purpose is a loaded term, but yes, evolution does not have a mind or goal or intent.
"I’m a skeptic of manmade global warming, although there may be an observed short-term warming trend. That’s separate issue, but you might find my commentary here and here interesting."
You're right that manmade global warming is a seperate issue, but regardless of cause there is a global warming trend occurring and animals are adjusting (or not) to it. A new study just came out saying that if the current trend continues, at least 200 species may face extinction in different parts of the world as a result of drastic environmental change (a degree or two on average might not be a lot to me and you, but it's a HUGE change ecologically speaking).
"Although most evolutionists have said [variation] takes a long time. Creationists have said it doesn’t take that long."
Sometimes it occurs quickly, other times it does not; it is largely dependant on environmental factors and niches. It varies, and evolutionary scientists do recognize different speciation patterns.
"There are paintings and indications of dinosaurs drawn by humans, but evolutionists dismiss this."
Many of the examples I've seen have turned out to be frauds or tricks of the eye, and oddly enough creationists are not forthcoming with data about the finds other than "We found drawings of dinosaurs!" Plus, saying people were drawing dinosaurs is assuming that the pictures could not be imaginative or mythic in origin, which is a pretty big assumption to make. I haven't seen anything conclusive about these drawings or depictions or even any mention of credibility by anthropologists or archaeologists.
"Well, maybe, but some of them would be a little shocked that dinosaurs have survived all this time. They didn’t expect the Wollemi Pine to either."
Nor did we expect the coelacanth, but that didn't pull the rug out from under evolution.
"To live is to change, so of course a creature would change if it hasn’t been observed in a while. But it didn’t completely change species, just like fruit flies (mutated in every way, shape, form, fashion and method) are still fruit flies."
But are those fruit flies of different species? Do they all interbreed? If all the animals came from one "kind" that had all the information, why are there so few successful hybrids in animals? You say living is changing, but that it wouldn't speciate at all; this is a pretty big contradiction to make. If speciation doesn't occur, then all animals belonging to a "kind" should be able to mate and have viable offspring, but we know this isn't the case. Sure, there are some cases of hybridization, but it is more the exception than the rule.
"And while not as exciting as dinosaurs, still deliver a damaging blow to old earth beliefs."
Once again, just because something hasn't changed much doesn't suddenly mean the world is young. Termites and pangolins haven't changed much over millions of years, but it doesn't mean they're less than 6000 years old. I really don't understand how finding a creature that was successful in a niche for a long time refutes an old earth; we get the age of the earth from geology, not biology. There's this myth that evolutionary scientists control or make up the age of the earth, but this is untrue; we defer to the geologists and physicists we do the age determination and then work with that.
"I’m sure in a big jungle area, you can’t identify one scat from another. But again, I don’t place too much stock in such reports. I’m just saying."
There's a whole field called scatology devoted to studying different animal droppings, and tracking droppings is an easy way to track different animals. When I was hiking in the woods this summer, it was easy to discern bear scat from deer scat from coyote scat, and even moreso if I took time to dissect it and see what was in it. Plus, if there's a big animal out there, it would leave a huge pile, so it would be pretty hard to miss or mistake for anything else.
“Evolution is a philosophical nightmare. It creates anarchy. It is much like the advertising expression for the Outback Steakhouse franchise, “No rules, just right.” How can there be rules without right? You end up with a cosmic game of Calvinball.”
Evolution isn't a philosophy; it's a framework to explain nature; the sooner that is established, the better.
Merry Christmas, and happy Finals-Are-Over!
I had originally begun typing out another giant point-by-point response, but I felt that as a Christian I should put aside for a moment the arguments of the world and hone in on the Bible. I want to finish responding to the previous post, and I will, but I want to step out of that section and just concentrate on Biblical reasoning. I responded to that part of the debate in the course of the rest, and I cut it out and pasted it here.
Same difference.
Well, yes and no. Since the hand of a human inscribed the words written by God, we have a trail, either written or passed down by tradition, to trace back the history. Evolutionists do not believe we have any such thing.
Do you want links for reasons to believe a literal interpretation? I’d just be referring you to other sites, but I think it’s possible to demonstrate why Genesis should be taken literally without going in to that.
While I agree with your point, may I humble suggest that “I don’t know anyone who regards them as history” is a weak argument in any event.
Well, did God write the Bible or not?
Why? It’s not a set-up in the sense of trying to trap you. It’s to see if we’re on the same page regarding the Gospel, and to make a point regarding the Gospel. I understand your wariness; if someone walks up to you, grins and hands you a Coke and says “Have a drink,” you’re naturally suspicious. But this point is fundamental to the question of the truth of Genesis. If you answer nothing else in my argument, please answer this.
I understand that you personally do not see a reason why God could not have created through evolution. Using the Bible, I’d like to show otherwise.
In fact, I hate to do this, because I so enjoy the back-and-forth debate, but I think I should just stop here and leave the other (SEVEN PAGES??) until after we conclude the discussion on the Bible.
...doesn't mean you're off the hook with this discussion! :-)