Originally posted by UTEOTW:
" No Paul. We have evidence successfully explained by evolution. There is a very, very significant difference. A plausible explanation may or may not be true. For something to be evidence in favor of one particular concept, it must lead to that conclusion and only that conclusion... or a very reasonable approximation thereof."
Nope.
There can often be competing explanations but one that fills the bill better than others. It is not necessary for there to be only one answer just a best answer.
If you really and truly believed that then you would be ecstatic about the possibilities of ID.
Design provides a much better explanation for coded information than does random events.
BTW, both biblically and experientially speaking, supernaturalism "fills the bill" for explaining reality far better than naturalism.
So, tell us how to spot the difference between something caused by natural forces and one caused by supernatural forces?
Biblically speaking or otherwise?
Biblically speaking, you pick up God's Word, read what He takes credit for, and interpret the data consistent with what He said... since He
is supposedly the authority Christians accept above all others.
Otherwise... is what ID attempts to do... Forensics and many areas of operational science work to differentiate between the natural and the extra-natural.
So ultimately your question is rhetorical both from a Christian and scientific perspective. You do what is already being done.
In your world, we don't really know if gravity exists or if angels just push things around.
Thank you once again for very arrogantly deciding what I think and what it means.
FTR, God didn't say that angels push things around. He did say that He created the world and everything in it in 6 days... then called it "very good".
You are falling into the God of the Gaps here. That is a very dangerous place to put your faith as gaps have a habit of being filled in.
God fills all gaps. His will bridges all gaps. That does not mean I won't look for and accept reasonable explanations... nor does it mean that I will assume naturalism because you count supernaturalism as "God in the gaps".
And your answer supposes that God would make the universe to look much different than it really is.
Or not. I am proposing an explanation that accounts for a number of facts while remaining true to God's accounting of how creation happened. That's all. Very similar to evolutionists who propose explanations for various things while remaining true to the premise of naturalism.
Even if you don't agree, it kind of surprises me that a Christian doesn't show more respect to the effort of one attempting to explain things with a premise that the Bible is true than to one who is attempting to explain things according to a premise that conflicts with the description of God's character given in scripture.
Sure God put have poofed in all those Alu sequences in primates, but why?
Why were you borned to the parents you were born to? Why were you born at the time you were born? Why were you exposed to the gospel while others are not?
Your question is premised on fallacy and, frankly, vanity. You assume that either He wouldn't have done it as it appears or that if He didn't do it, it would not have occurred in a way other than those consistent with evolutionary thinking. You have no problem accepting improbable explanations that are consistent with evolution but balk at what you perceive as improbable explanations consistent with creationism.
And perhaps worst of all, you suppose that God owes you an explanation that you can put in a test tube or discover or imagine. He doesn't. There is no sin in pursuing answers... unless that pursuit puts us in a position to question the veracity of the Creator Himself.
In fact, I seem to remember you once coming to the amazing conclusion that perhaps all whales are one "kind" that was originally a land dwelling animal! It must not have been too "poor" a recor when you viewed it then.
You remember incorrectly. I didn't come to that conclusion... I came to the conclusion that my proposition that all animals descended from original kinds with a very rich, robust genome could accommodate whales being descended from land animals.
BTW, I have read the accounts and much of the fossil record for whale evolution is "speculation in the gaps"... or "hope of the future discovery in the gaps"... and not real bones. Further, there is still considerable argument about whether the supposed earlier forms are in the lineage at all. They are there out of necessity for evolution... not because they indisputably belong there.
Amazingly, you accept as complete and convincing fossil records made up of much more imagination and plaster than actual fossils but scoff at suggestions that are very much based in observed science.
" Because birds and bats didn't descend from the same kind perhaps."
Now you are beginnig to understand the concept of common descent I believe.
I have understood it for awhile... I think. Common descent
can lead from a superior cat to a lesser cat.
It can lead from a genetically complex and highly adaptable bird to a simpler, less flexible species.
Bats of course aren't birds... they are rodents... like flying squirrels, raccoons, and perhaps others of their KIND that have flaps under their forearms. If they all
descended from the same kind and gene pool then we have a perfectly good explanation for where they came from and how they came to be what they are.