God and natural selection

[UTEOTW]

No need for shouting. We can hear you just fine.

"THIS STATEMET IS FALSE. EVOLUTION IS A WIDELY-ACCEPTED THEORY, NOT AN ESTABLISHED FACT."

No, your statement is incomplete.

Evolution is a widely accept theory, alright. To be more accurate, we might should say that the theory of evolution is an umbrella under which quite a few theories and hypothesis exist. But the theory of evolution seeks to explain what is accepted in science as the fact of evolution. In science, the common ancestry of life on earth is considered fact. Therefore is is most accurate to consider evolution as both fact and theory, for that is what it is.

A great analogy is with gravity. Just as we can see common descent in so many different ways, we also have many different types of observations that show us the facts of gravity. And just as we are still working through the theories of how evolution happens, so too are we working through theories of gravity. General relativity has been one productive theory, but it is completely at odds with quantum mechanics in areas in which they overlap. Lots of work has gone into a quantum theory of gravity, but it has yet to be real fruitful. We theorize the graviton as the force carrying particle of gravity, but it has yet to be observed. In some ways, you might could make a case that we know more about evolution than we do about gravity.

"THIS STATEMENT IS JUST PLAIN STUPID. EVOLUTION REQUIRES THAT SOMETHING NEW BE CREATED AND PASSED ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION. YOU CAN SAVE ALL THE "CENTS" YOU WANT FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT. IN THE END THEY WILL STILL BE JUST A BUNCH OF CENTS."

It is not a stupid statement. He is pointing out that if you accept small changes as fact, there is no reason to draw a line which limits how much accumulated small changes are possible. It is an arbitrary and capricious distinction to separate the two.

As far as the rest of your statement goes, there are observed mechanisms, such as duplication and shuffling, which can create new and useful genetic sequences without destroying any previously existing functions of the organism. In the present, examples can be given of new functions conferred upon organisms through these mechanisms. In the past, it can be shown by looking at the genomes of organisms today that their DNA shows the marks of having been produced through such gradual mechanisms. So your analogy of "THEY WILL STILL BE JUST A BUNCH OF CENTS" is flawed.

 

[buckster75]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Evolution as a fact has been established in science now for a long time. The theory of darwinian selection provides many insights into the understanding of the fact of evolution.

I don't know much about this but got a question anyway:
how many years would be needed?

 

[Phillip]

I enjoyed the discussion from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel when a scientist that he was interviewing explained that getting from simple organic compounds (well, not so simple RNA, etc.) by taking a single cell, poking a hole in it with a tiny needle and dumping it in a glass of salt-water (ocean water) back to a functional and living cell is the same idea that evolutionists are trying to cram these odds down our throats in school.

After ALL the parts are ALL available to make a living cell. The almost impossible steps of coming up with the correct chemicals has already been done by the experimentor---how long do you think it will take for reassembly to a living cell?

I think I could win a lottery many times over before the chemicals managed to arrange themselves into a living cell.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by buckster75:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Evolution as a fact has been established in science now for a long time. The theory of darwinian selection provides many insights into the understanding of the fact of evolution.

I don't know much about this but got a question anyway:
how many years would be needed? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, the earth's age is set at about 4,500,000,000 years give or take many millions.

hints of life go back 2 -3 billion years and about a billion years ago the single celled life began the adventure into multicellular life.

We're not talking about short time frames here!

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by UnchartedSpirit:
Exactly how much of this does God allow, and still be able for it to declare his splendor?

God appears to permit it within the limits of the laws of the universe, which, of course, He created.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Evolution as a fact has been established in science now for a long time.

Nope. It has been accepted because philosophers have convinced scientists that naturalism is science to the exclusion of supernaturalism.

They have changed the definition of science from the organized pursuit of explanations for natural phenomenon to the pursuit of naturalistic explanations for natural history.

Saying that macro evolution is impossible but micro evolution is possible is kind of like saying that adding one cent to a bank account every day will never get you a million dollars, no not even in a million years.

Nope. It is like saying that adding one cent to a bank account for any amount of time will never create a completely different bank.

God's word remains true, but we sometimes learn we have not been interpreting it correctly in the past.

If creationists are interpretting God's Word incorrectly then that does not make evolution biblical. It fails that test on its own. It is a theory founded on the premise that everything in nature has an explanation from natural law only... a direct denial and contradiction to God's explicit claims throughout scripture that He created the universe.

This has happened before in the history of science, when all the clerics of the day argued against those upstart notions of men like Copernicus and Gallileo. How dare they suggest that the earth rotates as the cause of day and night?

Apples and oranges. First, these were matters of operational science. The "proof" was accessible to experimentation. Second, the interpretations of scripture were by no means apparent from scripture to begin with.

Evolution is not in the realm of operational science. Its proofs are well beyond all possible means of experimentation. Even the minor experiments that can be conducted do not immutably point toward evolution.

This conscious attempt of evolutionists to confuse and intertwine evolution with legitimate operational science is dishonest.

Today we know it was not clearly contrary to scriputre, but it was the discovery of the truth about the rotation of the earth that helped lead us to the broader, less literal understanding of the Bible.

Cite the scripture that specifically speaks about the rotation of the earth...

It is the same with evolution. We are still in the process, however, of coming to realize the full impact of the evidence for evolution, and so we remain in a transition state.

The problem is that the "evidence" for evolution isn't. Evolution accommodates findings with explanations. Naturalistic presuppositions require evolutions explanations to be true... but the evidence doesn't require them at all.

 

[Scott J]

Evolution is a widely accept theory, alright. To be more accurate, we might should say that the theory of evolution is an umbrella under which quite a few theories and hypothesis exist. But the theory of evolution seeks to explain what is accepted in science as the fact of evolution. In science, the common ancestry of life on earth is considered fact. Therefore is is most accurate to consider evolution as both fact and theory, for that is what it is.

Circular reasoning anyone? Evolution is fact because it is accepted and it is accepted because it is fact... Uh, no.

 

[Scott J]

A great analogy is with gravity. Just as we can see common descent in so many different ways, we also have many different types of observations that show us the facts of gravity.

That is an utterly ridiculous analogy.

Gravity falls

within the realm of operational science. Evolution and in particular common descent via improvements by mutation and natural selection do not. At best, they are viable explanations of history not completely inconsistent with the laws of nature and probability. At worst, they are pure speculations emanating from a naturalistic bias that must ignore good science to be preserved.

Incidentally, my explanation for common descent from a created order of kinds is not available for experimentation, it has been part of operational science for centuries.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Phillip:
I enjoyed the discussion from "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel when a scientist that he was interviewing explained that getting from simple organic compounds (well, not so simple RNA, etc.) by taking a single cell, poking a hole in it with a tiny needle and dumping it in a glass of salt-water (ocean water) back to a functional and living cell is the same idea that evolutionists are trying to cram these odds down our throats in school.

After ALL the parts are ALL available to make a living cell. The almost impossible steps of coming up with the correct chemicals has already been done by the experimentor---how long do you think it will take for reassembly to a living cell?

I think I could win a lottery many times over before the chemicals managed to arrange themselves into a living cell.

Whenever you read any anti-evolutionist argument based on the odds against life starting, bear in mind two things:

1) The odds are always calculated as if evolution itself did not exist. Evolution theory describes how an imperfect replicator can become better given mutation and natural selection, which defeats the odds calculation involved.

2) We are speaking of the beginning of life, not the evolving of life once begun. Its not quite the same thing. Science has clues and ideas about how life might have begun naturally, but nothing definitive. But suppose the odds against the start of life are really 1 to (insert great big number here).

How many places do we know of that life has started? Only one for sure in a scientific sense (I'm discounting angels fallen or not for the purpose of this discussion) and yet we have a very big universe. If the universe is infinite, or big enough, or if there are an infinite number of universes, then even though the odds against the start of life are 1 to (insert great big number here), it would surely have happened anyway. That's elementary statistics. In fact, in an infinite universe, life would have started an infinite number of times anyway.

But the more rare and infrequent it is, the further apart each life start would be from the next life start.

So how far away is it to the next life bearing planet anyway? My faith is that God has arranged one way or another for life to be common throughut the universe, but its only a hypothesis, unsupported so far by any evidence.

 

[buckster75]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by buckster75:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Evolution as a fact has been established in science now for a long time. The theory of darwinian selection provides many insights into the understanding of the fact of evolution.

I don't know much about this but got a question anyway:
how many years would be needed? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, the earth's age is set at about 4,500,000,000 years give or take many millions.

hints of life go back 2 -3 billion years and about a billion years ago the single celled life began the adventure into multicellular life.

We're not talking about short time frames here! </font>[/QUOTE]As I stated I don't know much about this but:
I am not seeing this number of years in our recorded history (Bible). Am I reading the wrong Book?

 

[UnchartedSpirit]

Sorry to interupt, but I saw the word gravity and I remebered my fathers take on it. He says the the spinning of objects causes gravity, I narrowed it down a bit once and said molecules spin to create gravity, now that I heard rumors about what quarks do, and they way they spin might actually be the cause. Yet I have no way of proving it, and no one wants to try the theory for me.
I also like to think that we could divide natural selection into the two ecological and molecular divisions:One being nature, which as Helen says, is under the curse and therfore ultimately destructive, and the other nurture, probably what God intended for nature anyway for the development of his planet, and it has been a very useful method for survival, also much better than waiting for gene variations....

 

[buckster75]

I tried spinning around in my office I felt no effect except dizzy.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
Whenever you read any anti-evolutionist argument based on the odds against life starting, bear in mind two things:

1) The odds are always calculated as if evolution itself did not exist.

So statistics are only meaningful if they build in a bias toward the desired outcome... nope but it does sound like something an evolutionist would like to be true.

Evolution theory describes how an imperfect replicator can become better given mutation and natural selection, which defeats the odds calculation involved.

Not really since it the explanation doesn't even address the subject of the math and also because the explanation "assumes" that evolution is 100% true... making any statistical analysis of it meaningless.

2) We are speaking of the beginning of life, not the evolving of life once begun.

That's true... but the ascension of species via macroevolution is no more statistically probable.

If the universe is infinite, or big enough, or if there are an infinite number of universes, then even though the odds against the start of life are 1 to (insert great big number here), it would surely have happened anyway. That's elementary statistics. In fact, in an infinite universe, life would have started an infinite number of times anyway.

Actually, if you would actually read the statistical arguments you would see that this has been accounted for. In fact, one guy even claimed to compare the (im)probability of the formation of a single coded dna to the projection of the number of electrons in the universe... that according to him was 10e80 if I remember correctly.

The conclusion was that it was many times more likely to randomly choose one particular electron in the whole universe than for one simple strand of dna to self code.

So how far away is it to the next life bearing planet anyway? My faith is that God has arranged one way or another for life to be common throughut the universe, but its only a hypothesis, unsupported so far by any evidence.

Would to God that you would recognize this about evolution as well.

 

[Shiloh]

unsupported so far by any evidence.
---------------------------------------------
Well Said!

 

[UnchartedSpirit]

It might also help that most objects that have any gravity are spinning faster than sound? Someone said quarks spin in two directions simultaneously, but I don't know if that's a misinterpetation...

 

[buckster75]

For someone to say the eye, for example, could have been formed by natural selection, seems to me to be very absurd.

 

[buckster75]

But as I indicated I don't know much about this.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by buckster75:
For someone to say the eye, for example, could have been formed by natural selection, seems to me to be very absurd.

It did to Darwin as well... but he required it since he had precluded the notion that God did it.

 

[buckster75]

My response when the years required was stated. Did I miss a response to this?

"As I stated I don't know much about this but:
I am not seeing this number of years in our recorded history (Bible). Am I reading the wrong Book?"

 

[Scott J]

Nope... you're reading the eye witness account... that unfortunately contradicts the speculative accounts of naturalists who have gained control of science via propaganda.