Creation and Evolution Compatible...Questions

[cladking]

That demonstrate your ignorance.

It wasn’t mere “musings”.

Before Charles Darwin wrote On The Origin Of Species in 1859, he traveled around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 - 1836, and kept records of his findings of extant species of South America, Australia, New Zealand, including various Atlantic and Pacific islands, including the Galápagos Islands.

This voyage was part of field work, not only on biology (of both animals and plant life), but also on anthropology and geology. So his field experiences, are parts of his evidences that he have recorded, and taken some specimens back with him to England.

His other evidences come from his works at Cambridge University (eg the University Museum) and the Zoological Society and Geological Society at London, Natural History Museum, etc, where he was able to examine and compare remains and fossils (hence evidences).

A part of Scientific Method, is observation and repeated testings, which he did before having his book published in 1859.

Not only that, there were other noted scientists of his day before who had examined his notes and researches, offering their own expertise, which allow him to understand his works better.

Charles Lyell (geology), Richard Owen (biologist), Joseph Hooker (botanist), John Gould (ornithologist), John Herschel (mathematician, chemist & astronomer), Thomas Henry Huxley (biologist), all knew him before On Origin.

And last but not least, was another biologist and geologist, Alfred Russel Wallace, another scientist, who have traveled to the Amazon and Malay Archipelago, was also writing a similar papers on Natural Selection.

Biologists over the decades following Darwin’s death, have re-examined his voyage (as well as retracing Wallace’s field works), have greatly expanded and updated our knowledge on Natural Selection.

Natural Selection is still a very valid evolutionary mechanism, as well as that of 20th century mechanisms, Mutations and Genetic Drift.

Darwin did his evidence-gathering and observation, for 2 and a half decades, long before he penned On Origin.

So your talk of musings, is nothing more than ignorance and straw man.

Science isn't about consensus. It is not about the qualifications of those who agree or disagree with you. It is about experiment and proper scientific observation. But most of all it is not about logic or what makes sense to you.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Science tends to look at each "law of nature" in a vacuum. It does a poor job of seeing how something in the real world behaves. Just like a man dying of two diseases is in big trouble in the hospital since they usually can only treat one disease at a time.

I disagree. On both claims.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

The site's working better today, I'll try an example. Perhaps the entire area where proto giraffes lives was overrun by a toxin or event that killed every single individual exposed except some that ate an antidote generally shunned or unavailable to other proto-giraffes. It was the eating of this food, a behavior, which allowed a few oddballs to survive. Genes underlie this behavior so the proto-giraffes bred a new species. This is what we see. This is how major change in species occurs. There is no survival of the fittest. Behavior drives evolution and not fitness.

But couldn't you also use the exact same example and say that proto-giraffes that were born with a stronger genetic resistance to the toxin would also survive? Surely his would also occur, and would be an example of fitness determining survival. What's more, fitness is less to do with individual survival as it is to do with the survival of the gene, i.e: likelihood of successfully passing on and propagating its genes. In the example you gave, behaviour determines individual survival - but it is only when this survival results in an increased number of those with said trait successfully reproducing and thus propagating through a population and resulting in a population-wide change in allele frequency that the result can be called an evolutionary change, so in this sense "behaviour" doesn't drive evolution as much as how much that behaviour results in increase in overall fitness within the population.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Just one particular branch of science seems to be the problem....and yes, it is like a virus affecting the rest.
A collective state of mind that seems to be spread by contact with large egos and liberal doses of derision.
We all know that only unindoctrinated, I mean uneducated morons would refuse a slice of that pie.

Which branch would that be?

Remember, like I've told you dozens of times now, evolutionary theory draws from multiple branches and fields of science. The amazing part is that all the evidence drawn from those multiple branches of science all points to the same conclusion.

 

[Polymath257]

"Also "guppies will always be guppies" is not an observation that contradicts common ancestry or evolution. Variation occurs within the taxa, and over time produces variations that result in the diversification of that taxa. Guppies remain guppies, but produce variations of guppies. Mammals remain mammals, but produce variations of mammals. Eukaryotes remain eukaryotes, but produce variations of eukaryotes. Thus, all life shares common ancestry because all living things are eukaryotes."

Ummmm....procaryotes? they are not eucaryotes. Nor are the archaebacteria.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Ummmm....procaryotes? they are not eucaryotes. Nor are the archaebacteria.

Thanks for the correction - is there a better collective term for all forms of life that are not procaryotes?

 

[Mock Turtle]

You have two different pieces from two different puzzles and are force fitting them into a very distorted picture.

Like this?

 

[ChristineM]

I've already said this several times in this very thread but people are ignoring it.

Every single time we have observed speciation it happened at a population bottleneck. There is no reason to assume nature, God, happenstance, or any other thing to call reality changes species in another way. Change is the result of behavior and consciousness and happens suddenly every time we observe it. This doesn't mean we can't kill all the light colored fish and get dark colored fish. But this is not the way new species arise. This is the way dark colored fish arise.

No experiment supports change in species or the fact of missing links. A dog suddenly arises from a wolf and a giraffe suddenly arose from its parents.

The site's working better today, I'll try an example. Perhaps the entire area where proto giraffes lives was overrun by a toxin or event that killed every single individual exposed except some that ate an antidote generally shunned or unavailable to other proto-giraffes. It was the eating of this food, a behavior, which allowed a few oddballs to survive. Genes underlie this behavior so the proto-giraffes bred a new species. This is what we see. This is how major change in species occurs. There is no survival of the fittest. Behavior drives evolution and not fitness.

You said and i quote "It doesn't stand in the absense of conflicting data or in its presence. It doesn't stand at all without crutches and props."

Speciation was not under discussion, what was under discussion was your rejection of evolution which was refuted with a link to the NAS. So way to change the goalposts

You seem to have a very limited understanding of time. Please provide valid scientific evidence for your claims

And "perhaps" doesnt cut it, facts do

 

[gnostic]

But most of all it is not about logic or what makes sense to you.

Straw man.

In science, I have always indicated that empirical and verifiable evidences take precedence over logic or any mathematical equation.

Scientific observation and scientific experiments are the mean to determine

Science isn't about consensus. It is not about the qualifications of those who agree or disagree with you. It is about experiment and proper scientific observation.

More bloody straw man.

I have been telling you again and again that scientific evidences are required to verify any theory or hypothesis.

The more evidences you have, the more certainty you will know if any hypothesis or theory is true (real, and more probable) or false (refuted or debunked, and more improbable).

And scientific evidence can only come from two main sources:

1. experiments, done in controlled environment, like in laboratory or testing;
2. evidences found in the fields.

Evidences discovered in the fields are always better evidences than the controlled lab experiments, because it is real-world.

Even better if lab test results and field evidences correlate with each other.

Darwin and Wallace’ voyages have contributed to the evolution (natural selection) through finding evidences in the fields, as well as comparisons of fossils in museums and Zoological Society.

And you are wrong about not requiring consensus.

I am not talking about “consensus” from general public, cladking. No, I am talking about independent scientists working in the same or related fields (eg peer review) -

• cross-examining the evidences,
• doing their own tests or experiments...

...all to verify if the hypothesis or theory is true or not.

Without independent scientists testing the theory or hypothesis, how do we know if the hypothesis is is true or bogus.

Natural Selection is one mechanism in evolution supported by the evidences, that factually explain how life are diverse (eg speciation).

The other two main mechanisms in evolutionary biology are Mutation and Genetic Drift. The explanations to these two mechanisms are also supported by the evidences.

How many more straw man are you going to make, cladking?

 

[cladking]

evidences found in the fields.

I don't know where people get the idea that reality is determined by consensus. The reality is all surgeons in the 1860's believed washing their hands and tools before an operation was a waste of precious time. Their patients died. And, yes, they all died suddenly over a period of days or weeks.

"Evidence found in the field" is not science because it is open to interpretation. Observation in exclusion of experiment has no meaning in metaphysics. People have their own beliefs and beliefs determine the interpretation of what we see. Observation without experiment is just looking.

 

[cladking]

You said and i quote "It doesn't stand in the absense of conflicting data or in its presence. It doesn't stand at all without crutches and props."

Speciation was not under discussion, what was under discussion was your rejection of evolution which was refuted with a link to the NAS. So way to change the goalposts

You seem to have a very limited understanding of time. Please provide valid scientific evidence for your claims

And "perhaps" doesnt cut it, facts do

Yes! I reject "evolution" as a causation of change in species. Even the word implies a slow change and nothing in nature ever happens gradually as far as we can observe. This virtually appears an immutable law.

 

[Polymath257]

Yes! I reject "evolution" as a causation of change in species. Even the word implies a slow change and nothing in nature ever happens gradually as far as we can observe. This virtually appears an immutable law.

Really? There are long periods of slow change in how stars develop. If you have a smallish star, a 'fast' change is on the order of 10 million years. The main sequence lasts for billions. Only if you have a larger star is the end fast: a supernova. For the smaller ones, you have a gradual decline.

For geological features, the changes tend to be gradual, even if violent on our time scales. For example an earthquake doesn't change things all that much, but a few thousand over a few million years can lead to dramatic changes.

There are *huge* differences in time scales in the universe, from decays lasting 10^(-23) seconds, to galactic mergers that take hundreds of millions to billions of years.

That hardly makes for an immutable law.

 

[cladking]

But couldn't you also use the exact same example and say that proto-giraffes that were born with a stronger genetic resistance to the toxin would also survive? Surely his would also occur, and would be an example of fitness determining survival. What's more, fitness is less to do with individual survival as it is to do with the survival of the gene, i.e: likelihood of successfully passing on and propagating its genes. In the example you gave, behaviour determines individual survival - but it is only when this survival results in an increased number of those with said trait successfully reproducing and thus propagating through a population and resulting in a population-wide change in allele frequency that the result can be called an evolutionary change, so in this sense "behaviour" doesn't drive evolution as much as how much that behaviour results in increase in overall fitness within the population.

Nature presents many different challenges and opportunities to all species in the long run. Yes, it's entirely possible an event might wipe out most of a species based on genetic predisposition rather than behavior. These survivors would then probably be very similar to their parents and then breed pretty much the same species but with a stronger predisposition to tolerate the toxin. Major species change will simply require a behavior that is uncharacteristic for the species like, perhaps, the ability to reach a fruit that only grows a few inches higher than most of the parents can reach.

What we call "evolution" is merely creating a divergent set of genes in species so that the odds of surviving a bottleneck improves.

This is where Darwin went wrong: He assumed that populations were stable over the long term.

 

[cladking]

Really? There are long periods of slow change in how stars develop. If you have a smallish star, a 'fast' change is on the order of 10 million years. The main sequence lasts for billions. Only if you have a larger star is the end fast: a supernova. For the smaller ones, you have a gradual decline.

For geological features, the changes tend to be gradual, even if violent on our time scales. For example an earthquake doesn't change things all that much, but a few thousand over a few million years can lead to dramatic changes.

There are *huge* differences in time scales in the universe, from decays lasting 10^(-23) seconds, to galactic mergers that take hundreds of millions to billions of years.

That hardly makes for an immutable law.

I misspoke. I meant "life" rather than "nature".

 

[cladking]

This is where Darwin went wrong: He assumed that populations were stable over the long term.

Part of the reason for his error was that he had no concept of just how old life really is.

 

[sayak83]

I don't know where people get the idea that reality is determined by consensus. The reality is all surgeons in the 1860's believed washing their hands and tools before an operation was a waste of precious time. Their patients died. And, yes, they all died suddenly over a period of days or weeks.

"Evidence found in the field" is not science because it is open to interpretation. Observation in exclusion of experiment has no meaning in metaphysics. People have their own beliefs and beliefs determine the interpretation of what we see. Observation without experiment is just looking.

Please let us know which experiment was used to validate the theory that earth moves round the sun. Thank you.

 

[ChristineM]

Yes! I reject "evolution" as a causation of change in species. Even the word implies a slow change and nothing in nature ever happens gradually as far as we can observe. This virtually appears an immutable law.

Your misunderstanding of time is noted and taken into account.

Please provide evidence for your claim

Thats the 3rd time ive asked you for evidence, the previous 2 have been ignored. Can expect the same this time?

 

[Sapiens]

I don't know where people get the idea that reality is determined by consensus. The reality is all surgeons in the 1860's believed washing their hands and tools before an operation was a waste of precious time. Their patients died.

The reality is that without the germ theory there was no reason to test the trade off between cleanliness and speed, despite Ignaz Semmelweis' finding that medical students fresh from the dissecting room were causing excess maternal death compared to midwives. Semmelweis introduced compulsory handwashing for everyone entering the wards and there was a sharp decrease in maternal and fetal deaths, however the Royal Society dismissed his advice and it took a decade for Pasteur's discoveries and then another decade for Lister put the puzzle together. That is how science works and to rail against science because it doesn't get it perfect every time from the get-go is absurd. But ... modern communications mean that today things move much faster.

Peirce notes that two or three incidents that agree are enough to create a proposed hypothesis: “The first time I ate this soup I got sick. Last week I ate this soup and I got sick. Today I ate the soup and got sick. This soup makes me sick.” If one kept eating a soup after they got sick after eating it each time because they had not abstracted from the correlation of the events to the cause (the soup), we would call them idiotic. The reasonable person would assume the man winds his watch or the stone falls “due to some active general principle, in which case it would be a strange coincidence that it should cease to act at the moment my prediction was based upon it.” (The Seven Systems of Metaphysics, pp 183). While one may argue that consensus of people’s belief in general principles could be a mass delusion, such a dissent from general opinion requires an individual to assume that there is some privileged position, available to a single person, from which truth can be seen. But Peirce is sceptical of such claims. The ultimate agreement of a community (e.g., consensus) is the touchstone of knowledge in Peirce’s theory. If we accept hypothetical thinking as real, then we accept that we really do understand general principles when we may make predictions.

"Evidence found in the field" is not science because it is open to interpretation. Observation in exclusion of experiment has no meaning in metaphysics. People have their own beliefs and beliefs determine the interpretation of what we see. Observation without experiment is just looking.

All science, when first presented, is wide open to interpretation and remains open give new findings, that's what peer review and ultimately consensus are about. There is lots of science that is done without experiments, the field of data mining and exploratory data analysis of large, time series data sets are clear examples.

 

[Deeje]

I expected you to simply come up with arguments why you think the articles are wrong but you didn't so that is progress from your part.

Well, I guess you must have misunderstood my position as this is what I have always believed. There is a good reason why the Bible is not a science text book. No one would have understood it. Yet even with what science is discovering (that is provable) the Bible does not argue against it.

In the Revelation, new scrolls are opened and no doubt new things will be revealed about a great many things in the new world to come. Knowledge gained so far (of the provable variety) will not be discarded, but built on as an important foundation. I believe that only in that world (where all conflicting ideas will cease to exist) true knowledge (as opposed to speculative ideas) will dominate our thinking and we can complete our education as far as our curiosity will take us. As I said, God is an educator but he gives us only what our present limitations will allow. I don't believe that those limitations will exist in the future.

OK fair enough. May I then ask that you, instead of saying just "The Bible" specify which Bible out of the 6 you use and then the translation? I ask because for example in the KJV Psalm 51:5 says: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." while The New International Version says: "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

I like to use a variety of translations along with our NWT and Strongs Concordance to give me a rounded out understanding of what I read.

The scripture you quoted makes it clear why we need to do that.
I am not a fan of the KJV or the NIV because I see them as very biased translations for the most part, but then, when you employ other resources you can gain an understanding that a cursory reading might miss.

e.g. The word "sin" is an archery term meaning to "miss the mark". In that understanding of the term, we see sin as "falling short of the target". The "bullseye" is the optimal state of being and "sin" makes us all fall short of the original perfection that was created in Adam and his wife. We are no longer physically perfect because we are no longer spiritually perfect. By disconnecting from their Creator, the result was imperfection in a multitude of ways, but spiritual imperfection created the disconnection and "sin" is the result.

"Sin" has a much broader meaning than simply doing the wrong thing. By losing their perfection genetically, they only had imperfection to pass onto their children. That is how we all ended up like we are. (Romans 5:12)

The Greek text of Daniel is considerably longer than the Hebrew, due to three additional stories: they were accepted by all branches of Christianity until the Protestant movement rejected them in the 16th century on the basis that they were absent from Hebrew Bibles, but remain in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles.[22]

The Catholic Church (including its Orthodox schisms) has much to answer for with regard to many of the things that "Christians" have argued about since the Reformation. The Apocriphal writings, when examined and compared to the rest of the Bible, simply don't harmonise. Adding to any scripture is not beneficial because God is the author and he decides what should be included. If the additions to Daniel were not part of the Hebrew Scriptures, then why include them? God said he would make "knowledge abundant" in "the time of the end"...he wasn't kidding! (Daniel 12:4; 9-10)

No and I fully agree. I am also doing my best to inform people. And on that note I would like to quote from an article I just found searching for evolution in connection with the Bibles. "Those who oppose evolution as incompatible with biblical Christianity run the risk of pressing the text beyond what is written and placing an unnecessary barrier before non-Christian investigators. We believe Christians should help people understand that evolution as an explanation for biological life is compatible with scripture."

I believe that statement is made in an attempt to coerce those who adhere to scripture rather than to theoretical science (not true and provable science, as we believe there is a difference) into believing that they are a barrier for evolutionists to still claim to be Christians. It's a cop out that comes from wanting to have a foot in both camps to save face IMO. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either God is correct or man is? Who do we trust to tell the truth? We have to decide that for ourselves.

Science's compatibility with scripture does not mean compromise, because God is then sacrificed for what humans want to believe. Since there is no proof that science is correct in its assumptions concerning macro-evolution, why not sacrifice the human ideas instead of maintaining faith that the Creator did exactly what he said he did? What is the point of putting down one scenario because you believe it is an unprovable fairy tale, if you simply swap it for another unprovable fairy tale?

YEC proponents have caused much of the damage in this by refusing to acknowledge that their interpretation of scripture might be the problem. The Genesis account allows for an ancient earth, with the Creator taking eons of time in its preparation and more eons to carefully create its inhabitants. The simplest forms of life were likely used to create the oxygen in the atmosphere as was the vegetation, both created very early in the process. Just because God broke up the creative periods into a timetable, doesn't mean that the "days" were 24 hour periods. They were simply timeframes allotted to carry out the entire process. At the end, God allocated a rest "day" and stepped back to allow all that he had made to iron themselves out naturally. The 7th day in Genesis has not yet concluded because there was no declaration by God that everything was "very good". It was the only day not to have such a declaration.

I believe that we are still in this final "day" when all that has transpired will come to its natural conclusion. There is still a thousand years to go as God's kingdom will rule the whole earth and bring humanity back into a reconciliation with their Creator. What God intended at the start will be achieved in the end. (Isaiah 55:11)

God cannot fail....but we can.

 

[cladking]

While one may argue that consensus of people’s belief in general principles could be a mass delusion, such a dissent from general opinion requires an individual to assume that there is some privileged position, available to a single person, from which truth can be seen. But Peirce is sceptical of such claims. The ultimate agreement of a community (e.g., consensus) is the touchstone of knowledge in Peirce’s theory. If we accept hypothetical thinking as real, then we accept that we really do understand general principles when we may make predictions.

All of reality is in effect a mass delusion created by language. We learn our perspective on our parents' knee as language. We must give up the language with which we are born in order to acquire modern language. Babies babel in order to establish communication but we have forgotten the Ancient Language with which they were born. It is simply because our senses can't be trusted that it was necessary to invent modern science to learn about reality but our senses are not one whit more trust worthy than when we invented science. Mass delusion is still the norm and not the exception.

Ancient science was based on reality and man's relationship to it. For this reason it is an exceedingly good platform, or perspective, from which to see reality. For this reason, the proximity to reality and the perspective, religion rings true to many many people. Of course what can be "proven" in the lab doesn't always agree with what religion teaches but then religion is derived from an interpretation of ancient science rather than ancient science itself.

There are enough examples of mass delusion that I shouldn't need to point them out, I'm averring that "evolution" is just another mass delusion that flies in the face not only of ancient science but also scientific observation. It is the former here that makes this subject interesting to me. I am aware of no experiment that supports the notion of evolution and none have been cited in this thread so far. That species change is a simple observation that anyone might make over a lifetime. Cardinals were extremely red in my youth then they were more orange then a muted red and are turning red again. Swat enough flies with a fly swatter long enough and flies will land on the bottom of tables rather than the tops. Everywhere you look you see species change and this includes the fossil record. But that does not support the concept of evolution. It WOULDN'T matter if it did support evolution because science without experiment is mass delusion. It is consensus, not science. Anyone can use observation, logic, and interpretation of known fact to support anything they already believe. Indeed we all do this automatically because homo sapiens died out with Ancient Language at the Tower of Babel and we are homo omnisciencis with an analog language that must be parsed to be understood at all.
How ironic that reinforcement of ancient logic in babies impedes language acquisition and is probably the cause of autism.

We interpret the world in terms of what we know. We know what we've been taught in language and think in terms of this same analog language. We are the "odd man out" because all other species think digitally and are selected by nature based on their consciousness and behavior and not of "fitness".