Creationist - what is your understanding of TOE?

[LuisDantas]

From what I understand of the Opening Post (OP), the target group are those Creationists that see the Theory of Evolution as a falsehood, perhaps "unproven", perhaps politically or ideologically "forced upon" people.

Evolutionists may or may not believe that life was created by Divine Will, but ultimately that does not change their findings or scientific beliefs. Finding out how inheritance, natural selection or other biological facts work is not and shouldn't be a source of ill feelings about one's religious beliefs anyway.

 

[TJ73]

From what I understand of the Opening Post (OP), the target group are those Creationists that see the Theory of Evolution as a falsehood, perhaps "unproven", perhaps politically or ideologically "forced upon" people.

Evolutionists may or may not believe that life was created by Divine Will, but ultimately that does not change their findings or scientific beliefs. Finding out how inheritance, natural selection or other biological facts work is not and shouldn't be a source of ill feelings about one's religious beliefs anyway.

I guess I had to have known that there are people that don't "believe" in evolution. I can't imagine how you could make it out of 6th grade and hold on to that idea. Is this what creationists are fighting to have taught in school? Now I am interested to see what they think as well, but there doesn't seem to be any takers...
I just assumed that the OP thought theists couldn't reconcile belief with observable fact.

 

[LuisDantas]

Let's wait and see, brother.

 

[Meow Mix]

There was already a thread requesting for creationists to explain their understanding of ToE. As far as I remember, a few were foolish enough to post absolute rubbish and didn't bother to defend it while the rest of the post was filled with the sound of crickets and people saying "where are the creationists?"

On one hand, I can understand someone's hesitation to jump into what might appear like a trap... for instance they might think that it's a sliding goalpost, and that no matter what they say or how involved their answer is they might be afraid that someone will say "AHA YOU LEFT OUT THIS PART, IDIOT!"

So... yeah. Maybe that's why. In any case I concur with KT when he said that he's never seen a creationist argue against ToE that actually understood it. That's my experience as well.

EDIT: Maybe you can encourage creationist response by asking for them to describe specific aspects of evolution and then promising not to attack over minor missed details, though while reserving the right to point out important missed details for discussion rather than ridicule?

 

[LuisDantas]

That sounds nice, MM.

 

[TJ73]

That sounds really nice. If it is for education as opposed to pure entertainment

 

[Meow Mix]

Actually I just had an idea.

You can't understand someone's position unless you walk a mile in their shoes.

How about we bring up some interesting data and present it to creationists and say, "Assume for a moment that you entertain the possibility of common descent being true. Using that interpretation of this data, how do you explain it?"

Then to be fair, ask "Now assume that common descent is not true. Now how do you explain it?"

If creationists have a good case against evolution, then they will easily be able to explain the data without common descent; and furthermore they'll be able to explain all such examples and finally explain why it appears as though common descent solves many independent questions but is actually "wrong."

For instance, a recent video someone posted that was first brought to public light at the "evolution trials" was the fact that all primates thought to be the closest to humans in terms of descent have 48 chromosomes (or 24 pairs), but humans have 23 chromosome pairs.

Losing an entire chromosome would be fatal, so common descent models would predict that either the common ancestor of modern primates (including humans) had 23 pairs and most other primates somehow independently gained another chromosome (but this is unlikely), or (more likely) that the "missing" chromosome merged with another chromosome in human evolution.

So, creationists: please put on your evolution cap for a second and interpret this data as though you accept common descent might be true: it turns out that the human 2nd chromosome is indeed a fused chromosome. We found this because chromosomes have special sequences called telomeres at their tips (which behave something like the hard casing around the end of shoe laces, and also fray over time), but human chromosome 2 has telomeres at its ends AND in its middle just as would be expected if a chromosome were to fuse end to end.

What would you say probably happened, creationists, if common descent is true?

Now take off the evolution hat: how do you explain this same data without common descent? Specifically, this would have been an amazing opportunity to show that common descent is false -- why did it fail to do so? How were biologists able to predict there would be a fused chromosome if common descent is false? Was it just a lucky guess?

 

[Meow Mix]

Question 2 for creationists:

Please put on the common descent cap again for a second and consider that there are patches of genes called "transposable elements" in many organisms' DNA that behaves as though it's a genetic "parasite" on the rest of the genome: seemingly, they exist only to replicate themselves even at the expense of the genome that actually does useful coding; and typical of parasite-host relationships the coding DNA of carrier organisms has a defense against transposable elements called methylation which prevents most transposable elements from reproducing in the middle of a patch of "good" DNA.

Now consider that many transposable elements are linked to viruses, modern and historic (in fact, the relationship between TE's and viruses isn't exactly figured out: either TE's become viruses, or viruses cause TE's in host genomes, or both -- but there is a definite correlation between TE's and viruses) and that viruses sometimes infect particular hosts and types of hosts.

Now consider that taking the DNA of fossils thought to be closely related to modern humans for independent reasons (such as Neanderthals and Australopithecines, also modern non-human primates) shows many of the same TE's as in modern humans, and that such TE's aren't found in organisms which are not thought to be as closely related. Why would evolution predict that we should find the same or similar TE's in organisms that are thought (for completely independent reasons) to have a more recent common ancestor with modern humans?

Is finding the same or similar TE's in these organisms good evidence for common descent? Should we have expected the TE's to be similar if common descent is not true?

Now take off your evolution hat: how do you explain this data without common descent? Why were biologists able to predict that these TE's would be the same or similar in certain species and that they would be very different from human TE's in other species if common descent is false?

 

[Meow Mix]

Question 3 for creationists:

Stepping away from genetics for a second, let's just think about the sheer stratification of the fossil record for a second. For instance, as we move further downwards (and I think we can agree, further back in time) we stop finding flowering plants below the Cretaceous level. Underneath the Cretaceous we find mostly ferns. It also appears as though the animal fossils at these levels have starting and stopping points at certain intervals of the strata that's often consistent around the entire world.

Evolution cap on: How do we explain why flowering plants don't appear underneath the cretaceous strata and why we don't find, say, rabbit fossils in Precambrian strata?

Evolution cap off, same question: why don't flowering plants appear below a certain strata? For instance, if a flood is the reason for stratification, why don't we find burrowing animals such as moles until much after the Cretaceous strata, and why do we find flowering plants on top of giant ferns, with plants much more massive (and less buoyant) than flowers on top of that?

 

[Meow Mix]

Question 4 for creationists:

Consider that there's a protein on the inner membrane of mitochondria in animals called cytochrome c. It's a protein found almost universally in the animal kingdom (in fact it's also found in many plants and others, too), but the interesting thing about it is that it has amino acid variations across the animal kingdom.

Another interesting thing about it is that the variation in the amino acids of cytochrome c seems to follow predictions based on common descent models. For instance, humans and chimpanzees have identical cytochrome c proteins but smaller monkeys have amino acid sequences that differ slightly; whereas other organisms which are thought to be more distantly related in common descent interpretations have even less in common with human cytochrome c proteins.

Evolution cap on: Why should we expect cytochrome c proteins to be similar to humans in, say, gorillas -- but less so in monkeys, and even less so in reptiles?

Evolution cap off: How should this be explained without common descent? Why were biologists able to predict the relative comparison between cytochrome c amino acids in various organisms before mapping them -- was it a lucky guess?

 

[Meow Mix]

*chirp, chirp*

 

[Gloone]

I would like to know why it matters and why anyone should really care.

 

[LuisDantas]

Because the ToE is something of a cornerstone of biology, a remarkably useful specimen of scientific knowledge, and yet it is also being rather forcefully resisted by a lot of people, many of whom are supposedly among the most educated in the world.

If nothing else, it is indicative of some sort of grave tension and deserves some analysis so that the situation may be understood and perhaps solved.

Alas, it isn't even much of a mystery by this point. But the problem is still real and very much deserving of a solution.

 

[Father Heathen]

But theory is not fact.

Scientific theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Father Heathen]

I would like to know why it matters and why anyone should really care.

Because understanding and knowledge are preferable to ignorance.

 

[ellenjanuary]

Cause it's the big enchilada. Physics is good for building stuff, and chemistry is good for blowing stuff up; but evolution is teaching us what it is to be us. The creationists (at least the heads of the Evil Creationist Conspiracy) know what this is going to mean in a decade or two. We're gonna know what makes an animal an animal, and a man a man; and it ain't go well for "Creator God." We're gonna know why the brain does what it does, we're gonna know how mind evolves from brain, and we're gonna know just where religious experience comes from in the mind.

Creationists aren't worried about god; they're worried about themselves, and their "special place." Unfortunately (as outhouse is quick to point out ), they usually have ingrained patterns of understanding that make them believe theory of evolution is undermining that special place - and they're not hearing that kinda talk. They don't realize, that if they let go of the pastor's dogma (because Creationism is in no way Biblical) and open up to the idea that all this stuff - makes god far more wondrous. This is conductor god of the cosmic symphony, standing nearly fourteen billion years behind the curtain, reaching out with the baton to tingle quantum fields - into you. That everything that has come before, had to come before; so that you could stand here, and listen to the orchestra play. The fires of emergence from cosmic vibration; the clash of titans as stars collide, live and die. And live again so that their cinders could lay the foundational blocks of carbon in your cells. Could be the iron to be mined by the hands that learned, from the minds that reasoned, to the plans once written. To the empires that had to rise and fall so that you could stand after it all, with these tools all of us had made while making ourselves... to be just what it is that can stand here and look into the eye of god.

That's evolution.

 

[Gloone]

Cause it's the big enchilada. Physics is good for building stuff, and chemistry is good for blowing stuff up; but evolution is teaching us what it is to be us. The creationists (at least the heads of the Evil Creationist Conspiracy) know what this is going to mean in a decade or two. We're gonna know what makes an animal an animal, and a man a man; and it ain't go well for "Creator God." We're gonna know why the brain does what it does, we're gonna know how mind evolves from brain, and we're gonna know just where religious experience comes from in the mind.

Creationists aren't worried about god; they're worried about themselves, and their "special place." Unfortunately (as outhouse is quick to point out ), they usually have ingrained patterns of understanding that make them believe theory of evolution is undermining that special place - and they're not hearing that kinda talk. They don't realize, that if they let go of the pastor's dogma (because Creationism is in no way Biblical) and open up to the idea that all this stuff - makes god far more wondrous. This is conductor god of the cosmic symphony, standing nearly fourteen billion years behind the curtain, reaching out with the baton to tingle quantum fields - into you. That everything that has come before, had to come before; so that you could stand here, and listen to the orchestra play. The fires of emergence from cosmic vibration; the clash of titans as stars collide, live and die. And live again so that their cinders could lay the foundational blocks of carbon in your cells. Could be the iron to be mined by the hands that learned, from the minds that reasoned, to the plans once written. To the empires that had to rise and fall so that you could stand after it all, with these tools all of us had made while making ourselves... to be just what it is that can stand here and look into the eye of god.

That's evolution.

That has to be the most epic post I have ever read. I just cried tears of acid.

 

[Gloone]

Because understanding and knowledge are preferable to ignorance.

... and that isn't really saying much.

 

[outhouse]

I just cried tears of acid

Awe poor glooney, does it bother you there is no proof or a small sliver of evidence for a obvious myth????

come on

 

[Gloone]

Proof that god created everything and left man to figure it all out. Sounds like all the proof anyone would ever need.