God and Evolution

[exchemist]

Everyone thinks god helps them with
spiritual-spiritual guidance,
to discern the true meaning.

Someone had an opinion in the year 200,
but he may be as wrong as the next feller.

Er, yes?

The point, Audie, is that people need to express opinions of what is meant. Ancient scripture It is -obviously - not an instruction manual.

 

[Audie]

If you have nothing else than false things to say, I think it would be better to say nothing at all.

The truth bites and stings, eh?

You have shown in great detail that you
are deeply confused re evolution.

take this-If evolution is loosely defined, then if I change eating habits, I have evolved and evolution is true. Or if cars after ten years are different than current cars, evolution is true.


That is seriously uniformed.

It is chronic, but not incurable.
Try learning!

In the meantime, noting your suggestion
about keeping quiet-

"Better to be silent and be thought a fool
than speak and remove all doubt"

 

[metis]

I also don’t believe in Mother earth, which is nowadays called “evolution”.

Then you don't believe in objectively-derived evidence as found as the basis for biological science, instead choosing to believe the same kind of "religious" leaders that teaches falsehoods, much like how I was brought up to believe.

Not only is the ToE clearly real, it can stand on its own to basic common sense because all material objects tend to change over time, and genes are material objects. If evolution didn't happen, that would be the true surprise.

 

[Audie]

Er, yes?

The point, Audie, is that people need to express opinions of what is meant. Ancient scripture It is -obviously - not an instruction manual.

No prob with that, if one feels a need. Just so longs
nobody doesnt haul out the rack for differences of
opinion.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Harari talks a good game but I'm not wholly convinced by everything he has to say. He makes a bit of a fetish of being an outsider and iconoclast, it seems to me.

I would certainly reject the extreme relativism that would categorise the models of science as "stories" on the same level as historical myth or religious allegory.

I don't see Harari saying that, myself. I find his thought to be fascinating and provoking, and he clearly distinguishes science from "stories." You can hear that in this quite interesting talk about that very topic.

 

[exchemist]

I don't see Harari saying that, myself. I find his thought to be fascinating and provoking, and he clearly distinguishes science from "stories." You can hear that in this quite interesting talk about that very topic.

No indeed, he's a lot more nuanced - though there are people who think like that, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Audie]

Come off it Audie. All I'm doing is pointing out what the allegory of Genesis has to say to a Christian believer. I'm not trying to preach, not least because I am not sure to what extent I buy the whole message myself. I'm simply pointing out it should not be dismissed as just silliness, any more than Macbeth is silly in what it has to say about human ambition.

(As for the "6 day poof", that is just a stupid soundbite reductio ad absurdum of Genesis. You can't expect me to take it seriously as a criticism of anything - apart, that is, from the mind of the speaker. )

Of course you dont preach.

The creation story shares a perch with all other
creations stories, if one is interested in that
aspect of cultural anthropology.

Absurdum, eh? The story itself is absurd all
the way through, by "poof" or any other name.
Taking a few more words to name it does not
help other than to try to make it sound all
sanctimonious. A little balance is so offensive?

I call it six day poof for convenience, not a
criticism, for lo, like Joseph Smith's story of how he
found the Book of Mormon it is its own parody.

 

[Cooky]

Of course randomness is insufficient! Have you never heard of "natural selection".

The whole point of Darwin's idea is that it is NOT random: the environment selects.

But the mutations that the environment select are considered "random". This I cannot accept, and not because religion, but because it is not logical.

Information integration is logical.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If evolution is loosely defined, then if I change eating habits, I have evolved and evolution is true. Or if cars after ten years are different than current cars, evolution is true.

Evolution means change over time. Darwin's theory is about the change in gene pools and the morphology of living populations. Before biological evolution there was material evolution, in which matter evolved from an extremely hot, dense soup of fundamental particles and forces into the form we find the universe to be in today., and chemical evolution, when organic molecules organized themselves into the first living population, unicellular marine life. That's when biological evolution began. Later, we had psychological evolution, in which consciousness, the senses, volition, intelligence, and the like first appeared in our universe. And finally, cultural evolution, where proto-languages eventually branch into nested hierarchies of language families, and religions keep changing and splitting to form another nested hierarchy.

If antibiotics destroy certain germs and there is left those that are resistant, it is not evolution.

That's exactly evolution - a change in allelic frequencies in a gene pool with its attendant modification of the population that gene pool supports. Before, resistance was limited to a smaller fraction of the total. After, those lacking the specific gene necessary to survive the antibiotic will be selected against if exposed to the antibiotic, and those with resistance will be most if not all of the population.

If evolution theory would really be possible, we could take for example rats and breed them so that they develop into mini whales.

Evolution is a fact. You can observe it occurring even in your own family. The theory explaining it is too firmly established for there to be any reasonable hope of it being overturned.

The only way your religion can be used for determining what is correct is by using it as a cult and excluding what you don't like and can't deal with.

The way that we determine that the science is correct is to put it to work predicting outcomes. If it works, we consider it knowledge and add it to our collection of ideas that work. Evolutionary theory works. It unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture.

By contrast, its only alternative, creationism, is a useless and sterile idea.Even if it were true, it remains a useless idea. Feel free to collect useless ideas and reject useful ones based on faith rather than evidence. I had a different plan for my life.

I believe much of science prophesy is already shown false and changed.

Actually, science has the only high-quality prophecy. Science has repeatedly predicted the existence of various physical phenomena in very specific terms. In recent times, gravity waves and the Higgs boson were predicted and eventually discovered and measured to reveal the precise qualities predicted.

Before that, the cosmic microwave background was predicted to exist as a homogeneous and ubiquitous presence at a specific temperature and wavelength, as well as the elemental composition of pristine nebulae. Before that, Einstein predicted that the sun would bend light, which was confirmed.

That's what high-quality prophecy looks like. High quality prophecy is specific, detailed and unambiguous. Optimally, quantitative aspects such as the time and place are specified. It needs to prophecy something unexpected, unlikely or unique - something that was not self-fulfilling and could not have been contrived or easily guessed. And finally, to be considered high quality prophecy, the predictions must be be accurate, unaccompanied by failed prophecies, verified that they came before the event predicted, and that they were fulfilled completely.

Only science can meet these standards. Nostradamus couldn't. The Bible writers couldn't. Jeanne Dixon annd Dionne Warwick couldn't. That ought to tell you something, but only if you use evidence to decide what is true about the world.

Just because science is religiously clueless does not mean the truth does not go marching on and over it's rotting corpse!.

Science doesn't need religion, and adding religion to science only degrades it as we saw with the intelligent design movement. They poisoned the method by assuming the existence of a god and then searching through the evidence using the eyes that bias created. Not surprisingly, they came to false conclusions, especially regarding irreducible complexity. Faith is the death of reason.

We do not even have any genetic info from Noah or Adam's day that us usable.

Adam was made of dirt. He wouldn't have DNA.

All the paleo fraud so called sciences. Also geology. evolutionary biology, cosmology, theoretical astrophysics etc etc! Ha.

Yeah, all of science is one giant fraud


"You stare into your high definition plasma screen monitor from the comfort or your air conditioned and electrically lighted home, type into your cordless keyboard then hit enter, which causes your computer to convert all that visual data into a binary signal that's processed by millions of precise circuits.


"This is then converted to a frequency modulated signal to reach your wireless router where it is then converted to light waves and sent along a large fiber optics cable to be processed by a super computer on a mass server.



"This sends that bit you typed to a satellite orbiting the earth that was put there through the greatest feats of engineering and science, all so it could go back through a similar pathway to make it all the way here to my computer monitor 15,000 miles away from you just so you could say, "Science is all a bunch of man made hogwash."- anon.

The belief set of so called science results in looking at God's creation is strange ways.

Science has no need of any god hypothesis. One cannot make any scientific theory more useful by inserting a god into it, and science is all about useful knowledge.

When is Christianity going to make a useful contribution to the fund of man's useful knowledge? I can't find a use for any of it, which, of course, is why I am no longer a Christian. Why are you?

Yes, the method of omitting the creator and imagining other ways to explain creation at any cost!

There is no cost to science in ignoring religion.

Personally I use the knowledge based approach. I look at what animals are mentioned in the bible and assume most are probably created kinds. Since your religion (science) cannot cover this, you must remain ignorant.

Ignorant? What useful knowledge do you think your religion has to offer those living happily without it?

the theory of evolution that has you being a relative of cockroaches!

You too. Does that offend you? Not I.

the theory of evolution of life on earth...no. There is actually NO evidence whatsoever. Not one iota. I kid you not. It is religion.

None for you, because evidence is of no use to the faith-based thinker, so he pays no attention to it. But your unwillingness to learn is not relevant to others who have, and the opinions spawned by faith and scientific ignorance are of no value on this side of the reason line. The other congregants in your church may be interested. Take it to Sunday school. You might have some success there, especially with young children. They're pretty much at your mercy if their parents bring them to you.

“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” - Aristotle

What I hope and expect for all dark lying fables is that they wither away and die to be remembered no more

You'll get your wish. Christianity is evaporating from the developed world.

Interesting! Wasn't aware that forensics used DNA to this extent... That's awesome.

You might find this of interest. The Sacramento District Attorney prosecuted both cases:
What the Golden State Killer Tells Us About Forensic Genetics

"police identified Waller through the public genealogy website GEDMatch"
Police use DNA to arrest 'NorCal Rapist' suspect in crimes that spanned 15 years

 

[ecco]

Perhaps more of an Anthropological Religionist? I definitely believe in a central Creator, but his followers are complete muck ups.

OK

 

[exchemist]

But the mutations that the environment select are considered "random". This I cannot accept, and not because religion, but because it is not logical.

Information integration is logical.

But logic does not preclude randomness.

The kinetic theory of matter, statistical thermodynamics and quantum theory are highly logical but are all predicated on the role of randomness in the physical world: molecules in random motion, or subatomic wave-particle entities behaving as distributions of probability, rather than point objects. Randomness is thus intrinsic to physics and chemistry. So why not biochemical processes? A cosmic ray passes by accident and a bit of DNA is changed. That's random, and it would be idle to pretend it is not.

The insight of Darwin was to see that nature can select, in a similar way to that of a human breeder of plants or animals, according to what is best suited to the prevailing environment of the organism. When one thinks of it, it is so obvious as to be undeniable.

 

[ecco]

But the mutations that the environment select are considered "random". This I cannot accept, and not because religion, but because it is not logical.

I don't think the environment selects random mutations either.

I don't think scientists believe that the environment selects random mutations.

I think you have horses and carts going every which way except the right way.

 

[Wandering Monk]

It is possible to see evolution in cars also. There is progress in how cars have changed. Is it because of “evolution”, or because people have planned them to be better?



I don’t believe in magic. I also don’t believe in Mother earth, which is nowadays called “evolution”.

If cars were capable of reproduction we could talk about that.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

But the mutations that the environment select are considered "random". This I cannot accept, and not because religion, but because it is not logical.

Information integration is logical.

No, that is not the case. I have been in the information technology business for decades, and while much of it is logical, I have still seem random corruption of data through alpha particle bombardment after a heavy sunspot period.

When a strand of DNA double helix is "unwound" in order to create two new (usually) identical strands, it is possible, and not even all that rare, for small changes to be introduced during the formation of new helices. Often enough, these small changes are meaningless, change nothing, and result in no harm or good. Sometimes, these changes can cause abnormal development in new progeny, and these can be sometimes very tiny changes, sometimes larger, and they can sometimes be harmful (very harmful) and sometimes result in small advantages over unchanged genes.

Now, it should be clear that if the result can be either negative or positive (in terms of the ability of the new organism to survive long enough to procreate and pass along its new genome), then the positive changes will eventually greatly outnumber the negative...for the simple reason that one results in more offspring (to pass the changes along even more) and the other results in even fewer, or no, offspring, resulting in diminishing returns.

Mutations do indeed happen at random, and this can be seen in the lab with real ease. And once that is known, the process of "natural selection" is absolutely inevitable.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why so many people simply refuse to pick up a simple book on the topic and actually learn something, before making bold pronouncements about it.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It is possible to see evolution in cars also. There is progress in how cars have changed. Is it because of “evolution”, or because people have planned them to be better?

I don’t believe in magic. I also don’t believe in Mother earth, which is nowadays called “evolution”.

If you have nothing else than false things to say, I think it would be better to say nothing at all.

And there it is. I have said nothing false, and you yourself, with your own words, have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have absolutely zero knowledge of what it is you are talking about. Which is, by the way, what I implied.

I'm not even going to bother explaining, because since you show you cannot tell the difference between things that are made (to a purpose) and life replicating itself without outside assistance, anything I say would be meaningless to you.

 

[Cooky]

No, that is not the case. I have been in the information technology business for decades, and while much of it is logical, I have still seem random corruption of data through alpha particle bombardment after a heavy sunspot period.

When a strand of DNA double helix is "unwound" in order to create two new (usually) identical strands, it is possible, and not even all that rare, for small changes to be introduced during the formation of new helices. Often enough, these small changes are meaningless, change nothing, and result in no harm or good. Sometimes, these changes can cause abnormal development in new progeny, and these can be sometimes very tiny changes, sometimes larger, and they can sometimes be harmful (very harmful) and sometimes result in small advantages over unchanged genes.

Now, it should be clear that if the result can be either negative or positive (in terms of the ability of the new organism to survive long enough to procreate and pass along its new genome), then the positive changes will eventually greatly outnumber the negative...for the simple reason that one results in more offspring (to pass the changes along even more) and the other results in even fewer, or no, offspring, resulting in diminishing returns.

Mutations do indeed happen at random, and this can be seen in the lab with real ease. And once that is known, the process of "natural selection" is absolutely inevitable.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why so many people simply refuse to pick up a simple book on the topic and actually learn something, before making bold pronouncements about it.

@ecco just disagreed with you. He said science does not believe that mutations happen at random.

You say they do..?

...And you tell me to pick up a book?

 

[Cooky]

It's laughable how cocky people get talking about science. And half the time, they're faking like they know what they're talking about. As if being an Atheist means you're part of the science club, and all others are out.

...It's like how spoiled children act.

 

[Valjean]

BTW: GodDidIt is an actual explanation.

What does "Goddidit" explain? It's an assertion of agency. An explanation addresses mechanism, it addresses how, not who.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

@ecco just disagreed with you. He said science does not believe that mutations happen at random.

You say they do..?

...And you tell me to pick up a book?

Sorry, don't know where to find that disagreement. It's not in this thread...can you point me to it?

 

[Valjean]

It is possible to see evolution in cars also. There is progress in how cars have changed. Is it because of “evolution”, or because people have planned them to be better?

Not evolution in the biological sense.

In biology, evolution depends on reproduction, and variety among offspring. Environmental fit varies among the offspring, with the most successful variants tending to be more reproductively prolific. This increases the incidence of the reproductively beneficial features in the general population.

Cars don't reproduce. They're manufactured, with each product being identical. Evolution by natural selection doesn't apply to manufactured products.