Darwin or Design?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PhilVaz
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Hi Phil, have a blast at the Sun Dome.
I’m a University of South Florida (Tampa campus) boy myself.
Bit of trivia about the Sun Dome: back around 1979 the new place was set to open, and the school held a contest. My friend Ginny David came up with the name SUN DOME, and it’s opening performance was a rock concert by Alice Cooper !!

I kinda miss my old stomping ground at 4202 Fowler Avenue !!
I was a Theatre major…

Jaypeeto4 (aka Jaypeeto3)
 
Voci << I’m curious – if he did read them, what would happen? >>

He would say "That’s not good enough."

…Dr. Miller presented peer-reviewed studies refuting Professor Behe’s claim that the immune system was irreducibly complex. Between 1996 and 2002, various studies confirmed each element of the evolutionary hypothesis explaining the origin of the immune system. (2:31 Miller). In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not “good enough.” (23:19 Behe).

BTW, apparently Behe is completing book # 2. It is titled "The Edge of Evolution" due in 2007.

Phil P
 
Yeah.

If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try, try, try …😛
 
PhilVaz said:
Voci << I’m curious – if he did read them, what would happen? >>

He would say "That’s not good enough."

…Dr. Miller presented peer-reviewed studies refuting Professor Behe’s claim that the immune system was irreducibly complex. Between 1996 and 2002, various studies confirmed each element of the evolutionary hypothesis explaining the origin of the immune system. (2:31 Miller). In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not “good enough.” (23:19 Behe).

BTW, apparently Behe is completing book # 2. It is titled "The Edge of Evolution" due in 2007.

Phil P
Click to expand...
I can present you with fifty eight peer reviewed publications, 10 books, and several chapters on the Eucharist about how “The Eucharist is only symbolic”.

I would say, they’re not good enough.

Behe is standing up for what he sees as a lie, just as you would against a symbolic Eucharist.

To you, your arguments make sense, just as to the protestants THEIR arguments against the Eucharist make sense.

But don’t knock him for sticking to his guns.

Peace and God Bless.
 
PhilVaz said:
I’m thinking of going into the Univ of South Florida library, stacking up about 25 books and 500 papers on the evolution of blood clotting, immune system, bacterial flagellum, and asking Behe in person, "have you read these?" 😃
Click to expand...
Tell me, what essential doctrine of the faith does Intelligent Design challenge such that this is an even remotely apologetic enterprise, this disproving of Behe?

What dogma are Behe and other creationists ignoring when they deny the claim that God created the diversity of the lifeforms we see today by a painfully slow process of death and suffering?

How terribly bad is it if someone says, "Science be damned, I refuse to believe that God looked on a world derived from pain, suffering, and death ‘good.’ "?

I still can’t understand what essential role evolution plays, such that it can inspire such fervor in opposition to those who disbelieve it. Why is the evolutionary worldview worth defending with so forcefully? Why can it not simply be a matter of permissible variation in opinion?

But what I really can’t understand is what, if anything, this topic has to do with Apologetics and this forum 🙂

Jeremy
 
PhilVaz said:
Voci << I’m curious – if he did read them, what would happen? >>

He would say "That’s not good enough."

…Dr. Miller presented peer-reviewed studies refuting Professor Behe’s claim that the immune system was irreducibly complex. Between 1996 and 2002, various studies confirmed each element of the evolutionary hypothesis explaining the origin of the immune system. (2:31 Miller).
Click to expand...
I’m pretty ignorant about all of this. Are you saying that Behe has been proven wrong but refuses to admit it? Or that hypotheses have been advanced, but Behe refuses to accept that they are true? Or what?

It seems there is a big difference between saying “X could have worked this way” and saying “X did work this way”. Which do the books and papers you spoke about claim?
 
jemfinch said:
What dogma are Behe and other creationists ignoring when they deny the claim that God created the diversity of the lifeforms we see today by a painfully slow process of death and suffering?
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that Behe believed that evolution doesn’t acount for only certain life forms (i.e., those he thinks are irreducibly complex), but that evolution can account for the rest. If so, then he does believe that most life forms came about through a “slow process of death and suffering.”

Open to correction…
 
Unfortunately I don’t live close enough to attend this program: I’m sure it would be quite interesting. Regarding Behe’s contention of irreducibly complex machines, the scientific refutations are not as cut and dry as most imagine them to be, although he does need to better address the issues raised.

In any event, the real issue regarding Darwinism - and why it has a relevance in this forum - is the implication that man’s existence is an accident. Most people can understand the challenge this implication has to Christianity.

Darwinism is not evolution, it is the reigning explanation of the mechanism of evolution: natural selection working on random mutations. Although Darwinism does not explicitly define randomness it is generally taught that evolution is undirected (e.g. man is an accident). This is what the battle is really over.

Ender
 
MagicSilence << I can present you with fifty eight peer reviewed publications, 10 books, and several chapters on the Eucharist about how “The Eucharist is only symbolic”. I would say, they’re not good enough. >>

Earth to MagicSilence, come in MagicSilence.

Do you know the difference between a miracle and science?

Do you know the difference between a doctrine of the Church that the Church herself says cannot be tested or detected or falsified by science, and science itself? OK, you do now…

Read Judge Jones decision against I.D. (PDF file)

Everyone else, join me at the other evolution thread while I get warmed up to meet Behe and Wells in person at U.S.F. Sun Dome. 👍 I have already quoted Behe in the other thread and he (1) does not have any problems with natural selection as a Catholic, and (2) does not have any theological problems with macroevolution or common descent. See his chapters in the books Uncommon Dissent and Darwin’s Nemesis both edited by Dembski.

JemFinch << I still can’t understand what essential role evolution plays, such that it can inspire such fervor in opposition to those who disbelieve it. >>

It’s very simple. All Truth is God’s Truth, and Truth Cannot Contradict Truth. Evolution is true, the evidence is in. Truth is important. You know it, I know it, the Pope knows it. 😃

Here are some ways to reconcile that truth with faith:

Theistic Evolution from Wikipedia
Evolution and the Church from Wikipedia

Phil P
 
JemFinch << Tell me, what essential doctrine of the faith does Intelligent Design challenge such that this is an even remotely apologetic enterprise, this disproving of Behe? >>

There is no essential doctrine of the faith that is challenged by the following propositions:

(1) the earth is flat, (2) the earth is young, (3) the earth is hollow, (4) alchemy is credible, (5) geocentrism is credible, (6) any number of pseudoscientific ideas.

List of Pseudoscientific ideas

None of these challenge “doctrines of the faith.” Does this answer your question? The only problem the Church would have with these propositions is that they are not true. Sungenis and Mark notwithstanding. 😃

There is lower-case intelligent design (which I will grant the Church accepts) and upper-case Intelligent Design. Again, read Judge Jones decision against upper-case I.D.

Phil P
 
PhilVaz said:
Evolution is true, the evidence is in.
Click to expand...
As I have said, I don’t know much about this stuff. What is considered Behe’s strongest example of evidence of design, and in what sense has it been proven that natural selection of random mutations is the mechanism that accounts for this example?
 
I don’t accept evolution, I don’t care what the evidence is. I have faith. If they can dismiss God no matter all the evidence for a creator, I can dismiss evolution.

If evolution is true, then hang em up, the Bible is just a fairy tale. No creation, no Adam, no Eve, no fall, no need for a savior.

The only thing worse than people like me who bury their heads in the sand and hold onto faith, are the people who try to hold onto some view of “theistic evolution”, or that we came from a man-chimp ancestor yet somehow that still jives with the Bible (it doesn’t at all). No if we came from a man-chimp ancestor “eat and drink for tomorrow we die”…

I can’t stand the triumphialism evolutionists have. They seem to revel in others despair and lost faith, it’s bizarre why this would please people.
 
Voci << I don’t know much about this stuff. What is considered Behe’s strongest example of evidence of design >>

Probably the bacterial flagellum (there are different types). But all his examples of design and “irreducible complexity” were addressed at the Dover trial.

Voci << and in what sense has it been proven that natural selection of random mutations is the mechanism that accounts for this example >>

The point is Behe accepts common descent, he accepts natural selection, he accepts random mutations. All he has are examples that science and the mechanism of evolution have yet to explain. “Problems with evolution” or things “not explained yet by evolution” is not evidence of design or evidence for creationism. The ID people themselves will tell you “we don’t believe everything was designed” so even they accept evolution and natural causes at some point. Articles attempting to explain the origin of the bacterial flagellum scientifically here

The Flagellum Unspun by Ken Miller
Evolution of the bacterial flagellum by Musgrave
Evolution is Brownian Space by Matzke

Phil P
 
Michael << I don’t accept evolution >>

Why? The Church does.

Michael << I don’t care what the evidence is >>

Why? The Church does.

Michael << I have faith. If they can dismiss God no matter all the evidence for a creator, I can dismiss evolution >>

Who is they? Who is dismissing God? Have you read

Finding Darwin’s God by Ken Miller
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation by Keith Miller (no relation)
Coming to Peace with Science by Darrel Falk
The Language of God by Francis Collins

Michael << If evolution is true, then hang em up, the Bible is just a fairy tale. No creation, no Adam, no Eve, no fall, no need for a savior. >>

Says who? Not the Church. The Church says evolution is true.

Communion and Stewardship (paragraphs 62-70 especially)

Adam, Eve, and the Hominid Fossil Record

Phil P
 
Saint_Michael said:
I don’t accept evolution, I don’t care what the evidence is. I have faith. If they can dismiss God no matter all the evidence for a creator, I can dismiss evolution.
Click to expand...
That’s fine. At least you are willing to admit that you ignore all scientific evidence to hold your position.
If evolution is true, then hang em up, the Bible is just a fairy tale. No creation, no Adam, no Eve, no fall, no need for a savior.
Click to expand...
That’s just bunk. You can ignore the evidence all you want, but that statement is baloney.
The only thing worse than people like me who bury their heads in the sand and hold onto faith, are the people who try to hold onto some view of “theistic evolution”, or that we came from a man-chimp ancestor yet somehow that still jives with the Bible (it doesn’t at all). No if we came from a man-chimp ancestor “eat and drink for tomorrow we die”…
Click to expand...
Then you disagree with the Pope.

From vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

“While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5-4 billion years ago. Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism. Converging evidence from many studies in the physical and biological sciences furnishes mounting support for some theory of evolution to account for the development and diversification of life on earth, while controversy continues over the pace and mechanisms of evolution. While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens. With the development of the human brain, the nature and rate of evolution were permanently altered: with the introduction of the uniquely human factors of consciousness, intentionality, freedom and creativity, biological evolution was recast as social and cultural evolution.”

Peace

Tim
 
Saint_Michael said:
I don’t accept evolution, I don’t care what the evidence is.
Click to expand...
Wow, so if there was a way to utterly PROVE it, you still wouldn’t accept it? (Not that I’m saying it’s proven beyond any doubt at this point)
I have faith. If they can dismiss God no matter all the evidence for a creator, I can dismiss evolution.
Click to expand...
If evolution is true, then hang em up, the Bible is just a fairy tale. No creation, no Adam, no Eve, no fall, no need for a savior.
Click to expand...
They said that about Galileo too, and he ended up being right. The pope even apologized. And… that’s not true at all. Theistic evolution, as espoused by the CATHOLIC CHURCH, states you MUST still have an Adam and Eve, you MUST still have God responsible for the creation of the universe, and you MUST have a fall. No incompatibility there.
The only thing worse than people like me who bury their heads in the sand and hold onto faith, are the people who try to hold onto some view of “theistic evolution”, or that we came from a man-chimp ancestor yet somehow that still jives with the Bible (it doesn’t at all). No if we came from a man-chimp ancestor “eat and drink for tomorrow we die”…
Click to expand...
I can’t stand the triumphialism evolutionists have. They seem to revel in others despair and lost faith, it’s bizarre why this would please people.
Click to expand...
I don’t revel in other people’s dispair and lost faith, ever. I revel in knowing that this actually helps prove Catholicism true, since it can handle such a theory as a religion and many, if not most, Protestant denominations can’t. It utterly reinforces my faith. And in any case, both John Paul II AND Benedict XVI have ruled that it’s compatible, although they won’t rule on whether it is definitive. Are you going to deny the very word of the Church on the matter?
 
PhilVaz said:
Says who? Not the Church. The Church says evolution is true.

Phil P
Click to expand...
The Church does not, it leaves open the possibility of God using evolution to bring mans physical body into the picture, but in no way does it say evolution is true, that’s misspeaking for the Church.

Anyone who believes in evolution and the Bible are deluding themselves, they are mutally exclusive, one negates the other.
 
Rolltide << Wow, so if there was a way to utterly PROVE it, you still wouldn’t accept it? (Not that I’m saying it’s proven beyond any doubt at this point) >>

BTW, No scientific theory is ever proved. NONE. Not the theory of gravity, not electromagnetism, not germ theory of disease, not atomic theory, not cell theory, not the theory of evolution. NONE. No theory is ever proved.

What science has and works with is evidence. And the evidence for macroevolution (or universal “common descent”) is indeed overwhelming, which is why I accept it, which is why the Church accepts it (the ITC statement quoted above). And a few others in here, like Orogeny (Tim the geologist), accept it. 😃

Pope Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this:

“All of this is well and good, one might say, but is it not ultimately disproved by our scientific knowledge of how the human being evolved from the animal kingdom? Now, more reflective spirits have long been aware that there is no either-or here. We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the ‘project’ of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary – rather than mutually exclusive – realities.” (In the Beginning… Ratzinger’s commentary on Genesis)

The Pope on Genesis

Hate to quote the same things over and over. Just search for and see our previous 4.5 billion creation-evolution threads in here since May 2004. But there are always new people who haven’t seen this stuff yet. :rolleyes:

My evidence for evolution summary again

Phil P
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top