Exactly.
And with that basis, the question is no longer ID or not, it is a question of how.
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And with that basis, the question is no longer ID or not, it is a question of how.
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tonyrey
Guest
So on the one hand there is concession of a scientist working on ID and on the other there is a complete denial that scientists are doing any research at all on the topic.
It seems like you are saying two mutually exclusive things.
Please clarify.
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StAnastasia
Guest
Agreed!
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StAnastasia
Guest
No, I said some “scientists” are pro-ID. I did not say people in favor of ID are necessarily working on it. Many on the Discovery Institute’s list are not biologists, or are retired, or do not actively engage in biology research.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
This thread is moving too fast for me to keep up! :sad_bye:
Then you claim of these people that none are scientists or that one are doing research?
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StAnastasia
Guest
No. I do not claim that none are doing research.
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reggieM
Guest
Yo te saludo con un vaso de castellano viejo vid Tempranillo - por su actitud alegre y culta.You speak the truth!
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reggieM
Guest
True. St. Thomas points out that God does act immediately in nature. God is not bound by nature – God does not act through necessity (based on natural laws) but by His divine Will, which is rational and free. He does work independent of natural causes.
The Deistic notion that god is a law maker who is bound by natural laws is thus refuted.
In his Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei (Disputed Questions on the Power of God) Q. VI article I, Aquinas asks: can God do anything in creatures that is beyond Nature, against Nature, or contrary to the course of Nature? Here is how he responds:
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I answer that, **without any doubt God can work in creatures independently of created causes, just as he works in all created causes, as shown elsewhere: and by working independently of created causes he can produce the same effects and in the same order as he produces them by their means: or even other effects and in a different order: so that he is able to do something contrary to the common and customary course of nature**.
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[1] It remains to show now that **He can act apart from the order implanted by Him in things**.
[2] Indeed, there is an order divinely instituted in things to the effect that lower things are moved through higher ones by God, as we said above. Now, **God can act apart from this order**; for instance, He may Himself produce an effect in lower things, with nothing being done, in this case, by a higher agent. In fact, **there is a difference on this point between an agent that acts by natural necessity and one that acts according to will**; an effect cannot result from one that acts by natural necessity except according to the mode of the active power - so, an agent that has very great power cannot directly produce a small effect, but it produces an effect in proportion to its power. But, in this effect, there is sometimes less power than in the cause, and so, by means of many intermediaries, there finally comes to be a small effect from the highest cause. However, the situation is not the same in the case of an agent working through will. For one who acts through will is able at once to produce without an intermediary any effect that does not exceed its power. For instance, the very perfect artisan can produce any kind of work that the less perfect artisan could make. Now, God operates through will, and not through natural necessity, as we showed above. Therefore, **He can produce immediately, without special causes**, the smaller effects that are produced by lower causes....
[9] Now, if someone says that, since God did implant this order in things, the production in things of an effect independently of its proper causes, and apart from the order established by Him, could not be done without a change in this order, this objection can be refuted by the very nature of things. **For the order imposed on things by God is based on what** **usually** occurs, in most cases, in things, **but not on what is always so**. In fact, many natural causes produce their effects in the same way, but not always.... But the order of providence does not fail, or suffer change, because of such an event. Indeed, the very fact that the natural order, which is based on things that happen in most cases, does fail at times is subject to divine providence. So, if by means of a created power it can happen that the natural order is changed from what is usually so to what occurs rarely - without any change of divine providence - then it is more certain** that divine power can sometimes produce an effect, without prejudice to its providence, apart from the order implanted in natural things by God**. In fact, **He does this at times to manifest His power**. For it can be manifested in no better way, that the whole of nature is subject to the divine will, than by the fact that **sometimes He does something outside the order of nature**. Indeed, this makes it evident that the order of things has proceeded from Him, **not by natural necessity, but by free will**.How could His power be manifest if His actions were not observable?
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buffalo
Guest
Does this mean Adam and Eve could have just been inserted into the timeline wherever God wished regardless of what was happening in the universe?
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grannymh
Guest
Let’s skip the either-or proposition and look at Adam and Eve’s human nature being a single unification of both the material *and *spiritual worldsDoes this mean Adam and Eve could have just been inserted into the timeline wherever God wished regardless of what was happening in the universe?
We need to recognize that Adam and Eve had material anatomies which required nourishment and they had spiritual souls which also required nourishment. From both a scientific view and a philosophical view, the universe had to be ready to provide both. This readiness can be seen in the Garden of Eden, literal or symbolic of its truth, which made possible the nourishment of their souls through God’s presence and the nourishment of their bodies through the fruits of the garden.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Fair enough.
Obviously, Divine Providence that deals with salvation is not Intelligent Design, but the latter can fall under the former.
First of all, evolution cannot produce humans of course. It can produce humanoids, which God made human by infusion of a spiritual soul. So that right there is design. And yes, everything material in the universe, including our bodies, is designed as well, because God designed the laws of nature such that natural causes would produce all the things that He planned in His Divine Providence.
Yet biological ID is different. As I said before, it claims that evolution following the laws of nature cannot be sufficient to create so-called ‘irreducibly complex’ structures. God Himself would have had to step in to create the first bacteria or ‘front-load life with DNA information’ or similar – instead of being able to let it happen by the natural causes that He created and continually sustains.
I have no reason to believe that God tweaks DNA in instances other than those where He performs physical miracles. The most obvious example is the virgin conception of Jesus Christ by Mary, others may be certain healings. These are miracles that He wanted to perform. I believe in a God who performs miracles when He wants to, not when He has to. The latter is the God of biological ID.
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reggieM
Guest
Interesting. And God could have inserted His Word into the timeline – expressed as the irreducible complexity of life itself, or the specified functional information found everywhere in the biosphere.Does this mean Adam and Eve could have just been inserted into the timeline wherever God wished regardless of what was happening in the universe?
Looking again at that remarkable quote from St. Thomas:
God can directly and immediately produce effects in nature – and this does not prejudice His providence for nature.
Here’s a definitive statement. God does this. He intervenes in nature.
Why?
“To manifest His power.”
Amazing. This is what is denied by the false-Thomists who claim that there is no evidence of God’s design in nature.
Really? What false-Thomists?
Well, we could try Mr. Michael W. Tkacz, author of the article Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design published by Catholic Answers. Mr. Tkacz states this:
It’s not surprising. We’ve heard that before. There it is again – a direct contradiction to what St. Thomas really teaches.
We saw that very thing also in the definition of Deism:
From Wikipedia: According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe.
Back to St. Thomas’ teaching:
That should answer 100 ridiculous arguments that pop up on CAF. Notice this,** “God’s power can be manifested in no better way, then by the fact that He sometimes does things outside the order of nature.”**
Incredible – that refutation is so brutal I’m almost feeling sorry for the Christian Darwinists.
Let’s keep thinking about it …
God manifests Himself outside the order of nature – fact.
He does this to show His power.
In fact, there is no better way that He does show His power.
Why?
Clearly, if everything that was observable in nature was “the product of fixed natural laws”, like Darwin and the Deists and the false-Thomists claim, then there would be an extremely limited “manifestation” of God. We’d have Deism – God as the Law Maker alone.
More importantly, natural laws would rule everything – and thus Determinism would be correct.
This is exactly what Evolutionists today claim. Evolutionary psychologists claim that every thought, feeling, aspiration, hope, prayer, accomplishment, love – are all the products of physical forces. Everything is the product of “fixed natural laws”. That’s the triumph of Darwin.
So, we have Christians denying or minimizing miracles. Some are embarrassed to admit that they ever occur. St. Thomas contradicts them – the intervention of God into nature is the very best way God uses to manifest His power.
Without those interventions, people would be inclined to believe that natural laws are absolute. This would lead to despair. There would be no transcending nature at all. Even God would be limited by natural laws. That’s what we see from Darwinian thinking today. When people think that natural laws are fixed and absolute – then they believe that there is no need for God.
The Intelligent Design argument.
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Trevor_Stamm
Guest
It almost sounds like that the direct intervention of tweaking such a process is saying God was not intelligent enough to design the process to do such naturally from the beginning OR that He was restricted in some way to not arrange the intented process to be natural from the beginning. I can see an atheist going to town on that stance, very open for attack.
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reggieM
Guest
That kind of argument comes from mechanism and scientism – which is the worship of natural laws. It’s also an anthropomorphic view of God – as if His actions are not instantaneous and planned from eternity.
A mechanistic view of the universe and life would claim that human beings are not the products of great intelligence because they do not function like machines.
Since nature is a contingent, and therefore imperfect entity, anything that is created by nature shares that imperfection.
Whereas, anything created directly by God more greatly shares His perfection.
That is the glory of the human soul – created directly by God, and thus more perfect than anything created by natural laws.
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grannymh
Guest
Thank you sincerely for this explanation of inference. It is straight to the point.
If I am understanding right, the induction method used within science research leaves open the possibility of two founders of humanity. This is based on one of the dictionary’s definitions for induction. "inference of a generalized conclusion from particular instances. Source: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
Particular instances would be the evidence gathered by the researchers. Obviously, there is an hypothesis. The researchers would choose which evidence supports the hypothesis or in some case’s the researcher’s personal theory. In any case, it should be objective evidence which stands on its own regardless of how it is interpreted.
What follows is complicated but it should be understandable. Suppose the underlying thesis is that Adam and Eve could not have existed. The evidence chosen is a particular gene and its variants or alleles. The researcher looks at the current population, examines the genetic make-up of representatives, and discovers hundreds of alleles of the chosen gene. There are mathematical formulas which can be used to discover how many people would be needed to produce all these variants in today’s populations. . To cut to the chase, the researcher discovers mathematically that there had to be 1,000 to 10,000 original people to account for the multiplication of variants in today’s population. It is a mountain of evidence.
The fly in the soup is the evidence currently gathered. What does current evidence really infer? Obviously, it infers that there is a variety of people living today and that there is a reasonable conclusion that if life continues in today’s pattern, there will be most likely thousands of alleles in future populations.
The real question is how can evidence currently gathered infer what happened millions of years going backwards into the recesses of history. Mathematical formulas can be used but they have to be based on data which is no longer current. Thus assumptions need to be made. Assumptions may be valid or not so valid. Note: in this type of research going backwards, a variety of assumptions are necessary.
Usually assumptions cannot cover every day, every place. Assumptions of the past do not track all environmental changes. Accurate assumptions regarding the actions of two people at an indefinite point of time in an unverified location are impossible without recorded data. Assumptions regarding the evidence can come close but they cannot absolutely exclude every possibility.
In the example of a current particular gene, a reasonable conclusion regarding the current and future status of the gene’s alleles can be inferred. But this inference cannot be expanded backwards to universally exclude the possibility of two founders of humanity. This is because the evidence influenced by necessary assumptions does not warrant an extrapolation which covers all of unrecorded pre-history.
Therefore the possibility of Adam and Eve’s existence remains.
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buffalo
Guest
Genetic entropy shows that information is degrading
Dr. John Sanford “Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome”
…“so it’s kind of a trade secret amongst population geneticists,any well informed population geneticist understands man is degenerating”
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buffalo
Guest
Yup - and why St Thomas and St Augustine would like IDvolution.
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