N
- Status
R
rossum
Guest
- Any animal which evolved a brain which predisposed the animal to commit suicide would shortly afterwards go extinct. If you remove all the brains predisposed to die then you are left with the brains that are either neutral or are predisposed to desire life. In the long term those who desire life will put more effort into staying alive than those who are merely neutral. More effort will in general mean a longer life and hence more reproductive success. Greater reproductive success will in time determine the makeup of the population.
- What do you mean by “desire” when you are talking about something like a jellyfish, which has no brain or a tree, which has no nervous system. The struggle to live is built into living organisms at a very low level, below that of a functioning brain or nervous system.
R
rossum
Guest
False dichotomy. Science always allows the answer “we don’t know yet”, so there are at least three options. You need to provide positive evidence for ID if it is to be preferred to evolution or to “we don’t know yet”.
You also fail to provide a mechanism for the origin of the Intelligent Designer. You have no account of the origin of life.
False dichotomy, which is easy to see if I reverse it:
- *]There are only two options, young earth creationism or evolution.
*]Young earth creationism cannot account for the measured age of the universe and of earth.
*]Therefore evolution is correct.
rossum
F
freesoulhope
Guest
Yes evolution is correct, because the biblical creationist six day account does not fit the facts; and evolution is the most logical account we have availible; there is no other account except for maybe, aliens( which i dont think anyone takes seriously).
However the mechanism proposed by evolutionist does not in my eyes explain the desire to live in low level organism. The desire to live does not seem to be a product of evolution and natural selection, neither is it demonstrated as such; it is a product of something else.
F
freesoulhope
Guest
R
rossum
Guest
Argument from personal incredulity - “the resurrection did not happen because I can’t believe it did”.
The “desire to live” is built into every organism’s DNA by the process of natural selection.
rossum
F
freesoulhope
Guest
Explain how the process of natural selection does this?
F
freesoulhope
Guest
If God is real and Jesus Christ is God, then it stands to reason that he can rise from the dead considering that God created the world; its a matter of faith whether or not people believe he exists.
With natural selection on the other hand, there is no ifs, buts, or maybe’s; and since science does not work on faith, it can either show, scientifically/emprically, how the natural processes have created the desire to live, or it can not. If it cannot, then there is another process involved that is implemented independent of evolution.
Since there are no other natural process’s that can logically account for it, the number one theory is the ID theory; and the only reason it is not excepted as a theory, is because the scientific establisment is prejudice of any explanation that does not explain things purely through natural process’s alone; It is to have a presumption that we live in a purely material world that can be explain purley by material laws. If this is the case, then you should be able to explain.
Just one more thing; I do not mean to say that natural selection doesn’t happen; because it obviously does. But it cannot account for why organisms have a desire to live and would seek to protect itself.
Natural selection only explains why some organisms live and others die out.
Peace.
R
rossum
Guest
You have not clarified what you mean by “desire” in the context of a jellyfish, a sponge or a tree - none of which have a brain.
Any organism whose DNA caused them to act as if they did not have a desire to live - moving towards dangerous predators or not eating available food for instance - would not have many offspring and that genetic line would tend to go extinct.
Any organism whose DNA caused it to act as if was indifferent whether it lived or died - sometimes moving towards predators sometimes away, sometimes eating available food sometimes not - would have offspring, but not as many as an organism whose DNA caused it to act as if if had a desire to live - always moving away from dangerous predators and always eating available food. Over time the additional offspring produced by organisms with the third type of DNA would predominate. This would result is a population of organisms which acted as if they had a desire to live - always moving away from dangerous predators and always eating available food. Those organisms might be sponges or jellyfish but they will all act as if they desired to live even without possessing a brain.
rossum
R
rossum
Guest
Pease give a scientific definition of “the desire to live”. Without such a scientific definition we cannot answer your question. You cannot tell me how ID accounts for flurglenatz if I do not first explain what flurglenatz actually is in enough detail for you to answer the question.
How do you know this? Have you studied all possible natural processes? Are you so sure that no new natural processes will be discovered by scientists in the future? Show your evidence for this assertion please.
ID is not a scientific theory. It makes no testable predictions. It does not propose any testable mechanism for the Intelligent Designer to actually arrange DNA molecules in the correct pattern. ID is a political wheeze that tries to get creationism into the school science syllabus by reducing God to the Intelligent Designer - God-lite.
You are mistaking philosophical naturalism for methodological naturalism. The former says “the material is all that there is”, the latter says “science can only deal with the material - anything else is not science”. ID attempts to introduce the immaterial - something other than matter or energy - into science. This requires a change to the agreed boundaries of science. Professor Behe agreed at the Dover trial that such a change in the boundaries would allow astrology to count as science:Q [Rothschild] And using your definition, intelligent design is a scientific theory, correct?
A [Behe] Yes.
Q Under that same definition astrology is a scientific theory under your definition, correct?
A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that – which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and many other – many other theories as well.
Source: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District - Day 11 (October 18), PM Session, Part 1
ID is a perfectly possible area of study, but it is outside the currently established boundaries of science. There is a great deal of legitimate work done outside the boundaries of science: philosophy, theology, politics, literary criticism and so forth. None of those are appropriate for High School science classes and neither is ID. If you want ID taught in schools then the best place for it is either religion or politics classes since it is far more religion and politics than it is science.
In another post I have described how natural selection can account for organisms behaving as if they had a desire to live, moving away from predators etc. If this is not what you mean by “desire to live” then you will have to define what you mean more exactly.
rossum
F
freesoulhope
Guest
No you have not. You have explained that, an organism that acts as if it has a desire to live will live longer then one that does not; this does not explain why a living organism (which is blind to any conception of its existence) would act in away that is beneficial to its continuing existence; such as procreating or developing weapons to protect it self or attack other organism.
An organism comes in to existence; it has no brain or desire to live; yet it strives to live and maintains its existence by consuming other organisms or energy sources. If there is no “desire” then there is no conceptual compulsion to preserve its self even though it acts to do so; okay, it isn’t desire because they have no brains. Lets move on to the next possibility; “natural selection”. Brilliant theory for explaining why one type of organism is more likely to survive then any other, but it doesn’t explain why any non-conceptual organism would act to preserve them selves let alone develop biological weapons in anticipation of a predator.
Secondly, there are building blocks in DNA that do not carry information, yet they act in away that would suggest to me that they are carrying out a particular command; how do you explain this? (I don’t know the specific names or the building blocks; all I know is that they exist).
Maybe you got a point about it not be science, ( that is if it doesn’t meet the criteria of populor science) but natural selection does not explain the actions of any particulor organism, neither do i think that the life we see has come about by a billion unlikly chances.
Peace
C
Contarini
Guest
No, it does not.
One of the many points where opponents of ID are frequently hypocritical is in the (accurate) accusation that proponents of ID are making an allegedly religion-neutral claim actuated by a religious agenda. This is hypocritical because it ignores the many atheists who link Darwinism to *their *agenda. In both case the question of scientifically ascertainable causality (do living organisms who evidence of having been designed, or can their complexity be explained through the mechanisms of natural selection?) is independent of the religious/ideological agenda of those taking one side or another. It is just as fair for Behe to propose ID as a scientific theory to be taught in school as it is for Richard Dawkins to propose Darwinism as a scientific theory to be taught in school.
By this logic, the only people who have any right to advocate for the subject one way or the other are religious Darwinists whose scientific views have no effect on their theology (religious Darwinists whose religion is impacted by Darwinism would also be excluded)!
Edwin
N
Nullasalus
Guest
I think I agree here. Though mostly on the philosophical end of things; I’m fine with, even encouraging of evolution being taught in school and such, but if science cannot comment on whether these natural laws or processes indicate a creator in the ultimate sense, it also can’t comment on the lack of one. Teach it with such in mind.
The problem I have with some of the opposition to ID is the desire to have it both ways - “you can’t make any falsifiable claims about a creator’s involvement in natural processes” and “science has shown that there’s no need for any intelligent agent”. Both concepts cannot hold at once, and I’d just as soon maintain the teaching of science on the science alone, rather than getting into philosophical commentary. If nothing else, ID serves to illustrate that such commentary can come from the other side too - science can be a heckuva boon to theistic discussion.
R
ribozyme
Guest
In case you didn’t know, I am now disgusted by evolutionary biology. I used to enjoy reading about evolution, but it destroyed my vision of human solidarity.
This article: geocities.com/race_articles/lynn_race_evol.html makes me feel rather dejected. Racial disparities in cognitive ability are consistent with the notion of atheistic evolution. I do not see how God could allow such inequality to remain in his creation.
I wonder how do people reconcile evolution with teleology
N
Nullasalus
Guest
That’s a shame - I hope you aren’t soured on science as a whole, you seemed to love it.
Though I’d disagree with what you believe is consistent. As for reconciling evolution with teleology, for me it’s easy; I see improvement as built into the universe. Not just for the universe as a whole, but for individuals in particular (humans especially). We don’t need to evolve wings to fly, wheels to drive, etc. That which ails us can be cured, that which we lack we can have. That someone can be born flawed doesn’t bother me, especially when prospects more and more show that we can overcome those flaws.
R
ribozyme
Guest
I don’t know a magical nostrum that can transform an ordinary person into a theoretical physicist. I wonder when will that be cured?
R
rossum
Guest
For an organism without a brain its actions are determined very much by instinct. For such an organism much of the instinct is coded into its DNA. Spiders’ webs are a good example of instinctive behaviour built into DNA: by the time the young spider hatches its parents are either dead or far away yet it can build the web typical of its species without having seen its parents’ webs.
Since DNA determines instinctive behaviour we will end up with organisms whose instinctive behavious is to flee predators and to eat food. You seem to agree that the contrary behaviours will result in less offspring on average and hence fewer copies of the less advantageous DNA in the next generation.
Instinctive behaviours are built into its DNA by many generations of natural selection. Every single one of that organism’s ancestors succeeded in reproducing, all that way back to the origin of life 3.5 billion years ago. Every single ancestor. The organism’s DNA is at the end of a long line of successful DNAs. Any DNA that failed to reproduce is not represented in the current generation since it had no descendants. Every organism is a product of a long line of winners - and only of winners. No losers are included. That is why the organism acts as if it has the “desire to live”.
I am not sure what you are saying here - do you limit the “desire to live” to animals with a reasonably advanced brain?
Inherited instinctive behaviours are subject to natural selection. Any inherited instinctive behaviour that gets through the ruthless filtering of natural selection - only winners with no losers allowed - will tend to make the organism better at surviving and better at propagating its genes into the next generation. That is the definition of winning, propagating your genes into the next generation.
I am afraid you will have to be more specific. “Building block” could mean base-pair, exon, intron, gene, non-coding DNA or chromosome.
I have already given the example of spiders’ webs. Natural selection can easily explain the actions of web building spiders - if their webs did not catch flies then the spiders would starve to death. Only spiders whose webs catch flies efficiently will have offspring in the next generation and those offspring will tend to build very similar webs to their parents. Only the winners get to contribute to the next generation.
Your personal opinion does not constitute scientific evidence.
rossum
R
rossum
Guest
C
cor
Guest
I think if one were to believe in evolution as an exhaustive explanation for the rise of the human species than one would reconcile it with teleology by saying that the form of the universe/multiverse and the fundamental laws governing it were established by God in such a way that the human species and also other things he designed would come into being.
But evolution is not a comprehensive explanation for the rise of the human species. Imagine the human species as it exists today but without any human being conscious, without any human having mental properties or mental experiences. The species would be just as fit for survival per natural selection since the functional behavior of the species and its members hasn’t at all changed. But ontologically the species is different; it consists of zombies instead of sentient beings. This demonstrates that the mechanisms of evolution can’t account for the rise of sentience (in animals and humans).
On the subject of “equality”, let me quote from Dr. Peter Kreeft. This may help you get rid of some of your presuppositions:
*2. Will we all be equal in heaven?
By God’s grace, no! How awful that would be — almost as awful as knowing everything. Having no heroes,(9) being unable to look up to anyone, would be Hell, not Heaven.
We modern egalitarians are tempted to the primal sin of pride in the opposite way from the ancients. The old, aristocratic form of pride was the desire to be better than others. The new, democratic form is the desire not to have anyone better than yourself. (10) It is just as spiritually deadly and does not even carry with it the false pleasure of gloating superiority. Flat, boring, repetitive sameness is simply not the structure of reality in a theistic universe, (11) either on earth or in Heaven. However, in Heaven, as on earth, each of us will be or do something no one else will be or do as well. No one will be superfluous. . .
Justice does not mean equality. In a poem, in the universe, in mathematics, in architecture — everywhere there is natural justice, justice means inequality, yin and yang, male and female, higher and lower, East and West, light and darkness, land and water. No flat, dull repetition but uniqueness. In human relationships too, justice does not mean equality, but treating equals equally and unequals unequally.(17) Is it just to treat a pig like a man? If so, it is also just to treat a man like a pig. One of the astonishing blind spots of modernity is its unquestioning fixation on equality.
Of course there are degrees of perfection in Heaven; it is quite the divine style. . . .*
catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0462.html
N
Nullasalus
Guest
You were talking about genetic inequalities - I think we have great reason to believe that we can overcome such, even people who may be born with given ailments. If you’re talking specifically about intelligence, I think it’s clear people can learn and become smarter; if there’s an inequality due to a genetic issue at birth, we have no reason to believe there aren’t or won’t be ways around such.
I look forward to the eternal ascent - I try to take part in it in this life. But, cor did a good job of explaining the attitude; why lament inequality when everyone can change?
- Status