Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.0

[Glark]

No scientist has ever argued that evolution is true because God does not exist.

Many scientists believe evolution is true because they see no other plausible explanation for how life got here. But refusing to consider divine creation, they efffectively paint themselves into the corner of evolution.

 

[Glark]

Your view of catholic theology is not just different to mine it is different to the church.

Your idea of the what the Catholic Church is might be different to mine.

 

[Glark]

Thanks for sharing; you are far braver than me.

There is no bravery involved. It’s my duty as a Christian to relate my experiences, as it gets people thinking about the reality of God. It’s a form of evangeliziation, I guess. But it’s amazing how many people doubt what I say; they try and explain it away with all manner of lame theories. Some people (ie, atheists) actually get very angry and call me insane! Well, let them think I’m crazy; I don’t care. I’m willing to be a fool for Christ.

But I figure it’s really not me that they’re angry with; it’s the evidence of God’s existence that they can’t cop. They wouldn’t admit it, but deep down, such stories probably scare them, or at least make them feel very insecure.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Educate me.

Right, here goes.

Your summary of the discussion went as follows:

“Everything came from no thing. (god of BUC)
Everything came from something, (God)”

In this, you articulate what you feel are the most important differences between Evolution and Creationism, and declare that they are incompatible.

1. Evolution. That the Universe originated from absolutely nothing (“no thing”), and proceeds entirely at random (“BUC = blind unguided chance).
2. Creationism. That the Universe originated from the creative character of God, and proceeds along lines directed by him.

I hope I’ve characterised your argument correctly, but do correct me if I’m wrong.

Now, if you’ll forgive me, I claim that you have misrepresented Evolution, and invented a dichotomy between “BUC” and “God” which doesn’t exist. The Universe did not originate from nothing, and does not proceed entirely at random. No evolutionist thinks they did, although the concept of randomness is a useful shorthand during observational and experimental studies.

Part One. The Origin of the Universe and Abiogenesis
The origin of the Universe seems a little off topic, but is fundamental to the question. Setting aside, for the sake of brevity, various multi-universe hypotheses, the atheistic assumption is that there is something the nature of ‘nothing’ that makes the origin of ‘something’ either inevitable or at least possible. This, however, as IWantGod has been discussing in the Necessary Reality thread, is inconsistent. If ‘nothing’ has ‘something about it’, even if that ‘something’ is entirely non-material, then it is not really nothing.

What’s more, the ‘something’ in the non-material ‘nothing’ that results in a Universe which humans can appreciate, is extremely specific. It is characterised by fundamental constants without which galaxies couldn’t form, let alone the earth, or the conditions within which life could originate. There is much discussion, even in atheistic circles, about the reason the universe has the structure that it does.

[continued]

 

[buffalo]

Then Adam did not look as God planned. Hmmmmmmmm

 

[buffalo]

Evolution has foresight?

It is guided?

And not by chance?

 

[Glark]

I too have had supernatural experiences…human reason can’t understand it.

O lucky man! What form did they take?

 

[Hugh_Farey]

[continued]

The rules which we derive from our observation of the universe appear to have directed it along lines which resulted in circumstances within which life could originate. Somewhere above, there is a comment about leaving parts of a bicycle in a pond, and the impossibility of an actual bicycle emerging. A major flaw in that metaphor is the absence of any kind of energy to assist their self assembly. Gently tumbling the parts - provided they could fit together, and form stable bonds having done so - could indeed, given enough time, self-assemble a bicycle. Indeed, it might be inevitable. Dozens of repeated experiments have shown that organic molecules self-assemble from an appropriate melange of simple minerals, and although it is true that we have not yet witnessed the self-assembly of anything we could call an independent living organsm, I’m certain that given a whole world of warm watery places and a couple of million years, such an organism is not only possible, but inevitable. As I have said before, given enough tries, throwing ten sixes in a row is not unlikely, it is inevitable. But only provided the initial conditions provide those opportunities. This is where I see the hand of God, not in the self assembly itself, but in the provision of the initial conditions.

Part Two. Evolution.
Having established an initial self-replicating organism, we then want to account for its diversification into all the living things we see around us today. The divinely ordained laws of the universe proceed along their inescapable paths, such that the conditions under which the original life form self-assembled are no longer optimal for replication. A change to its phenotype or behaviour is initiated, so that it becomes optimal again. In practice, ‘random’ changes to its DNA are caused by ‘random’ cosmic radiation, but again, both the initial DNA and the source, type, intensity and other factors of the radiation are all derived from the original ‘laws of nature’ - the ‘something’ which characterises the ‘nothing’ from which the universe originally began.

If God immediately directed Evolution, he could alter a bit of DNA exactly as required, but it seems that he doesn’t do this. Imagine a row of skittles, of which we want one particular one to fall over. One way of doing so would be to go up to the row and push over the one required. Another would be to set up dozens of rows, and toss tennis balls at them ‘at random’ until at least one row achieved the desired formation. Given the observations and experiments which have been carried out into evolution so far, it looks very much as if God has chosen the second way.

[continued]

 

[Hugh_Farey]

[continued]

So far, so good, but it has left many people thinking that God has thus been reduced to the bloke who set it all going, and then wandered off to have a cup of tea for the next trillion years. This is a mistake. However the progress of the universe was initiated, there is no logical reason why it should continue to behave according to its principles. There is no reason why it should not cease to exist, or suddenly reformat itself into a different configuration. As I think Aloysium will understand, every moment of the universe is itself a creation, or the sustenance of one, which is not necessarily demanded by the initial conditions. The succession of ‘states of the universe’ which we call time, is a succession of creative acts in which God is intimately, and immediately, involved.

Well, that’s what I think. I don’t think it contradicts either the word of the spirit of any Catholic teaching, but I could be wrong. However, if buffalo, Glark, edwest211 or any of the other ardent anti-evolutionists want to criticise evolution, perhaps they’d like to criticise something I’ve said, rather than something they’ve made up themselves.

[Finished!]

 

[buffalo]

Rolling six in a row is easy compared to vast search space evolution has to operate in. It is well below the UPB.

OOL has to overcome homochirality which makes the odds much much worse if not impossible.

Is your claim the energy is front loaded with instructions?

You have not established anything about the first self replicator. You are simply fantasizing. You missed some very big steps to get to DNA. Show me the proven pathways.

After that show me the proven pathways to protein folding.

Show me the proven pathway to the ATP synthase motor.

You will note my science and reference links are not made up. I mostly use main stream science articles and papers.

 

[Techno2000]

They wouldn’t admit it, but deep down, such stories probably scare them, or at least make them feel very insecure.

I love these kinds of stories… can you tell it please .

 

[Techno2000]

Techno2000:

I too have had supernatural experiences…human reason can’t understand it.

O lucky man! What form did they take?

It was my conversion story when I was a young man.

 

[Glark]

Yup, all myths. The names and ages of the patriarchs are invented

How do you reconcile your belief that Adam, Moses, Jonah and Noah and the Flood, are all mythical, with Jesus’ belief that Adam, Moses, Jonah and Noah and the Flood were all real?

and there was no global flood in which all terrestrial animals and people died except those in the ark

The Biblical account of the Flood contains some very precise chronological details; for example:
“And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made …
And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried” - Genesis 8.

Such precise details are not at all typical of mythical accounts, rather, they are very obvious indicators that it’s literal history that’s being descrbed. In fact, these details seem to serve no other purpose than to make it clear the reader that it is an account of real, literal history.

Very little of what I read anywhere is historical fact, but I read it because it is useful, thought-provoking or entertaining.

Which Church teaching and which of the Church Fathers supports your bemusing (but oh so typically Darwinist) claim that “the historical books” are, in fact, “the mythical books”?

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sounding teaching, but having itching ears they accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2Tim 4:2-4).

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Rolling six in a row is easy compared to vast search space evolution has to operate in. It is well below the UPB.

UPB? |I had to look it up. A creationist construct specially created by a creationist in order to support creationism. It actually defined the word “possible” as “impossible”. Clever!

OOL has to overcome homochirality which makes the odds much much worse if not impossible.

OOL? I guessed that! Worse, yes. Impossible, no.

Is your claim the energy is front loaded with instructions?

Of course. Energy follows very precise and predictable paths which have not changed since energy first existed.

You have not established anything about the first self replicator.

I didn’t know I had to. I was addressing a particular comment of your own. Are you wanting to ask a supplementary question?

You are simply fantasizing.

Really? While creationism is rigorously logical, empirical and deductively proved? Interesting.

You missed some very big steps to get to DNA.

You bet I did. And how dinosaurs evolved into birds, and how hominids evolved from earlier primates, and the evolution of the amniotic egg. One or two other things too, now I come to think of it. Maybe I’ll write a book.

Show me the proven pathways.
After that show me the proven pathways to protein folding.
Show me the proven pathway to the ATP synthase motor.

Oh, dearie me. You’re not a scientist, are you? Scientists don’t do ‘proof’; that’s for mathematicians. Scientists reach a consensus based on observation and experiment. They ‘demonstrate’ things; they do not ‘prove’ them. “Aha”, I hear you say, “So demonstrate to me the pathway to” whatever. Well, no. It takes too long. Try reading something like “Evolution of the F0F1 ATP Synthase Complex in Light of the Patchy Distribution of Different Bioenergetic Pathways across Prokaryotes” if you are genuinely interested…

You will note my science and reference links are not made up. I mostly use main stream science articles and papers.

Oh, good.

 

[Glark]

Calling nearly all biologists fools is misguided, in my opinion.

I wasn’t referring to biologists, but to those “fifth-columnist” Christian writers who publish modernist garbage that undermines the faith and the authority of Scripture. Some of these fools are deluded enough to refer to themselves as “theologians”. Wait let me guess … you’ve never noticed them.

You’re surely not going to claim that ‘every form of Christianity’ claims that the historical books are literally true in all respects?

I can’t think of any Christian denomination that doesn’t consider “the historical books” to be anything other than literal history. Can you?

That’s not why they are termed ‘historical’.

Hey, this is a long shot, but Is it possible “the historical books” are thus called because they are believed to be, er, actual history?

If you claim that the first seventeen books of the bible are all clearly literal history (or at least historical in style), then I only have to find one to disprove your premise. You, however, have the very difficult job of defending them all, which I see you haven’t. Why do you now start at Joshua?

What, in your opinion, is mythical about the book of Joshua?

You have abandoned the pentateuch as ‘clearly literally history

I don’t recall abandoning the Pentateuch as historical.

 

[Glark]

The paucity of the creationist argument is well illustrated by the desperate attempts to show that some of the foremost investigators in the field (Gould, Williams, Lewontin, Haldane, etc.) secretly did not believe in evolution

Who on this thread has proposed such a thing?

Actually, I find no necessary logical contradiction in people who take the bible to be literal, word-for-word, truth from end to end. If they had the courage of their convictions, I think Techno2000, edwest2111 and glark would fall into this group if they were not desperately trying to defend their view to themselves by dabbling in science.

I’ve never heard of any Christian who thinks the entire Bible is to be read literally. Some Scriptures are obviously symbolic or allegorical.

Unfortunately, even the most die-hard fundamentalist tends to weaken under pressure

What is a “fundamentalist”? The Church teach the faithful may believe in a literal “six days” interpretation of Genesis - is this a “fundamentalist” teaching?

even the most die-hard fundamentalist tends to weaken under pressure

I don’t know about that. Experience has shown that attempts to “re-train” literal-creationist types in concentration camps have been dismal failures.

How do they decide what’s literal and what’s not … ?

What criteria do you use to decide what’s literal and what’s not? Science?

Fortunately for the confused Catholic, the Catholic Church does not think much of … any literal interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures.

Huh? I was under the impression that the Church teaches that Jesus literally rose from the dead and that He literally walked on water.

 

[Glark]

Why have you bothered to quote Pope Francis? He obviously belives in microbe-man evolution, but so what? Is he infallible in matters of science? Nope - in fact, he could be dead wrong about evolution.

By the way, what do you think he means when says “God Is not … a magician” who doesn’t have “an all-powerful magic wand”?

 

[buffalo]

Could not resist attacking the source and not the concept? Typical.

UPB is a reasonable and logical way to understand possibilities for events.

While not impossible the lower the odds the more remote the likelihood. The UPB is set beyond all the possible planck time events since the beginning of time billions of years ago.

Events that are beyond 10^150 fall into the design area.

“This now tells how precise the Creator’s aim must have been, namely to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the 10123rd power. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full in the ordinary denary notation: it would be 1 followed by 10123 successive 0’s.” Even if we were to write a 0 on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe- and we could throw in all the other particles for good measure- we would fall far short of writing down the figure needed.1

Roger Penrose - English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science
1 (References: Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind, 1989; Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny, The New York: The Free Press, 1998, p. 9)

We can also apply this to the odds of OT prophecy being fulfilled by one man, namely Jesus.

Fine tuning is another area where the odds get well over the UPB. Why do you think the multiverse was though up? To overcome this probably bound.

You - Energy follows … and has not changed… - prove this one

You assume just like all evos it had to happen - the first replicator.

Yes, ID follows logic and deduction. Evolution is abductive reasoning.

I look forward to the book detailing these evolutionary proven pathways. (no speculation allowed)

Show me the experiments to support your claims.

26 independent origins? This is the same issue as convergent evolution. If the same features show up many times, it is not by evolution, it is directed.

We do science by consensus? Oh my. How weak is that?

Empirical science is observable, repeatable and predictable. Evolutionism is not empirical, it is philosophy.

 

[Glark]

Scientists reach a consensus based on observation and experiment.

How has the theory that all life on earth evolved from microbes been verified by observation and experiment?

 

[Hugh_Farey]

How do you reconcile your belief that Adam, Moses, Jonah and Noah and the Flood, are all mythical, with Jesus’ belief that Adam, Moses, Jonah and Noah and the Flood were all real?

Jesus was talking to the people of his day, using illustrations they would clearly understand. Many teachers do the same today, using illustrations from Shakespeare or George Orwell or similar to clarify their points.

The Biblical account of the Flood contains some very precise chronological details … [examples] … Such precise details are not at all typical of mythical accounts, rather, they are very obvious indicators that it’s literal history that’s being descrbed. In fact, these details seem to serve no other purpose than to make it clear the reader that it is an account of real, literal history.

I disagree. Many myths - the Iliad, for example, or the Morte D’Arthur - are full of very precise details, with the express purpose of giving verisimilitude and immediacy to stories whose factual origins were almost entirely lost.

Which Church teaching and which of the Church Fathers supports your bemusing (but oh so typically Darwinist) claim that “the historical books” are, in fact, “the mythical books”?

CCC 110.

I wasn’t referring to biologists, but to those “fifth-columnist” Christian writers who publish modernist Wait let me guess … you’ve never noticed them.

'Fraid not. Can you name one? I’ll read what he has to say.

I can’t think of any Christian denomination that doesn’t consider “the historical books” to be anything other than literal history. Can you?

Yes. (see below)

Hey, this is a long shot, but Is it possible “the historical books” are thus called because they are believed to be, er, actual history?

No. It is to distinguish their style of writing from poetry, laws, prophesy, etc.

What, in your opinion, is mythical about the book of Joshua?

The crossing of the Jordan.

You have abandoned the pentateuch as ‘clearly literally history
I don’t recall abandoning the Pentateuch as historical.

No? You announced in one post that all “The first seventeen books of the Old Testament - from Genesis to Esther - are clearly accounts of real, literal history”, but in support of your statement, a little later said, “Even Wikipedia describes Joshua to 2Maccabees as ‘the historical books’.” By selecting Wikipedia as your witness, you concede that Wikipedia does not consider the Pentateuch to be “historical”? No?

Oh, goodness. Your posts are pouring in faster than I can reply to them. I’ll start again a bit later.