Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.0

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Thanks for your answer.
What do you think of his point:
“All of this poses a chicken-and-egg problem, where essential enzymes and molecular machines are needed to perform the very task that constructs them.”
How do you think this might have happened then?
 
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Evolution is being touted as fact in secular society. But, it’s a story.

A fact is something like gravity, to which evolution is compared. No one denies gravity is fact. A similar truth is reproduction; God said go forth and multiply, once He created life.

There are theories about what gravity is, involving gravitons at a quantum level and the bending of space-time at the cosmic. Early “theories” involved the idea that objects seek their natural place at the centre of the world. It isn’t actually wrong but rather simplistic. Similarly with evolution; it appears to be like that but it’s illusory and does not fit the data well.
 
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Evolutionary articles of faith:
  • There are viable mechanisms for abiogenesis, which no doubt will be discovered before long, if they have not already been discovered.
  • Such problems as the requirement of dehydration synthesis in the formation of polymers, if at all true, will be resolved with other models of the abiogenetic environment.
  • So what if the RNA World Hypothesis lacks confirming evidence. A correct one will appear and gain acceptance when the evidence is found.
  • Unguided chemical processes explain the origin of the genetic code.
  • There is a workable model for the origin of life, which will become clearer as supporting evidence will be found.
The difference between faith and wishful belief is that faith is grounded in truth. I have faith in science as a way to knowledge of the truth. I foresee that Darwinism and assumptions such as these above will be overturned.
 
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I agree with much of this. I call “yet” the magic word in science. “Oh. . . we don’t have a good working model of consciousness. . . YET.”

However, scientists must base their theories on observable properties-- those of physics, chemistry, etc. ID, unfortunately, doesn’t really offer nearly the same resolution of detail that evolution does. I’m really hard-pressed, to be honest, to see how it meets any of the standards of science: observability, testability, the power of prediction, etc.

Look at any of the problems that evolution explains in terms of natural selection-- for example the blind spot in the eye. Whether evolution is a narrative, and whether this particular narrative is correct or not, I’m not seeing anything even as good as a sensible narrative from ID-- “Goddidit” is particularly unsatisfying for Christian scientists who already believe (or know) that God did it all, and are now taking up the interesting task of figuring out HOW.
 
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ratio1 said:
Thanks for your answer.

What do you think of his point:

“All of this poses a chicken-and-egg problem, where essential enzymes and molecular machines are needed to perform the very task that constructs them.”

How do you think this might have happened then?
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This chicken-and-egg problem is one of the drivers for the RNA world hypothesis. Strings of DNA are not chemically active, and need to be transcribed to proteins in order to have any chemical effect. This is not true of RNA; strings of RNA are chemically active and can perform the function of enzymes. They are called ribozymes – RNA enzymes.

RNA can store information, as does DNA and it can also have chemical activity, like enzymes. Because RNA performs both functions, there is no chicken-and-egg problem.

DNA is better at storing information, so it later replaced RNA in that role. Proteins are better at the specific chemical activities, so they have mostly replaced RNA/ribozymes in that role. RNA still survives in a few places, for instance at the heart of the ribosome (hence that ‘ribo-’ prefix) which is involved in DNA to protein transcription.

rossum
 
Aloysium said:
Evolution is being touted as fact in secular society. But, it’s a story.

A fact is something like gravity, to which evolution is compared. No one denies gravity is fact.
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Both evolution and gravity are facts. Both evolution and gravity have attached theories, which are not facts and which can change.
  • Gravity as fact: Things fall down.
  • Gravity as theory: Things fall down because they follow a minimal energy geodesic in the space-time manifold.
The theory of gravity has changed over time. Newton’s theory replaced Aristotle’s theory. Einstein’s theory replaced Newton’s theory. In turn Einstein’s theory will be replaced by a theory of Quantum Gravity. It is already known that Einstein’s theory fails for very small (Planck length) very massive objects.

The fact of gravity is unchanged through all those various theories.

Evolution is the same. There is the fact of evolution, and there are theories to explain the fact.
  • Evolution as fact: Population genomes change over time.
  • Evolution as theory: Population genomes change over time because of random mutations, natural selection, neutral drift, sexual selection, founder effect etc.
Do population genomes change over time? Of course. Every time something dies, those genes are taken out of the population. Every time a new organism sprouts/hatches/is born then a new set of genes is added to the population. Evolution-as-fact is repeatedly observed.

Currently the Theory of Evolution is the best theory we have. Yes, it can be replaced, but only by a better theory. Just as Newton was replaced by Einstein because Einstein’s theory was better, so any replacement for Evolution will have to be better than the current theory. It will have to explain everything that the current theory explains and either explain things that the current theory does not explain, or else explain them more simply.

As with gravity, changing the theory does not have any effect on the fact of evolution.

A theory explains facts. Changing the theory does not have any impact on the facts. Discovering new facts can have a big impact on the theory though.

rossum
 
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Glark said:
You forgot to mention that evolution is incompatible with Scripture.
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Your interpretation of scripture, and the Church doesn’t agree with you since it allows for the basic concept of evolution as long as it is based on God creating all. This has been posted many times before here and with links to Catholic sources
 
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We didn’t handle it that way. Our children learned about St Nick and how his “spirit” continues today. They continue this with their children.
 
The current evo teaching is that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. That would be what? A monkey or ape of a sort?
 
benjamin1973 said:
First of all, evidence can always be misinterpreted. We are not God, and we are not perfect, either in our observations or our conclusions. All we can do is to observe carefully and to form ideas about our observations.
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Yes, and that is exactly where the issue lies. The very same evidence can be interpreted differently. What is the tie breaker?
 
ratio1:
What happens now, after life has been refined for a couple of billion years, is not necessarily how it all started. The earliest ‘molecules of life’ were simpler than either enzymes and proteins, and it took a long time to get them going.

Aloysium:
Evolution and Gravity are both explanations for observed phenomena. Both fit the observations extremely well. Both are under continuous refinement.
buffalo said:
Yes, and that is exactly where the issue lies. The very same evidence can be interpreted differently. What is the tie breaker?
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Succinct point. For me, the tie breaker lies in the detail. Some contradictory evidence is not susceptible to compromise. The relative positions of the earliest fruit trees and marine animals in the fossil record can be interpreted to indicate that marine animals appeared before fruit trees. It cannot be interpreted to indicate that fruit trees appeared before marine animals.
 
benjamin1973 said:
“Oh. . . we don’t have a good working model of consciousness. . . YET.”
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There won’t be as long as there is a materialistic orientation to the approach.
benjamin1973 said:
I’m really hard-pressed, to be honest, to see how it meets any of the standards of science: observability, testability, the power of prediction, etc.
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Matter boils down to what is observable directly by the senses or by their technological extensions. To understand it, what it is requires an intellect. That same intellect on self reflection reveals that we exist as a unity, one person, comprised of a material and psychological structure that exist within the spiritual reality of the spirit. That spirit is relational in character, involving a perceiver/understander/actor, perceiving/understanding/acting upon the perceived/understood/acted upon other. It is the spiritual reality of love that brings them together as one. The material sciences are not going to reach that sort of understanding, but can tell us about the physical aspects of what is out there, how it is organized by our nervous sysytem to produce experience and how it all fits together in the beingness of every individual thing which can exist as itself or as part of something greater.
 
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Three satellites confirmed the earth is in a special place in the universe. This was repeated each time with more sophisticated instruments. This increases our confidence that it is correct. (observable, repeatable and predictable)
 
Are you now narrowing your definition of evolution? No one argues micro-evolution as you know.
 
buffalo said:
The current evo teaching is that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. That would be what? A monkey or ape of a sort?
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A member of the Hominidae; colloquially an ape. It would have been chimpanzee sized, not have a tail and have the dentition of an ape, not a monkey.

How come you need to ask this question, with your long study of the theory of evolution and its faults?

rossum
 
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