Sorry Evolution Again

[Dark_Warrior]

But biology does not suppose that there is no God. If you take your points from atheists who want science to support them, you’ll be continuously misled.

That’s the way ID/creationists present it, for the obvious reasons. If you accept their description of science, you’ll never learn what it’s really about.

Notice that the biologists here have repeatedly pointed out that science does not claim it’s all one big accident, and that science does not suppose that there is no God.

If you want to learn about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro to explain it to you.

Then please, help me to understand Barbarian, tell me or point me to a good book regarding this cause I’m so confused right now.

P.S. What do you have to say about those quotes I gave? Doesn’t that give the impression life is an acciedent?

 

[The_Barbarian]

"Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us." (Biology: Discovering Life, by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st edition, D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; emphasis in original)

You may be surprised to know that was removed from later editions, one of several errors in the book. All textbooks have errors.

Certainly evolution, like any other natural process, is uncaring and unknowing. But God is neither. Even the great biologist George Gaylord Simpson, an unbeliever, openly admitted that science could make no such claims.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

Dark Warrior;4503989:

Evolution is not random. It is blind in that there is no purpose or design. Evolution goes where ever it goes according to natural selection.

Don’t you think God could have made it that way?.

Now i’m confused, evolution has no purpose or design and that’s how God used it? He had no purpose in designing us??

 

[Dark_Warrior]

"Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us." (Biology: Discovering Life, by Joseph S. Levine & Kenneth R. Miller (1st edition, D.C. Heath and Co., 1992), pg. 152; emphasis in original)

You may be surprised to know that was removed from later editions, one of several errors in the book. All textbooks have errors.

Certainly evolution, like any other natural process, is uncaring and unknowing. But God is neither. Even the great biologist George Gaylord Simpson, an unbeliever, openly admitted that science could make no such claims.

Then please teach me, i want to learn, seriously.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian regarding science’s inability to comment on the supernatural:
Many of us have tried to tell you this.

Huh?

Science can’t even comment on the supernatural. Fortunately, scientists can. But they can’t use science to do it for them.

So you admit your conclusions are biased by your worldview?

Sorry, I don’t buy the claim that humans are incapable of objectivity. You can do it, if you try.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

If you want to learn about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro to explain it to you.

Where in the world did this come from?

 

[Dark_Warrior]

If you want to learn about capitalism, it’s probably not a good idea to ask Fidel Castro to explain it to you.

Where in the world did this come from?

Nevermind, I get it now, lol. But could you lend a hand in teaching me what science is all about then?

 

[The_Barbarian]

Then please, help me to understand Barbarian, tell me or point me to a good book regarding this cause I’m so confused right now.

Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller (a devout Catholic, BTW) Here’s an excerpt from a review of the book:

**In the two final chapters Miller discusses the interesting observation that these writers, Creationists and Evolutionists alike, have a basic assumption in common. They all agree that evolution and religion can’t both be true. He makes a cogent case that this position is illogical, whether it comes from Creationist Christians or atheist materialist scientists. The theory of Evolution is not about religion and the Book of Genesis is not about science.

And if you can find a copy of the 1872 edition of The Origin of Species, you will find this as the last sentence of the book:

**There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. **

Not bad. Not bad at all.
What kind of God can an evolutionary biologist believe in? A God who created the universe. Miller ends the book with a passage from the closing chapter of Darwin’s Origin of Species:

"There is a grandeur in this view of life; with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been, and are being evolved."

Finding Darwin’s God is an interesting and enjoyable antidote both for Dennett’s “universal acid” of Evolution and the willful ignorance of Creationism. Spirituality and science need not be in conflict, they are asking different questions and finding different answers about the same reality.
**

P.S. What do you have to say about those quotes I gave? Doesn’t that give the impression life is an acciedent?

Read Miller’s book and then come back to the idea. The key here is that nature is unfeeling in the same way that the hammer of a carpenter is unfeeling. But the Carpenter makes all the difference.

You might want to find a copy of The Meaning of Evolution by George Gaylord Simpson. Although he was not a Christian, he included a brief chapter at the end, pointing out that evolutionary theory, indeed all of science, is unable to shed any light at all on the question of a Creator or the supernatural.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller (a devout Catholic, BTW) Here’s an excerpt from a review of the book:

**In the two final chapters Miller discusses the interesting observation that these writers, Creationists and Evolutionists alike, have a basic assumption in common. They all agree that evolution and religion can’t both be true. He makes a cogent case that this position is illogical, whether it comes from Creationist Christians or atheist materialist scientists. The theory of Evolution is not about religion and the Book of Genesis is not about science.

What kind of God can an evolutionary biologist believe in? A God who created the universe. Miller ends the book with a passage from the closing chapter of Darwin’s Origin of Species:

"There is a grandeur in this view of life; with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been, and are being evolved."

Finding Darwin’s God is an interesting and enjoyable antidote both for Dennett’s “universal acid” of Evolution and the willful ignorance of Creationism. Spirituality and science need not be in conflict, they are asking different questions and finding different answers about the same reality.
**

Read Miller’s book and then come back to the idea. The key here is that nature is unfeeling in the same way that the hammer of a carpenter is unfeeling. But the Carpenter makes all the difference.

I own Miller’s book and loved it!!! BUT…Miller believes God brought the universe into existence, then sat back and allowed it to take it’s own free course. The only thing which DOESN’T make him a deist is he believes that God created the soul and intervenes in our lives. But he does not believe God created everything directly, as the Church says. miller thinks it happened by chance, with God only beginning the process.

i understand whathe means by chance and that it’s not blind, evolution leads to purpose. But again, Miller doesn’t accept that God directly designed our human bodies, and the church requires Catholics to believe that god directly created everything in existence.

 

[The_Barbarian]

I own Miller’s book and loved it!!! BUT…Miller believes God brought the universe into existence, then sat back and allowed it to take it’s own free course.

It was His choice to make the universe regular and predictable. A good one, if you have to live in it.

The only thing which DOESN’T make him a deist is he believes that God created the soul and intervenes in our lives. But he does not believe God created everything directly, as the Church says.

The Church does not say that he created everything directly. For example, it acknowledges that life was not formed ex nihilo, but was brought forth by the Earth.

miller thinks it happened by chance, with God only beginning the process.

No. Natural selection is the antithesis of chance. But even if it was, Pope Benedict, citing St. Thomas Aquinas, points out that divine providence can be brought about by necessity or contingency, as God pleases it to be.

i understand what he means by chance and that it’s not blind, evolution leads to purpose. But again, Miller doesn’t accept that God directly designed our human bodies, and the church requires Catholics to believe that god directly created everything in existence.

He didn’t directly create your body, for example. Most everything has formed from pre-existing matter. And while anyone willing to see can find evidence of creation, there is no evidence of design at all in nature.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Let’s be a bit more basic.

Science is essentially inductive. It takes specific observations, and tries to find the fundamental rules by which it all works. So, there is no way to begin with an assumption about creation, and still do science.

It doesn’t cause any problems for faith, because science cannot deny the existence of God.

It’s a method and a process, not a worldview.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

It was His choice to make the universe regular and predictable. A good one, if you have to live in it.

The Church does not say that he created everything directly. For example, it acknowledges that life was not formed ex nihilo, but was brought forth by the Earth.

No. Natural selection is the antithesis of chance. But even if it was, Pope Benedict, citing St. Thomas Aquinas, points out that divine providence can be brought about by necessity or contingency, as God pleases it to be.

He didn’t directly create your body, for example. Most everything has formed from pre-existing matter. And while anyone willing to see can find evidence of creation, there is no evidence of design at all in nature.

So why when I came on here to these forums, quoting Miller, I was bitterly attacked by the theistic evolutionists in here?

Ok, what does the Church say of creation? What does it mean to say “Maker of Heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen?”

 

[Dark_Warrior]

These are quotes from Miller’s book, when I posted them in the fall, many here (evolutionists) disagreed entirely.

"What many anti-Evolutionists don’t seem to get, is that a strictly determined chain of events in which our emergence was preordained, would require a strictly determinant physical world. In such a place, all events would have predictable outcomes, and the furture would be open neither to chance nor independent human action. A world in which we would always evolve is also a world in which we would never be free, but puppets of God.

It is often said that a Darwinian universe is one in which the **random collisions **of particles govern all events and therefore the world is without meaning. I disagree. A world without meaning would be one in which a Deity pulled the string of every human puppet, and every material particle as well. In such a world, physical and biological events would be carefully controlled, evil and suffering could be minimized, and the outcome of historical processes strickly regulated. But freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by strings of Divine direction attached to every living creature."

 

[Dark_Warrior]

I always figured that evolution was a process guided by God, intentionaly guided by Him. So nature is ruel at times, red tooth in claw, but it’s also beautiful at others. Reminds me of God and His sides. So our bodies are not “perfect” yet, big whoop, even ifthey were perfect we would still be complaining about something. I always figured the universe and ourselves are on a path of perfection guided by God.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

So Barbarian, how is natural selection different from chance? Doesn’t chance guide it? Doesn’t natural selection depend on the chance of new favorable mutations? If not then please explain.

 

[hecd2]

So if scientists elect to disregard any of the truths contained in Scripture then they limit themselves.

How precisely? In what field? What discoveries could scientists have made if they had allowed themselves to incorporate Revelation and Scripture into their work Try to be precise.

The fact is the illumination has been one way and it has all been in the other direction.

Another point why empirical science should stay empirical. You yourself take the raw data a draw conclusions based on your philosophy.

Or, rather, I take the data and draw philosophical conclusions from it.

So, how do we know any particular philosophy is correct?

There is only one possible way - we use the evidence of our senses, which is, after all, the only reliable evidence that we have, and apply our reason to it. It impossible to get to know anything at all, including the Scriptures, except through our senses.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Science is done to make money. Cures for diseases means investors and investors want a big dollar return. No return in a reasonable time, no more money. The science gets shut down. Or test results are tampered with. Human nature, as it’s called.

I have pointed out several times that the biggest and highest budget science does not have a dollar return. But as in all things , Ed, you ignore the facts, and keep posting, over and over again ad nauseam, your unsupported prejudiced opinion.

By the way, when are you going to answer this conundrum?
*
Explain how breathing the same atmosphere and living on the same earth leads to the same limb structure in the entire tetrapod clade (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals):

Humerus; radius and ulna; metacarpals; pentadactylous phalanges

Femur; tibia and fibula; metatarsals; pentadactylous phalanges

In particular explain pentadactyly. Five digits. Good luck.*

Oh and let’s add another one:

*Explain how breathing the same atmosphere and living on the same earth leads to the same dentition of 32 teeth with the same complement of incisors, canines, pre-molars and molars in all Old World (but not New World) monkeys, non-human apes, and humans. Oh - and fossil humans. But not dogs (42 teeth), cats (30 teeth), elephants (24), birds (none), mice (16), horses (36 - 44) Why does sharing the same atmosphere and gravity lead apes and humans to have the same dental pattern, Ed?

*We want to know.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[buffalo]

Dark Warrior;4503989:

Evolution is not random. It is blind in that there is no purpose or design. Evolution goes where ever it goes according to natural selection.

Don’t you think God could have made it that way?.

Did God know what Adam would look like?

 

[buffalo]

Barbarian regarding science’s inability to comment on the supernatural:
Many of us have tried to tell you this.

Science can’t even comment on the supernatural. Fortunately, scientists can. But they can’t use science to do it for them.

Sorry, I don’t buy the claim that humans are incapable of objectivity. You can do it, if you try.

Science has withdrawn itself from the supernatural. Perhaps science should return to positive claims.

Humans are not capable of pure objectivity. We do not have all the information.

 

[Dark_Warrior]

Namesake;4504136:

Did God know what Adam would look like?

I didn’t write that!!