Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true

[Aloysium]

No it’s not believe what i will. It’s the truth. If you can’t get that right, why should i trust anything you say about Evolution?

The natural sciences reveal the truth of the relationships that exist in the physical world. Human beings create stories and theories are attempts to bring together our findings into a coherent whole. We have been putting much effort Into finding links between relativity and quantum mechanics, that would enable us to create a unified theory of how the universe works. Evolutionary theory is one such story, fitting the tiles of scientific fact into a coherent mosaic. Unfortunately, it is being touted as fact, and that is something you have come to believe. There are other possibilities, but you chose to put your trust in what you have been taught, believing the mythos of our times, defining what we are, to be truth.

I am asserting that the same facts, the actual scientific data, stripped of the context of evolution in which it is presented in the literature, in schools and in the media, and understood from the perspective that God, Existence, is the true ground, the Central Truth of all that exists, a very different picture emerges - one of creation. Matter does not evolve. God brings it into being, as He did so at its beginning, in a step-wise fashion reflecting its hierarchical structure, as it ultimately is brought together, governed by God’s very spirit, to form the unity that is human being, self-other relationality, participating in its own creation to ultimately achieve communion, through and in Jesus Christ, within the Trinity.

I don’t ask anyone to trust me. Trust God and ask for the blessings of the Holy Spirit. Maybe what I am saying will make sense and maybe it won’t. I am retelling what makes sense to me when I read the scientific literature.

 

[edwest]

All creatures with similar body plans: head, upper and lower torso and four limbs, would have the same basic coding along with modifications specific to that creature.

 

[rossum]

All creatures with similar body plans: head, upper and lower torso and four limbs, would have the same basic coding along with modifications specific to that creature.

That is exactly what evolution says. We have inherited that basic tetrapod body plan from your ancestors, along with the same basic DNA that codes for it. Similarly, insects have inherited the same hexapod body plan and coding from their ancestors.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

That depends on how you measure complexity. Given the number of atoms involved and their coordinates in space-time for position, velocity and angular momentum (which are all highly constrained) then those crystals are complex on some measures.

If your measure of complexity is “cannot be formed by natural forces, but only by intelligence” then you are assuming what you have to prove, and restricting the methods that God can use to form something complex.

God, with perfect foresight, set the laws of the physical universe and also set the starting conditions. Hence, anything resulting from those laws and those starting conditions is exactly as God planned it. Science merely looks at how those laws and those starting conditions work out over time.

A God who cannot use nature, but is constrained to direct intervention, is not an omnipotent God, because some methods are barred.

rossum

Let’s measure complexity by the number of words used to describe an event. Imagine what you might say about the crystalline nature of the rock that is rough in areas and takes on cubic forms in others. Now, think about our anatomy, physiology, psychology, sociology, spirituality and so on, going further on to politics, economics, the sciences.

That crystal is no more complex than is the winning lottery ticket compared to others.

It sounds like you are arguing against a straw man, but as to the reference to natural forces, they can clearly be extended to include some naturalistic, pantheistic ordering principle that brings together the rudimentary relationships that define basic matter into a new whole that would be a living organism. Inteligence from this perspective is the actual event, just as when we think, countless chemical processes are happening in our brains - all one thing. I believe God transcends creation as its Cause; He is not creation although the journey is to return to the Source.

God has perfect insight because He is the Creator of everything. He is everywhere and in all time. Everything exists when and where it is because God, from eternity, timeless, brings it all into being, wherever and whenever it is. Among the starting conditions are the genomes of every kind of being, all having the potential for self-repair from the destructive forces of their constituent parts acting independently of the order established by their “souls”, which make possible growth (the incorporation of matter that is other, into themselves), reproduction, action and mind. The hierarchy of beings from the simplest forms of matter to we ourselves, as the crown of creation, was brought into exitence in a step-wise fashion in time. Of course each layer plays out the role that defines its existence.

God is the Good, the Beautiful, and the Truth and everything reflects His glory. We have been granted a free will, and have misused it, consequently bringing suffering into creation. In Christ, the greatest expression of His love, we are redeemed and saved from death’s clutches. Evolution is a bad story, a distortion of the facts, and hence an irrational way to bring about the diversity of life around us.

 

[rossum]

Let’s measure complexity by the number of words used to describe an event.

So “creating the universe” (three words) is less complex than “winning an Olympic Gold medal at one hundred metres breaststroke” (ten words). You need to find a better measure of complexity and to specify the language to be used, since the number of words used depends on the language selected.

God has perfect insight because He is the Creator of everything.

No He isn’t, as I pointed out before. Or are you trying to tell us that God is created? If God is uncreated then God cannot have created “everything”, specifically He did not create Himself. This is a common error, and one which you should avoid.

rossum

 

[edwest]

Regarding humans, I find that to be questionable.

Bag-like sea creature was humans' oldest known ancestor

Researchers have identified traces of what they believe is the earliest known prehistoric ancestor of humans -- a microscopic, bag-like sea creature, which lived about 540 million years ago.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[Aloysium]

So “creating the universe” (three words) is less complex than “winning an Olympic Gold medal at one hundred metres breaststroke” (ten words). You need to find a better measure of complexity

Are you serious? Lol.

Try this for starters, remembering a picture is worth a thousand words:

Loading…

www.nasa.gov

And, this is just the physical universe which is brought into existence.

are you trying to tell us that God is created? If God is uncreated then God cannot have created “everything”,

Nope and yes He does.

I am reminded here at this point that it is good to take one’s own advice:

Please try to do better next time.

 

[rossum]

Are you serious?

Yes, I was perfectly serious when I said, “You need to find a better measure of complexity.” Your proposal for a ‘count the words’ measure was deeply and obviously flawed, as I showed with my example. You made a serious error, and I was serious when I told you that you needed to correct your error.

I am reminded here at this point that it is good to take my advice: “Please try to do better next time.”

rossum

 

[rossum]

Most animals are either deuterostomes or protostomes. Humans, along with all other vertebrates, are deuterostomes, as can be seen in our embryonic development.

That “Bag-like sea creature” is the earliest definite deuterostome discovered so far. Hence is is a very distant ancestor to all living deuterostomes, humans included.

rossum

 

[edwest]

Again, I find that questionable as it pertains to human beings.

 

[rossum]

Again, I find that questionable as it pertains to human beings.

Why? What problem do you have with all the studies of the development of human embryos, which follows that standard path followed by all deuterostomes: the anus develops from the blastopore. Other details of human embryology are also typical of deuterostomes.

All this has to do with the development of the physical human body, which fits the pattern observed in other deuterostomes.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

Your proposal for a ‘count the words’ measure was deeply and obviously flawed, as I showed with my example.

Since you say you are serious and your rebuttal sounds absurd to me, I’m thinking it’s a misunderstanding which I will try to correct with an example: electrons are fundamental events which are less complex than a carbon atom. The amount of words required to describe the atom would include those that describe an electron, and hence it would reflect its greater complexity. If we take a molecule of graphene made up of twenty-five carbon atoms, because of the simplicity of the repeating atomic configuration in its crystalline structure, it would be considered less complex than an adenine molecule, which has thirteen atoms (C,N,H). Adenine is in turn less complex than the DNA molecule in which it participates chemically. We again see that it would take fewer words to describe it than DNA. A bacterium is more complex than its DNA. A living bacterium is more complex than a dead one that has decomposed owing to the processes that maintain it in life, doing what it does. More words are needed to describe the material interrelationships at work in that living organism, than would be necessary to describe a collection of molecular fragments. If we had any inclination to describe everything that makes up a protostome, we would find them to be less that those describing a deuterostome. Not sure what I can say beyond this.

On second thought, taking your advice, I could do better than this, in different ways actually.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Examples of instances where your definition of complexity seems consistent does not answer the criticism that rossum cited an example where your definition does not make sense. All it takes it one counterexample to disprove a positive assertion, and rossum provided one.

 

[Aloysium]

I must be missing it. I’m an old man you know, not as sharp as I used to be. Not in a home yet although I visit often enough. Please repeat the argument if you want a reply.

Maybe I get it. The inability of a person to describe an event does not qualify as a refutation of the idea that the number of words required to describe an event reflects its complexity. Complexity has to do with its structure, the number of ideas it elicits in trying to understand it.

Are people simply arguing for the sake of arguing? If so, it’s silly.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

OK, here is your claim:

Let’s measure complexity by the number of words used to describe an event.

rossum then gave an example of two events where one of them was clearly more complex than the other (“creating the universe”), even though the other event took more words to describe (“winning an Olympic Gold medal at one hundred metres breaststroke”). This one example invalidates your measure. But you then cited a list of examples where your measure seems to make sense, where you gave lots of examples of things that are more complex and less complex. I said that these examples do not answer the criticism that rossum had of your measure. If you give lots of examples of complexity, but ignore other examples where your measure fails work work properly, you still have an invalid measure.

Now one of the things you can do to address this deficiency, if you want to, is to specify a more limited context to the applicability of your measure of complexity, so as to exclude rossum’s counter-example, but still to apply where you want it to apply. If you can specify that more limited context, you might be able to salvage this measure of complexity. I can think of some contexts in mathematics where your measure might work very well.

 

[rossum]

Since you say you are serious and your rebuttal sounds absurd to me,

I am serious, your proposed measure of complexity is absurd. As my example showed, your proposed measure resulted in an absurd conclusion that creating the universe was less complex that winning an Olympic Gold medal.

… which are less complex than a carbon atom.

Since we do not have a mutually agreed measure of complexity, this statement raises difficulties. Absent an agreed and objective measure then you have no support for any statement like “less complex”, “more complex” etc. Such statements revert to personal opinion in the absence of an agreed objective measure…

In mathematics, few words are often used to define extremely complex objects: “Aleph-nine dimensional Hausdorff manifold”. The universe is at most an eleven dimensional Hausdorff manifold, and Aleph nine is infinitely larger than eleven.

Your proposed definition of complexity is very obviously flawed and needs to be changed.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

mathematics

Thank you for your contribution.

I wasn’t planning to write a Master’s thesis on the subject, but rather suggest a simple way to think about complexity and how we might determine its measure. This was related to the crystalline structure that was presented as an example of complexity arising randomly. And, my reply was an attempt to demonstrate the object’s simplicity.

Words describe events. They signify an idea. They are the links between our selves and the world we seek to know and understand, internal events which are used to communicate amongst ourselves. The suggestion that they could be used to measure complexity rests on how we conceptualize an event. To the degree that they represent reality, they could be a way to do so.

E = mc^2

This describes the relationship we have discovered between the relativistic mass and the kinetic energy of an object, involving a constant which is the speed of light. It is very simple and demonstrates how our collective knowledge can grow.

Simplicity is important in this search. The Ptolemaic model of the universe was more complicated than the solar model and, although it described what we saw and had predictive value, it had little explanatory value. We have Occam’s Rasor, where we understand that the correct solution tends to be the simplest.

If we were ever to use words to describe the complexity of an event, we would be doing so, obviously, using the current level of knowledge.

Along those lines and trying to bring this train off the side rails and back to the main line, we should note that Occam’s rasor can be misapplied. That is what happens with reductionism, where key features of an event are omitted in order to keep it simple, but in the process distort our understanding. Materialism is one example of this. We hear about god of the gaps, which would stiffle the pursuit of knowledge, leaving us with only the surface reality, rather than the underlying structural intricasies. And this is how evolution also is a barrier to our better knowing our universe. Science, devoid of any reference to God, who brings all this into existence, presents us with a distortion of what is. With respect to evolutionary theories, the random activity of atoms cannot explain the complexity of living organisms. It cannot explain their individual existence, in themselves as we are each of us one person, nor that existence as part of a greater system of being, their environment and ultimately one in the Beatific Vison, where creation communes with its Maker. This is where natural selection comes into play as a utilitarian distortion of the relational nature of individual life forms, participating in something greater.

. . . more to follow . . .

 

[Aloysium]

Your proposed definition of complexity is very obviously flawed and needs to be changed.

I find you rather rude, disrespectful of personal boundaries, and it inhibits a dialogue; I will proceed regardless.

I’m not sure I defined complexity. Let’s see what comes up that is pertinent to our discussion of evolution.

Let’s get back to the crystalline structure that was given as an example of something complex arising spontaneously. The object rather than complex, I would describe as being complicated. Its rough and smooth cubic areas seem a contradiction and give the appearance that some external agency was involved in its formation. Although the chances of its appearance as such are very, very small, it is possible and predictable on the basis of the deterministic properties of the atoms of which it is composed, how they behave and align.

Perhaps it adds to the confusion to use the term simple. it being the opposite of complicated, but the description is what is simple. When we discuss the properties of the constituent atoms, we’ve pretty much described the appearance of the object and how takes on that form.

A living being, be it a bacterium or human, compared to a crystal, is more complex. The complicated myriad of atomic interactions come together in the formation of a new whole, which in turn is a participant in a greater whole. That’s where we see the complexity. The inter-relationship of the parts coming together in the formation of the new holistic system can be understood in terms of their intrinsic properties. However, they cannot predict the existence of the new whole. The tetrahedral shape of the Carbon atom is necessary for organic chemistry to exist, but it cannot predict its various complicated configurations that are necessary for life. These have to be observed. Evolution takes the diversity of living forms and implicating random mutations of the genome as its driving force, makes the deterministic assumption that because such mechanisms exists they must be predictable, complicated rather than complex.

As to whether the number of words used to describe an event could be a measure of its complexity, it would depend on their being used in the simplest but also the most comprehensive way. Of course, it is all dependent on our knowledge.

 

[BlueMaxx]

Neat thread…

 

[rossum]

I’m not sure I defined complexity.

You did, in your earlier post in this thread:

Let’s measure complexity by the number of words used to describe an event.

There are already perfectly good scientific measures of complexity, such as Shannon’s or Kolmogorov’s measures. Your proposal is a bad rendering of Kolmogorov’s meaasure.

Let’s see what comes up that is pertinent to our discussion of evolution.

Evolution can increase complexity on Shannon’s measure, Kolmogorov’s measure and also on your own ‘count the words’ measure.

A living being, be it a bacterium or human, compared to a crystal, is more complex.

Not always. There are many more atoms in a visible crystal than in a microscopic bacterium. On some measures the larger crystal is more complex because it contains more atoms.

As to whether the number of words used to describe an event could be a measure of its complexity, it would depend on their being used in the simplest but also the most comprehensive way.

This is better. In effect it is Kolmogorov’s measure of complexity, though Kolmogorov does not restrict it to words. Generally he refers to a computer language or mathematical expression, which is more general than ‘words’. The important part is that it is a minimal description in the chosen representation.

rossum