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

[edwest]

When I was taught science, and eventually, evolution, I didn’t think about it much. It seemed OK. Then, as I learned more, problems were mentioned. There is design in nature. That cannot be denied. The science is presented here with the word God tacked on. But when God is just a word, nothing more, then God can be discarded.

The main job of the Church is to preach the Gospel to the world. Jesus Christ changed the world. And, as God, reminded it.

John 5:46

New International Version
If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

New Living Translation
If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.

English Standard Version
For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

47

New International Version
But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

New Living Translation
But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?"

English Standard Version
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

 

[o_mlly]

I guess that it could also be suggested that someone might claim that it is an undoubted bias that 100% of Christians believe that God is somehow involved in how life exists at this point.

But I really haven’t met anyone that dumb.

Leaf by Niggle – Have you met Wozza? Care to assert that you can speak? Or that you are not ignorant (assuming this atheist doesn’t know the difference between the words “dumb” and “ignorant”).

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

I guess that it could also be suggested that someone might claim that it is an undoubted bias that 100% of Christians believe that God is somehow involved in how life exists at this point.

But I really haven’t met anyone that dumb.

Leaf by Niggle – Have you met Wozza? Care to assert that you can speak? Or that you are not ignorant (assuming this atheist doesn’t know the difference between the words “dumb” and “ignorant”).

Uh? Why would a Christian claim that bias? I know people say ‘you’re not following what I’m saying’ when they think they’re being ignored. But you really aren’t following any of this.

So over and out.

 

[Juvenal]

I guess that it could also be suggested that someone might claim that it is an undoubted bias that 100% of Christians believe that God is somehow involved in how life exists at this point.

I can recall an article from many years ago written by a Thomist explaining why he didn’t accept ID. It was in the Dover time-frame in response to requests for support from Christian ID supporters. I wish I’d archived it.

Well, what do you know! After some searching, I find the article is right here on CA.

Aquinas vs. Intelligent Design

Unlike the causes at work within nature, God’s act of Creation is a completely non-temporal and non-progressive reality. God does not intervene into nature nor does he adjust or “fix up” natural things.

As someone who doesn’t believe in any gods at all, I have to say I was impressed with this Thomistic god. I like a divine being who gets it right the first time.

So while I’d agree it’s likely that 100 percent of Christians believe God is somehow involved in life coming into existence, I think there’s room to doubt they all think god is involved in how life exists.

 

[Techno2000]

In other words, our contemplation of the creation around us should lead us to its creator, to God. This does not seem to be the case with evolutionary theory and atheists. This theory has driven God the Creator of the world out of the world as it were to the farthest limits possible, to a point like singularity which according to some is described, though most likely philosophically inaccurate, as infinitesimally small. Imagine that!

BL Rembordt (18th century). "God will punish the world when men have devised marvelous inventions that will lead them to forgetting God. They will have horseless carriages, and they will fly like the birds. But they will laugh at the idea of God, thinking that they are ‘very clever.’

 

[edwest]

Scientism:

"1. The improper usage of science or scientific claims.[8] This usage applies equally in contexts where science might not apply,[9] such as when the topic is perceived as beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, and in contexts where there is insufficient empirical evidence to justify a scientific conclusion. It includes an excessive deference to the claims of scientists or an uncritical eagerness to accept any result described as scientific. This can be a counterargument to appeals to scientific authority. It can also address the attempt to apply “hard science” methodology and claims of certainty to the social sciences, which Friedrich Hayek described in The Counter-Revolution of Science (1952) as being impossible, because that methodology involves attempting to eliminate the “human factor”, while social sciences (including his own field of economics) center almost purely on human action.

“2. “The belief that the methods of natural science, or the categories and things recognized in natural science, form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other inquiry”,[10] or that “science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspective”[5] with a concomitant “elimination of the psychological [and spiritual] dimensions of experience”.[11][12] Tom Sorell provides this definition: “Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture.”[13] Philosophers such as Alexander Rosenberg have also adopted “scientism” as a name for the view that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.[14]”

 

[buffalo]

I can recall an article from many years ago written by a Thomist explaining why he didn’t accept ID. It was in the Dover time-frame in response to requests for support from Christian ID supporters. I wish I’d archived it.

The issue most anti ID’ers have is they think that God would have to be a tinkerer. If God front-loaded life with the information for the kinds to proliferate then it is a fruitless objection.

BTW - over and over Scripture does say God keeps everything in existnece, aka Providence. It is not that God made any mistakes, the mistakes are due to the universe being in decay since the fall.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I find it a rather strange phenomenon that evolutionary theory, either cosmic or biological or both, has proponents from both the christian and atheist camps. In Psalm 19: 1-4, we read:

‘The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world’.

And St Paul says in Romans 1: 19-20:
‘For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made’.

In other words, our contemplation of the creation around us should lead us to its creator, to God. This does not seem to be the case with evolutionary theory…

Evolutionary theory is not unique in this regard. The rules of baseball also do not lead us to God. At least not while we are playing or watching the game. Yet no one criticizes baseball for being anti-God. Also, I dispute the contention that evolutionary theory does not lead one to God. I think it does. The wonder and complexity of evolution is evidence of God’s mystery being so much deeper than we can possibly imagine. By contrast, the usual image of God zapping some mud that turns instantly into Adam is not very complex or wondrous. It seems to me more like how a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

This theory has driven God the Creator of the world out of the world as it were to the farthest limits possible, to a point like singularity which according to some is described, though most likely philosophically inaccurate, as infinitesimally small. Imagine that!

This is a very narrow view of God. I do not think God is at all limited by science.

Still, what christians profess in the creed is ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth’. I think the whole modern evolutionary phenomenon can be construed in a certain sense as a resurrection of ancient mythologies but without the divinities and gods but under the form of scientism and naturalism.

That is a stretch.

The question is would God create and produce the universe according to a mode such as evolutionary theory that apparently doesn’t really lead to him such as in the case of the atheists?

Any argument that starts with “Why would God…” is flawed by the implicit assumption that anything God has done or will do is explainable and knowable to a human mind. In fact, our faith teaches the opposite. “As high as the heaven are above the earth, so high are my thoughts above your thoughts.” It is a big mistake to draw any conclusions from our inability to answer the question, “Why would God…?”

 

[buffalo]

In it, Thaler (the guy you keep quoting) refers to how dna barcoding confirms that we genetically overlap with other species as defined by domain experts.

He goes on to discuss the evolutionary processes that account for this and makes reference to the evolution of modern man and how we compare to other species in an evolutionary context.

You actually read a paper. Wow. Call me impressed. And finally, attempted to make a refutation. What happened???

I see you missed some of the major points.

Also, about 200,000 ya 9 of 10 species started and the Mitochondrial clock was set to zero. (also Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock http://www.dnai.org/teacherguide/pdf/reference_romanovs.pdf )

“The congruence of these fields supports the view that modern human mitochondria and Y chromosome originated from conditions that imposed a single sequence on these genetic elements between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.” Together with recalibrating the clock puts them at 6,000 - “Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. :For example, researchers have calculated that “mitochondrial Eve”–the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people–lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.” Ouch…

It shows the long held belief of slow, linear, progressive, and unbroken.evolution is wrong. A very small founding population? Sounds an awful lot like an Adam and Eve.

Our findings challenge the idea that present-day animal species are millions of years old. Stoeckle

and there are no “in- between” species.

and - the fossil record - abrupt appearance, stasis and variation within.

Evo’s are getting tangled up in their own knots. The data is showing very unexpected things and they are trying their best to try and explain it away. The evidence against evo is piling up and much harder to deal with.

 

[Edgar]

How can that possibly be when i have made plenty of threads arguing for the existence of goal direction and intelligent information in nature, not to mention plenty of threads arguing for the existence of an intelligent uncaused cause of physical reality.

Fair enough. Glad to hear it.

I have also made it clear that i disagree with the traditional intelligent design arguments put forth by William Paley and the complexity argument put forward by Behe and his friends. Because they don’t work!! They are God of the gaps arguments

“God of the gaps arguments” are right up my alley. Trying to explain life without God is futile.

based purely on assumptions that cannot be logically proven…

Sounds like the theory of evolution, which produces vast volumes of assumptions that can’t be proven.

 

[Edgar]

Oh, so “belief” means the same as “theory”? That’s an interesting interpretation of the English language.

 

[Edgar]

Whoops. Keep 'em coming, Ed.

Not an argument, just another boring, innane comment.

 

[Edgar]

The theory of macro-evolution has many proponents and opponents who profess also to be Christians. But how many atheists oppose macro-evolution? I think that number is zero. Prove me wrong.

A few atheists claim that Darwinism is an inadequate explanation for macroevolution, but finding an atheist who doesn’t believe life on earth evolved from microbes (a general theory of evolution) would be Mission: Impossible.

 

[Edgar]

All you have to do is empirically prove that language, maps, symbols, codes, etc are routinely written by nature, without foresight.

A most excellcent point. Apparently, one can interpret evidence irrationally and still be scientific … which doesn’t do a whole lot for the credibility of the scientific community.
Still, there are lots of people out there who seem quite happy to buy a bad product.

 

[Edgar]

It’s about a type of punctuated equillibrium.

… which is another evolutionary theory that can’t be tested.

 

[Wozza]

For example, researchers have calculated that “mitochondrial Eve”–the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people–lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old." Ouch…

First up, it wasn’t a refutation. There was nothing to refute. What was done was to show that in order for YOU to refute evolution, you linked to a paper that requires it to have happened. We look forward to you posting quotes from it again so I can keep pointing that out.

And the point you made about the ‘new’ age of mitochondrial eve confuses the fact that she is not the common ancestor of everyone living today. There is a huge difference between most recent common female ancestor (who is not and has never been one person at all times and was definitely not the first woman) and most recent common ancestor.

And you missed the line right after your quote about the new ‘young’ mitochondrial eve: ‘No-one thnks that’s the case’

Well, except you. The Quote Mine King.

You need to study more. We can help.

 

[PickyPicky]

“The congruence of these fields supports the view that modern human mitochondria and Y chromosome originated from conditions that imposed a single sequence on these genetic elements

I notice you don’t provide the full quote:

The congruence of these fields supports the view that modern human mitochondria and Y chromosome originated from conditions that imposed a single sequence on these genetic elements between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago [145-147]. Contemporary sequence data cannot tell whether mitochondrial and Y chromosomes clonality occurred at the same time, i.e., consistent with the extreme bottleneck of a founding pair, or via sorting within a founding population of thousands that was stable for tens of thousands of years [116]. As Kuhn points out unresolvable arguments tend toward rhetoric.

Unresolvable arguments do indeed tend toward rhetoric.

 

[Edgar]

the universe … has developed according to the laws of physics.

How do you know that?

 

[Edgar]

Genesis implies that God created distinct species of creatures.

I disagree. The “kinds” in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as, not a description of the creatures at the beginning of creation, but a description of the creatures the author sees existing about him - ie, the finish of creation.
So the text describes how the earth and seas “bring forth” organisms (a very concise and poetic description of the millions-billions of years of the history of life on earth), the end-point of which is the extant “kinds” of the present age.

 

[Edgar]

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