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

[Curious11]

but we do know it wasn’t God.”

I suspect what they mean by that is “we don’t know yet, but that doesn’t make you right when you say God did it”.

Scientists, or good scientists I should say, never let their fears of a can of worms stop them from searching for the truth. The fact that you seem to disagree with Darwinism doesn’t make scientists obtuse for not agreeing with you. They go where the evidence takes them, and right now that’s Darwinism, whether you like it or not.

Like I said before, the cause here doesn’t matter. We know random (i.e. unpredictable) genetic mutations occur, and those that are beneficial for survival are passed down to offspring, unlike the harmful ones. What exactly causes them? That’s irrelevant here, for the purpose of evolution by natural selection. If it were proven that an intelligent being is behind it it changes nothing: if we don’t know the being’s goal, then the mutations are random to us, if we do, then it becomes predictable artificial selection, but it’s still evolution.

 

[Curious11]

Let’s assume that one year all soccer teams agreed to set their player buying policy to a random team-design simulation.

Doesn’t it make sense, assuming no evidence is found of biased referees, that the team with the best skills would probably win? That’s natural selection for you.

 

[HarryStotle]

If you’re a soccer team on a championship and you get to the final, it’s reasonable to assume you have something others don’t that helped you get there, either skills (natural selection) or helpful referees (intelligent designer), …

I must say, your capacity to draw analogies needs a bit of refinement.

The players’ “skills” could not be characterized as straight up “natural selection” but perhaps genetics refined or selected by some combination of “natural” process but also by “design” even including the “intelligent” variety (i.e., coaching, parental (name removed by moderator)ut, the league, etc.)

Also, why not include “helpful referees” under the rubric of “natural selection?” since these were not effectively involved in the design of the sport of soccer, but more in terms of pruning out or selecting proper or appropriate soccer behaviours on the field.

The “intelligent designers” would be the inventors of the sport, those who founded the soccer league and those who refine the rules or serve to keep the league functioning locally. This would still, however, ignore the fact that human beings somehow “received” our capacity to run, kick, think, etc., from somewhere, perhaps from an intelligent somewhere. So our inherent physiological “design” is merely assumed regarding the design of the game of soccer.

 

[Curious11]

It doesn’t matter where the skills come from, the point is that those that are best suited to play the game and thrive get to the final. The skills in soccer are a combination of talent and a lot of training, whereas in nature it’s more about what your genes give you. But the principle of survival of the fittest is the same, and in fact it could be replicated fully if you assume players are assigned to teams at random. Referees play the role of God here, in effect “loading the dice”, if you believe in that. I think the analogy isn’t so bad. In any case, it’s just a trick to understand things better, let’s not get too sidetracked by it

 

[Hugh_Farey]

You rely on God’s omnipotence to have arranged things to bring about a proper outcome. That stipulation no longer makes the events random, but designed. In actuality, you are promoting design without invoking the name, likely for some ideologically correct reason or other.

The relationships between various forms of constrained randomness, omniscience and omnipotence are complex and interlocking with each other. It may be that in the end we are all agreeing with each other. My avoidance of the word ‘design’ is indeed deliberate, but not idealogical. On this website, it is often assumed to mean “Intelligent Design” which in turn is usually defined as some form of the spontaneous creation of living species. it also suggest a very pre-determined plan, within which the concept of free will is also rather unconformable. I prefer a scenario in which God’s laws permit a wide selection of possible outcomes, one of which is ours. It is not impossible that many, if not all, of the other possibilities are self-annihilating.

I think that it is perfectly possible to design a random process. The game of ‘snakes and ladders’ would be a good example. It is also possible to recognise every single permutation of such a game. We may be one such. It is a subject of considerable scientific discussion (at least at a conceptual level) as to whether any of the others actually exist or not, but the possibility of their existence must be at least entertained.

In this way, truly ‘random’ occurrences, within the constraints of the game, can be coupled to contingencies to produce outcomes. This, I guess is the ‘structuralism’ being discussed.

I have no right to speak for atheists, but good scientists always look for objections to their pet hypotheses, so I shall have a go. Much of what I have said above would be perfectly acceptable to atheists, I believe. Where they would dissent would be firstly, that the design of ‘the laws of nature’ was necessarily the work of an ‘intelligence’ and secondly, that any particular outcome is preferred over any other. That being so, then I will accept that my disagreement with them over these points is a matter of faith, not of reason.

 

[Techno2000]

That stipulation no longer makes the events random, but designed. In actuality, you are promoting design without invoking the name, likely for some ideologically correct reason or other.

…

 

[Bradskii]

HarryStotle:

You rely on God’s omnipotence to have arranged things to bring about a proper outcome. That stipulation no longer makes the events random, but designed. In actuality, you are promoting design without invoking the name, likely for some ideologically correct reason or other.

The relationships between various forms of constrained randomness, omniscience and omnipotence are complex and interlocking with each other. It may be that in the end we are all agreeing with each other. My avoidance of the word ‘design’ is indeed deliberate, but not idealogical. On this website, it is often assumed to mean “Intelligent Design” which in turn is usually defined as some form of the spontaneous creation of living species. it also suggest a very pre-determined plan, within which the concept of free will is also rather unconformable. I prefer a scenario in which God’s laws permit a wide selection of possible outcomes, one of which is ours. It is not impossible that many, if not all, of the other possibilities are self-annihilating.

I think that it is perfectly possible to design a random process. The game of ‘snakes and ladders’ would be a good example. It is also possible to recognise every single permutation of such a game. We may be one such. It is a subject of considerable scientific discussion (at least at a conceptual level) as to whether any of the others actually exist or not, but the possibility of their existence must be at least entertained.

In this way, truly ‘random’ occurrences, within the constraints of the game, can be coupled to contingencies to produce outcomes. This, I guess is the ‘structuralism’ being discussed.

I have no right to speak for atheists, but good scientists always look for objections to their pet hypotheses, so I shall have a go. Much of what I have said above would be perfectly acceptable to atheists, I believe. Where they would dissent would be firstly, that the design of ‘the laws of nature’ was necessarily the work of an ‘intelligence’ and secondly, that any particular outcome is preferred over any other. That being so, then I will accept that my disagreement with them over these points is a matter of faith, not of reason.

Well put. And yes, we would agree on how the ‘rules’ were set up in the first place. And we would disagree that we are the required end point of the process. But those are different arguments for different threads.

If you want to know how we got here (not why), then you follow the evidence. Hugh believes the evidence is there to be followed because of God. I don’t. But that doesn’t stop us following it in any case and reaching the same conclusion.

 

[buffalo]

How Good Is The Evidence For Evolution? How Many Darwinists Overstate Their Case

How Good Is The Evidence For Evolution? How Many Darwinists Overstate Their Case - Scott M. Sullivan

Many secular minded biologists claim there is a “mountain” of evidence for evolution. But is this really true? And if it is true, what does it really mean? The truth is that many Darwinists overstate their case. What I mean is this. Often times, Darwinists will use evidence that supports...

scottmsullivan.com

 

[Bradskii]

How Good Is The Evidence For Evolution? How Many Darwinists Overstate Their Case

http://scottmsullivan.com/how-good-...on-how-many-darwinists-overstate-their-case/#

You can see where the guy was going immediately he puts scare quotes around ‘evolution’. It would be like someone writing a so-called unbiased tract on Catholocism and saying: But let’s look at ‘God’ for a moment as Catholics clearly believe in ‘God’. And seem to overstate the case for ‘God’ whenever they discuss ‘Him’.

You just have to ‘laugh’.

 

[Aloysium]

evolution were “rewound to the beginning and rebooted”, you and I would probably not be here. In fact, if time were turned back only a few years, you and I would probably not be here, given the uncertainty of exactly which gametes unite to make a zygote in any fertilisation process, and which zygotes successfully come to term as a baby.

But we are here. That’s the point.

What this means is that we are not here by necessity, but by the will of God. There exists no universe where we are not here and now involved in this discussion. That impossible possibility exists only in our imagination.

This is one of the areas where evolutionary theories break down. Ignoring the most real aspect of ourselves, that we do exist, and consider only the physical manifestations of our being, we can clearly say that the chance of our existence, because so many factors are involved, becomes infinitesimal, an asymptotic curve ever approaching zero. The argument is that there are so many billions of planets in and among the billions of galaxies that it is possible for sentient life to appear spontaneously. However, if we consider ourselves specifically, reading this and thinking our thoughts, perceiving our pains, there is truly zero probability for our existence in terms of the physical-psychological universe of which we are a part.

 

[PickyPicky]

Perhaps I’m just too narcissistic, but I find there is a total probability for my existence.

 

[Dan123]

You’re taking the end-product and then working backwards to try and show it’s unlikely and special.

Suppose I offer to show you an amazing card trick. I’m going to shuffle a deck and then deal 5 cards from the top and produce an extremely unlikely result.

I shuffle it, dramatically deal 5 cards, and stand back revealing 5 completely mismatched cards.

Are you amazed? Isn’t the chance that that very specific set of cards would be produced in that exact order an extremely unlikely event?

 

[Dan123]

Given you exist, P would certainly approach 1

 

[Aloysium]

Structuralism proposes that matter itself has built into it certain complexities which would result in a diversity of life forms and morphological structures given a proper opportunity for an “unfolding” of those complexities. It would not be the operation of chance that brought these about, but a kind of integral causal ordering through sufficient time.

I would favour a creationist vs structuralist approach.

Creation occurs from eternity rather than from a point happening in time. Whether it is the first of some form of being, the last one, or everything in the middle, it all happens within their moments in time.

We can break ourselves down into components along three structural “dimensions”. Since evolutionary theory is part of the natural/physical sciences, let’s focus on the material as opposed to the psychological or spiritual aspects of the universe. We are composed of organ systems, complex interacting cellular systems, and in turn molecules, atoms and the subatomic. There is a structure to matter that enables it to be used to form living organisms; carbon has a tetrahedral structure to its bonds which facilitates the formation of complex organic compounds. This is built in. We might consider it a naturalist position to say that there exists a superior ordering system which brings atoms together not by chance into molecules necessary for life. There would be a life force that is behind the diversity we see. Unfortunately, we look for structure and variables that we can manipulate. What is happening however, are events, which we conceptualize as structures, processes and systems.

I am suggesting that God is involved in every part of His creation, bringing it into existence every here and now. Everything exists, becoming more complex ontologically and temporally, by utilizing components which were previously created form new kinds of being.

The activity of those components is chaotic relative to the ordered being of the creature which contains them. Atoms would be integral parts brought together as one being in the creation of the new organism. When they act on the basis of their own nature, as when the creature dies, decomposition occurs.

This is inherent in existing as a physical being. Before the fall, having a spiritual soul, we were given a choice as to who would be at the centre of our relationship with reality. With God as the Centre, the healing ordering Act of creation was to keep us eternal, but having damaged that relationship by choosing ourselves in the garden, we now deal with the slow decay to death that results from that original sin. We are meant to transcend this vale of tears, to be united with the Ground of all existence.

An “integral causal ordering” is an illusion, the shadow cast in the darkness of our ignorance of the Light that illuminates the entire universe in all its wonders.

 

[PickyPicky]

Given that I exist, that would be my guess, too.

 

[Aloysium]

Perhaps I’m just too narcissistic, but I find there is a total probability for my existence.

Since you exist the probability is 1.
On the other hand, if you were to consider the physical factors that actually run back to the beginning of time, the probability is one divided by what is infinite for all intents and purposes. The quotient is zero.

 

[Aloysium]

You’re taking the end-product and then working backwards to try and show it’s unlikely and special.

Exactly.

P would certainly approach 1

P would not approach 1; it is 1.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

How Good Is The Evidence For Evolution? How Many Darwinists Overstate Their Case.

Rather a strange podcast, if I may so. The narrator (Scott Sullivan) seems rather out of his depth. More than half the video is spent defining evolution in terms acceptable even to “many people in the Intelligent Design movement itself”, which include the proposition “that all living organisms evolved from a common ancestor”.

Then the Sullivan announces that there is no evidence for the claim that “that this entire process was completely unguided by any sort of intelligence.” I hardly think this is a rational request. It is not up to the proposer of a hypothesis to ‘prove’ such a negative, but rather up to his opponent to provide evidence for the positive.

A podcast asking “How good is the evidence for evolution?” should really try to produce some evidence for examination, but this one doesn’t. It announces that all the evidence that there is for evolution is perfectly acceptable, and then that there is no evidence for evolution not being guided.

That’s just weird.

 

[Dan123]

He could be a sophisticated ‘bot’, or a figment of my imagination.

 

[Dan123]

You’re taking the end-product and then working backwards to try and show it’s unlikely and special.

Would you be impressed if I shuffled a deck of 52 cards and laid them out in a highly improbable manner? What if I could repeat that trick all day, each time laying the cards in an extremely unlikely order?