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

[Bradskii]

Why can we not see the evidence for the existence of the designer and builder of living organisms?

This is not a theological debate. It is a scientific one. One can quite easily discuss the scientific aspects of the matter on the assumption that God has indeed created everything. In which case the matter at hand is to discover the means by which He did it.

So we must investigate the evidence, which God has created, and formulate a theory that best fits said evidence. That theory then describes how God created life as we know it.

Now you can reject the theory on scientific grounds, but you will be a small voice in the wilderness. The figure for the percentage of people who are experts in their various fields associated with biology who accept the theory, and have written a gazillion papers based on the fact that it is the best theory available, runs to something like 97%.

If you have the necessary expertise to counter any aspect of the theory and you can get a better theory written and peer reviewed, then fame and fortune await. Otherwise all you can do, as a few posters here do, is cut andpaste what some of the 3% have to say on the matter. As I said, small voices in the scientific wilderness.

Or you could reject the theory on theological grounds and claim that a fundamental reading of scripture is the only one that should be acceptable. I’m good with that.

And we’re still waiting to hear from some here as to how someone can determine which is the stronger of two competing theories.

 

[Aloysium]

Now you can reject the theory on scientific grounds, but you will be a small voice in the wilderness

Evolution cannot be falsified scientific grounds because it rests on assumptions that cannot be disproved using the limited criteria of modern science and rejecting the overall metaphysical reality on which the physical dimension of the universe rests.

The science, I believe is agreed upon by both sides of the debate - the physics, the chemistry, biochemistry and genetics. I personally hold to geological time although recognizing that going back like going big and going small, time is likely very different from what we experience in day to day life.

The building blocks of nature are just that and their natural tendency is to deconstruct whatever order they are subject to by external factors. The fact that they came together as a cell, whose physical structure, physiology, reproductive capacities and interactions with elements of its environment is attributed to random influences, meaning that they do not by necessity of the four fundamental forces of nature develop into that mould. I think it is perfectly clear that as this moment comes into existence here and now, ordered as it is so too, all previous moments along the trajectory of time. Creation now and always and temporally of new holistic systems made up of and greater than the previously created whole forms working together.

Conceiving of everything as information, initial subroutines are utilized in the creation of a new program. They do not pick up random bytes and bits, thereby increasing the information, on a trial and error natural selective way. Something new is brought into being, imagined by a Supreme Being, whose dream is reality. Each existent thing would be a unique “concept” as an expression of the kind of “program” it would be. Each ape that arises contains much the same code that we do, but we are a different program altogether. And, the Programmer stopped issuing new programs although there’s a plethora of new versions. In spite of this being the case evolutionary perspectives still imagine it is the same thing, ultimately having to deny that there is any essential difference between different kinds of things.

 

[rossum]

Conceiving of everything as information, initial subroutines are utilized in the creation of a new program. They do not pick up random bytes and bits, thereby increasing the information, on a trial and error natural selective way. Something new is brought into being, imagined by a Supreme Being, whose dream is reality.

And there is your problem. You are asking about the origin of information, yet you fail to specify the origin of the information inherent in your Supreme Being. You are not explaining anything, you are merely assuming it.

That is not very convincing; assuming what you have to prove is an obvious logical error. It certainly won’t fly as science.

rossum

 

[Metis1]

And there is your problem. You are asking about the origin of information, yet you fail to specify the origin of the information inherent in your Supreme Being. You are not explaining anything, you are merely assuming it.

That is not very convincing; assuming what you have to prove is an obvious logical error. It certainly won’t fly as science.

Which is an excellent point worth repeating, which is why I did.

 

[PetraG]

Thanks for dropping in. Don’t be a stranger.

I’m trying to be a bit more judicious with my posting here, LOL. Something has to give!

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Now you can reject the theory on scientific grounds, but you will be a small voice in the wilderness

Evolution cannot be falsified scientific grounds…

Sorry, Al. You are simply showing (again) how little you know about the subject. I’m not going to waste my time educating you as to why you are wrong. You’ll have to do that yourself.

Please feel free to correct your statement when you have.

 

[rossum]

Evolution cannot be falsified scientific grounds

You are misinformed. Evolution has been falsifiable since 1859 when Darwin published “On the Origin of Species”.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.

– both from Chapter Six of Origin.

The first of these was used by Professor Behe in his interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to falsify evolution with his concept of Irreducible Complexity.

rossum

 

[buffalo]

The figure for the percentage of people who are experts in their various fields associated with biology who accept the theory, and have written a gazillion papers based on the fact that it is the best theory available, runs to something like 97%.

Oh boy - we do not do science by consensus.

 

[buffalo]

And there is your problem. You are asking about the origin of information, yet you fail to specify the origin of the information inherent in your Supreme Being.

He is the Word itself, information. Since you concede information is the driver, then we must investigate its source. You believe natural selection diddit. I believe God did it.

 

[buffalo]

The first of these was used by Professor Behe in his interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to falsify evolution with his concept of Irreducible Complexity.

(If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.)

Actually, one of his claims was validated. I posted the link perhaps 100 posts back or so.

 

[rossum]

He is the Word itself, information. Since you concede information is the driver, then we must investigate its source. You believe natural selection diddit. I believe God did it.

So, you just assume that the information has always existed eternally. That is not a very convincing scientific argument.

Evolution is a process which copies information. It does not originate the information, it merely duplicates it. The information originates in the environment, and that information drives natural selection.

rossum

 

[rossum]

(If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.)

Actually, one of his claims was validated. I posted the link perhaps 100 posts back or so.

Behe’s work was interesting, as I said. He did show, correctly, that IC systems cannot evolve by direct routes. However the work triggered by Behe’s hypothesis showed that IC systems can evolve by indirect routes. The correct part of Behe’s hypothesis has now been incorporated into evolutionary theory.

Any IC system, such as an arch, observed in nature did not form directly, but used some indirect route. In the case of an arch it used “scaffolding”, some part of the system that was present initially but later disappeared.

See Thornhill and Ussery (2000) for a description of possible routes for evolution.

 

[buffalo]

The information originates in the environment, and that information drives natural selection.

Sure it does. Just like that. No (name removed by moderator)uts.

 

[buffalo]

Any IC system, such as an arch, observed in nature did not form directly, but used some indirect route. In the case of an arch it used “scaffolding”, some part of the system that was present initially but later disappeared.

Scaffolding is a poor argument for it assumes direction.

 

[buffalo]

See Thornhill and Ussery (2000) for a description of possible routes for evolution.

Did you read it?

 

[Aloysium]

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.

– both from Chapter Six of Origin.

Maybe you can explain how the Kreb’s cycle, a very simple, ubiquitous process necessary for complex forms of life became established. How the individual elements came to be organized together as they were related to genomic mutations should be basic organic chemistry, a number one Google hit and repeated by rote by every school boy taught evolution. I’m asking anyone who reads this.

Darwin’s formulation of what would disprove his theory is actually childish and fails to recognize the superior explanation of creation.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Bradskii:

Now you can reject the theory on scientific grounds, but you will be a small voice in the wilderness

Evolution cannot be falsified scientific grounds…

Sorry, Al. You are simply showing (again) how little you know about the subject. I’m not going to waste my time educating you as to why you are wrong. You’ll have to do that yourself.

Please feel free to correct your statement when you have.

The story is falsified once one goes out of the tiny box that is modern science, to understand what are living things. It’s like a solipsism, a delusion that caught up in it one cannot see anything else. It’s like claiming that the entire alphabet is only three letters long and to prove otherwise one must recite it in three letters or less. It’s a story that omits more than 90% of reality, utilizing randomness-of-the-gaps where it doesn’t totally ignore the immensity of what is missing.

A less in your face approach might go something like this. One cannot disprove that random mutations occurring purely on the basis of what we today recognize as the laws of nature, cannot produce the complexity around us. We can’t do this any more than we could prove there are no black swans because we had not found one. We have been breeding animals and plants directly and indirectly possibly for hundreds of thousands of years. In that time many different species have arisen, and none has gone beyond the kind of thing it is.

 

[Aloysium]

Aloysium:

Conceiving of everything as information, initial subroutines are utilized in the creation of a new program. They do not pick up random bytes and bits, thereby increasing the information, on a trial and error natural selective way. Something new is brought into being, imagined by a Supreme Being, whose dream is reality.

And there is your problem. You are asking about the origin of information, yet you fail to specify the origin of the information inherent in your Supreme Being. You are not explaining anything, you are merely assuming it.

That is not very convincing; assuming what you have to prove is an obvious logical error. It certainly won’t fly as science.

rossum

All these years on Christian forums and you’ve learned nothing.

 

[rossum]

Sure it does. Just like that. No (name removed by moderator)uts.

White things are more difficult to see in snow. That is information. Thick fur is a better heat insulator than thin fur. That is information. Now go and have a look at animals which live in snow for part or all of the year.

Scaffolding is a poor argument for it assumes direction.

Your assumption is incorrect. The original scaffolding was just solid rock, like the arch itself. Part of the rock eroded, leaving the arch. Erosion is a natural process which does not need ‘direction’.

Did you read it?

Yes. About 20 seconds searching found a PDF: Thornhill and Ussery (2000). My “scaffolding” they call “elimination of functional redundancy”.

 

[Metis1]

Thick fur is a better heat insulator than thin fur.

With some, the fur is layered, typically with the fine fur on the inside and the thicker on the outside, such as with eskimo dogs. The thicker outer fur holds the snow, which helps to insulate the dog.