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

[Bradskii]

All your responses are so many "I’m better than you"s with non-answers slipped in a sentence or two in between. If you’re such an expert, it should be easy to converse with non-experts at their level and dismantle their ideas easily.

I explain complex Catholic theology and Criminal Law to non-believers and non-lawyers all the time without saying “You’re too dumb to know what I mean so I won’t answer your objections. Go get an education first!”

I’ve been around long enough to know that’s a cheap copout and nothing to be impressed by.

Hey, let’s not get so precious here. You are not some innocent student making honest mistakes in interpreting your subject matter. Your are not, in effect, asking questions. Despite the fact that they are written in an interrogative manner. Let’s be honest here. You are making an argument. You are making a stand: ‘Show me this if you can!’

If I were the expert in criminal law or theology and I was subect to such an attitude by a student then she would get both barrels. Before one dares to question the veracity of any given matter, it is a matter of common courtesy that one attempts to gain enough knowledge about the subject before demanding answers to what might well be, due to ignorance of the subject matter, nonsensical questions (and getting both barrels).

Notwithstanding that you were given an answer in any case. Forum rules and my natural (but severly tested) good nature and bonhomie allowed for that. So how about, rather than complaining that there appears to be an all too obvious difference in my knowledge about the matter and yours, you address the answer and respond to it.

 

[Rubee]

Hey, let’s not get so precious here. You are not some innocent student making honest mistakes in interpreting your subject matter. Your are not, in effect, asking questions. Despite the fact that they are written in an interrogative manner. Let’s be honest here. You are making an argument. You are making a stand: ‘Show me this if you can!’

I am not your “student”, you have that right. I’m making an argument, (was that in doubt, ever?!!). What does this have to do with your inability to converse without arrogance? The people I explain Catholic theology to are without exception people arguing STRONGLY against it based on all sorts of misconceptions about it. This excuse doesn’t fly.

 

[Rubee]

This is not randomness you’re describing.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Hey, Ed. Could you post something for PetraG that gives her an idea of how little you understand about evolution?

edwest:

If a bad change interrupts the process then everything stops.

This is exactly the kind of response I mean. Do you think arrogance and scoffing make your points stronger?

Well, I used to scoff for Australia back in the nineties. But I think that pointing out that Ed knows very little about evolution, in a humorous and lighthearted manner, is entirely acceptable. As I implied earlier, both barrels only results in a real mess.

Maybe he’ll take the scoffing more seriously than a rant and a rave. I can still rant with the best of them, but my raving days are, I’m afraid, over.

 

[Rubee]

There’s nothing “random” about water freezing into a solid or gas into liquid. The cold temperature mediates that process as predictably as gravity causes everything to fall in one direction rather than flying all over the place. There’s nothing random about the shift from liquid to solid at all.

I’m afraid it is. Random water molecules are not as ordered as ice crystals. You should quit while you’re behind.

Perhaps you should stop assuming everyone besides yourself is daft. Your example is a copout. You might as well point to things getting into earths orbit and being dragged in one direction as an example of things "RANDOMLY " going from disorder to order. This is what happens when you go around assuming you have twice the brain of everyone else.

 

[PetraG]

What does this have to do with your inability to converse without arrogance?

From the outside looking in, it is not reasonable to expect a “discussion” to go on for over 7,000 posts without being sunk by a profound sense of frustration on all sides. This is beyond the limits of human endurance.

This is not randomness you’re describing.

Well, yes and no, because there isn’t just one way a concerted effect could be seen.

Let me imagine a random sort of mechanism. Let’s say, for instance, that a particular kind of virus occasionally mutates into something that makes a defined chromosomal change to the hosts. I’m talking about a reproducible range of changes in all the hosts. Let’s say in the vast majority of the cases when this kind of virus arises it never spreads because it kills the host. We’re talking about a huge change, here, like an ape going from 24 to 23 or 25 chromosomes. Let’s say, though, that sometimes the virus hits this “sweet spot” in which this sea change is survivable in at least some small fraction of hosts. The virus, having some live hosts, spreads to an entire population. Even if it were to still wipe out most of the population, it is possible it could hit a very successful population very hard and leave a small remnant to come out the other side, survive and form a new species that can only breed within its own population.

That’s an example of a situation where quite a few stars have to align all at once for the process to work, but we know we’re not talking about something that happens very often. It would be the kind of thing that is so rare that biologists haven’t ever seen it happen. I don’t know what other kind of mechanism it could be, though.

 

[Rubee]

From the outside looking in, it is not reasonable to expect a “discussion” to go on for over 7,000 posts without being sunk by a profound sense of frustration on all sides. This is beyond the limits of human endurance.

This is just not an excuse. No one has a gun to anyone’s head forcing them to talk to anyone.

 

[edwest]

You have yet to see the limits of human endurance. This sort of discussion has been going on for years.

 

[PetraG]

And if I… comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge… but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Cor. 13:2)

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:9-13)

We only know one thing in this discussion: when “enduring” makes it impossible to be patient, or kind, or we cannot avoid seeming inflated or quick-tempered or brooding over injury, it is time to stop. Who is right or who is wrong about whether evolution was God’s method of creating the living world is just not that important. Christ did not die for us so we could understand science or battle ignorance about the natural world. That is all fine, it is a worthy work to do, but only as long as we keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing is that we love one another.

 

[PetraG]

You have yet to see the limits of human endurance. This sort of discussion has been going on for years.

Patience is not patience unless you can remain patient with someone who has lost all patience with you.

 

[Rubee]

Given the sheer number of changes we are talking about, I would still call that sort of thing happening without intelligently built constrains or processes pure magic. How many times would stars have aligned in the way you describe to have produced all the species this planet has been home to from a microbe?

 

[PetraG]

Given the sheer number of changes we are talking about, I would still call that sort of thing happening without intelligently built constrains or processes pure magic. How many times would stars have aligned in the way you describe to have produced all the species this planet has been home to from a microbe?

You can roll dice a lot of times in 100,000 years.

As for intelligence, I believe that omnipotence and omniscience even covers foreseeing humans as the result of the Big Bang. When I talk “omni,” I really mean omni!

 

[edwest]

That certainly doesn’t explain anything. How do brains self-upgrade? Honestly, such a complex part of the body becoming more complex by itself? I think not.

 

[Rubee]

You can’t talk of omnipotence and random in the same sentence though. And I doubt rolling a dice in a hundred thousand years you could be lucky as much as all forms of species apparently have.

 

[PetraG]

That certainly doesn’t explain anything. How do brains self-upgrade? Honestly, such a complex part of the body becoming more complex by itself? I think not.

Once you accept what is involved for all those proteins inside you to fold correctly, it is far easier to suspend disbelief. Nature regularly outdistances our meager imaginations.

 

[Rubee]

That’s because none of it is “random”.

 

[Techno2000]

This is beyond the limits of human endurance.

Nah… for me, it just means I have to buy more and more popcorn.

 

[PetraG]

That’s becomes none of it is “random”.

What is random or impossible in the weak imagination of a human is a known quantity for God. It only needs the Divine Will for such be made so. I take this as revealed truth.

 

[Rubee]

As for intelligence, I believe that omnipotence and omniscience even covers foreseeing humans as the result of the Big Bang. When I talk “omni,” I really mean omni!

That’s also “magic” like to me. How do you get life or consciousness from stars?

 

[PetraG]

Nah… for me, it just means I have to buy more and more popcorn.

OK, but watch out for all that sodium, lol!!

Adios, all! If I don’t leave now, I really will be neglecting the duties of my state in life…