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

[Aloysium]

edwest:

Life from non-life. Not going to happen. It can only be assumed. That is faith, not science.

Creationism assumes the existence of life by faith. Do not project your beliefs onto science. That is an error.

I’m not sure what you mean.

I was not projecting science, I was referring to the Bible: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 41 or 42)
As I said, Creationism assumes the existence of life.

I guess I assume that I am alive because I am.
That assumption is what I call knowing.
Perceptually and intellectually we don’t directly experience the other’s existence.
It is impossible to imagine that existence except as being something similar to our own.
The other’s existence cannot be empirically known.
Material processes do exist, but they are not life.
We therefore err in projecting that knowledge onto a science of material processes.
It is only the beloved that we truly know.
The knowledge is love is being and is faith in our condition of ignorance.

Yes, I have faith that you are alive. Evidently you don’t. People can go through periods when they don’t feel alive or don’t want to be alive. Buddhism offers not a means to kill the spirit but to plumb its depths. In a tradition close to the one you proclaim, it’s held that “Atman is Brahman and that thou art.” Consider Being to be relational as is every aspect of our lives, especially in introspection. And, perfect relationality is Love, the connection between self and other, in which one gives of oneself for the good of the other. We have replaced the One True Vine with a humunculus. He who is God, who is Love, lies at the Centre of our being, waiting to be discovered within in our relationship with God, by whose will we here come into existence this very moment. Found, as we ourselves are transformed into love. In Christ, we are one humanity - individual persons, united in God’s infinite compassion. In that Light, the entire universe is alive.

 

[rossum]

I’m not sure what you mean.

Faith assumes the existence of God; a living God. Hence creationism also assumes the existence of a living God.

Since God is alive then the existence of life is assumed, not explained. Science is working towards an explanation of the origin of life. Creationism assumes an answer, so is not interested in discovering more on the subject.

 

[Rubee]

Since God is alive then the existence of life is assumed, not explained. Science is working towards an explanation of the origin of life. Creationism assumes an answer, so is not interested in discovering more on the subject.

I find this reasoning bizarre. It doesn’t represent any kind of reasoning I’ve ever seen by Christians. If anything, you have it the other way around. We analogize truths about God from ourselves, not the other around. That God is living is something humans know from the fact that we ourselves are living, (beside Scripture) not the other way around.

In addition, such analogies are infinitely limited. God’s ‘life’, whatever it is, is unlike the life whose origin science is trying to find. Science isn’t trying to find the origin of God’s life, that’s what makes your statement confusing. There is a big difference between God’s ‘living’ and our ‘living’, and you seem to think Christians think those are the same thing.

The fact that God exists doesn’t mean Christians think creaturely life has no origin or that we know the mechanisms of the universe. Creaturely life absolutely has an origin and we don’t know everything about it except that it, like the rest of the cosmos and anything else that exists, receives its being from God.

So it is enough for us to know that God is the creator of the universe, from the tiniest quark to the largest star. It doesn’t matter what mechanism science finds within this universe to explain an origin of any part of it within it. It’ll still find a mechanism in a universe with a creator.

The reason some of the things ‘science’ suggests about life’s origin are dismissed by some of us is that they defy logic, pure and simple. Logic according to the working of this universe as we know it.

It’s not because Christians think life’s origins need not be explained (!?) That’s like saying we assume stars exist because God exists, and so their origin need not be explained. We assume gravity exists because God exists so we need not explain it. That’s just not true. It’s christian belief in God and creation that allowed science to get started in the first place because of the assumption that the universe was ordered and therefore intelligible.

I don’t know what gave you the notion that what u described is Christian or at least Catholic thinking, but I can tell you you’re mistake.

 

[Rubee]

If I could add, everyone knows life exists because life actually exists. It’s no more an assumption among Creationists than any other group of people. I don’t believe life has always existed on this planet, though, or this universe. At least not material life, who knows perhaps angels have always been here and had a role to play in the development of the cosmos. But everyone knows material life has an origin in the universe at a specific time and place in the universe.

I will not believe in impossible things, though. Like molecules bumping into each other created the DNA. That’s crazy to me. Give me something reasonable and I’ll happily accept it because nothing you can find can escape being God’s creation, as I explained above. But assuming that the rejection of such unsatisfying “explanations” is only because ‘God is a living God’ is far fetched. The rejection is because the explanation is irrational.

 

[rossum]

I find this reasoning bizarre. It doesn’t represent any kind of reasoning I’ve ever seen by Christians.

I am not Christian, so that is not surprising.

Creationists often ask scientists to explain the origin of life. However, those same creationists have no explanation of how life originated, since that would require them to explain the origin of God. They have no actual explanation for God’s origin; they merely assume it.

They are asking a question for which their side has no answer. For many questions the creationist answer is “God did it”. In this case that is not a viable answer since God cannot have created Himself.

 

[rossum]

That’s crazy to me.

That is a personal opinion, and in science personal opinions do not count for much. What science does have is evidence. We have evidence of the natural formation of amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, ribozymes, lipid bilayers and other chemical precursors of life.

In the RNA world hypothesis, the very first life was a bunch of ribozymes contained in a lipid bilayer membrane. Science is getting close. I have yet to see evidence of any deity creating a purine.

 

[Rubee]

Creationists often ask scientists to explain the origin of life. However, those same creationists have no explanation of how life originated, since that would require them to explain the origin of God. They have no actual explanation for God’s origin; they merely assume it.

This is simply untrue. Tell me why a ‘creationist’ must explain “the origin” of God to explain life. All a person need argue here is that something couldn’t have happened by itself without an intelligence. Everything else you’re injecting is far fetched. I’d suggest you ask rather than speak for other people, especially when you don’t identify with them. It helps prevent setting up strawmen. This and the one I first responded to are both far-fetched and strawmen.

 

[Rubee]

Logic isn’t opinion. You don’t get to escape it by typing ‘science’. That’s called fideism. You also do not have evidence that the DNA was randomly coded before you have it. Amino acids are not a code. Might as well tell me presence of the material that forms computer hardware is proof that the computer was randomly coded.

 

[rossum]

Tell me why a ‘creationist’ must explain “the origin” of God to explain life.

So, your God is not a living God but a dead, non-living God? If God is a living God then the origin of life is the origin of the first living entity: God.

Any subsequent living entity must be the second, third etc. Not the first, so not the origin of life.

All a person need argue here is that something couldn’t have happened by itself without an intelligence.

And what is the origin of your “intelligence”? Is it a living intelligence or a non-living intelligence, some alien supercomputer perhaps? Or do you accept that an intelligence can spontaneously form from the non-intelligent constituent elements of the universe? See Fred Hoyle’s “The Black Cloud” for an example.

You also do not have evidence that the DNA was randomly coded before you have it.

No scientist will accept that DNA is random. All living DNA has passed through the non-random filter of natural selection, so is not random. Any living organism is descended from a parent, or parents, whose DNA enabled successful reproduction. That gives a non-random distribution of DNA. In short: “If your parents didn’t have any children then the chances are that you won’t have any either”.

 

[edwest]

A lot of words that don’t amount to an explanation.

 

[rossum]

A lot of words that don’t amount to an explanation.

The Bible has a lot of words. The Catechism of the Catholic Church ha a lot of words as well.

You are correct that neither contains an explanation of the origin of the first living entity.

 

[edwest]

I never wrote that.

 

[Rubee]

So, your God is not a living God but a dead, non-living God? If God is a living God then the origin of life is the origin of the first living entity: God.

Any subsequent living entity must be the second, third etc. Not the first, so not the origin of life.

More projections and evidence of zero understanding of what you’re objecting to. God’s life has nothing to do with this universe or anything science can discover. The God you’re referring to is a creature and we don’t believe in him, but keep putting your hands over your ears if that’s what you’re determined to do and pretend that this ridiculous caricature is believed by anyone in real life.

And what is the origin of your “intelligence”? Is it a living intelligence or a non-living intelligence, some alien supercomputer perhaps? Or do you accept that an intelligence can spontaneously form from the non-intelligent constituent elements of the universe? See Fred Hoyle’s “The Black Cloud” for an example.

Who cares as far as science goes if that’s what you’re really concerned about? It’d just have to be an intelligence, not molecules bumping into each other and poof! Coded instructions and Life.

No scientist will accept that DNA is random. All living DNA has passed through the non-random filter of natural selection, so is not random. Any living organism is descended from a parent, or parents, whose DNA enabled successful reproduction. That gives a non-random distribution of DNA. In short: “If your parents didn’t have any children then the chances are that you won’t have any either”.

Natural selection creating a code of instructions makes natural selection an intelligent mechanism. The claim is one of magic unless you also purport that natural selection itself is not random at all but guided. Then you have a rational explanation.

 

[Edgar]

It seems quite possible that life can have a means of changing its predisposition to give rise to the same essence, by introducing changes (St. Aquinas called them corruptions - though the meaning for him isn’t value laden), that would produce more subcategories of the same species. Now, according to the Malthusian principle we have limited resources in the world but exponentially increasing competitors for those resources, ergo there will be conflict and competition between them. Some of the subcategories of the species will perform worse or better. If some perform better, they bred more, and since their descendents tend to inherit their parents essence, they get similar abilities. Ergo their line of offspring will do better, and their particular variation will start to dominate.

Natural selection of variations within a species does nothing to explain how a microbe evolved into all the forms of life that have existed on earth.

At any rate the theory of evolution deals with explaining the ongoing changing of the species of the Earth, which we see in the geological record.

… which evolutionary theory doesn’t do very well at all - for staters, there is a distinct lack of transitional fossils (which should be plentiful) and the fossil record contains many inexplicable and problematic gaps and sudden appearances of fully-formed creatures with no evolutionary history at all. The Cambrain explosion, for example, exposes many flaws in evolutiionary theory. The fossil record is best explained by a progressive creation model, rather than a model of biological evolution.

As well as explaining the biogeographical distribution of lifeforms.

Which is simply explained by natural selection and doesn’t require accepting the Darwinian interpretation of the fossil record.

Explaining the similarities of morphology in the fossil record, and amongst extant living species. Explaining the similarities in the DNA sequences.

Which can explained by a creation model.

No one knows how the first life was made. Whether God directly created it, or whether God created the circumstances for it and it arose naturally.

Not even the village idiot would be so stupid as to believe life arose naturally from inanimate matter. And what sort of Christian would doubt that God is responsible for creating life? Does the Creed not state that God created everything “seen and unseen”? Me thinks you’ve been spending too much time reading science comic books and not enough time contemplating the miracles described in Scripture.

 

[Edgar]

Richard Lenski created this experiment, where a bacteria suddenly developed a novel enzyme, after having had a duplication of a particular gene. He exposed E. Coli bacteria to a new medium of citrini, which they could digest, but only very poorly. Then after 31500 generations, one descendant strain suddenly developed the ability to digest it.

You forgot to mention that Lenski’s E. coli already had the ability to digest citrate under anaerobic conditions, so the ability to digest citrate under aerobic conditions wasn’t exactly novel and may not have required the evolution of new genetic information.
Besides that, changes within a species demonstate nothing more than changes within a species - they don’t demonstrate how all life on earth evolved from a microbe.

 

[Edgar]

I have a graduate degree on this subject

… which is how, like multitudes of graduates, you ended up so brainwashed. So of them manage to grow out the indoctriantion they received at the hands of the education system, but most don’t.

so the above is just sheer nonsense, is anti-science

You mean “anti-science folklore”. The best scientific explanation for life on earth is probably not even close to the truth.

I used to take your position many many moons ago

Really? You were a progressive creationist who accepted the same fossil record and geological ages as an evolutionist? I have never been a young-earther, btw.

It’s too bad that you think scientists are fools and/or are dishonest

I can’t recall saying that, but I do believe evolutionary biology is foolishness and a product of atheism. A card-carrying evo-believing scientist can still be competant at real science.

 

[Techno2000]

… which evolutionary theory doesn’t do very well at all - for staters, there is a distinct lack of transitional fossils (which should be plentiful)

Yeah…they found the letter Z they just can’t seem to find the rest of the alphabet.

 

[rossum]

It’d just have to be an intelligence, not molecules bumping into each other and poof! Coded instructions and Life.

So, you have no explanation for the origin of your proposed ‘intelligence’. I hope you understand that this leaves a huge hole in your explanation, and renders your explanation scientifically unsatisfactory.

Natural selection creating a code of instructions makes natural selection an intelligent mechanism. The claim is one of magic unless you also purport that natural selection itself is not random at all but guided. Then you have a rational explanation.

Natural selection is definitely not random. Put simply, natural selection can be expressed as “whoever has more grandchildren wins”. More grandchildren means more copies of those genes in future generations. That’s all. No need for guidance; it works like compound interest. If there is guidance, then we are talking about artificial selection, not natural selection.

 

[Rubee]

So, you have no explanation for the origin of your proposed ‘intelligence’. I hope you understand that this leaves a huge hole in your explanation, and renders your explanation scientifically unsatisfactory.

Neither do you have an explanation for your proposed magic. I hope you understand that this leaves a huge hole in your explanation and renders your explanation logically unsatisfactory.

In addition, my “explanation” is a simple logical deduction. You can classify it how you want. It’s just called reasoning in normal parlance.

Natural selection is definitely not random. Put simply, natural selection can be expressed as “whoever has more grandchildren wins”. More grandchildren means more copies of those genes in future generations. That’s all. No need for guidance; it works like compound interest. If there is guidance, then we are talking about artificial selection, not natural selection.

Having more babies does not grant magical powers, like giving molecules an ability to code instructions.

 

[Aloysium]

Since God is alive then the existence of life is assumed, not explained. Science is working towards an explanation of the origin of life. Creationism assumes an answer, so is not interested in discovering more on the subject.

It’s the exact opposite. Given that there exists a living personal God who brings us into being, it is imperative that we develop our relationship with Him, to know and understand Him and, since He brings us into existence, to adhere to His will, the purposes for His doing so. To immerse ourselves in contemplation of His creation is one means by which this is accomplished, allowing us to share in His glory and informing us as to how we are to treat that which He has created with the dignity it deserves. It means everything; the pursuit of science is actually intensified.