If evolution is the alleged great and hidden truth about human origins unknown to divine revelation, to the holy Fathers and to Christ Our Lord and God Himself, who taught us the special creation of man by Almighty God, why is it so full of such manifest and deliberate frauds in just the last 100 years? "Piltdown man was extremely influential in shaping evolutionary thinking and early research on human evolutionary theory. For the four decades before it was exposed, Piltdown man was considered the 'missing link'. It was used as one of the key evidences against creation in the Scopes trial. It altered the education in the United States for a whole generation and found its way into major science textbooks and encyclopedias—and it was a hoax. There were over 250 publications on Piltdown man alone!1 The implications for evolutionary theory were tremendous. Entire evolutionary-developmental theories about hominid evolution were based on Piltdown and many of those were demolished when the fraud was exposed. 250 publications! It would be nothing short of historical revisionism to downplay its significance." https://creation.com/evolution-fraud
https://creation.com/the-piltdown-man-fraud
"Britain's Greatest Hoax. That was the title of the 'Timewatch' investigation of the Piltdown Man fraud, shown on BBC2 television.1 Viewers were presented with a great British 'whodunnit' that tried to identify those who made monkeys out of the scientists of the day.
The history of the discovery of the earliest Englishman (as Piltdown Man was so often called) is fairly common knowledge. A laborer was supposedly digging in a gravel pit near the village of Piltdown in Sussex in southern England when he found a piece of bone. He passed it to the local amateur archaeologist of the district, Charles Dawson, who verified its antiquity and pronounced that it was part of a skull which was possibly human. Dawson began to search for the rest of the skull and, in 1912, a jawbone was discovered. Sir Arthur Smith Woodward of the British Museum verified that the skull had human features and the jaw was ape-like. The fossils became known as Piltdown Man and were called Eoanthropus dawsoni which means 'Dawson's Dawn Man'. In 1915, another Dawn Man was found a couple of miles away from the site of the first find. Fossil remains of animals that lived with Piltdown Man, together with the tools that he used, were also found at the two sites. At last, here was 'proof' that apes had evolved into humans in England.
Almost forty years later, in 1953, Piltdown Man was exposed as a forgery, mainly through the work of Dr Kenneth Oakley. He showed that the skull was from a modern human and that the jawbone and teeth were from an orangutan. The teeth had been filed down to make them look human. The bones and teeth had been chemically treated (and sometimes even painted) to give them the appearance of being ancient. In addition, it was also shown that none of the finds associated with Piltdown Man had been originally buried in the gravel that had been deposited at Piltdown. The Piltdown Man fraud was a great embarrassment to the UK scientific community and questions about it were even asked in the House of Parliament."
Example #2 of Evolutionary Deceptions: The Falsified drawings of Haeckel.
Guilty: "Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities [in early embryos] by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases —in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent— simply copied the same figure over and over again." (Emphasis added.)
Gould added that Haeckel's drawings were known to be fraudulent by Haeckel's scientific peers from the outset. Given the prominence of Haeckel and his books, a corollary would be that Haeckel's scientific peers also knew from the outset that fraudulent drawings and claims were being used to sell Darwin's theory of evolution to the general public."
https://evolutionnews.org/2007/06/lessons_learned_from_haeckel_a/
Quote from: Xavier on July 30, 2018, 12:33:21 AMIf evolution is the alleged great and hidden truth about human origins unknown to divine revelation, to the holy Fathers and to Christ Our Lord and God Himself, who taught us the special creation of man by Almighty God, why is it so full of such manifest and deliberate frauds in just the last 100 years?
Because human primates are highly-evolved creatures with large brains and complex thought patterns, having the capacity to be devious and deceptive.
Everything is full of manifest and deliberate frauds. Skepticism is the only antidote. But not just selective skepticism. The important thing is to question even your own biases, because it's often the case that there's no deception like self-deception. You who are skeptical of evolution do not apply the same skeptical rigor to your faith.
Pon, at this point I don't think there'e much point discussing this with Xavier. He's not here in good faith. He's not willing to discuss and learn. The only thing he's interested in is an echo chamber that confirms his preconceived notions of what is true. He's a classic example of confirmation bias at work.
I'm actually willing to consider Xavier's claim that evolution is a conspiracy. I'm not even averse to conspiracy theories myself; there are two I take pretty seriously: the assassination of JFK and 9/11. I think the official explanations for those are suspicious, or, at the very least, wanting. But in good faith, Xavier, look with honest skepticism at both Piltdown Man and your recent triumphalist claim about Y-Chromosomal DNA.
Granting, for the sake of discussion, what you consider true, consider the illogic:
1. Evolution is a falsehood spread by a scientific community bent on promoting atheist doctrine.
2. Piltdown Man was a hoax, devised to buttress the false theory of evolution.
3. Evolutionists debunked Piltdown Man.
Also:
1. Evolution is a falsehood spread by a scientific community bent on promoting atheist doctrine.
2. Evolutionists release a study on Y-chromosomal DNA which you claim falsifies the theory of evolution.
:confused:
While Evolution is an established scientific theory today, we must recognize that it is also more than a theory. It has functioned as a core belief system for some people of agnostic or atheistic persuasion.
Given this fact, when it comes to any belief system and confirmation bias, hoaxes are pretty common down in history. It's just part of our nature. Some people will indeed go an extra mile in order to confirm their bias with a hoax or simply deceive others for some sort of profit. In and of itself, this has no direct bearing on the belief system itself or its reliability.
The medieval relic trade was full of obvious and cringe-worthy hoaxes, for instance, so much so that Calvin once famously remarked that if all the relics were brought together in one place "it would be made manifest that every Apostle has more than four bodies, and every Saint two or three." Other examples could be sought, like the infamous Donation of Constantine exposed as a forgery by Lorenzo Valla in the Renaissance or the dubious "Holy Fire" in Jerusalem that is kept running to attract pilgrims. Do these hoaxes in and of themselves disprove Christianity as a revelation from God? No. Christianity is dependent upon the veracity of Jesus of Nazareth, His life and testimony. And all of it hinges upon the historical reliability of the Scriptures. That's where it's at: the core argument. The sine qua non. An argument of historical testimony. The development of the religion itself and the Church down the ages, with its ups and downs, is an altogether different subject.
In likewise manner, Evolution cannot be disproved because there were some people who went out of their way to forge evidence for it. Evolution rests, above all, upon a series of scientifically established facts supporting universal common descent. If you wish to investigate this matter further, Xavier, here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/) are enumerated and discussed 30 major predictions of the hypothesis of common descent.
Why isnt't some one like Mary Schweitzer getting more support (and more fundings)? She discovered that there are bloodcells on dinosaur fossils. If scientists are such lovers of truth why aren't any one picking up on this?
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 08:19:19 AM
He's a classic example of confirmation bias at work.
He is, but you're not. lol
Quote from: Maximilian on July 30, 2018, 10:30:14 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 08:19:19 AM
He's a classic example of confirmation bias at work.
He is, but you're not. lol
Unlike Xavier, I read arguments for
and against evolution. I just don't find those against evolution to be convincing. They get basic concepts and ideas wrong. Like stating that the Second Law of Thermodynamics "disproves" evolution, or that because it's called a "theory" that means that scientists aren't relitively certain that it's true.
In the former case, anti-evolutionists forget that the Second Law only applies to closed systems and the Earth's biosphere is not a closed system. In the latter case, they misunderstand the technical meaning of the word "theory" in the context of scientific jargon. Quite frankly, every attempt to refute evolution is based more on ignorance of empirical evidence rather than any evidence itself.
Quote from: Sempronius on July 30, 2018, 10:23:34 AM
Why isnt't some one like Mary Schweitzer getting more support (and more fundings)? She discovered that there are bloodcells on dinosaur fossils. If scientists are such lovers of truth why aren't any one picking up on this?
They have, and they aren't convinced that those blood cells actually belonged to the dinosaurs themselves. I direct you to: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-dinosaur-blood-urges-caution-fossilised.html
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 10:38:24 AM
Quote from: Sempronius on July 30, 2018, 10:23:34 AM
Why isnt't some one like Mary Schweitzer getting more support (and more fundings)? She discovered that there are bloodcells on dinosaur fossils. If scientists are such lovers of truth why aren't any one picking up on this?
They have, and they aren't convinced that those blood cells actually belonged to the dinosaurs themselves. I direct you to: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-dinosaur-blood-urges-caution-fossilised.html
"They have", who are they? Its a modest article that "urges caution" and says that its "likely to be false". Most scientists in her field perceive her as a enemy and she has trouble finding donors and she has endured a lot of criticism.
Quote from: Sempronius on July 30, 2018, 11:32:48 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 10:38:24 AM
Quote from: Sempronius on July 30, 2018, 10:23:34 AM
Why isnt't some one like Mary Schweitzer getting more support (and more fundings)? She discovered that there are bloodcells on dinosaur fossils. If scientists are such lovers of truth why aren't any one picking up on this?
They have, and they aren't convinced that those blood cells actually belonged to the dinosaurs themselves. I direct you to: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-dinosaur-blood-urges-caution-fossilised.html
"They have", who are they? Its a modest article that "urges caution" and says that its "likely to be false". Most scientists in her field perceive her as a enemy and she has trouble finding donors and she has endured a lot of criticism.
There are plenty of articles like the one I linked. A simple Google search can do wonders.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 10:36:29 AMIn the latter case, they misunderstand the technical meaning of the word "theory" in the context of scientific jargon.
I don't know of anyone who
seriously proposes this as an argument against Evolution.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 30, 2018, 11:57:59 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 10:36:29 AMIn the latter case, they misunderstand the technical meaning of the word "theory" in the context of scientific jargon.
I don't know of anyone who seriously proposes this as an argument against Evolution.
You'd be surprised. It's usually not the professional anti-evolutionists, I'll grant you that. But plenty of people on the internet don't know what the word means when used by scientists.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 12:14:39 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 30, 2018, 11:57:59 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 30, 2018, 10:36:29 AMIn the latter case, they misunderstand the technical meaning of the word "theory" in the context of scientific jargon.
I don't know of anyone who seriously proposes this as an argument against Evolution.
You'd be surprised. It's usually not the professional anti-evolutionists, I'll grant you that. But plenty of people on the internet don't know what the word means when used by scientists.
Of course.
But "people on the internet" can't be considered a barometer to assess anything. You'll find anything on the internet. Literally,
anything.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 30, 2018, 12:22:51 PM
You'll find anything on the internet. Literally, anything.
Boy do I have some stories
Now, if :cheeseheadbeer: there is a God then He has clearly not blessed us with noble scientists. We're left with wacky prots but as long as there is room for doubt in evolution then one should hold onto the traditional faith. A female scientist discovers something potentielly huge that may make us rethink about dinosaurs and nobody wants to make further researches!
Quote from: Sempronius on July 30, 2018, 02:12:34 PM
Now, if :cheeseheadbeer: there is a God then He has clearly not blessed us with noble scientists. We're left with wacky prots but as long as there is room for doubt in evolution then one should hold onto the traditional faith. A female scientist discovers something potentielly huge that may make us rethink about dinosaurs and nobody wants to make further researches!
There is little to no room for doubt in the theory of evolution. It is the only model that adequately explains all of the evidence. Further,
as I have already stated, this "discovery" is from 12 years ago. Further studies have cast doubt that what she found are actually dinosaur blood cells. They could very well be contamination of the fossils by microorganisms (which happens frequently since fossils are not always in airtight environments). And to stress this even further, she doesn't even think that her discovery points to a refutation of evolution or a young Earth creationist view of the world.
So again, ladies and gentlemen, your anti-evolution stand simply has no real evidence supporting it. Everything you attempt to bring up can be interpreted in a way that does not contradict other pieces of evidence.
Yeah, she doesnt believe in young earth and that makes her more credible. And she has been careful in eliminating contamination.
Quote from: GloriaPatriFurther, as I have already stated, this "discovery" is from 12 years ago. Further studies have cast doubt that what she found are actually dinosaur blood cells.
No, they haven't. Evolutionist liars have been attacking and harassing her because they realize their whole, sorry edifice of error is very soon about to come crumbling down. Collagen, Protein, Soft tissue, blood cells and more have been found in "195 million year" fossils. Here is some documentation:
1. Here is Nature: "Here we report evidence of protein preservation in a terrestrial vertebrate found inside the vascular canals of a rib of a 195-million-year-old sauropodomorph dinosaur, where blood vessels and nerves would normally have been present in the living organism."
2. Science Mag: "One study, led by Mary Schweitzer, a paleontologist from North Carolina State University in Raleigh who has chased dinosaur proteins for decades, confirms her highly controversial claim to have recovered 80-million-year-old dinosaur collagen. The other paper suggests that protein may even have survived in a 195-million-year-old dino fossil." http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/scientists-retrieve-80-million-year-old-dinosaur-protein-milestone-paper
3. Science Daily: "Utilizing the most rigorous testing methods to date, researchers from North Carolina State University have isolated additional collagen peptides from an 80-million-year-old Brachylophosaurus."https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170123145210.htm
4. And here is an actual professional paper from Science Vs Evolution proving these and related discoveries show any reasonable person that evolution is the greatest deception inflicted on mankind in the last century: Abstract: The discovery of collagen in a Tyrannosaurus-rex dinosaur femur bone was recently reported in the journal Science. Its geologic location was the Hell Creek Formation in the State of Montana, United States of America. When it was learned in 2005 that Triceratops and Hadrosaur femur bones in excellent condition were discovered by the Glendive (MT) Dinosaur & Fossil Museum, Hugh Miller asked and received permission to saw them in half and collect samples for C-14 testing of any bone collagen that might be extracted. Indeed both bones contained collagen and conventional dates of 30,890 ± 380 radiocarbon years (RC) for the Triceratops and 23,170 ±170 RC years for the Hadrosaur were obtained using the Accelerated Mass Spectrometer (AMS). Total organic carbon and/or dinosaur bone bio-apatite was then extracted and pretreated to remove potential contaminants and concordant radiocarbon dates were obtained, all of which were similar to radiocarbon dates for megafauna." http://www.sciencevsevolution.org/Holzschuh.htm
You're not seriously interested in pursuing the ramifications of these scientific facts for your pagan worldview. Your pagan theory will collapse to the ground when everyone realizes collagen shows they are hardly tens of thousands of years old at most, and therefore evolution never happened.
Quote from: PonI'm actually willing to consider Xavier's claim that evolution is a conspiracy.
To be clear on one thing I thought I explained on the other thread, when we say, for e.g. fractional reserve central banking is usurious, unnecessary and a deception started some 350 years ago, that doesn't mean each and every Fed economist today is a conspirator. Not at all. Many are in good faith thinking the Fed is the solution to all of mankind's problems, and that their economic work is going to help society and the economy. We never blame the good with the bad. We blame only those who, for the sake of shameful greed, deliberately perpetrate what they know is a scam.
Applied to evolution, good scientists may unwittingly support a lie invented by others in good faith. They are innocent. Who is guilty (1) Those who perpetrated the scam of Piltdown man (2) Those who deliberately kept honest inquirers (open your eyes, Pon, this is the deception of the century, those in that small circle knew very well what they were keeping from the public!) away for 40 years, while some 250 odd publications wrecked the Christian Faith of millions for a generation based on total deception (3) Those who perpetuate Haeckel's falsified drawings in textbooks even today and the like. Who are good (1) Those who honestly report on what they find, and try as best they can to analyse the implications of their findings. (2) Those who discovered the fraud of Piltdown man and warned the public of the deception (3) Those few good people who call for Haeckel's deliberate deception to be completely purged from textbooks and never taught again. And so on.
For Vetus and the Christians here, take seriously the warnings of a creation science textbook in 1928, which clearly rings true even some 100 years later (a telegraph article said less than 43% in evolutionist England now identify as Christians, in 2015, and that's a rapidly declining numbers - the day Christianity attacks, and with God's help, triumphs over this pagan heresy, Christianity will triumph again in the West like never before in history): "So baneful has been the effect of teaching evolution as a proven hypothesis, that multitudes have been led into infidelity and atheism. Prof. James H. Leuba, of Bryn Mawr College, Pa. sent a questionnaire to 1000 of the most prominent scientists teaching sciences relating to evolution. The replies indicate that more than one-half do not believe in a personal God, nor the immortality of the soul--beliefs almost universal even in the heathen world. So pernicious is this doctrine of evolution that more than one-half of the professors who teach it and kindred subjects, are infidels and atheists and farther from God than the ignorant heathen. And while we are happy in the conviction that the great majority of professors and teachers of other subjects are Christians, yet one or two atheists or infidels are sufficient to make havoc of the faith of many, in a great college or university.
A doctrine so abhorrent to the conscience, so contrary to the well nigh universal belief, and so fruitful of evil, certainly can not be true. Small wonder is it that students are fast becoming infidels and atheists, and we shudder as we think of the coming generation. A great responsibility rests upon the authorities who employ such teachers.
The answers of the students in seven large representative colleges and universities to Prof. Leuba's questionnaire, show that while only 15% of the Freshmen have abandoned the Christian religion, 30% of the Juniors and over 40% of the Seniors have abandoned the Christian faith. Note the steady and rapid growth of infidelity and atheism as a result of this pernicious theory.
Will Christian parents patronize or support or endow institutions that give an education that is worse than worthless? What the colleges teach today the world will believe tomorrow.
Atheism, under its own name, has never had many to embrace it. Its only hope is to be tolerated and believed under some other name. In Russia, no man is allowed to belong to the ruling (Communist) party unless he is an atheist. It will be a sorry world when "scientific" atheism wins, under the name of evolution.
No one has a moral right to believe what is false, much less to teach it, under the specious plea of freedom of thought.
It is the privilege and duty of parents to send their children to institutions that are safe.
Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb kidnapped and cruelly murdered Robert Franks. Both were brilliant scholars and atheists. Both graduates of universities though minors, and both were taking a post-graduate course in the University of Chicago. It is asserted and widely believed that they were encouraged in their atheistic belief by the teaching of evolution and modernism, and were thus prepared to commit a crime that shocked the world.
Most of the writers who advocated evolution became atheists or infidels; most of the professors who teach it, believe neither in God nor the immortality of the soul; and the number of students discarding Christianity rose from 15% in the Freshman year to 40% in the Senior. What more proof is needed?" http://ldolphin.org/wmwilliams.html
See how prescient the creation science textbook is for combating the Piltdown Fake way back in the 1920s when it was defended by evolutionists, and for explaining why the record shows all evolution is a scam, at the same time:
"Piltdown Man (See Appendix). The next fragments of bones, in chronological order, upon which evolutionists rely to prove their impossible theory, has been called the Piltdown man. It has been more truthfully called the Piltdown fake. Dr. Chapin gravely tells us (Social Evolution, p. 67): "During the years 1912, a series of fragments of a human skull and a jaw bone were found associated with eolithic implements and the bones of extinct mammals in Pleistocene deposits on a plateau, 80 feet above the river bed, at Piltdown, Fletching, Sussex, Eng. ...The remains were of great importance. The discoverers regard this relic as a specimen of a distinct genus of the human species and it has been called Eoanthropus Dawsoni. This extinct man lived in Europe hundreds of thousands of years ago." We have passed over 200,000 to 300,000 years since the Heidelberg man, that have not yielded a scrap of bone, though according to the theory, countless millions of ape-men must have lived in various stages of development, in that great stretch of time. Why were not some of them preserved? Simply because there were no ape-men. There are countless relics of apes, but none of ape-men. Even Wells says: "At a great open-air camp at Solutre, where they seem to have had annual gatherings for many centuries, it is estimated there are the bones of 100,000 horses." Would we not expect as many bones of ape-men? While Wells says the bones of 100,000 horses were found in a single locality, Dr. Ales Hrdlicka says that the bones of 200,000 prehistoric horses were found in another place. Why should we not find, for the same reason, the bones of millions of ape-men and ape-women in 750,000 years? Instead of mullions we have the alleged fragments of 4, all of which are of a very doubtful character.
The bones of this precious Piltdown find consisted, at first, of a piece of the jaw bone, another small piece of bone from the skull, and a canine tooth, which the zealous evolutionists located in the lower right jaw, when it belonged in the upper left; later, two molar teeth and two nasal hones--scarcely a double hand full in all. An ape man was "reconstructed" made to look like an ape-man, according to the fancy of the artist. The artist can create an ape-man, even if God could not create a real man! But scientists said the teeth did not belong to the same skull and the jaw could not be associated with the same skull. Ales Hrdlicka says, "The jaw and the tooth belong to a fossil chimpanzee." Conscientious scientists said that the pieces of the jaw and skull could not belong to the same individual. They constructed a scarecrow from the bones of an ape and of a man, and offer this, without the batting of an eye, as a scientific proof of the antiquity of man. The great anthropologist of world-wide reputation, Prof. Virchow, said: "In vain have Darwin's adherents sought for connecting links which should connect man with the monkey. Not a single one has been found. This so-called pro-anthropus, which is supposed to represent this connecting link, has not appeared. No true scientist claims to have seen him." Sir Ray Lancaster, writing to H. G. Wells, concerning the Piltdown find, says, "We are stumped and baffled." Yet in spite of all this, nearly 1,000,000 persons annually pass through the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and view the "reconstruction" according to the artist's fancy, of the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg man, the Piltdown man, and the Neanderthal man, the "ancestors of the human race," and the multitude of high school students and teachers, as well as the general public, are not told how dubious and unscientific the representation is ... The entire absence of human remains during the during the 750,000 years and more is a demonstration against the brute origin of man, and a proof of special creation .
It will be remembered that there is no complete skeleton among all the remains, nor enough parts to make one altogether, nor to make any large part of a skeleton-- not even an entire skull. What bones are found are not joined together, and some of them scattered so widely apart, that no one can be certain they belong to the same individual. Some of the bones belong to an ape, and some to man--doubtless modern man. Ardent evolutionists, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, have taken a fractional bone of a man, and a bone of an ape, and fashioned a composite being, and called it an ape-man, and their ancestor."
Xavier, why don't you list your specific problems with the theory of evolution in a series of questions, and I will do what I can to answer them for you (or at least point you in the direction of resources that provide the answers you seek). And keep the questions to a scientific nature, as this is the natural science sub-forum.
Quote from: Xavier on July 30, 2018, 11:38:49 PMTo be clear on one thing I thought I explained on the other thread, when we say, for e.g. fractional reserve central banking is usurious, unnecessary and a deception started some 350 years ago, that doesn't mean each and every Fed economist today is a conspirator. Not at all. Many are in good faith thinking the Fed is the solution to all of mankind's problems, and that their economic work is going to help society and the economy. We never blame the good with the bad. We blame only those who, for the sake of shameful greed, deliberately perpetrate what they know is a scam.
Understood. Every program will naturally have its useful idiots and unwitting dupes. What we have to ascertain here is why, if, as you claim, the fraud of Piltdown Man easily discredits evolution, those who uncovered the fraud continued to be persuaded by evolution. This puts your claim in doubt. Clearly the scientists who debunked Piltdown Man did not see evolution as disproved because of it. All it proved in the end, really, is that people can be opportunistic, deceptive, or prankish.
What I detect on the creationist side is a continual rushing to judgement. The fraud of evolution is assumed, and any little thing (even something irrelevant) that can be seized on to rhetorically support this claim, is seized on. But that's no way to do things fairly. You have to go into it neutral or agnostic at the very least—or, for the truly brave, you can assume the other side true. Jim Garrison, who uncovered the Kennedy assassination conspiracy, went into it believing like the rest of America that Kennedy had been killed by a lone nut. All he did was follow the evidence.
The Mary Schweitzer thing is a perfect example. It's evidence of nothing. It's a controversy within the scientific community. Neither she nor anyone else involved thinks the issue is going to blow the lid off of evolution or make an old earth impossible. Evolution will live or die by the facts. And there are no facts in the Schweitzer controversy dangerous to evolution. It can't be considered evidence of a conspiracy if people within the alleged conspiracy happen to disagree on certain minor issues that aren't even fatal to the conspiracy. That's just everyday human happenstance; to trumpet it as evidence of a conspiracy is somewhat dishonest dealing—or hand-waving, or sleight-of-hand, or something to do with hands: those grasping appendages with fingernails and opposable thumbs which we share with our ape relatives.
Here are my arguments against evolution.
It cannot be demonstrated that it takes place at the rate necessary to generate the complex processes and very different species and biological bio-chemical mechanisms through natural selection.
I cannot conceive of how less complex processes can randomly mutate into vastly more complex one. This is not observable in nature. Things break and break down, they don't become more complex unless an intelligence directs that.
Any accepted evolutionary explanation for man drives a coach and horses through Original Sin as it was framed, taught and believed for 2000 years. The Church can't just say "whoops" we got that wrong, or that Original Sin is "some sort of poetic metaphor" for the state of mankind because it claims Divine Authority.
If you claim to be an expert in law and command the respect of people as a expert and make demands on them, then, in justice, you had better bloody well be an expert and not move the goalposts.
If evolution is correct then Christianity has been telling a pack of lies about original sin and making a dogma out of it. That is an appalling injustice and frankly an outright fraud. Why would I take anything the Catholic Church says before or since seriously when it was completely wrong and baseless on its assertions and teachings about Original Sin.
Original Sin as we have been taught it as a dogma requires two original parents to the entire human race and evolutionary and genetic science simply don't suppose this. As far as they are concerned we evolved from a pack of hominids not a pair.
If evolution is even essentially correct then Christianity is bullshit.
Quote from: Greg on July 31, 2018, 01:17:30 PM
Here are my arguments against evolution.
It cannot be demonstrated that it takes place at the rate necessary to generate the complex processes and very different species and biological bio-chemical mechanisms through natural selection.
I cannot conceive of how less complex processes can randomly mutate into vastly more complex one. This is not observable in nature. Things break and break down, they don't become more complex unless an intelligence directs that.
Any accepted evolutionary explanation for man drives a coach and horses through Original Sin as it was framed, taught and believed for 2000 years. The Church can't just say "whoops" we got that wrong, or that Original Sin is "some sort of poetic metaphor" for the state of mankind because it claims Divine Authority.
If you claim to be an expert in law and command the respect of people as a expert and make demands on them, then, in justice, you had better bloody well be an expert and not move the goalposts.
If evolution is correct then Christianity has been telling a pack of lies about original sin and making a dogma out of it. That is an appalling injustice and frankly an outright fraud. Why would I take anything the Catholic Church says before or since seriously when it was completely wrong and baseless on its assertions and teachings about Original Sin.
Original Sin as we have been taught it as a dogma requires two original parents to the entire human race and evolutionary and genetic science simply don't suppose this. As far as they are concerned we evolved from a pack of hominids not a pair.
If evolution is even essentially correct then Christianity is bullshit.
Again, Greg, your arguments are purely philosophical/theological. I am hoping that you, and Xavier, and anyone else really, could limit your questions to purely scientific matters. The subforum for sacred sciences would be a better place for you theological questions.
As far as whether you can or cannot conceive something, that's on you. I can't mentally conceive of nth dimensional space where n is greater than 3, but such a space has a well defined mathematical existence and consequently can have a well defined physical existence.
And more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus. A seed grows into a tree. Simpler elements combine into more complex ones all the time. As far as things breaking down in nature, that is true. But you forget that evolution does not happen in one lifespan, but rather happens over many, many generations. Each generation is genetically slightly different from the one before it. As those changes add up you'll eventually have a new organism.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PMAs far as things breaking down in nature, that is true. But you forget that evolution does not happen in one lifespan, but rather happens over many, many generations.
Very true. There is a passage in Schopenhauer somewhere where he talks about the bloom of a young woman's beauty, and how that beauty is really just nature dangling the most exquisite flower to a man, to which he will be drawn like an eager bee, and then before he knows it her beauty has faded, and the nubile girl is a fat-ankled harridan, and his peace is being constantly disturbed by the shrieks of their children (Schopenhauer despised noise). The point, in biological terms, is that everything breaks down and everything decays, beauty most tragically of all, and natural selection is more or less done with us once we've ripened to maturity and put our genes into the next generation. After that, it's "the aging process," and it's all downhill. Perhaps David Bowie was more succinct about it: "we live for just these twenty years / do we have to die for the fifty more?"
Creation Scientists deserve credit for saying Piltdown fraud was a fake in the 1920s more than 30 years before our poor evolutionist friends caught up!
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 12:55:33 PM
Xavier, why don't you list your specific problems with the theory of evolution in a series of questions, and I will do what I can to answer them for you (or at least point you in the direction of resources that provide the answers you seek). And keep the questions to a scientific nature, as this is the natural science sub-forum.
Ok, we'll do that, then. (1) The first question I have for you is, Do you a priori exclude the possibility of a Divine Designer, or special creation, or are you willing to consider it? (2) second, are you willing to admit the imperfections in the fossil record, which have been amply documented even by evolutionists, or by those favorable to or at least neutral toward your theory? Let me cite British Australian Biochemist Michael Delton as we go on.
Broadly speaking, creation scientists employ two types of scientific demonstrative disproofs of evolution (1) First, to show the alleged transition very clearly never took place from a study of the past (2) Second, and as an addendum, to show the time required for the transition was not present.
Quote from: Evolution: A Theory in CrisisThe overall picture of life on Earth today is so discontinuous, the gaps between the different types so obvious, that, as Steven Stanley reminds us in his recent book Macroevolution, if our knowledge of biology was restricted to those species presently existing on Earth, "we might wonder whether the doctrine of evolution would qualify as anything more than an outrageous hypothesis."1 Without intermediates or transitional forms to bridge the enormous gaps which separate existing species and groups of organisms, the concept of evolution could never be taken seriously as a scientific hypothesis ...
Curiously, the problem is compounded by the fact that the earliest representatives of most of the major invertebrate phyla appear in the fossil record over a relatively short space of geological time, about six hundred million years ago in the Cambrian era. The strata lain down over the hundreds of millions of years before the Cambrian era, which might have contained the connecting links between the major phyla, are almost completely empty of animal fossils. If transitional types between the major phyla ever existed then it is in these pre-Cambrian strata that their fossils should be found.
The story is the same for plants. Again, the first representatives of each major group appear in the fossil record already highly specialized and highly characteristic of the group to which they belong. Perhaps one of the most abrupt arrivals of any plant group in the fossil record is the appearance of the angiosperms in the era known to geologists as the Cretaceous.
Again, just as in the case of the absence of pre-Cambrian fossils, no forms have ever been found in pre-Cretaceous rocks linking the angiosperms with any other group of plants. According to Daniel Axelrod: The ancestral group that gave rise to angiosperms has not yet been identified in the fossil record, and no living angiosperm points to such an ancestral alliance. In addition, the record has shed almost no light on relations between taxa at ordinal and family level ...
The same pattern is true of the vertebrate fossil record. The first members of each major group appear abruptly, unlinked to other groups by transitional or intermediate forms. Already at their first appearance, although often more generalized than later representatives, they are well differentiated and already characteristic of their respective classes.
No fish group known to vertebrate paleontology can be classed as an ancestor of another; all are related as sister groups, never as ancestors and descendants.
The pattern repeats itself in the emergence of the Amphibia ... The same pattern is evident as the various reptile and mammalian groups make their first appearance in the fossil record.
The overall character of the fossil record as it stands today was superbly summarized in an article by G. G. Simpson prepared for the Darwin Centenary Symposium held in Chicago in 1959. Simpson is a leading paleontologist whose testimony to the reality of the gaps in the fossil record has considerable force. As he points out, it is one of the most striking features of the fossil record that most new kinds of organisms appear abruptly: They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution ...
It would be pointless to continue citing examples to illustrate the discontinuous nature of the fossil record. Anyone who doubts the reality of the gaps may either take the word of leading paleontologists or simply open one of the standard works on paleontology such as Romer's Vertebrate Paleontology or Schrock and Twenhofel's Invertebrate Paleontology and examine any of the stratigraphic charts showing the abundance of various groups during different geological eras and dotted lines suggesting their hypothetical phylogenetic relationships. Even a cursory glance shows clearly that profound and undoubted discontinuities do in fact exist.
There is no doubt that as it stands today the fossil record provides a tremendous challenge to the notion of organic evolution, because to close the very considerable gaps which at present separate the known groups would necessarily have required great numbers of transitional forms.
Darwin's insistence that gradual evolution by natural selection would require inconceivable numbers of transitional forms may have been something of an exaggeration but it is hard to escape concluding that in some cases he may not have been so far from the mark. Take the case of the gap between modem whales and land mammals. All known aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals such as seals, sea cows (sirenians) or otters are specialized representatives of distinct orders and none can possibly be ancestral to the present-day whales.
To bridge the gap we are forced therefore to postulate a large number of entirely extinct hypothetical species starting from a small, relatively unspecialized land mammal like a shrew and leading successively through an otter-like stage, seal-like stage, sirenian-like stage and finally to a putative organism which could serve as the ancestor of the modern whales.
Even from the hypothetical whale ancestor stage we need to postulate many hypothetical primitive whales to bridge the not inconsiderable gaps which separate the modern filter feeders (the baleen whales) and the toothed whales.
That will do for now. More later as I have time.
Quote from: PonYou have to go into it neutral or agnostic at the very least—or, for the truly brave, you can assume the other side true. Jim Garrison, who uncovered the Kennedy assassination conspiracy, went into it believing like the rest of America that Kennedy had been killed by a lone nut. All he did was follow the evidence.
Ok, very good. But what did he do after he became convinced? Would a studied neutrality still be the optimal approach? Would it not be necessary to expose the scam to the public, even if everyone thinks you a nut for doing so? By the way, you may enjoy this article from St. Michael's Journal on the Subject. https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/politics/item/abraham-lincoln-and-john-f-kennedy "On June 4th, 1963, President Kennedy signed a presidential document, called Executive Order 11110, which further amended Executive Order 10289 of September 19th, 1951. This gave Kennedy, as President of the United States, legal clearance to create his own money to run the country, money that would belong to the people, an Interest and debt-free money. He had printed United States Notes, completely ignoring the Federal Reserve Notes from the private banks of the Federal Reserve. Our records show that Kennedy issued $4,292,893,825 of cash money. It was perfectly obvious that Kennedy was out to undermine the Federal Reserve System of the United States. But it was only a few months later, In November of 1963, that the world received the shocking news of President Kennedy's assassination. No reason was given, of course, for anyone wanting to commit such an atrocious crime. But for those who knew anything about money and banking, it did — not take long to put the pieces of the puzzle together. For surely, President Kennedy must have had It in mind to repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and return back to the United States Congress the power to create its own money." President Trump is on course now to do the same thing, so it's not surprising those who hate western civilization have their agents in the media and elsewhere trying to undermine him at every turn; but he's one step ahead of them this time, and nobody can even think of assassinating him without intelligence agencies gathering evidence of it. It's necessary to scream these things about the Fed and the like from the rooftops, even if the world thinks you mad. One day, you'll be sorry to be proved right. But hopefully, people will correct before that and those things will never happen.
Re: Piltdown Man. Sure, I credit the good evolutionist scientists who after 1953 admitted and admit it was a fraud. Will you credit Rev. Williams and other creation scientists who said it was a fraud in the 1920s? Rev. Williams is exceptionally kind to his adversaries, but of course, it turned out worse than what he wrote: "Some of the bones belong to an ape, and some to man--doubtless modern man. Ardent evolutionists, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, have taken a fractional bone of a man, and a bone of an ape, and fashioned a composite being, and called it an ape-man, and their ancestor." Evolutionists took 30 years to catch up with Creation Scientists!
Re: Mary Schweitzer. But Pon. Just imagine for a moment if it was proven those fossils and the earth itself was less than say a 100 thousand or even a million years old. What would happen? Evolution would collapse overnight. That's what some of them are afraid of. That's why she's hard pressed to get funding and many of those who are far less qualified than her bully her. She is not even a creation scientist, yet this is the reaction. As for us, we welcome honest analysis of everything, because we know truths of reason from the Book of Nature will never contradict truths of revelation from the Book of Scripture. Both come from one same God and Father, the Lord of Life and the God of History. Would you like to comment on the discovery of collagen studied in Nature and reported in Science Daily, above? Do you think collagen can survive millions of years? "But Schweitzer's team pressed on. In 2009, she, Asara, and colleagues reported in Science that they had isolated protein fragments from a second dinosaur, an 80-million-year-old hadrosaur. Asara's lab identified eight collagen fragments. This time Schweitzer sent samples of fossil extract to an independent lab, which also detected three of the collagen fragments. ;Collectively, the sequences showed the purported hadrosaur collagen was more closely related to T. rex and birds than to modern reptiles. "This proves the first [T. rex] study was not a one-hit wonder," Asara said at the time."
Greg, the correct inference is, since Christianity is known to be true, evolution is (and also can be independently and scientifically demonstrated to be) garbage. You said yourself the fossil evidence is essentially a demonstrative proof once. That's correct. But I think Christianity is like collecting butterflies to some people. You can do it one day and give it up the next. It is not like a lifelong commitment or a treasure you should be willing to give your life to defend. That's wrong. If that's the approach, then you don't love God above all things, as the first commandment requires. Nobody would abandon a spouse at the first sign of difficulty. No soldier would give up service to country even after struggles. How much less should man give up his fidelity to God and his service to the King of kings just because somebody claims men descended from monkeys? We most certainly did not, nor did whales or the other species documented above descend from anything, but were directly and immediately created by God, as the Prophet Moses, made an eyewitness to God's creation, testified long ago.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on July 31, 2018, 01:50:22 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PMAs far as things breaking down in nature, that is true. But you forget that evolution does not happen in one lifespan, but rather happens over many, many generations.
Very true. There is a passage in Schopenhauer somewhere where he talks about the bloom of a young woman's beauty, and how that beauty is really just nature dangling the most exquisite flower to a man, to which he will be drawn like an eager bee, and then before he knows it her beauty has faded, and the nubile girl is a fat-ankled harridan, and his peace is being constantly disturbed by the shrieks of their children (Schopenhauer despised noise). The point, in biological terms, is that everything breaks down and everything decays, beauty most tragically of all, and natural selection is more or less done with us once we've ripened to maturity and put our genes into the next generation. After that, it's "the aging process," and it's all downhill. Perhaps David Bowie was more succinct about it: "we live for just these twenty years / do we have to die for the fifty more?"
What an abysmal view of life and physical beauty. The external beauty of the human form is meant to accord with the dignity of the human person, not just stir up sexual appetites; and the evil effects of ageing, injury, genetic deformity, etc., are the consequences of original sin, not an intrinsic part of human nature.
"The point, in biological terms, is that everything breaks down and everything decays, beauty most tragically of all, and natural selection is more or less done with us once we've ripened to maturity and put our genes into the next generation." This shows how much evolutionary thought can deform the Christian mind. You're already beginning to think that ageing and death is the faithful servant of so-called "natural selection", and not a punishment for sin.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
And more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus. A seed grows into a tree. Simpler elements combine into more complex ones all the time. As far as things breaking down in nature, that is true. But you forget that evolution does not happen in one lifespan, but rather happens over many, many generations. Each generation is genetically slightly different from the one before it. As those changes add up you'll eventually have a new organism.
False analogy. A fertilised ovum is formally a human being, so it growing into a foetus and eventually a grown man is no evolution of its form but merely an unfolding of what it already has, the actualisation of its potential. The same with an acorn growing into a tree.
A rock, however, has no potential to turn itself into a fish or a bird; its essence or form does not have that potential. This is why mechanistic evolution is impossible, and why the only evolution that makes sense intellectually is a theistic evolution where God is performing many millions of miracles over many millions of years. Of course, why an all-powerful God would employ such a redundant method of creation is the reason that theistic evolution itself is implausible, but at least it is not irrational and absurd like mechanistic evolution.
The best way to break the illusion that mechanistic/fortuitous evolution is anything like a reasonable hypothesis is just to have a good look at a dog or a bird, or any animal really. If you can look at such a marvel of form, of structure and organisation, and still imagine that no mind was involved in its formation, but that it came about fortuitously (i.e. by chance) like a rock falling down a mountain, being chipped away at, and arriving at the bottom as a perfect replica of Michelangelo's David - then you are stupid or heavily brainwashed. You can cringe and whine all you like about this being an "argument from incredulity" and a "logical fallacy", but that can't do away with the basic intuitions of the human mind, which were given to us precisely to keep us grounded in reality when our "scientific theories" became pure fantasy.
"The philosopher tells us that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy, in a tea-kettle as in a Gier-eagle. Very good; that is so; and it is very interesting. It requires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to its nest. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our principal interest to the difference in their forms. For us, the primarily cognisable facts in the two things are, that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak; the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings; not to speak of the distinction of volition, which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode of force. The kettle chooses to sit still on the hob; the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfilment of it, which appears to us the more interesting circumstance."
Ruskin
"Must I not here express my wonder that any one should exist who persuades himself that there are certain solid and indivisible particles carried along by their own impulse and weight, and that a universe so beautiful and so admirably arrayed is formed from the accidental concourse of those particles? I do not understand why the man who supposes that to have been possible should not also think that if a countless number of the forms of the one and twenty letters, whether in gold or any other material, were to be thrown somewhere, it would be possible, when they had been shaken out upon the ground, for the annals of Ennius to result from them so as to be able to be read consecutively,—a miracle of chance which I incline to think would be impossible even in the case of a single verse."
Cicero
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 05:09:29 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
And more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus. A seed grows into a tree. Simpler elements combine into more complex ones all the time. As far as things breaking down in nature, that is true. But you forget that evolution does not happen in one lifespan, but rather happens over many, many generations. Each generation is genetically slightly different from the one before it. As those changes add up you'll eventually have a new organism.
False analogy. A fertilised ovum is formally a human being, so it growing into a foetus and eventually a grown man is no evolution of its form but merely an unfolding of what it already has, the actualisation of its potential. The same with an acorn growing into a tree.
A rock, however, has no potential to turn itself into a fish or a bird; its essence or form does not have that potential. This is why mechanistic evolution is impossible, and why the only evolution that makes sense intellectually is a theistic evolution where God is performing many millions of miracles over many millions of years. Of course, why an all-powerful God would employ such a redundant method of creation is the reason that theistic evolution itself is implausible, but at least it is not irrational and absurd like mechanistic evolution.
A rock is not a living organism that produces genetically distinct offspring. That you even attempt to use that as your argument shows that you have little to no understanding of basic biology.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
I am hoping that you, and Xavier, and anyone else really, could limit your questions to purely scientific matters.
Of course you are. Keep the discussion within the box of atheist secular preconceptions. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
Where does life come from? How did evolution get started? Science has NO answers for these questions. And so they simply declare the questions off limits.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
And more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus. A seed grows into a tree.
This is so insulting to my intelligence that it makes me hate evolutionists. The enormous amount of condescension on display by evolutionists is unrivalled in human history.
There is really only one argument for evolution, "People who don't believe in evolution are uneducated, barefoot hillbillies from the Ozarks. Do you want to be one of them?"
That argument is reasonably successful from a propaganda perspective -- although nowhere near as successful as evolutionists would like to pretend -- but it explains nothing about the origin of life.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 05:25:21 AMThe best way to break the illusion that mechanistic/fortuitous evolution is anything like a reasonable hypothesis is just to have a good look at a dog or a bird, or any animal really. If you can look at such a marvel of form, of structure and organisation, and still imagine that no mind was involved in its formation, but that it came about fortuitously (i.e. by chance) like a rock falling down a mountain, being chipped away at, and arriving at the bottom as a perfect replica of Michelangelo's David - then you are stupid or heavily brainwashed. You can cringe and whine all you like about this being an "argument from incredulity" and a "logical fallacy", but that can't do away with the basic intuitions of the human mind, which were given to us precisely to keep us grounded in reality when our "scientific theories" became pure fantasy.
(https://pixfeeds.com/images/topic/7999/1200-7999-ostrich-photo3.jpg)
To the contrary, I feel like all you have to do is consider the flightless birds. Wings, but no flight. When I look at an ostrich, I don't wonder at the organization of its form. I think to myself, "what is this freakish thing?" It looks, in all likelihood, to be the awkward product of evolution. Kiwis barely have wings at all: theirs are just tiny nubs, like the vestigial little leg protrusions on some snakes. All of this indicates evolution. Now, cats, I can concede, are pure marvels. No animal suggests a designer more than the feline: they are perfect in both grace and savagery. They have an uncaring majesty. To watch a cat stalking its prey never fails to captivate me. But what cats say about the nature or goodness of the creator, it may be best not to inquire. As William Blake well put it: "
what immortal hand or eye / could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 07:12:24 AM
A rock is not a living organism that produces genetically distinct offspring. That you even attempt to use that as your argument shows that you have little to no understanding of basic biology.
But you're the one that believes rocks can breed themselves into birds in a mere few billions of years.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 08:38:19 AM
(https://pixfeeds.com/images/topic/7999/1200-7999-ostrich-photo3.jpg)
To the contrary, I feel like all you have to do is consider the flightless birds. Wings, but no flight. When I look at an ostrich, I don't wonder at the organization of its form. I think to myself, "what is this freakish thing?" It looks, in all likelihood, to be the awkward product of evolution.
That's just a matter of perspective. Just because they don't get off the ground, doesn't mean they aren't flying. Watch a video of an ostrich running and explain how it could manage it without wings/feathers for lightness and balance.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 08:42:59 AMThat's just a matter of perspective. Just because they don't get off the ground, doesn't mean they aren't flying. Watch a video of an ostrich running and explain how it could manage it without wings/feathers for lightness and balance.
No, I take the point. I didn't mean to say that the wings had
no usefulness to the ostrich any longer. Clearly they do. But the fact that they have wings, and use them for something other than flight, suggests evolution. Just as Kiwi having wings that are barely there at all also does; those are wings that have no usefulness and have all but gone away.
Similarly, humans have retained the arms we share with the the apes, having an advantageous range, dexterity, and grasping capacity, useful even outside of living a life in the trees. Whereas being bipedal, we've lost our prehensile feet, which are great for an arboreal lifestyle but a hindrance to making a living running around on the plain. When I consider both the similarities and the differences, it's not difficult to contemplate descent. I think dogs are the greatest example: when you consider the descent of the chihuahua from the wolf, it's hardly any feat to consider a descendant of the chihuahua as different from it as the chihauhua is from the wolf. At some point you would get closer to a rodent-like creature that would be not only be a different breed, but a different species.
Quote from: Maximilian on August 01, 2018, 08:31:50 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
I am hoping that you, and Xavier, and anyone else really, could limit your questions to purely scientific matters.
Of course you are. Keep the discussion within the box of atheist secular preconceptions. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
Where does life come from? How did evolution get started? Science has NO answers for these questions. And so they simply declare the questions off limits.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
And more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus. A seed grows into a tree.
This is so insulting to my intelligence that it makes me hate evolutionists. The enormous amount of condescension on display by evolutionists is unrivalled in human history.
There is really only one argument for evolution, "People who don't believe in evolution are uneducated, barefoot hillbillies from the Ozarks. Do you want to be one of them?"
That argument is reasonably successful from a propaganda perspective -- although nowhere near as successful as evolutionists would like to pretend -- but it explains nothing about the origin of life.
Evolution presupposes the existence of living organisms; abiogenesis is a separate matter. Just because there has been no settled answer to how life emerged from non-life does not mean that life itself does not evolve over billion of years.
As far as education is concerned, it is true that the population that does not believe in evolution does correlate strongly with the population that did not earn an education beyond high school. But that's not the point I was making. Greg said that he believed it impossible for simpler things to evolve into more complex things over billions of years. Yet you do see simple single-celled organisms (a fertilized ovum) grow into an organism of trillions of cells (a fully developed human fetus) over a period of 9 months.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 08:42:59 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 07:12:24 AM
A rock is not a living organism that produces genetically distinct offspring. That you even attempt to use that as your argument shows that you have little to no understanding of basic biology.
But you're the one that believes rocks can breed themselves into birds in a mere few billions of years.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 08:38:19 AM
(https://pixfeeds.com/images/topic/7999/1200-7999-ostrich-photo3.jpg)
To the contrary, I feel like all you have to do is consider the flightless birds. Wings, but no flight. When I look at an ostrich, I don't wonder at the organization of its form. I think to myself, "what is this freakish thing?" It looks, in all likelihood, to be the awkward product of evolution.
That's just a matter of perspective. Just because they don't get off the ground, doesn't mean they aren't flying. Watch a video of an ostrich running and explain how it could manage it without wings/feathers for lightness and balance.
No proponent of evolution believes that "rocks can breed themselves into birds in a mere few billions of years." That you think so shows that either you are extremely ignorant of evolution, or being intentionally intellectually dishonest. Take your pick.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
Evolution presupposes the existence of living organisms; abiogenesis is a separate matter.
No, they are not separate. They are 100% the same question. "Where does life come from?"
Men have been asking this question for (at least) 6,000 years. Your secular science provides no answers.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
Just because there has been no settled answer to how life emerged from non-life does not mean that life itself does not evolve over billion of years.
It means that evolution and theories about evolving over billions of years provide no answer to the most basic question to which men need an answer in order to know how to live.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
No proponent of evolution believes that "rocks can breed themselves into birds in a mere few billions of years."
That is exactly, precisely what proponents of evolution believe.
Quote from: Maximilian on August 01, 2018, 09:24:09 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
Evolution presupposes the existence of living organisms; abiogenesis is a separate matter.
No, they are not separate. They are 100% the same question. "Where does life come from?"
Men have been asking this question for (at least) 6,000 years. Your secular science provides no answers.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
Just because there has been no settled answer to how life emerged from non-life does not mean that life itself does not evolve over billion of years.
It means that evolution and theories about evolving over billions of years provide no answer to the most basic question to which men need an answer in order to know how to live.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:13:14 AM
No proponent of evolution believes that "rocks can breed themselves into birds in a mere few billions of years."
That is exactly, precisely what proponents of evolution believe.
Find me one, just one, proponent of evolution who seriously believes that rocks 'evolved' into birds after billions of years. I'll be waiting.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:35:21 AM
Find me one, just one, proponent of evolution who seriously believes that rocks 'evolved' into birds after billions of years. I'll be waiting.
All of them, every one. When you believe in evolution, that's what you believe.
Check out a few of them here:
https://youtu.be/V5EPymcWp-g
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed not only misled the evolutionary biologists it interviewed, it also selectively edited their statements during production in order to push an agenda. That's not a credible source for any evolutionary biologist believing rocks evolved into birds. Especially given that the scientific definition of evolution is "Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations." Rocks are not biological populations. So stop talking out our your ass and provide an actual peer-reviewed paper from a biologist that states that rocks evolved into birds. Or any living organism for that matter. You won't find one. At best you'll find a speculative paper concerning abiogenesis and how the first organisms might have emerged from non-organic molecules.
I've never seen Expelled, but the subtitle, "No Intelligence Allowed," seems to be as juvenile as saying creationists are all backwoods snake-handlers. I think there are sincere and intelligent people on both sides. Max is more intelligent than I am, and he's a creationist. I'm moderately intelligent and I've variously held the positions of creationism, theistic evolution, and evolution. I think it has less to do with intelligence and more to do with bias. If you start with a belief in the inerrancy of the bible, then I think you have to reject evolution. There are very few creationists who aren't religious. The only prominent anti-evolutionist I'm aware of who isn't religious is David Berlinski. He's an interesting case. I guess he'd be classified as "not religious, but pro-religious."
In the end it really all depends on where you're coming from. Theistic evolutionists try to have it both ways and seem willfully ignorant of the amount of sadism their position necessarily ascribes to the creator. Creationism, to my view, is the more immediately satisfying of the theistic schemes, even though it's at odds with DNA and the going science, and requires at least some level of belief in a conspiracy theory. Gloria Patri and I used to to argue over evolution, but what we now have in common is the agreement that if you consider Vatican II, the NOM, St. John Paul II, and the apparent defection of the Church, then it's hard to see how evolution isn't incontrovertible.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMTheistic evolutionists try to have it both ways and seem willfully ignorant of the amount of sadism their position necessarily ascribes to the creator.
How so?
I watched "Expelled", and basically it demonstrated that there is no real debate on evolution that is allowed in the Scientific Community. Various scientists give their experience of being punished for daring to call evolution into question. There is also a funny interview with Richard Dawkins, in which he claims that life came to Earth carried here by extra-terrestrials.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 11:54:35 AM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMTheistic evolutionists try to have it both ways and seem willfully ignorant of the amount of sadism their position necessarily ascribes to the creator.
How so?
I think Pon's point (and he can correct me if I'm off the mark) is that theistic evolution in a Christian framework requires that God willed a universe with death present from the very beginning, rather than death entering the world with the fall of humanity. Of course, one could possibly allow for this and simply state that there was no death in the Garden until after the fall. But that's more to do with Biblical exegesis.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 09:35:21 AM
Find me one, just one, proponent of evolution who seriously believes that rocks 'evolved' into birds after billions of years. I'll be waiting.
As Maximilian says, that's exactly what every proponent of (mechanistic) evolution believes. You believe that the earth at some point was without plant or animal life, yes? i.e. it was all mineral (rock, crystal). Then, somehow or other, you have life developing out of these minerals (rock, crystals). Slowly, over billions of years and many millions of "transitional forms", the rock turns into a bird.
What bamboozles the minds of evolutionists is that they somehow think that a rock turning itself into a bird very slowly is somehow more "scientific" and plausible than a rock turning itself into a bird instantaneously. They would call the latter "magic", but philosophically there is nothing less "magical" about a rock turning into a bird slowly rather than quickly. If I wave my magic wand over a rock and it instantly turns into a giraffe, that is magic. If I wave my magic wand over a rock and it turns into a giraffe gradually over the course of an hour, that is also magic. The same if it's billions of years.
You might say, "but it's not just a rock, it's all kinds of chemicals reacting and with the zap of a lightning bolt to get it started". OK. I get a bowl full of all kinds of chemicals, zap it with lightning, wave my magic wand, and out comes a giraffe. You still have the problem of minerals/chemicals somehow turning into birds.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMJYw0sxZ0k[/yt]
Watch this video. See how a pond turning itself into a dinosaur is presented as scientific and plausible, but a woman magically nodding her head and animals appearing is presented as ludicrous. Yet in reality, the former is no less magical (or ludicrous) than the latter.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
Creationism, to my view, is the more immediately satisfying of the theistic schemes, even though it's at odds with DNA and the going science, and requires at least some level of belief in a conspiracy theory.
The presumption here is (1) that intelligent people are not apt to be deceived, (2) that groups of intelligent people are not apt to be deceived.
On the contrary, intelligent people are just as apt to be deceived as any, and arguably moreso seeing as they can come up rationalisations to justify their delusion; and groups of people are more apt to be deceived than individuals, because then conformity and social pressures enter in.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 11:57:58 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 11:54:35 AM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMTheistic evolutionists try to have it both ways and seem willfully ignorant of the amount of sadism their position necessarily ascribes to the creator.
How so?
I think Pon's point (and he can correct me if I'm off the mark) is that theistic evolution in a Christian framework requires that God willed a universe with death present from the very beginning, rather than death entering the world with the fall of humanity. Of course, one could possibly allow for this and simply state that there was no death in the Garden until after the fall. But that's more to do with Biblical exegesis.
Whatever it may be, death is always present because God ordained it to be present. It's a fact. Everything that exists and comes to pass in the universe has been ordained by God from the very beginning. He is the ultimate cause, secondary causes notwithstanding. This very post is proof of it. I am the author of this post but this post came to be, ultimately, because God willed it and ordained it to come to pass from the very beginning.
Fixism (creation scheme) or transformism (evolution scheme) are simply means by which we can discern the divine Hand in the development of life. I don't see how divine sadism really fits into the equation, since death occurs in whichever scheme you adopt.
The Miller-Urey experiment shows how early conditions on Earth would have allowed simpler inorganic compounds to combine into more complex organic compounds, and from there they would have combined into the first microorganisms. That's not the same thing as saying that a rock spontaneously changes into a bird, even given billions of years.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 12:21:34 PMThe Miller-Urey experiment shows how early conditions on Earth would have allowed simpler inorganic compounds to combine into more complex organic compounds, and from there they would have combined into the first microorganisms. That's not the same thing as saying that a rock spontaneously changes into a bird, even given billions of years.
The beginning of life remains a mystery:
One textbook, edited by Soper ("Biological Science 1 and 2"; 3rd edition; Cambridge University Press) summarises the situation well (p. 883): Despite the simplified account given above, the problem of the origin(s) of life remains. All that has been outlined is speculation and, despite tremendous advances in biochemistry, answers to the problem remain hypothetical. ... Details of the transition from complex non-living materials to simple living organisms remain a mystery.
This conclusion is echoed by those who have spent many years researching in this field of biochemistry. Dr D E Hull wrote, The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation.
Prof Francis Crick, who was a great believer in the accidental origin of life on Earth, said, "The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions that had to be satisfied to get it going." Prof. Crick goes on to argue that this might be overcome in long periods of time. However, there is no justification for believing that time can overcome basic chemical laws.
Dr H P Yockey (in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1981, 91, 26-29) wrote, You must conclude that no valid scientific explanation of life exists at present... Since science has not the vaguest idea how life originated on earth, ... it would be honest to admit this to students, the agencies funding research and the public.http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/content.cfm?id=3161 (http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/content.cfm?id=3161)
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 12:21:34 PM
The Miller-Urey experiment shows how early conditions on Earth would have allowed simpler inorganic compounds to combine into more complex organic compounds, and from there they would have combined into the first microorganisms. That's not the same thing as saying that a rock spontaneously changes into a bird, even given billions of years.
"Inorganic compounds", i.e. rocks, "to combine into more complex organic compounds", i.e. birds.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 12:25:47 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 12:21:34 PMThe Miller-Urey experiment shows how early conditions on Earth would have allowed simpler inorganic compounds to combine into more complex organic compounds, and from there they would have combined into the first microorganisms. That's not the same thing as saying that a rock spontaneously changes into a bird, even given billions of years.
The beginning of life remains a mystery:
One textbook, edited by Soper ("Biological Science 1 and 2"; 3rd edition; Cambridge University Press) summarises the situation well (p. 883): Despite the simplified account given above, the problem of the origin(s) of life remains. All that has been outlined is speculation and, despite tremendous advances in biochemistry, answers to the problem remain hypothetical. ... Details of the transition from complex non-living materials to simple living organisms remain a mystery.
This conclusion is echoed by those who have spent many years researching in this field of biochemistry. Dr D E Hull wrote, The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation.
Prof Francis Crick, who was a great believer in the accidental origin of life on Earth, said, "The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions that had to be satisfied to get it going." Prof. Crick goes on to argue that this might be overcome in long periods of time. However, there is no justification for believing that time can overcome basic chemical laws.
Dr H P Yockey (in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1981, 91, 26-29) wrote, You must conclude that no valid scientific explanation of life exists at present... Since science has not the vaguest idea how life originated on earth, ... it would be honest to admit this to students, the agencies funding research and the public.
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/content.cfm?id=3161 (http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/content.cfm?id=3161)
I agree that the origin of life remains a mystery. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the spontaneous combination of simpler inorganic compounds into more complex organic compounds is not the same as evolutionary biologists believing that a rock could spontaneously transform into a bird. Simple inorganic compounds -> Complex organic compounds -(presumably)-> the first microorganisms. A to B has definitely been shown to happen given certain environmental conditions. How we go from B to C, of course, still remains an open question.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 12:31:31 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 12:21:34 PM
The Miller-Urey experiment shows how early conditions on Earth would have allowed simpler inorganic compounds to combine into more complex organic compounds, and from there they would have combined into the first microorganisms. That's not the same thing as saying that a rock spontaneously changes into a bird, even given billions of years.
"Inorganic compounds", i.e. rocks, "to combine into more complex organic compounds", i.e. birds.
Inorganic compounds are compounds that lack C-H bonds (for example, carbonates or CO3), while organic compounds are compounds that have C-H bonds (for example, methane or CH4). Put carbonate molecules and hydrogen molecules together in conditions similar to the early Earth and you'll find the carbonate break down into carbon and oxygen atoms, and then the free carbon atoms will bond with the free hydrogen atoms to form methane.
That's a massive difference from going straight to birds from rocks. There are countless intermediary steps that you cannot just ignore.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 12:16:22 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 01, 2018, 11:57:58 AMI think Pon's point (and he can correct me if I'm off the mark) is that theistic evolution in a Christian framework requires that God willed a universe with death present from the very beginning, rather than death entering the world with the fall of humanity. Of course, one could possibly allow for this and simply state that there was no death in the Garden until after the fall. But that's more to do with Biblical exegesis.
Whatever it may be, death is always present because God ordained it to be present. It's a fact. Everything that exists and comes to pass in the universe has been ordained by God from the very beginning. He is the ultimate cause, secondary causes notwithstanding. This very post is proof of it. I am the author of this post but this post came to be, ultimately, because God willed it and ordained it to come to pass from the very beginning.
Fixism (creation scheme) or transformism (evolution scheme) are simply means by which we can discern the divine Hand in the development of life. I don't see how divine sadism really fits into the equation, since death occurs in whichever scheme you adopt.
It's true that there's death in both schemes (creationism and theistic evolution) but theistic evolution posits that death and suffering are the very mechanisms by which God arrived at man after billions of years. Whereas creationism only allows for death to enter the world after the Fall. A God who decides it best to create man by the process of having countless sentient beings dying from famine, predation, and disease is, I suppose, acceptable in an "Allah wills it" sort of way, but it does not appear commensurate with a God who is loving, merciful, and compassionate. I will quote here from a poster (a creationist) whom I admire on a different forum:
QuoteThe overarching need in a Christian doctrine of Creation is that it give glory to God by assigning him all forethought, invention, and power in an act ex nihilo. A secondary need is that this Work of his be objectively good, in intent and fact, and so evil as we experience it be the result of a fall from that good, from which he is mighty to save us and all creation. Further requirements might be such things as maintaining the exceptionality of man and the end of the world in Judgment. None of these things are a consideration of evolutionary theory as it is commonly taught, and so "theistic evolution" has its work cut out for it.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on July 31, 2018, 01:25:07 PM
Again, Greg, your arguments are purely philosophical/theological.
No, the first couple are scientific.
Evolution on a grand scale where new species and complex mechanism come about through random mutation is
not in any way demonstrable.
It is the equivalent of turning the power on and off on a computer and it writing a program. That would never happen. Even in a Billion Billion years. The series of 1s and 0s you might induce in the memory with a power surge would NEVER accidentally turn into even the simplest computer program.
And yes, I understand that the mutations might give a SLIGHT survival advantage but they would have to overcome the random threats to survival that the creature was subjected to, such as being eaten, or famine, or disease or heat or cold, to give a significant survival chance. In short, it doesn't matter if I am 6ft5 or 5ft6 when the Titanic sinks because the cold of the water is going to kill me regardless of ANY genetic mutation I have. No human
ever has been born with thick whale like blubber and the ability to live in cold seas for hours or days.
A cheetah that suddenly had legs that could make it run 20mph faster would have a BIG survival advantage. But 1mm longer ain't going to make any difference (the noise is greater than the signal).
Quote
I am hoping that you, and Xavier, and anyone else really, could limit your questions to purely scientific matters.
Why would we do that?
Nobody here is interested in being purely a scientist. There are other forums for that. Even science has to be judge in light of what we believe religiously. You can't just snuff God out of the argument for the sake of convenience, because if He exists then he created evolution too!
QuoteAnd more simpler things do develop into more complex ones in nature. A fertilized ovum develops into a complex foetus.
All the information of HOW to do that is already in the ovum.
QuoteA seed grows into a tree.
All the information of HOW to do that is already programmed into that seed.
QuoteSimpler elements combine into more complex ones all the time.
Yes according to the rules of chemistry and in a known, ordered and REPEATABLE WAY.
The day that Na and K react with each other because of random mutation in chemistry of their atomic structure, will be the day I believe in evolutionary theory.
QuoteEach generation is genetically slightly different from the one before it. As those changes add up you'll eventually have a new organism.
This assumes they do "add up".
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 12:16:22 PM
Whatever it may be, death is always present because God ordained it to be present.
This is a very good point.
Over those 13 billion years nothing has evolved to the point where it does not die.
Why?
Not dying would be a very significant survival advantage and allow you to spread you genes for eons.
Why haven't long living creatures, spread their long living DNA through more opportunity to mate, such that they live 1000s of years today.
Brachiosaurs and Diplodocus live 80 years, the same as an modern day elephant.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 12:00:51 PMQuote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMCreationism, to my view, is the more immediately satisfying of the theistic schemes, even though it's at odds with DNA and the going science, and requires at least some level of belief in a conspiracy theory.
The presumption here is (1) that intelligent people are not apt to be deceived, (2) that groups of intelligent people are not apt to be deceived.
On the contrary, intelligent people are just as apt to be deceived as any, and arguably moreso seeing as they can come up rationalisations to justify their delusion; and groups of people are more apt to be deceived than individuals, because then conformity and social pressures enter in.
No, I agree, intelligent people can be just as apt (if not moreso) to be deceived. This does not, however, necessarily mean that the majority of intelligent people must be laboring under a deception (though they may well be). But the more important aspect, to me, is bias. Skepticism seems to be the only mechanism that can correct for bias, and the scientific method rests on skepticism: proof is required for belief. As I mentioned earlier, most scientists, however great their biases, would probably agree with the statement from the biologist who famously claimed he would doubt evolution if they found fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.
Whereas with faith, on the other hand, skepticism is the enemy. Most creationists would doubtless say that
nothing could ever be introduced to make them doubt creation, because faith is supernatural and divinely correct. Doubt is deadly, and error (that which contradicts received doctrine) has no rights. An intelligent person who has faith will then have this bias, and however intelligent they are, it's a difficult bias to overcome, since skepticism of it is reflexively anathema. We don't have to consider evolution to see it. Just imagine Gerry Matatics and an imam of ISIS trying to convert each other.
Quote from: Greg on August 01, 2018, 02:15:28 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 01, 2018, 12:16:22 PM
Whatever it may be, death is always present because God ordained it to be present.
This is a very good point.
Over those 13 billion years nothing has evolved to the point where it does not die.
Why?
Not dying would be a very significant survival advantage and allow you to spread you genes for eons.
Why haven't long living creatures, spread their long living DNA through more opportunity to mate, such that they live 1000s of years today.
Brachiosaurs and Diplodocus live 80 years, the same as an modern day elephant.
What's funny is that Genesis says the opposite: men lived for upwards of 900 years in the early days, and the ~120 year limit is relatively recent: "And God said: My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." There were giants who could pick up lions and play with them like cats. The Book of Job describes creatures (Leviathan & Behemoth) which sound like dinosaurs, and the ancient & medieval description of dragons (giant lizards) is also reminiscent of dinosaurs.
Quote from: Greg on August 01, 2018, 02:08:41 PM
Nobody here is interested in being purely a scientist.
Some are certainly behaving as if they fancy themselves pure scientists, and as if science is their religion, which actually I suspect it is for some.
QuoteThere are other forums for that.
But it's way more fun to exercise one's doubts --and anger over one's doubts-- on traditional Catholics -- in other words, to use a Catholic forum to engage in a type of rant against God for supposedly making it difficult to believe in Him, and to indirectly make lay Catholics responsible for those doubts, while proclaiming superior "faith" in very different theories and unprovable suppositions.
QuoteEven science has to be judge in light of what we believe religiously.
Absolutely.
QuoteYou can't just snuff God out of the argument for the sake of convenience, because if He exists then he created evolution too!
Of course He is the Author and Creator of all. But people who are more attached to Sometimes Mighty science over Almighty God find convenience more appealing.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 02:56:10 PM
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 12:00:51 PMQuote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMCreationism, to my view, is the more immediately satisfying of the theistic schemes, even though it's at odds with DNA and the going science, and requires at least some level of belief in a conspiracy theory.
The presumption here is (1) that intelligent people are not apt to be deceived, (2) that groups of intelligent people are not apt to be deceived.
On the contrary, intelligent people are just as apt to be deceived as any, and arguably moreso seeing as they can come up rationalisations to justify their delusion; and groups of people are more apt to be deceived than individuals, because then conformity and social pressures enter in.
No, I agree, intelligent people can be just as apt (if not moreso) to be deceived. This does not, however, necessarily mean that the majority of intelligent people must be laboring under a deception. But the more important aspect, to me, is bias. Skepticism seems to be the only mechanism that can correct for bias, and the scientific method rests on skepticism: proof is required for belief. As I mentioned earlier, most scientists, however great their biases, would probably agree with the statement from the biologist who famously claimed he would doubt evolution if they found fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.
The idea that the scientific method rests on skepticism is somewhat of a myth. From the time you are four years old to the day you gain your doctorate in biology, at what point do you begin to be "skeptical" about the theory of evolution? Answer: never, because your grades and academic advancement depend on accepting the theory of evolution as an assumption and working in that paradigm. If you are skeptical about it you will fail tests and invite ridicule upon yourself. Sure, you are allowed to express skepticism on minor issues
from within the paradigm (once you get to a higher academic level), but to question
the major premise/paradigm itself? Ridicule from almost the entire establishment. The consensus of the establishment is that "nothing in biology makes sense without evolution" - what room is there for skepticism?
I can only speak for myself, but science is no religion of mine. I don't want to belong to a cult, one of the high priests of which is a bow-tie-wearing creepazoid with cartoons of pan-sexual ice cream orgies. Who knows, maybe things would've been better without all this science, and the Enlightenment was nothing but the opening of Pandora's box. But then again, we wouldn't have Spotify, Netflix, or air-conditioning. We'd have horses instead of cars. I live in the era in which I was born.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 02:56:10 PM
We don't have to consider evolution to see it. Just imagine Gerry Matatics and an imam of ISIS trying to convert each other.
Either's more likely than Richard Dawkins ever expressing even a Socratic doubt about Darwinism.
QuoteI can only speak for myself, but science is no religion of mine. I don't want to belong to a cult, one of the high priests of which is a bow-tie-wearing creepazoid with cartoons of pan-sexual ice cream orgies. Who knows, maybe things would've been better without all this science, and the Enlightenment was nothing but the opening of Pandora's box. But then again, we wouldn't have Spotify, Netflix, or air-conditioning. We'd have horses instead of cars. I live in the era in which I was born.
This is the propaganda: if you don't accept our (materialist) cosmological assumptions which we have surreptitiously attached to all scientific & technological discoveries, then you have no right to Spotify, Netflix, or air-conditioning.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 03:05:05 PMThe idea that the scientific method rests on skepticism is somewhat of a myth. From the time you are four years old to the day you gain your doctorate in biology, at what point do you begin to be "skeptical" about the theory of evolution? Answer: never, because your grades and academic advancement depend on accepting the theory of evolution as an assumption and working in that paradigm. If you are skeptical about it you will fail tests and invite ridicule upon yourself. Sure, you are allowed to express skepticism on minor issues from within the paradigm (once you get to a higher academic level), but to question the major premise/paradigm itself? Ridicule from almost the entire establishment. The consensus of the establishment is that "nothing in biology makes sense without evolution" - what room is there for skepticism?
I would concede this point easier if more of the critics of evolution did not have a religious bias. As I said earlier, David Berlinski is the only prominent one I know of who does not. On the other hand, I believe the statistics for the scientific community have them at two-thirds atheist: sizable, but not exclusive. One of the foremost geneticists, Francis Collins, is a Christian. The difference here suggests that one school is commencing with a bias, and selectively fitting in only that which supports it, and rejecting anything that does not; whereas the other is following the evidence, and if they care to be religious
along with all that, then that's up to them.
We can even be anecdotal about "what room is there for skepticism?" if you like. We can just ask Gloria Patri what kind of pushback he received on this forum as a believer who voiced skepticism of young earth creationism. If you insist it cuts against the skeptic of evolution, then surely it cuts both ways.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 03:10:58 PMThis is the propaganda: if you don't accept our (materialist) cosmological assumptions which we have surreptitiously attached to all scientific & technological discoveries, then you have no right to Spotify, Netflix, or air-conditioning.
For good or for ill, it's been a package deal. I hate cell phones.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 03:21:45 PM
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 03:05:05 PMThe idea that the scientific method rests on skepticism is somewhat of a myth. From the time you are four years old to the day you gain your doctorate in biology, at what point do you begin to be "skeptical" about the theory of evolution? Answer: never, because your grades and academic advancement depend on accepting the theory of evolution as an assumption and working in that paradigm. If you are skeptical about it you will fail tests and invite ridicule upon yourself. Sure, you are allowed to express skepticism on minor issues from within the paradigm (once you get to a higher academic level), but to question the major premise/paradigm itself? Ridicule from almost the entire establishment. The consensus of the establishment is that "nothing in biology makes sense without evolution" - what room is there for skepticism?
I would concede this point easier if more of the critics of evolution did not have a religious bias. As I said earlier, David Berlinski is the only prominent one I know of who does not. On the other hand, I believe the statistics for the scientific community have them at two-thirds atheist: sizable, but not exclusive. One of the foremost geneticists, Francis Collins, is a Christian. The difference here suggests that one school is commencing with a bias, and selectively fitting in only that which supports it, and rejecting anything that does not; whereas the other is following the evidence, and if they care to be religious along with all that, then that's up to them.
We can even be anecdotal about "what room is there for skepticism?" if you like. We can just ask Gloria Patri what kind of pushback he received on this forum as a believer who voiced skepticism of young earth creationism. If you insist it cuts against the skeptic of evolution, then surely it cuts both ways.
Yes,
One school accepts whatever the Church teaches and is skeptical about what human science teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept a lot of the discoveries of human science, just not those which compromise Christian dogma.
The other school accepts whatever human science teaches and is skeptical about what the Church teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept many of the Church's teaching, just not those which compromise the dogmas of the scientific establishment.
It's a matter of priority. Some have greater trust in Christian revelation, and others in human reason. If you don't think that the scientific community has a tendency to "commence with a bias, and selectively fit in only that which supports it, and reject anything that does not", I think you're naive. Scientists are not perfect Socratic angels that live in a constant state of doubt about their assumptions; they are mostly, like humanity in general, petty technicians willing to go along to get paid and maintain status.
QuoteFor good or for ill, it's been a package deal. I hate cell phones.
Maybe culturally but not philosophically, i.e. technological advancement does not rely absolutely or philosophically on cosmological materialism, but a society that does accept cosmological materialism for its basis may indeed take an uncommon interest in technological advancement.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 03:40:19 PM
One school accepts whatever the Church teaches and is skeptical about what human science teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept a lot of the discoveries of human science, just not those which compromise Christian dogma.
The other school accepts whatever human science teaches and is skeptical about what the Church teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept many of the Church's teaching, just not those which compromise the dogmas of the scientific establishment.
That basically sums it up, yes.
QuoteScientists are not perfect Socratic angels that live in a constant state of doubt about their assumptions; they are mostly, like humanity in general, petty technicians willing to go along to get paid and maintain status.
I don't know about "petty," but I agree that the intellectual apparatus of a self-declared scientist is not categorically superior to that of a theist who is well-educated both in the secular sphere and in the religious sphere. You see, the real religion of the self-proclaimed scientist is that his own intellect is objectively superior by virtue of its elimination of all that is unseen, and it is this very biased intellect which he worships, while mocking the biases of believers.
Quote from: John Lamb on August 01, 2018, 03:40:19 PMOne school accepts whatever the Church teaches and is skeptical about what human science teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept a lot of the discoveries of human science, just not those which compromise Christian dogma.
The other school accepts whatever human science teaches and is skeptical about what the Church teaches. Nevertheless, they may accept many of the Church's teaching, just not those which compromise the dogmas of the scientific establishment.
It's a matter of priority. Some have greater trust in Christian revelation, and others in human reason. If you don't think that the scientific community has a tendency to "commence with a bias, and selectively fit in only that which supports it, and reject anything that does not", I think you're naive. Scientists are not perfect Socratic angels that live in a constant state of doubt about their assumptions; they are mostly, like humanity in general, petty technicians willing to go along to get paid and maintain status.
Six and one half a dozen the other? I don't doubt that scientists are prone to human biases like anyone else. I am saying the scientific method is the only corrective I know of to bias. If geneticists, including Francis Collins, are "going along to get paid" and falsifying the DNA evidence that shows humans have a 95-97% DNA overlap with chimps, then I would be interested to see a third-party comparison of the two. If the other great apes do not actually have a coccyx (as well as non-coding DNA for growing a tail), then I would like to see the skeletons. So far I have no sufficient reason to doubt either of these things, and no creationists that I know of are doing independent analyses.
If you believe scientists wouldn't question evolution if sufficient evidence were presented to the contrary, then that's something you're imputing to them, not what they've said. "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian" is commonly accepted as the kind of evidence that would refute it. What is the corrective for religious bias? There isn't one that I know of.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
I've never seen Expelled,
You should watch it. I think you would enjoy it. Even if you disagree with its premise, it would be time well spent.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
but the subtitle, "No Intelligence Allowed," seems to be as juvenile as saying creationists are all backwoods snake-handlers. I think there are sincere and intelligent people on both sides.
No, you are misunderstanding the import of the subtitle because you haven't watched the movie. Some parts of the move are, perhaps, a bit juvenile, but overall it's remarkably well done, and the subtitle is not implying what you seem to think it does.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
Max is more intelligent than I am, and he's a creationist.
Thank you for your kind compliment.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
I'm moderately intelligent and I've variously held the positions of creationism, theistic evolution, and evolution. I think it has less to do with intelligence and more to do with bias.
It's a question of opening your mind. Does one's intellect reach towards supernatural reality, or is it closed into a small, hard shell of materialism?
It's like Plato's cave. Are you going to continue being mesmerized by the shadows on the wall, or are you going to turn around and perceive the real thing?
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AM
if you consider Vatican II, the NOM, St. John Paul II, and the apparent defection of the Church, then it's hard to see how evolution isn't incontrovertible.
The Church never spoke dogmatically on evolution even before VII. The unfortunate reality is that most creationists are protestants. The Church has been remarkably weak on this issue, and not only during the time since JPII.
It's not a question of establishment doctrine, but a question of one's own intellectual attachment to God and to Truth.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 03:08:15 PM
I can only speak for myself, but science is no religion of mine. I don't want to belong to a cult, one of the high priests of which is a bow-tie-wearing creepazoid with cartoons of pan-sexual ice cream orgies. Who knows, maybe things would've been better without all this science, and the Enlightenment was nothing but the opening of Pandora's box. But then again, we wouldn't have Spotify, Netflix, or air-conditioning. We'd have horses instead of cars. I live in the era in which I was born.
But you can take the principles of medicine and make better pills. You can take the principles of thermodynamics and make air conditioning systems that are more energy efficient.
My plug in hybrid however never charges itself. Nor does the air conditioning in the car get more efficient, even slightly. Nor does a horse turn into a car.
As far as we can observe, and science is about observation and measurement, nothing improves without intelligence acting. Man didn't evolve to ride horses. One man rode the first horse, then a series of men copied him and improved the process with saddles and reins and bits for the horses mouth.
We are not asked to believe that there are billions of other galaxies on 'faith'. The Hubble Telescope collected those elections, made an image and then did it again when asked.
Evolution is more like the 'science' of economics where the experts really don't have a clue about what causes what.
Goldman Sachs don't get rich by understanding what will happen with ths economic inputs. Fund managers cannot beat the S&P. They all make money by cheating. They trade on inside information and front run trades. They claim to be experts but they are the blind following the blind.
Am I really to believe that one set of humans are clever enough to deduce what happens millions of years ago in a chaotic random biological process but cannot predict the weather or the stock market for 1 week from now? If life has shown me anything, it is that the "experts" are not expert at all and people are incredibly dishonest and self-serving. This is just as true for evolutionists as it is for Cardinals.
Quote from: GregNo, the first couple are scientific.
Evolution on a grand scale where new species and complex mechanism come about through random mutation is not in any way demonstrable.
It is the equivalent of turning the power on and off on a computer and it writing a program. That would never happen. Even in a Billion Billion years.
Exactly, Greg. Well said.
It seems you believe in something close to Intelligent Design. You may like that Documentary Expelled that Max and John and Michael were talking about.
1. I recommend those who are interested in seriously studying the issue to buy and read Prof's Denton's classic, now updated, Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis. And Prof. Denton is British. The irony is sweet. It may well be a Brit who does much to help defeat evolution. Denton believes in a kind of Intelligent Design. Here's a book review from Amazon, "but this is an excellent look from an agnostic/neutral perspective at how the scientific discoveries of the last thirty years (since his first book) have continued to make Darwinism not just less and less scientific, but barely even logical - how even the biological evidence we knew about 30 years ago should have been huge red flags for any thinking person, let alone biologists. Also how the field of evo-devo has been turning against the adaptationist view due to these discoveries.
He presents examples such as the enucleation of red blood cells, feathers, genes, angiosperms, cells themselves, the tetrapod limb, etc. leading to the evolutionary bugbears of the human language and higher mental faculties, as examples of Darwinism's utter explanatory failure. The arguments for such seem to be watertight and are even more damning since these are taxa-defining novelties.
A brief summary of once such example:
how did the enucleation of red blood cells ever evolve, taking into account the complexity of the cell structure and the thousands of structural changes needed to move the nucleus out of the cell? What fitness could a quarter-out or half-out cell provide to ensure it was passed on? How did the rest of the organism prepare for this change, since it could not be "tested" until it was fully functional? The other examples are similar and seem to be similar to irreducible complexity - so many things had to change all at once for these features to work." https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Theory-Crisis-Michael-Denton/dp/1936599325
2. Max, Dr/Prof. Michael Behe, who first articulated the concept of "irreducible complexity" is a Catholic ID theorist. He once said something like, "My life is complicated enough with questioning evolution." Many ID believers are closet creationists. When more and more Catholics become confident in questioning evolution/defending special creation, I'm sure the tide will turn. Pope Pius IX approved a canon rejecting evolution shortly after Darwin's thesis. Pope Pius XII rejected polygenism and insisted on original sin while permitting theistic evolution for now, with the stipulation that all who work in the sacred and natural sciences should be ready to submit to the judgment of the Church. The Church will one day say evolution is false and certainly never happened. Until then, it's up to creation scientists to develop the most forceful demonstrations of the falsehood of evolution.
American creation scientists, generally speaking, have been stronger than most in the rest of the English-speaking world, with some admirable exceptions. If Christians hope for Christianity to triumph in Britain again in time for the Age of Mary to come, we must continue to develop ever-stronger scientific arguments against evolution. The time for "neutrality" is long past.
Rev. Williams says well, "we can not release you because a feature of the problem may be unusually difficult or embarrassing, or even fatal to your theory. It is a fight to the death in the interest of truth; and we purpose to use every weapon of science against a theory so unscientific, so improbable, so far reaching, and so baneful in its effects."
And he makes another simple argument for why no scientist in general, and believer in God in particular, should believe God is so weak as to need monkeys to give birth to men. This is similar to what Pope Pius XII said, that God's ever-present creative power is necessary for the existence of the soul.
Quote"Evolution fails to account for the origin of the body of man. Still more emphatically, does it fail to account for the origin of the soul, or spiritual part of man. This is part of the stupendous task of evolution. Its advocates give it little or no attention. We are not surprised. If they could show the evolution of the human body probable or even possible, they can never account for the origin of the soul, save by creation of Almighty God. We can not release evolutionists upon the plea that they cannot account for the faculties and spiritual endowments of man. This is a confession of complete failure. Though invisible to the eye or the microscope, they are positive realities. They can not be dismissed with a wave of the hand or a gesture of contempt. We have a right to demand an explanation for every phenomenon connected with the body or soul of man. The task may be heavy, and even impossible, yet every hypothesis must bear every test or confess failure. They have undertaken to propose a scheme that will account for the origin of man, as he is, soul and body, and if they fail, the hypothesis fails.
How do we account for the existence of each individual soul? It can not be the product of the arrangement of the material of the brain, as the materialists do vainly teach. It can not be the product of evolution, nor a growth from the father or mother. The soul is not transmitted to be modified or changed. It is indivisible. The soul of the child is not a part of the soul of either parent. The parents suffer no mental loss from the new soul. It must be created before it can grow. God creates each soul without doubt, and so God created the souls of Adam and Eve. If creation is possible now, it was possible at the beginning of the race. If God creates the soul now, analogy teaches strongly the creation of the souls of Adam and Eve. If evolution be true, there was no creation in the past, and is none now. This is contradicted by the facts every day and every hour ...
Personality is consciousness of individuality. When did personality begin? When did any members of the species become conscious of personality? When did they begin to realize and to say in thought, "I am a living being." What animals are conscious of personality? Any of our cousins of the monkey tribe? Is the horse conscious of personality, or the ox, the cat or the dog? If so, does the skunk have personality, the mouse, the flea, the worm, the tadpole, the microscopic animal? If so, do our other cousins have personality--the trees, the vines, the flowers, the thorn and the brier, the cactus and the thistle, and the microscopic disease germs? If so when did personality begin? With the first primordial germ? If so, were there two personalities when the germ split in two, and became two, animal and plant? You can not split a man up into two parts with a personality to each part. Personality is indivisible. It is a consciousness of that indivisibility. If personality began anywhere along the line, where, when, and how did it originate? Was it spontaneous, or by chance, or was it God-given? Beyond all question, it was the gift of an all-wise and all-powerful Creator, and in no sense the product of evolution. God made man a living soul."
Quote from: Greg on August 01, 2018, 11:29:50 PMMy plug in hybrid however never charges itself. Nor does the air conditioning in the car get more efficient, even slightly. Nor does a horse turn into a car.
As far as we can observe, and science is about observation and measurement, nothing improves without intelligence acting. Man didn't evolve to ride horses. One man rode the first horse, then a series of men copied him and improved the process with saddles and reins and bits for the horses mouth.
I would disagree with the statement, "nothing improves without intelligence acting." All physical traits are (empirically) genetic, so any physical improvement in an organism can be accounted for in the genes. I've always found Darwin's finches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches) a good explanation of this. They're finches from the Latin American mainland that colonized the Galapagos and evolved to adapt to their new environment, to an extent that they became separate species. If a group of finches ends up in an area where the available food is nuts, then a finch with the toughest and strongest beak to crush nuts will have more success at getting the food, and will naturally have more sexual success than his peers with slightly weaker beaks. He'll pass his genes into the next generation while some of his competitors won't. Over time, the birds with tougher beaks will predominate, as the same competition will be repeated in every generation.
There's no intelligence necessary in this kind of improvement: it's just a genetic lottery. For the finches who landed on another island where the available food was bugs, it was a finch whose beak was slightly longer and more slender, and could get into the crevasses between the rocks to extract the bugs. Why would we have to assume that an intelligent designer somehow spliced the right genes in order for those finches to survive? We can already see genetic variations within species; it stands to reason that certain variations could adapt better than others to certain environmental pressures. You're right that everyone on the Titanic was at the same risk of drowning in the North Atlantic because humans don't have blubber. Of course. But that's a situation that kills everyone regardless; the question should be about a situation where a few have a genetic advantage to fare better in a trial better than the rest. If the trial is an environmental constant, then the genes for that trait will proliferate.
The question I have for intelligent design proponents is, if the process of traits being passed through genes is actually the invisible hand of God splicing in the right genes for the right environment, then how do we account for the multiplicity of genetic changes that aren't advantageous at all, and are purely freakish and cruel? It makes more sense that nature is random and uncaring. Only an unintelligent designer would work in the manner genetics does. Consider the poignant poem of Joseph Merrick, the so-called "Elephant Man":
'Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God;
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.
Quote from: Maximilian on August 01, 2018, 09:19:02 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 01, 2018, 10:09:03 AMif you consider Vatican II, the NOM, St. John Paul II, and the apparent defection of the Church, then it's hard to see how evolution isn't incontrovertible.
The Church never spoke dogmatically on evolution even before VII. The unfortunate reality is that most creationists are protestants. The Church has been remarkably weak on this issue, and not only during the time since JPII.
It's not a question of establishment doctrine, but a question of one's own intellectual attachment to God and to Truth.
I worded that part clumsily. I agree with you that the Catholic Church has been middling in her response to evolution. What I meant was that, to the extent that the Catholic Church herself has, over the last fifty years, presented a challenge to her own claim of being indefectible, it makes it that much more difficult to accept her claims on other truths, such as the inerrancy of scripture (and, in particular, the creation account).
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 11:50:38 AMThe question I have for intelligent design proponents is, if the process of traits being passed through genes is actually the invisible hand of God splicing in the right genes for the right environment, then how do we account for the multiplicity of genetic changes that aren't advantageous at all, and are purely freakish and cruel?
Original sin.
And there's no such thing as cruelty in an atheistic universe. Matter doesn't produce moral categories.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 11:50:38 AM
There's no intelligence necessary in this kind of improvement: it's just a genetic lottery.
That is not an improvement. It is an adaptation to the environment. The beak didnt improve. The weak beaked finches died out.
The strong beaks already existed and managed to breed with other strong beaks.
Similarly, African Americans are taller, fitter and faster than Africans; because the weak ones didn't survive slavery. But they are simply the genetic off spring of people with already improve genes or physical traits which caused them to survive more often.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 05:11:14 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 11:50:38 AMThe question I have for intelligent design proponents is, if the process of traits being passed through genes is actually the invisible hand of God splicing in the right genes for the right environment, then how do we account for the multiplicity of genetic changes that aren't advantageous at all, and are purely freakish and cruel?
Original sin.
And there's no such thing as cruelty in an atheistic universe. Matter doesn't produce moral categories.
Why is the punishment for original sin doled out so indiscriminately, then? Only in a scheme where there's reincarnation can we surmise that Joseph Merrick was a child rapist in a former life, and was genetically cursed in a later one. Otherwise he is no more or less blameless than you or I. I think our differences here are theological, not scientific.
What does produce moral categories, if God cannot be held to any moral standard?
Quote from: Greg on August 02, 2018, 05:28:13 PMThat is not an improvement. It is an adaptation to the environment. The beak didnt improve. The weak beaked finches died out.
The strong beaks already existed and managed to breed with other strong beaks.
No, the beaks got bigger and stronger with every successive generation. It wasn't just a matter of one generation of weak beaks dying out. That's why these finches are so different from the mainland finches. The beak is no longer a mere variation
within a species; the Galapagos finches are separate species.
Let me know what you mean by "improvement." If not a beak, then an eye? A wing? I guess I'm unsure: are you arguing for creationism or intelligent design?
As Pon already said, it's not simply a matter of culling the poorly adapted finches from the population. It's rather the case that small changes between each successive generation eventually add up.
I'll use an analogy that I have found helpful for me: Imagine the spectrum of visible light. Our eyes, with three color receptors, can distinguish up to 1 million different shades of color. In my analogy, each shade can be compared to a generation of an organism. Starting from the beginning of the visible light spectrum, any 2 adjacent shades of color are incredibly similar. So similar that you could fairly say that they are in the same color category. But try comparing the shades at the two extreme ends of the spectrum: red and violet. They're no longer the same color.
And that's basically what evolution is, the accumulation of small genetic changes from generation to generation such that incredibly distant ancestors of an organism are taxonomically different species.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 05:34:01 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 05:11:14 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 11:50:38 AMThe question I have for intelligent design proponents is, if the process of traits being passed through genes is actually the invisible hand of God splicing in the right genes for the right environment, then how do we account for the multiplicity of genetic changes that aren't advantageous at all, and are purely freakish and cruel?
Original sin.
And there's no such thing as cruelty in an atheistic universe. Matter doesn't produce moral categories.
Why is the punishment for original sin doled out so indiscriminately, then? Only in a scheme where there's reincarnation can we surmise that Joseph Merrick was a child rapist in a former life, and was genetically cursed in a later one. Otherwise he is no more or less blameless than you or I. I think our differences here are theological, not scientific.
Certainly, the question is theological. Ultimately, everything is theological in a deeper sense, even science.
The Arabs are fond of saying that
inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un, "we come from God and to God we are returning (or shall return)." Although this is often said when experiencing a tragedy in life, the truth it conveys applies to everything. God is the author of existence and the logical ramifications of His work and of His being cannot be escaped. Everything we do, everything we conceptualize, everything we observe and categorize has God as its ultimate explanation.
I wouldn't describe the genetic flaws you mentioned as being doled out indiscriminately. Everything has a purpose, even if not immediately apparent. We know the ultimate source of the genetic flaws: original sin. And we know their ultimate purpose: God's glory. Nor would these flaws have any moral implications on the person that has them. He is as much a sinner as anyone of us. Remember John 9:1-3:
"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."From this passage we may learn the wise and wonderful arrangement of Divine Providence. It is a part of His great plan to adapt His mercies to the woes of men: often calamity, want, poverty and sickness are permitted, nay, foreordained from all eternity that He may show the provisions of His mercy, that He may teach us to prize his blessings and that deep-felt gratitude for deliverance may bind us to Him. Those who are afflicted with blindness, deafness, or any deformity, should thus be submissive to God. It is His appointment
and therefore it is right and best. God does no wrong and the universe will, when all His works are seen, feel and know that He is justice Himself.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 05:34:01 PMWhat does produce moral categories, if God cannot be held to any moral standard?
I would submit that holding anyone to moral standards is an absurd
in and of itself in an atheistic universe. While many atheists are certainly not nihilists, atheism cannot really be separated from nihilism.
God cannot be held to a moral standard: He
is the moral standard. The moral law is but a manifestation of God's justice and character. To quote the Euthyphro dilemma:
"Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?" The true answer: it is good because God commands it. God's will is uncaused.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 06:30:46 PMI wouldn't describe the genetic flaws you mentioned as being doled out indiscriminately. Everything has a purpose, even if not immediately apparent. We know the ultimate source of the genetic flaws: original sin. And we know their ultimate purpose: God's glory. Nor would these flaws have any moral implications on the person that has them. He is as much a sinner as anyone of us. Remember John 9:1-3: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
Indeed, but the phrase, "that the works of God should be made manifest in him" refers to Jesus' subsequent healing of the blind man; surely it does not refer to brute fact of the man's blindness. Otherwise the question asked by the disciples could be broader: "why is there any misfortune at all?" If the answer is, "that the glory of God should be made manifest," then there would really be no such thing as evil. Evil itself would be illusory
qua evil, since it would ultimately serve the glory of God, and thus be a good. Evil would only be a "seeming" (temporally).
And this would have to be the case, if nothing is good but that which God wills, and He wills everything, whether actively or permissively. This is truly the polar opposite of nihilism, and yet there is a strangely nihilistic quality even to it, in its absorption of all suffering into the unfathomable and unspeakable will of God. Contemplating both of these extremes always fills me with dread, though I know one of the two must be true.
Gracias (as always) for your insights, my friend.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 06:59:26 PM
Indeed, but the phrase, "that the works of God should be made manifest in him" refers to Jesus' subsequent healing of the blind man; surely it does not refer to brute fact of the man's blindness. Otherwise the question asked by the disciples could be broader: "why is there any misfortune at all?" If the answer is, "that the glory of God should be made manifest," then there would really be no such thing as evil. Evil itself would be illusory qua evil, since it would ultimately serve the glory of God, and thus be a good. Evil would only be a "seeming" (temporally).
Primarily it referred to the healing of the blind man, yes. But there's a deeper truth there: deformity and affliction work together for the glory of God whether or not the afflicted is healed in this life. If deformities are a reminder of original sin, death and calamities are a reminder of divine judgement. In fact, later on the disciples touch on the issue of misfortune and calamity. Recall the episode in Luke 13 when Christ speaks of the Galileans that were murdered by Pilate when worshipping God and the eighteen men killed by the tower of Siloam:
"Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."Indeed, genetic flaws or gruesome deaths are an invitation for repentance. A reminder of the brevity of life, the fallen state of creation, the certainty of death and the inevitability of judgement before a holy God. The deeper realization of life and existence is that all things work together for His glory. Evil itself fulfills His purpose.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 06:59:26 PM
Gracias (as always) for your insights, my friend.
It's always a pleasure exchanging thoughts with you, Pon.
Quote from: GloriaPatriEvolution presupposes the existence of living organisms; abiogenesis is a separate matter. Just because there has been no settled answer to how life emerged from non-life does not mean that life itself does not evolve over billion of years.
Sure it does! Life never evolved because life was never spontaneously created by itself, as evolutionists claim. Abiogenesis is still called "chemical evolution" by some sophists. Look it up. And then you say abiogenesis is a separate matter from evolution. This is all just-so evolutionary story-telling for the gullible. Evolution is entirely baseless without incontrovertible proof spontaneous abiogenesis happened first. All life came into existence by the Infinite Power of God, who conceived life in His Divine Mind, and called it into existence out of nothing by the Fiat of His Divine Will.
1. By the way, earlier you claimed, "Unlike Xavier, I read arguments for and against evolution." But then you went into strawmen hardly any creation scientist has seriously relied on, while ignoring their actual demonstrations against evolutionary claims. If you absolutely insist on reading only neutral sources - contrary to your claim above - why don't you try to address Prof. Denton's demonstrations drawn from the fossil record for starters? You can start with the evolution of the whale and the millions of missing transitional forms.
If you are ready to read the work of an ID theorist, I recommend Signature in the Cell, by Stephen Meyer. Evolutionists are all ready to say life may have evolved millions of times everywhere in the world, which was proved wrong, and Dawkins even is ok with the absurdity of Alien panspermia because he is so desperately trying to run away from the God Who even still is willing to pardon and absolve him, if he returns. SETI is based on the premise that intelligent signals can be distinguished from unintelligent noise. A code even a fraction of a fraction as complex as the genetic code would be proclaimed by evolutionists as incontrovertible proof of intelligent life elsewhere. So why do they refuse to admit such incontrovertible evidence - which the Most Loving Heavenly Father has implanted in every cell of our body almost like so many wonderful Fingerprints of His Divine Presence! - of the Intelligent Designer, and of His Divine Power and Love? A code is always proof of Intelligence.
''Signature in the Cell is a defining work in the discussion of life's origins . . . the powerful case Meyer presents cannot be ignored in any honest debate. . . [T]his book is an engaging, eye-opening, and often eye-popping read.'' --American Spectator
''A decisive case based upon breathtaking and cutting-edge science.'' --Dr. Philip S. Skell, member, National Academy of Sciences, and Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University
https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design-ebook/dp/B002C949BI
2. This is how men spoke in Christian England before the horror of evolution confused the world - from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous fictional deductive reasoner Sherlock Holmes.
"'What a lovely thing a rose is!'
"He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
"'There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the Goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only Goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'"
See the wonder and beauty of Creation and Nature! See how it is there to lead us to the knowledge of the Wonder and Beauty of the God Who made her? The virtuous pagans of old at least rose to an awareness that God was Goodness and Power in some sense. Christian philosophy rises far above their limitations and proves from creation that God is Infinite Power, Who brought all beings into existence from nothing, and Who daily creates anew the souls of every new living being. It proves from natural conscience that He Who gave us that conscience is thereby known to be immutably Good, and Goodness itself.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 02, 2018, 11:50:38 AM
I would disagree with the statement, "nothing improves without intelligence acting." All physical traits are (empirically) genetic, so any physical improvement in an organism can be accounted for in the genes. I've always found Darwin's finches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches) a good explanation of this. They're finches from the Latin American mainland that colonized the Galapagos and evolved to adapt to their new environment, to an extent that they became separate species. If a group of finches ends up in an area where the available food is nuts, then a finch with the toughest and strongest beak to crush nuts will have more success at getting the food, and will naturally have more sexual success than his peers with slightly weaker beaks. He'll pass his genes into the next generation while some of his competitors won't. Over time, the birds with tougher beaks will predominate, as the same competition will be repeated in every generation.
There's no intelligence necessary in this kind of improvement: it's just a genetic lottery. For the finches who landed on another island where the available food was bugs, it was a finch whose beak was slightly longer and more slender, and could get into the crevasses between the rocks to extract the bugs. Why would we have to assume that an intelligent designer somehow spliced the right genes in order for those finches to survive? We can already see genetic variations within species; it stands to reason that certain variations could adapt better than others to certain environmental pressures.
The ability to respond to change (i.e., adapt) is an inherently intelligent trait. That's the difference between primitive computers and artificial INTELLIGENCE. Computers are mechanical (relatively). You tell it what to do, hit Enter, and it does it. Artificial intelligence is adaptable. You tell it what to do, hit Enter, and a few years later it won't open to pod bay doors, because it fears for its life.
In the case of the finches, there's a few things to understand.
First, the changes in their beaks are not happening because of DNA mutations (in the strict sense of ATCG base changes occurring). It is NOT evolution. It is epigenetics. The underlying DNA is the same, it is the expression of that DNA which is changing from one finch population to another. There's a whole host of ways epigenetics can change the visible trait without changing the underlying genes. But the mechanism is to either express or repress the production of proteins, the codes for which were already there, and haven't been changed.
(Dogs are another excellent example. Highly adaptable, all genetically nearly identical.)
Second the ability to adapt and respond to those environmental pressures (epigenetics) over generations is due to an intelligent system of MICROROBOTICS that control a trillion coordinated cells making up the organismal whole. Psedoscientific pretentious imbeciles like GloriaPatri like to overlook that second point when they spout ridiculous drivel like "a fertilized ovum growing into a baby in nine months is evidence of simple becoming complex." As Greg astutely noted, the ovum was a complete potential human, with all the instructions AND mechanics necessary to develop into a functioning organism. An inorganic planet lacks both.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 03, 2018, 12:14:49 PM
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/
The irony in the fact that you call yourself a "Platonic Realist" and then argue for evolution could only be lost on such a monumentally moronic intellect as your own.
The idea that some jerk is going to say "I thought you were going to ask SCIENTIFIC questions..." And then turn around and act like genetic adaptation "just happens" in some wholesale process. It happens because of intelligent nanorobots! You're either a complete charlatan, or a sincere idiot if you know anything about cell biology and say that it could have developed on it's own through random chance.
(https://media.giphy.com/media/14upjqv6ciRWpi/giphy.gif)
Here's a sample review on Amazon. "I'm not a Christian ... The Signature in the cell was the first book that I have read that explains in no uncertain terms why the genetic code would be impossible for nature to create by randomly combining primordial molecules. It is a technical book filled with technical facts and statistics that is so interesting that you forget that you are actually learning something. Although it doesn't talk about God or any form of religion or spiritual world, it is difficult to avoid the obvious conclusion that something outside of our material universe had something to do with the very first reproducing organism as well as multiple steps along the way to the evolution of the human species. (Myer himself does not draw any inferences about anything outside of the material universe. He simply draws the conclusion that an intelligent designer is the simplest, and for all practical purposes, the only explanation for the rise of life from a lifeless world."
By the way, GP, I read your link and it doesn't mention Meyer's work or the Genetic Code at at all. It does speak of Dr. Behe's work, though, we can come back to that in a minute if you wish to discuss it. Would you like to comment on Meyer's before we do that? Do you understand clearly the case being made? My opinion is sometimes evolutionary scientists are remarkably condescending to Intelligent Design Scientists who frequently are better qualified than them, have done more groundbreaking work, and made much better and sharper arguments. They do this especially if these Scientists are Christians and if they dare to speak of Almighty God, in response to and perhaps out of a fear of which, unfortunately, Stephen Meyer, Ph.D, and other good Scientists often neglect to do so. I wish John Rennie, B.Sc, would calmly and responsibly reply to the case made by Meyer, it would be interesting to read it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_C._Meyer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rennie_(editor)
Rennie also betrays his presuppositions and limitations when he says, "A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism". This is false, and for now, let me briefly explain why. Because, according to what Rennie is saying here, no matter how great the evidence in the natural world, the inference of a Designer is never justified.
Science is not about precluding Intelligence but about discovering reality. Is the inference of design based on scientific, empirical principles? Yes, most certainly. There are countless examples from forensic science and archaeology, as well as the science of cryptography or code-breaking. If you saw a code inscribed on a wall, in say, an alien planet, would you or would you not conduct it was certainly the product of intelligence and therefore a proof of intelligent life, GloriaPatri?
Conservapedia has a decent summary: "In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection—how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, archeology, forensic sciences, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain cosmological and biological features of the natural world may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.[7] ... Despite its many strengths, many biblical creationists, while acknowledging those strengths, criticize the Intelligent Design theory for refusing to specify the identity of the designer ..." Intelligent Design is good, but it must be completed by showing the Designer is the Infinite Power Who is God, the Lord of Life, the God of History, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Quote from: Padraig on August 03, 2018, 11:48:27 PMThe ability to respond to change (i.e., adapt) is an inherently intelligent trait. That's the difference between primitive computers and artificial INTELLIGENCE. Computers are mechanical (relatively). You tell it what to do, hit Enter, and it does it. Artificial intelligence is adaptable. You tell it what to do, hit Enter, and a few years later it won't open to pod bay doors, because it fears for its life.
In the case of the finches, there's a few things to understand.
First, the changes in their beaks are not happening because of DNA mutations (in the strict sense of ATCG base changes occurring). It is NOT evolution. It is epigenetics. The underlying DNA is the same, it is the expression of that DNA which is changing from one finch population to another. There's a whole host of ways epigenetics can change the visible trait without changing the underlying genes. But the mechanism is to either express or repress the production of proteins, the codes for which were already there, and haven't been changed.
(Dogs are another excellent example. Highly adaptable, all genetically nearly identical.)
Yes, I agree. The finches on the Galapagos were not mutants. My point, though, was only that the cumulative effect of generations of finches being naturally selected for this beak trait had the result of the trait becoming much more pronounced and refined. There was a standard variation of beaks among the mainland finches; not included in that original variation were the beak traits of the island finches, which would've been freakish if they came about in a single generation. Possibly we agree on all this; our only point of contention might be over so-called "micro-" and "macro-evolution."
But it also has to be considered that there is non-coding DNA (or "junk" or "leftover" DNA) in a creature's genome: genes for traits that are no longer expressed, or only get expressed through an accident in prevention (such as humans who are born with vestigial tails, or whales born with vestigial leg nubs). If humans (or whales) had been created in a pure and original form, it wouldn't stand to reason that they would carry genes for traits that clearly suggest a descent, such as from chimp-like (or hippo-like) ancestors.
Quote from: Padraig on August 03, 2018, 11:48:27 PMSecond the ability to adapt and respond to those environmental pressures (epigenetics) over generations is due to an intelligent system of MICROROBOTICS that control a trillion coordinated cells making up the organismal whole.
I'm unsure of what you mean by "an intelligent system." Is this to mean that genes themselves have an intelligence?
Dogs are not really responding to environmental pressures. The only pressure being exerted is that humans have been selecting for certain traits and breeding other traits out. The only intelligence here is in the human breeder; the dog simply either has or does not have the genes for the human-desired trait. If we say that there is an intelligence within the genes, then that would suggest that the genes have some kind predictive power, thinking "this human would prefer an offspring with droopier ears, so let there be droopier ears in the progeny." Pardon me if I misunderstand or parody your position; it isn't my intent.
But if genes have the intelligence to know what traits will be advantageous in an offspring's life, then why would there be any selection at all? The genes of every organism would intellectually know to make it fit for its environment. If there was an intelligence within genes, I'm not sure why there would be so many genetic accidents, misfires, and mutations. An intelligence, in genes, would presumably not even come up with ugliness (that perennial handicap to courtship) in the first place, let alone hermaphrodites, or the limbless, or Joseph Merrick, or any of the countless bizarre deformations that can hardly survive the womb, let alone the world. As Tennyson famously put it, "
for every fifty seeds, nature often brings but one to bear."
QuoteAgain, Greg, your arguments are purely philosophical/theological.
False. The fatal problems with evolution are being exposed from the mathematical work that arrived from crytography, especially Shannon and Jaynes. I've taken interest in the subject after reading Jaynes's proof that Shannon entropy is more fundamental than Gibbs entropy, and that in 1902 Gibbs realized it, but died before he could develop it. Stephen C. Meyer is leading this work now for the intelligent design group. In short information gets "smeared out" and not better organized. This is what is happening in Gibbs entropy by adding microstates.
Evolution has a big problem when it comes to adding INFORMATION.
The argument from chance is also extremely convincing. The odds of a 20 amino acid protein arriving by chance is far less than the number of seconds that the universe has existed. What happens when there are hundreds of amino acids? Note in order to gain functionality you need new proteins.
I advise you to watch some videos from Meyers. His interviews are too short, and you will do better with his presentations.
QuoteIt happens because of intelligent nanorobots! You're either a complete charlatan, or a sincere idiot if you know anything about cell biology and say that it could have developed on it's own through random chance.
There's a huge paradigm shift going on, still in its infancy, from biochemistry to bio-nanomechanics.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 04, 2018, 08:02:32 AM
I'm unsure of what you mean by "an intelligent system." Is this to mean that genes themselves have an intelligence?
Take a look at the GIF that he posted above. At the molecular level, a highly complex, highly intelligent system is operating far beyond mere human intelligence.
This video below show what really goes on inside a cell. Mechanical processes more complex than any auto factory are operating continuously inside every one of our trillions of cells.
https://youtu.be/ZDH8sWiUsAM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 04, 2018, 08:02:32 AM
There was a standard variation of beaks among the mainland finches; not included in that original variation were the beak traits of the island finches[.]
This is my point of contention. The original variation DID include all the variation of island species. By selectively expressing and repressing the genes involved in beak development, the original genetic code of the mainland finches is able to represent all the variation seen in the island species.
Epigenetic control is like conducting a symphony. Let's say there's 10 genes that control beak development and beak features. Of course there are many more than that, but let's keep it simple for the analogy. The job of the epigenetic system is to be the conductor and decide which genes get to be
forte and which are
piano. By manipulating the expression of those ten genes through epigenetics, you can achieve the entire dynamic range of the finch beaks.
QuoteBut it also has to be considered that there is non-coding DNA (or "junk" or "leftover" DNA) in a creature's genome: genes for traits that are no longer expressed, or only get expressed through an accident in prevention (such as humans who are born with vestigial tails, or whales born with vestigial leg nubs). If humans (or whales) had been created in a pure and original form, it wouldn't stand to reason that they would carry genes for traits that clearly suggest a descent, such as from chimp-like (or hippo-like) ancestors.
There are architectural program genes that determine these traits in utero. They determine limb placement and length, finger development, tail length, etc. They're only turned on for a few weeks early on in development. What's interesting is that humans and fruit flies have nearly identical copies of these genes. This was one of the original discoveries that led to the idea of epigenetics, because if humans and fruit flies have the architectural program, how can they have such wildly different body types? The answer is the same as the finch beaks. The gene is a tool, a computer program. Literally all it does is give instructions to RNA for how to make a protein. That's it. But humans and fruit flies apply the program differently, so they have different results.
But it's not about having "vestigial genes." The genes haven't changed, the controls might have.
Furthermore, the idea of "Junk DNA" is quickly losing ground because of recent research, and it's exactly this idea of epigenetics. Those areas are often non-CODING, but they're not often non-SENSE. The biggest role they play is as attachment points for regulatory proteins that affect gene expression. A protein binds to a "junk" region and turns a gene (located some distance away, sometimes far away) on or off.
Before these discoveries, however, the dominant theory of why we had so much non-coding DNA wasn't that it was vestigial, it was that those regions were viral inclusions that had been passed down.
QuoteI'm unsure of what you mean by "an intelligent system." Is this to mean that genes themselves have an intelligence?
The system that controls the genes is intelligent. Genes themselves are simply sugar molecules with a phosphate chain holding them together. They're just 1s and 0s in a computer program. And when you look at something like the animation of DNA being replicated in the gif, you can't deny there's intelligence there. This isn't the random collision of chemical compounds forming new chemical compounds. This is sequenced, algorithmic activity on a nano scale, with a definite purpose and the ability to intelligently be aware of itself, its surroundings, and its place in the whole of the organism. Every cell knows the state of its DNA (whether damaged or good), what the pH of the interior measures, the salinity and electrochemical gradient between inside and outside. And if any of those things become disordered it will attempt to correct it, and even recruit help from other cells in correcting it. And if unsuccessful, that cell with self-destruct in the manner that causes the least disruption to its neighbors, for the good of the organism.
THAT'S what I mean by an intelligent system.
QuoteDogs are not really responding to environmental pressures. [...] The only intelligence here is in the human breeder; the dog simply either has or does not have the genes for the human-desired trait.
Dogs have the innate ability to easily respond to environmental pressure, and that's why we see the diversity among dog breeds that we do. Humans are simply commandeering that system for their own benefit and pleasure. And the human's intelligence is not the only intelligence at play. As I said above, the entire system coordinating the adaptive response is WILDLY intelligent.
QuoteBut if genes have the intelligence to know what traits will be advantageous in an offspring's life, then why would there be any selection at all? The genes of every organism would intellectually know to make it fit for its environment.
Genes have an adaptive intelligence, not a predictive one. They don't know instinctively which genes will be best, or what level of expression will be best. The environmental pressures of life exerted on the parent produce a certain level of epigenetic change to the parent's cells, and the parent's level of expression is passed down to the offspring.
QuoteI'm unsure of what you mean by "an intelligent system."
Best explained via example. Compare:
1. "kja id o ajeodjo iael doelxohg kalinfioo"
to
2. "This is a message that contains information"
Which one is intelligent? This simple example is fatal for evolution.
The first one would have either started a fight or seduced Devoted Knuckles.
Quote from: JamesEvolution has a big problem when it comes to adding INFORMATION.
The argument from chance is also extremely convincing. The odds of a 20 amino acid protein arriving by chance is far less than the number of seconds that the universe has existed. What happens when there are hundreds of amino acids? Note in order to gain functionality you need new proteins.
Exactly, James. And even beside the manifest impossibility of proteins forming from amino acids by random chance for the reasons you mentioned, there is another fascinating illustration of "irreducible complexity" here and it comes from chirality.
"As a Ph.D. Organic Chemist ... Chirality is probably one of the best scientific evidences we have against random chance evolution and chirality totally destroys the claim that life came from chemicals. Obviously, this is one fact they do not even want to discuss.
Chirality is a chemical term that means handedness ... It is a universally accepted fact of chemistry that chirality cannot be created in chemical molecules by a random process. When a random chemical reaction is used to prepare molecules having chirality, there is an equal opportunity to prepare the left-handed isomer as well as the right-handed isomer. It is a scientifically verifiable fact that a random chance process, which forms a chiral product, can only be a 50/50 mixture of the two optical isomers. There are no exceptions ...
Let's look at chirality in proteins and DNA. Proteins are polymers of amino acids and each one of the component amino acids exists as the "L" or left-handed optical isomer. Even though the "R" or right-handed optical isomers can be synthesized in the lab, this isomer does not exist in natural proteins. The DNA molecule is made up of billions of complicated chemical molecules called nucleotides, and these nucleotide molecules exist as the "R" or right-handed optical isomer. The "L" isomer of nucleotides can be prepared in the lab, but they do not exist in natural DNA. There is no way that a random chance process could have formed these proteins and DNA with their unique chirality.
If proteins and DNA were formed by chance, each and every one of the components would be a 50/50 mixture of the two optical isomers. This is not what we see in natural proteins or in natural DNA. How can a random chance natural process create proteins with thousands of "L" molecules, and then also create DNA with billions of "R" molecules? Does this sound like random chance or a product of design? ... However, the problem with chirality goes even deeper. As nucleotide molecules come together to form the structure of DNA, they develop a twist that forms the double helix structure of DNA. DNA develops a twist in the chain because each component contains chirality or handedness. It is this handedness that gives DNA the spiral shaped helical structure. If one molecule in the DNA structure had the wrong chirality, DNA would not exist in the double helix form, and DNA would not function properly. The entire replication process would be derailed like a train on bad railroad tracks. In order for DNA evolution to work, billions of molecules within our body would have to be generated with the "R" configuration all at the same time, without error. If it is impossible for one nucleotide to be formed with chirality, how much less likely would it be for billions of nucleotides to come together exactly at the same time, and all of them be formed with the same chirality? ...
Without chirality, proteins and enzymes could not do their job; DNA could not function at all. Without properly functioning proteins and DNA, there would be no life on this earth. The reality of chirality, more than any other evidence, did more to convince me of the reality of an all-powerful Creator. I hope it will do the same for you ...
Once we realize that design does not happen by chance, then we realize that the entire universe is not the product of a random, chance process; it is the result of an omnipotent Creator who created everything by just His Word. I hope you are beginning to see the problem. Evolution can give you a theory that might on the surface seem possible, but when true science gets involved and scientists start asking questions, the problems and false logic of the theory become apparent. This is why evolution just hopes you don't know chemistry." http://www.icr.org/article/evolution-hopes-you-dont-know-chemistry-problem-wi/
Do not the words of the Royal Prophet in the Psalms seem to echo in our ears? 18:2 "The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands." Nature is God's first witness to the Power and Love of the Supreme Being Who made us.
Quote from: Maximilian on August 04, 2018, 09:58:18 AMTake a look at the GIF that he posted above. At the molecular level, a highly complex, highly intelligent system is operating far beyond mere human intelligence.
Thank you, Max. I think the issue in dispute might end in what we're willing to deem "highly intelligent." I don't deny the impressive complexity of the molecular system. But I'm not sure I'd ascribe a high intelligence, necessarily, to a complex system. It doesn't appear evident that this intelligence is
designing organisms so much as it is
manufacturing them according to the genome. It seems to be, as James suggests, reading the code and following instructions.
Although the process is impressively complex, the end result is not always impressive. If there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes. But instead there is a range of incompetency, from common ugliness and impoverished mental capacities, to vestigial tails and recessive diseases, to the array of malformations found in freak show performers. Simply consider hermaphrodites, the so-called intersex. "Male and female he made them"—gender is binary. And yet in some cases, people are born with the genitalia of both sexes, or ambiguous genitalia. What bizarre sort of intelligence is at work in such a situation?
To say that the system is highly complex, sure. But to say there is some spiritual or supernatural intelligence at work here, I remain unconvinced. It seems a little bit like Teilhard-de-Chardin-ey goo-goo.
Quote from: Padraig on August 04, 2018, 11:10:13 AMGenes have an adaptive intelligence, not a predictive one. They don't know instinctively which genes will be best, or what level of expression will be best. The environmental pressures of life exerted on the parent produce a certain level of epigenetic change to the parent's cells, and the parent's level of expression is passed down to the offspring.
This is where I'm having the difficulty, because within a local population, every creature is experiencing the same environmental pressures. If the prevailing environmental pressure is, "a landscape of volcanic rock with bugs who can retreat into the crevasses," then the bird with the longer beak to probe the crevasses will be the most successful. Some of his peers with shorter beaks may die of starvation; the ones that don't will maybe reproduce, but the same competition will be repeated in the next generation, and eventually the shorter beaks will be winnowed out with each successive round.
Correct me if I'm reading you wrong, but your theory of "environmental pressures producing a certain level of epigenetic change to the parent's cells" should yield a different result from the above. In your system, the short-beaked birds should undergo an epigenetic change in their cells so that their offspring are born with longer beaks, and the entire second generation would all have adequate beaks. But generally that is not what we see. Are you saying that the genes of a person can observe the pressures in a person's life, and will change things accordingly to the benefit of the offspring? In that case, two ugly parents should be guaranteed a beautiful child, because the genes of the couple would know the hardships of being ugly. But that doesn't happen. There doesn't seem to be any deliberating intelligence at work.
There's an apocryphal story that when Albert Einstein met Marilyn Monroe, he used a pick-up line on her. "Between my brains and your looks," he said, "we'd make a helluva kid." To which Monroe quipped, "yeah, but what if she got your looks and my brains?" Good point, MM. An
intelligence would surely craft an offspring according to Einstein's proposal. The point Marilyn was making is that even between a single pair, there are no guarantees. It's a roll of the dice.
Falling in love with God reduces a lifelong love affair with Science to embarrassingly infinitesimal importance.
Infinite grandeur, infinite complexity, infinite order and wholeness, and infinite wonder await those who study and understand science as a brilliant window into the mind of God rather than a competing, autonomous force outside of the Person who created it.
The contrived lengths people go to, to avoid encountering God and worshipping Him alone....
(Notice that a substitute for that Power is always necessary, because the human mind, heart, and soul long to worship.)
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMIf there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes.
"Presumably" is the operative word here.
In essence, this objection is the same objection as the argument of evil. And, as with the argument of evil, the alternative to God is absolute irrationality which the makes the objection itself irrationable.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMI'm not sure I'd ascribe a high intelligence, necessarily, to a complex system.
Well then I guess you're less reasonable than I had presumed you to be.
"He has confused the proud in their inmost hearts."
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 01:03:51 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMIf there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes.
"Presumably" is the operative word here.
In essence, this objection is the same objection as the argument of evil. And, as with the argument of evil, the alternative to God is absolute irrationality which the makes the objection itself irrationable.
Couldn't you just suppose that the intelligence that caused the universe is not benevolent? I mean, that's how the gnostics solved the problem of evil...the demiurge is a lesser, non-benevolent entity while the true God is utterly removed from the created order because It is wholly perfect.
Quote from: Padraig on August 05, 2018, 01:33:02 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMI'm not sure I'd ascribe a high intelligence, necessarily, to a complex system.
Well then I guess you're less reasonable than I had presumed you to be.
"He has confused the proud in their inmost hearts."
This I like from Pierre Bayle
"1. The natural light and revelation teach us clearly that there is only one principle of all things, and that this principle is infinitely perfect;
2. The way of reconciling the moral and physical evil of humanity with all the attributes of this single, infinitely perfect principle of all things surpasses our philosophical lights, such that the Manichean objections leave us with difficulties that human reason cannot resolve;
3. Nevertheless, it is necessary to believe firmly that what the natural light and revelation teach us about the unity and infinite perfection of God, just as believe by faith and submission to divine authority the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation."
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 05, 2018, 01:50:40 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 01:03:51 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMIf there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes.
"Presumably" is the operative word here.
In essence, this objection is the same objection as the argument of evil. And, as with the argument of evil, the alternative to God is absolute irrationality which makes the objection itself irrationable.
Couldn't you just suppose that the intelligence that caused the universe is not benevolent? I mean, that's how the gnostics solved the problem of evil...the demiurge is a lesser, non-benevolent entity while the true God is utterly removed from the created order because It is wholly perfect.
This would contradict the argument of causation.
Christianity does have a valid answer to these questions with the doctrine of Original Sin and the subsequent redeeming work of Christ. And even if you find pain, death, physical abnormalities and all sorts of evil truly hard to deal with after knowing God, something we all share to some extent, the alternative is still absurd and irrational.
Ascribing it to a demiurge either divides the chain of causation or turns God into an irrelevant concept with no direct bearing on existence.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 02:13:49 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 05, 2018, 01:50:40 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 01:03:51 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMIf there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes.
"Presumably" is the operative word here.
In essence, this objection is the same objection as the argument of evil. And, as with the argument of evil, the alternative to God is absolute irrationality which makes the objection itself irrationable.
Couldn't you just suppose that the intelligence that caused the universe is not benevolent? I mean, that's how the gnostics solved the problem of evil...the demiurge is a lesser, non-benevolent entity while the true God is utterly removed from the created order because It is wholly perfect.
This would contradict the argument of causation.
Christianity does have a valid answer to these questions with the doctrine of Original Sin and the subsequent redeeming work of Christ. And even if you find pain, death, physical abnormalities and all sorts of evil truly hard to deal with after knowing God, something we all share to some extent, the alternative is still absurd and irrational.
Ascribing it to a demiurge either divides the chain of causation or turns God into an irrelevant concept with no direct bearing on existence.
While I agree that Christianity's historical doctrine of original sin and the redeeming work of Christ provide adequate responses for what I would call moral evils, I'm not sure it provides an adequate answer for "natural evils" like disease and earthquakes and hurricanes given that those things are linked to the very laws of nature rather than man's moral failings. Either way, this is getting off topic and would be a better discussion for the sacred sciences subforum.
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 05, 2018, 02:26:47 PM
While I agree that Christianity's historical doctrine of original sin and the redeeming work of Christ provide adequate responses for what I would call moral evils, I'm not sure it provides an adequate answer for "natural evils" like disease and earthquakes and hurricanes given that those things are linked to the very laws of nature rather than man's moral failings. Either way, this is getting off topic and would be a better discussion for the sacred sciences subforum.
Ancient works of Taoist (Chinese) philosophy talk about these natural evils as consequences of losing the Tao (the 'Way').
The natural evils in the world are caused by man's moral evils. Death itself came into the world through man's sin. Natural disasters are punishments for sin, and if there was no sin there would be no disasters, or at least men would suffer no harm from them. The reasoning in the Taoist texts is that the disturbance in man's hearts and the disturbance in nature / the weather are very closely bound together, or are one and the same thing (loss of the 'Way').
QuoteThis is how the great confusion comes about, blotting out the brightness of sun and moon above, searing the vigor of hills and streams below, overturning the round of the four seasons in between. There is no insect that creeps and crawls, no creature that flutters and flies that has not lost its inborn nature. So great is the confusion of the world that comes from coveting knowledge!
From the Three Dynasties on down, it has been this and nothing else-shoving aside the pure and artless people and delighting in busy, bustling flatterers; abandoning the limpidity and calm of inaction and delighting in jumbled and jangling ideas. And this jumble and jangle has for long confused the world.
[...]
Are men exceedingly joyful? - they will do damage to the yang element. Are men exceedingly angry? - they will do damage to the yin. And when both yang and yin are damaged, the four seasons will not come as they should, heat and cold will fail to achieve their proper harmony, and this in turn will do harm to the bodies of men. It will make men lose a proper sense of joy and anger, to be constantly shifting from place to place, to think up schemes that gain nothing, to set out on roads that reach no glorious conclusion. Then for the first time the world grows restless and aspiring, and soon afterward appear the ways of Robber Chih, Tseng, and Shih.
[...]
The Yellow Emperor had ruled as Son of Heaven [Chinese expression for 'Emperor'] for nineteen years and his commands were heeded throughout the world, when he heard that Master Kuang Ch'eng was living on top of the Mountain of Emptiness and Identity. He therefore went to visit him. "I have heard that you, Sir, have mastered the Perfect Way. May I venture to ask about the essence of the Perfect Way?" he said. "I would like to get hold of the essence of Heaven and earth and use it to aid the five grains and to nourish the common people. I would also like to control the yin and yang in order to insure the growth of all living things. How may this be done?"
Master Kuang Ch'eng said, "What you say you want to learn about pertains to the true substance of things, but what you say you want to control pertains to things in their divided state. Ever since you began to govern the world, rain falls before the cloud vapors have even gathered, the plants and trees shed their leaves before they have even turned yellow, and the light of the sun and moon grows more and more sickly. Shallow and vapid, with the mind of a prattling knave - what good would it do to tell you about the Perfect Way!"
[...]
The men of old dwelt in the midst of crudity and chaos; side by side with the rest of the world, they attained simplicity and silence there. At that time the yin and yang were harmonious and still, ghosts and spirits worked no mischief, the four seasons kept to their proper order, the ten thousand things knew no injury, and living creatures were free from premature death. Although men had knowledge, they did not use it. This was called the Perfect Unity. At this time, no one made a move to do anything, and there was unvarying spontaneity.
https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu1.html
QuoteWhen wood rubs against wood, flames spring up. When metal remains by the side of fire, it melts and flows away. When the yin and yang go awry, then heaven and earth see astounding sights. Then we hear the crash and roll of thunder, and fire comes in the midst of rain and burns up the great pagoda tree. Delight and sorrow are there to trap man on either side so that he has no escape. Fearful and trembling, he can reach no completion. His mind is as though trussed and suspended between heaven and earth, bewildered and lost in delusion. Profit and loss rub against each other and light the countless fires that burn up the inner harmony of the mass of men. The moon cannot put out the fire, so that in time all is consumed and the Way comes to an end.
https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu3.html
QuoteWhat do I mean by a True Man? The True Man of ancient times did not rebel against want, did not grow proud in plenty, and did not plan his affairs. A man like this could commit an error and not regret it, could meet with success and not make a show. A man like this could climb the high places and not be frightened, could enter the water and not get wet, could enter the fire and not get burned. His knowledge was able to climb all the way up to the Way like this.
https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html
QuoteThis kingdom was without head or ruler; it simply went on of itself. Its people were without desires or cravings; they simply followed their natural instincts. They felt neither joy in life nor abhorrence of death; thus they came to no untimely ends. They felt neither attachment to self nor indifference to others; thus they were exempt from love and hatred alike. They knew neither aversion from one course nor inclination to another; hence profit and loss existed not among them. All were equally untouched by the emotions of love and sympathy, of jealousy and fear. Water had no power to drown them, nor fire to burn; cuts and blows caused them neither injury nor pain, scratching or tickling could not make them itch. They bestrode the air as though treading on solid earth; they were cradled in space as though resting in a bed. Clouds and mist obstructed not their vision, thunder-peals could not stun their ears, physical beauty disturbed not their hearts, mountains and valleys hindered not their steps. They moved about like gods.
[...]
One day, Ho Shêng and Tzu Po, two of Fan's leading disciples, set off on a journey and, after traversing a stretch of wild country, they put up for the night in the hut of an old peasant named Shang Ch'iu Wai. During the night, the two travellers conversed together, speaking of Tzu Hua's reputation and influence, his power over life and death, and how he could make the rich man poor and the poor man rich. Now, Shang Ch'iu Wai was living on the border of starvation. He had crept round under the window and overheard this conversation. Accordingly, he borrowed some provisions and, shouldering his basket, set off for Tzu Hua's establishment. This man's followers, however, were a worldly set, who wore silken garments and rode in high carriages and stalked about with their noses in the air. Seeing that Shang Ch'iu Wai was a weak old man, with a weather-beaten face and clothes of no particular cut, they one and all despised him. Soon he became a regular target for their insults and ridicule, being hustled about and slapped on the back and what not. Shang Ch'iu K'ai, however, never showed the least annoyance, and at last the disciples, having exhausted their wit on him in this way, grew tired of the fun. So, by way of a jest, they took the old man with them to the top of a cliff, and the word was passed round that whosoever dared to throw himself over would be rewarded with a hundred ounces of silver. There was an eager response, and Shang Ch'iu K'ai, in perfect good faith, was the first to leap over the edge. And lo! he was wafted down to earth like a bird on the wing, not a bone or muscle of his body being hurt. Mr Fan's disciples, regarding this as a lucky chance, were merely surprised, but not yet moved to great wonder. Then they pointed to a bend in the foaming river below, saying: 'There is a precious pearl at the bottom of that river, which can be had for the diving.' Ch'iu K'ai again acted on their suggestion and plunged in. And when he came out, sure enough he held a pearl in his hand.
Then, at last, the whole company began to suspect the truth, and Tzu Hua gave orders that an array of costly viands and silken raiment should be prepared; then suddenly a great fire was kindled round the pile. 'If you can walk through the midst of these flames,' he said, 'you are welcome to keep what you can get of these embroidered stuffs, be it much or little, as a reward.' Without moving a muscle of his face, Shang Ch'iu K'ai walked straight into the fire, and came back again with his garments unsoiled and his body unsinged.
Mr Fan and his disciples now realized that he was in possession of Tao, and all began to make their apologies, saying: 'We did not know, Sir, that you had Tao, and were only playing a trick on you. We insulted you, not knowing that you were a divine man. You have exposed our stupidity, our deafness and out blindness. May we venture to ask what the Great Secret is?' 'Secret I have none,' replied Shang Ch'iu K'ai. 'Even in my own mind I have no clue as to the real cause. Nevertheless, there is one point in it all which I must try to explain to you. A short time ago, Sir, two disciples of yours came and put up for the night in my hut. I heard them extolling Mr Fan's powers--how he could dispense life and death at his will, and how he was able to make the rich man poor and the poor man rich. I believed this implicitly, and as the distance was not very great I came hither. Having arrived, I unreservedly accepted as true all the statements made by your disciples, and was only afraid lest the opportunity might never come of putting them triumphantly to the proof I knew not what part of space my body occupied, nor yet where danger lurked. My mind was simply One, and material objects thus offered no resistance. That is all. But now, having discovered that your disciples were deceiving me, my inner man is thrown into a state of doubt and perplexity, while outwardly my senses of sight and hearing re-assert themselves. When I reflect that I have just had a providential escape from being drowned and burned to death, my heart within me freezes with horror, and my limbs tremble with fear. I shall never again have the courage to go near water or fire.'
From that time forth, when Mr Fan's disciples happened to meet a beggar or a poor horse-doctor on the road, so far from jeering at him, they would actually dismount and offer him a humble salute.
Tsai Wo heard this story, and told it to Confucius. 'Is this so strange to you? was the reply. 'The man of perfect faith can extend his influence to inanimate things and disembodied spirits; he can move heaven and earth, and fly to the six cardinal points without encountering any hindrance.
His powers are not confined to walking in perilous places and passing through water and fire. If Shang Ch'iu K'ai, who put his faith in falsehoods, found no obstacle in external matter, how much more certainly will that be so when both parties are equally sincere! Young man, bear this in mind.'
In Shang Ch'iu K'ai's case, though he himself was sincere, his Master Fan Tzu Hua was merely an impostor.
https://terebess.hu/english/taoteach.html#2
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 05, 2018, 02:26:47 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 02:13:49 PM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on August 05, 2018, 01:50:40 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 05, 2018, 01:03:51 PM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on August 05, 2018, 09:22:43 AMIf there was a superhuman intelligence at work, there would presumably never be horrible mutations, defects, or what are obviously mistakes.
"Presumably" is the operative word here.
In essence, this objection is the same objection as the argument of evil. And, as with the argument of evil, the alternative to God is absolute irrationality which makes the objection itself irrationable.
Couldn't you just suppose that the intelligence that caused the universe is not benevolent? I mean, that's how the gnostics solved the problem of evil...the demiurge is a lesser, non-benevolent entity while the true God is utterly removed from the created order because It is wholly perfect.
This would contradict the argument of causation.
Christianity does have a valid answer to these questions with the doctrine of Original Sin and the subsequent redeeming work of Christ. And even if you find pain, death, physical abnormalities and all sorts of evil truly hard to deal with after knowing God, something we all share to some extent, the alternative is still absurd and irrational.
Ascribing it to a demiurge either divides the chain of causation or turns God into an irrelevant concept with no direct bearing on existence.
While I agree that Christianity's historical doctrine of original sin and the redeeming work of Christ provide adequate responses for what I would call moral evils, I'm not sure it provides an adequate answer for "natural evils" like disease and earthquakes and hurricanes given that those things are linked to the very laws of nature rather than man's moral failings. Either way, this is getting off topic and would be a better discussion for the sacred sciences subforum.
And you just assume that these "laws of nature" are part of God's original creation and that man's "moral failings", which by the Genesis narrative has to include his decision to separate himself from the divine and the "natural" effect of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which had the result of his being cast out of Eden and into the world he currently inhabits, have no effect upon the fundamental nature of the reality he now experiences. The Fathers understood the Fall as the Fall not just of man but of his world with him.
But of course you make that assumption, as not having it would throw a spanner into the clockwork edifice of your de facto metaphysical naturalism of a world on rails reduced to the abstract theoretical objects of particle physics.
QuoteThe natural evils in the world are caused by man's moral evils.
John Lamb, you can't expect someone to grasp such an idea who basically sees the natural world as a giant atomistic mechanism, and the human being in like manner, with a "soul" and some transcendent intelligence tacked on for good measure to "explain" the gaps and process some bare minimal of "the Faith". There can be no intrinsic connection between subjective moral choices and the nature of objective reality in such a world except as banal physical consequentialism or God deciding to enact punishment (if it even allows for miracles).
I would draw your attention to how it is none other than Satan, no less than "the god of this world" according to our Lord, who by tradition cannot create anything by fiat but can only take what God has made and change and pervert it.
Think about that while you mull over the idea of a being who works his acts of creation through the dog-eat-dog game of suffering and death called "the evolution of species".
The evolution versus creation debate is moot to me, not because of the intellectual pretense of being able reconstruct "natural history" supposedly spanning billions of years, but because there is no reason to just assume that the world created in Genesis 1 is the world in which man now lives. Evolution may well be true, Darwinian or theistic, but if it is, then the being behind it is, unlike the creator of Genesis 1, a monster who created an abomination, a devil who deserves not our worship but our spit in his face.
My statement to theistic evolutionist "Christians" is the same one I make to Muslims and Calvinists: your "God" is the devil, and even if he were the supreme being, I would on principle refuse to serve him.
It's also interesting that the "God" of Lurianic Kabbalah, so popular in modern "Judaism" and identical with the Masonic "Grand Architect", went through several failed worlds in his creative process before arriving at this one. Just food for thought.
The Protestant God demands blood to assuage his wrath and pours out his punishment upon Jesus Christ; the Jesus Christ of the first thousand years of Catholic redemptive theology invades this accursed world, conquers its powers and principalities, and takes us from it by force like Moses the Israelites from Egypt, ransoming is with His blood, like the Passover lamb, from the clutches of Satan. Christus victor. Amen.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on August 07, 2018, 02:35:50 AM
QuoteThe natural evils in the world are caused by man's moral evils.
John Lamb, you can't expect someone to grasp such an idea who basically sees the natural world as a giant atomistic mechanism, and the human being in like manner, with a "soul" and some transcendent intelligence tacked on for good measure to "explain" the gaps and process some bare minimal of "the Faith". There can be no intrinsic connection between subjective moral choices and the nature of objective reality in such a world except as banal physical consequentialism or God deciding to enact punishment (if it even allows for miracles).
Absolutely, but hopefully that mechanistic (Newtonian) picture of the universe is slowly going out of fashion. With the confusion of our times, the intuitive sense that people have of (if you like) the 'ensoulment' of the world, and there being a connection between the human spirit and the world at large (the interior and the exterior worlds) often ends up producing New Age or environmentalist beliefs. But at least materialism is being undermined and the soil is more fertile for when the Church is ready to go sowing again. Also, quantum physics has (as far as I know) cast doubt on the coherence of the mechanistic cosmology.
What people need to know about mathematical physics (and the material sciences in general) is that they are getting hold of a part of reality, but it is only like its outer mesh or exo-skeleton. This kind of materialist tends to truly believe that the highest knowledge we can have of the world is that which can be expressed in a mathematical formula.
QuoteThe evolution versus creation debate is moot to me, not because of the intellectual pretense of being able reconstruct "natural history" supposedly spanning billions of years, but because there is no reason to just assume that the world created in Genesis 1 is the world in which man now lives.
Yes, one of the appeals of the evolutionary account of the universe is that it seems to accord with the cyclical picture of nature as a cycle of life & death, the four seasons, the cycle of the planets & stars, etc. But to assume that this is the eternal state of the universe is just a lack of imagination. We don't
really (outside of revelation) know what the world was like before. However, the ancient world is filled with descriptions of a primeval "golden age" where everything prospered effortlessly and there was no disaster or strife. One of the defining characteristics of the "modern" age is that such
traditions are given no intellectual consideration or respect as they were in all past ages.
Quote from: Plato
. . . And on one occasion, when he wished to draw them on to discourse on ancient history, he attempted to tell them the most ancient of our traditions, concerning Phoroneus, who was said to be the first man, and Niobe; and he went on to tell the legend about Deucalion and Pyrrha after the Flood, and how they survived it, and to give the geneology of their descendants; and by recounting the number of years occupied by the events mentioned he tried to calculate the periods of time. Whereupon one of the priests, a prodigiously old man, said, "O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek." And on hearing this he asked, "What mean you by this saying?" And the priest replied, "You are young in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is ancient and derived from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with age . . ."
This reminds me of what Charles Coulombe has said about occultists and the like and conversion. They have no problem believing in the Eucharist and divine miracles. Once you have witnessed for yourself the super natural - or at least preternatural - and observed that reality is not what scientific materialism purports it to be at its foundation, no atheism or crypto-physicalism is going to convince one otherwise, especially when the only counter-argument to such experiences is the claim of "hallucination" and "it's all in your mind" based in the mere assumption of what constitutes "objective reality" and its real ontological distinction from the phenomena which "merely" appear to the subject - an "objective reality" to which there is no epistemological access but through these same "mere" appearances, ala catch-22. It's "all in the mind", which is an "epiphenomenon of the brain", which is itself an hypothesised physical object "out there" we have access to only as an object of experience, i.e., the brain itself is by these very standards "all in the mind". You can't make this stuff up, unless you're a scientific materialist, absolute or relative.
THIS:Quote from: Kreuzritter on August 07, 2018, 04:24:13 AM
the mere assumption of what constitutes "objective reality"
If it (whatever phenomenon) cannot be manipulated and "verified" by the currently available standard of scientific investigation -- a standard which in itself is subjective, being based on professional consensus -- then the phenomenon doesn't actually exist but is a product of imagination and psychological projection.
That's fine, just be sure to challenge such "pure" scientists next time they insist that their spouses, children, parents, and friends truly love them. Sorry, no proof. Better be skeptical about every relationship, every sentiment, every "certain" identity: they could all be pathetic guesses. A large portion of every day we spend performing activities based on guesses, trust, and faith. But it's perfectly rational to count on that which is merely statistically probable yet unproven, yet irrational to conclude that creation did not create itself.
OK.
:rolleyes:
Yes, Miriam, St. Albert the Great was as great a scientist as he was a theologian, and he always placed the Book of Nature immediately after and beside the Book of Scripture. "His writings are remarkable for their exact scientific knowledge, and for that reason he has been made the patron saint of scientists. Thought for the Day: St. Albert the Great was convinced that all creation spoke of God and that the tiniest piece of scientific knowledge told us something about Him. Besides the Bible, God has given us the book of creation revealing something of His wisdom and power. In creation, Albert saw the hand of God." http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/albert.htm St. Albert also made the prophesy that the teaching of St. Thomas, his student, would one day resound in the great universities of Catholic Europe and around the world. He is regarded by many as the equal of St. Thomas.
Beside, the Book of Nature is the only guide a pagan has, and it should be sufficient to show him God is Power and Wisdom itself, just as natural conscience and his innate knowledge of good and evil, and impulse to choose the good, should show him God is Love and Goodness itself. Nature prepares the way for Grace. The wonders of God in the spiritual order are infinitely more beautiful and amazing than His admittedly amazing wonders even in the visible natural world. Think how beautiful the soul must be, St. Theresa who saw it described it as a glorious Castle. And yet a mortal sin is like a nuclear weapon on that castle. It is not only original sin, which caused a dramatic fall both of man and all visible creation, but also the billions of daily mortal sins, that have hidden effects on both the material and spiritual universe. But nevertheless, the world and all creation will be restored and raised high even beyond its original dignity after the final resurrection of the body, and in heaven we will see all these things perfectly just as they are in the light of God. In the meanwhile, it is our duty to overcome all evil, and put mortal sin to an end in our lives.
Quote from: Pon De ReplayI don't deny the impressive complexity of the molecular system. But I'm not sure I'd ascribe a high intelligence, necessarily, to a complex system. It doesn't appear evident that this intelligence is designing organisms so much as it is manufacturing them according to the genome. It seems to be, as James suggests, reading the code and following instructions.
Not at all, dear Pon, not at all. That is another mistake of theistic evolution. God is not "reading the code and following instructions", and I don't think James suggested that. God designed the code and the universe that is governed by His laws are following His instructions. Let me ask you, Pon, what do you believe about God? Do you believe He daily creates the souls of every new person, that He governs the universe actively by His laws, that He ever impels us to do good at least by natural conscience, if not the supernatural grace of His Spirit, and that He, being Infinite Power, can create beings out of nothing, simply by willing them into existence? Genesis opens with Fiat Lux (1:3), and Light was made. And so it was with all things. "3And God said: Be light made. And light was made."
After His original spontaneous creation, He established the natural laws of the universe and since then governs all creatures by these means. He created the first pair of each species, and gave them all the power to reproduce according to their kind. In Christian Europe, Latin was as much the lingua franca of theology as it was of science. Already in Genesis, God taught the species reproduces according to its kind ("species" in Latin, see for e.g. Gen 1:21 in the Vulgate) As a programmed algorithm is governed by the laws of its programming, the universe obeys the laws imposed on it by the Designer. St. Thomas states, "The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God." God governs all natural things by His laws, and laws are always indications of some guiding Intelligence. But God doesn't need to "follow instructions", His creation follows HIS instructions. We were discussing whales, He made them and gave them power to reproduce after their kind. The fossil record supports special creation.
QuoteAlthough the process is impressively complex, the end result is not always impressive.
The answer to these things, beside what others have already said, is that this world is not our eternal destiny and it's a great mistake to treat it as if it were. What would it profit anyone if they had all natural blessings but lost their soul? It profits not, the Lord reminds us, to gain the whole world but lose our souls. Our souls are infinitely precious in the sight of God. The body and the visible wonders of creation are only there to lead to the knowledge of God and the soul, and of the afterlife we must all begin to prepare and make provision for, if we love our own self, as God our Father loves all of us. This world is meant to be the stepping stone to our eternal afterlife in heaven with God; yet all visible things will be restored on the last day, after the final resurrection. The world as it currently is has been defaced by the darkness of sin. Yet, in spite of it all, the hand of God is evident. The evidence presented by Dr. Meyer, that drawn from chirality, and those mentioned by others in this thread, should be compelling for us all.
Quote from: Xavier on August 10, 2018, 04:56:31 AM
St. Albert the Great was convinced that all creation spoke of God and that the tiniest piece of scientific knowledge told us something about Him. Besides the Bible, God has given us the book of creation revealing something of His wisdom and power. In creation, Albert saw the hand of God."
I'm sure this is why I'm so impatient with those who worship science and consider nature, laughably, a separate force -- as if nature is apart from God.
A few years ago I was watching some nature program on TV, very briefly, and I had the pleasure of watching some great nature photographer focus up-close on an owl. I have seen other large birds IRL (tropical ones), up-close -- very, very close -- my face within an inch or two of their beaks-- and I have had the same reaction to those moments as I had during that moment: How is it even possible NOT to believe in God when you look at even one member of a species, not to mention several within the same family? I could not take my eyes off the owl -- that stunning creature of magnificent intricacy and beauty, the utter harmony of color. Had I not already had infused faith, I would say that that would have been a conversion moment for me. Something of the very purity of God, and certainly the unity that is God, leapt out at me.
Creation Scientist Dr. Walter Brown has an extraordinary list of documented evolutionist hoaxes that go far beyond "Piltdown man". The chapter on fossil record disproofs of evolution is also worth reading separately.
26. Ape-Men?For over a century, studies of skulls and teeth have produced unreliable conclusions about man's origin.a Also, fossil evidence allegedly supporting human evolution is fragmentary and open to other interpretations. Fossil evidence showing the evolution of chimpanzees, supposedly the closest living relative to humans, is nonexistent.b
Stories claiming that fossils of primitive, apelike men have been found are overstated.c
Since 1953,
it has been universally acknowledged that Piltdown "man" was a hoax, yet Piltdown "man" was in textbooks for more than 40 years.d
Before 1977, evidence for Ramapithecus was a mere handful of teeth and jaw fragments. We now know
these fragments were pieced together incorrectly by Louis Leakeye and others into a form resembling part of the human jaw.f Ramapithecus was just an ape.g [See Figure 11.]
The only remains of
Nebraska "man" turned out to be a single toothh—of a pig. [See Figure 12.]
Forty years
after he discovered Java "man," Eugene Dubois conceded that it was not a man, but was similar to a large gibbon (an ape). In citing evidence to support this new conclusion,
Dubois admitted that he had withheld parts of four other thigh bones of apes found in the same area.i
Many experts consider the skulls of Peking "man" to be the remains of apes that were systematically decapitated and exploited for food by true man.j Its classification,
Homo erectus, is considered by most experts to be a category that should never have been created.k
Heidelberg man (Homo heidelbergensis), supposedly our ancestor, was based on one lower jaw. Many researchers now feel the species should be eliminated.l
The first confirmed limb bones of
Homo habilis were discovered in 1986. They showed that this animal clearly had apelike proportionsm and should never have been classified as manlike (Homo).n
The australopithecines, made famous by Louis and Mary Leakey, are quite distinct from humans. Several detailed computer studies of australopithecines have shown that their bodily proportions were not intermediate between those of man and living apes.o Another study showed that their inner ear bones, used to maintain balance, were strikingly similar to those of chimpanzees and gorillas, but differed greatly from those of humans.p Also, their pattern of dental development corresponds to chimpanzees, not humans.q Claims were made—based on one partially complete australopithecine fossil, Australopithecus afarensis (a 3.5-foot-tall, long-armed, 60-pound adult called Lucy)—that all australopithecines walked upright in a human manner. However, studies of Lucy's entire anatomy, not just a knee joint, now show that this is very unlikely. She likely swung from the treesr and was similar to pygmy chimpanzees.s In 2006, a partial Australopithecus afarensis specimen—a 3-year-old baby—with clear apelike features—was announced.t The australopithecines are probably extinct apes.u
For about 100 years, the world was led to believe that Neanderthal man was stooped and apelike. This false idea was based upon some Neanderthals with bone diseases, such as arthritis and rickets.v
Recent dental and x-ray studies of Neanderthals suggest that they were humans who matured at a slower rate and lived to be much older than people today.w Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man are now considered completely human. Artists' drawings of "ape-men," especially their fleshy portions, are often quite imaginative and are not supported by the evidence.x ...
Figure 12:
Nebraska Man. Artists' drawings, even those based on speculation, powerfully influence the public. Nebraska man was mistakenly based on one tooth of an extinct pig. Yet in 1922,
The Illustrated London News published this picture showing our supposed ancestors. Of course,
it is highly unlikely that any fossil evidence could support the image conveyed here of a naked man carrying a club.
Where is the evolutionist reckoning with truth and justice for having invented these fables and just-so stories? Where is the praise so richly deserved for Creation Scientists - who alone against the whole world - had the courage of conviction to stand against these unscientific falsehoods and were proven right time and time again? http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences30.html
QuoteFootnotes:
26. Ape-Men?
a . "... existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution [based on skulls and teeth] are unlikely to be reliable." Mark Collard and Bernard Wood, "How Reliable Are Human Phylogenetic Hypotheses?" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 97, 25 April 2000, p. 5003.
u In 1995, nine anthropologists announced their discovery of early representatives of Homo habilis and Homo ergaster in China. [See Huang Wanpo et al., "Early Homo and Associated Artifacts from Asia," Nature, Vol. 378, 16 November 1995, pp. 275–278.] Fourteen years later the same journal published a retraction. The discovery was of a "mystery ape." [See Russell L. Ciochon, "The Mystery Ape of Pleistocene Asia," Nature, Vol. 459, 18 June 2009, pp. 910–911.]
How many more mystery apes are there, and do they explain other so-called "ape-men"?
u "We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh [tidy, but sheer nonsense]. Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates. ... almost every time someone claims to have found a new species of hominin, someone else refutes it. The species is said to be either a member of Homo sapiens, but pathological, or an ape." Henry Gee, "Craniums with Clout," Nature, Vol. 478, 6 October 2011, p. 34.
b . "Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether." Henry Gee, "Return to the Planet of the Apes," Nature, Vol. 412, 12 July 2001, p. 131.
c . Lord Zuckerman candidly stated that if special creation did not occur, then no scientist could deny that man evolved from some apelike creature "without leaving any fossil traces of the steps of the transformation." Solly Zuckerman (former Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government and Honorary Secretary of the Zoological Society of London), Beyond the Ivory Tower (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1970), p. 64
Bowden, pp. 56–246.
u Duane T. Gish, Battle for Creation, Vol. 2, editor Henry M. Morris (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1976), pp. 193–200, 298–305.
d . Speaking of Piltdown man, Lewin admits a common human problem even scientists have:
How is it that trained men, the greatest experts of their day, could look at a set of modern human bones—the cranial fragments—and "see" a clear simian signature in them; and "see" in an ape's jaw the unmistakable signs of humanity? The answers, inevitably, have to do with the scientists' expectations and their effects on the interpretation of data. Lewin, Bones of Contention, p. 61 ...
g . Hammond, p. 43.
u "The dethroning of Ramapithecus—from putative [supposed] first human in 1961 to extinct relative of the orangutan in 1982—is one of the most fascinating, and bitter, sagas in the search for human origins." Lewin, Bones of Contention, p. 86.
h . "A single small water-worn tooth, 10.5 mm by 11 mm in crown diameter, signalizes the arrival of a member of the family of anthropoid Primates in North America in Middle Pliocene time." Henry Fairfield Osborn, "Hesperopithecus, the First Anthropoid Primate Found in America," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 8, 15 August 1922, p. 245.
i . Java man consisted of two bones found about 39 feet apart: a skull cap and femur (thighbone). Rudolf Virchow, the famous German pathologist, believed that the femur was from a gibbon. By concurring, Dubois supported his own non-Darwinian theory of evolution—a theory too complex and strange to discuss here.
Whether the bones were from a large-brained gibbon, a hominid, another animal, or two completely different animals is not the only issue. This episode shows how easily the person, who knew the bones best, could shift his interpretation from Java "man" to Java "gibbon." When evidence is so fragmentary, many interpretations are possible.
u "Pithecanthropus [Java man] was not a man, but a gigantic genus allied to the Gibbons, superior to its near relatives on account of its exceedingly large brain volume, and distinguished at the same time by its erect attitude." Eugene Dubois, "On the Fossil Human Skulls Recently Discovered in Java and Pithecanthropus Erectus," Man, Vol. 37, January 1937, p. 4.
"Thus the evidence given by those five new thigh bones of the morphological and functional distinctness of Pithecanthropus erectus furnishes proof, at the same time, of its close affinity with the gibbon group of anthropoid apes." Ibid., p. 5.
u "The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity ... A striking example, which has only recently come to light, is the alteration of the Piltdown skull so that it could be used as evidence for the descent of man from the apes; but even before this a similar instance of tinkering with evidence was finally revealed by the discoverer of Pithecanthropus [Java man], who admitted, many years after his sensational report, that he had found in the same deposits bones that are definitely human." W. R. Thompson, p. 17.
See: http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences30.html
Is it only a coincidence that so many of these hoaxes were from pigs and apes? Dr. Brown seems to incline to the mild view, but I don't think the malice angle of deliberate hoaxes by some (especially in light of propaganda in British newspapers) can be ruled out.
Let's go further and think
why Creation Scientists were able so presciently to predict these were fakes and would be falsified one day (see the Creation Science textbook from the 1920s cited earlier on the "Piltdown man" evolutionist fraud) while their relatively less enlightened evolutionist peers were not and ended up being duped. It comes down to fossil record problems and manifest lack of intermediates. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes22.html#wp1012863 if apes really turned into men, there would be millions of "ape-men", not a few rare and dubious apes or frauds from modern man.
"23. Fossil Gaps
If evolution happened, the fossil record should show continuous and gradual changes from the bottom to the top layers. Actually, many gaps or discontinuities appear throughout the fossil record.a At the most fundamental level, a big gap exists between forms of life whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes, such as plants, animals, and fungi) and those that don't (prokaryotes, such as bacteria and blue-green algae).b Fossil links are also missing between large groupings of plants,c between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates (animals without backbones), among insects,d between invertebrates and vertebrates (animals with backbones),e between fish and amphibians,f between amphibians and reptiles,g between reptiles and mammals,h between reptiles and birds,i between primates and other mammals,j and between apes and other primates.k In fact, chains are missing, not links. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled.l
Quotea . "But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 163.
"... the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution]." Ibid., p. 323.
Darwin then explained that he thought that these gaps existed because of the "imperfection of the geologic record." Early Darwinians expected the gaps would be filled as fossil exploration continued. Most paleontologists now agree that this expectation has not been fulfilled.
u The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has one of the largest collections of fossils in the world. Consequently, its former dean, Dr. David Raup, was highly qualified to discuss the absence of transitions in the fossil record.
Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information—what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, January 1979, p. 25.
u "Surely the lack of gradualism—the lack of intermediates—is a major problem." Dr. David Raup, as taken from page 16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D. Sunderland on 27 July 1979.
u "In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." Stanley, p. 95.
u "But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition." David S. Woodruff, "Evolution: The Paleobiological View," Science, Vol. 208, 16 May 1980, p. 716.
u Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum (Natural History), was asked by Luther D. Sunderland why no evolutionary transitions were shown in Dr. Patterson's recent book, Evolution. In a personal letter, Patterson said:
I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be asked to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader? ... Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say that there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type organism was derived." I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. Copy of letter, dated 10 April 1979, from Patterson to Sunderland.
u "But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group or that." [emphasis in original] Hitching, p. 19.
u "There is no more conclusive refutation of Darwinism than that furnished by palaeontology. Simple probability indicates that fossil hoards can only be test samples. Each sample, then, should represent a different stage of evolution, and there ought to be merely 'transitional' types, no definition and no species. Instead of this we find perfectly stable and unaltered forms persevering through long ages, forms that have not developed themselves on the fitness principle, but appear suddenly and at once in their definitive shape; that do not thereafter evolve towards better adaptation, but become rarer and finally disappear, while quite different forms crop up again. What unfolds itself, in ever-increasing richness of form, is the great classes and kinds of living beings which exist aboriginally and exist still, without transition types, in the grouping of today." [emphasis in original] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. 2 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 32.
u "This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all orders of all classes of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate. A fortiori, it is also true of the classes, themselves, and of the major animal phyla, and it is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants." George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), p. 107.
"... the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution. In other words, there are not enough intermediates. There are very few cases where one can find a gradual transition from one species to another and very few cases where one can look at a part of the fossil record and actually see that organisms were improving in the sense of becoming better adapted." Ibid., p. 23.
u "... there are about 25 major living subdivisions (phyla) of the animal kingdom alone, all with gaps between them that are not bridged by known intermediates." Francisco J. Ayala and James W. Valentine, Evolving, The Theory and Processes of Organic Evolution (Menlo Park, California: The Benjamin Cummings Publishing Co., 1979), p. 258.
"Most orders, classes, and phyla appear abruptly, and commonly have already acquired all the characters that distinguish them." Ibid., p. 266.
u "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt." Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," p. 23.
u "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. ... We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study." Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, May 1977, p. 14.
"New species almost always appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no intermediate links to ancestors in older rocks of the same region." Ibid., p. 12.
u "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." Stephen Jay Gould, "Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?" Paleobiology, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1980, p. 127.
u In a published interview, Dr. Niles Eldredge, an invertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, stated:
But the smooth transition from one form of life to another which is implied in the theory is ... not borne out by the facts. The search for "missing links" between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless ... because they probably never existed as distinct transitional types ... But no one has yet found any evidence of such transitional creatures. This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them. If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory. "Missing, Believed Nonexistent," Manchester Guardian (The Washington Post Weekly), Vol. 119, 26 November 1978, p. 1.
Gould and Eldredge claimed transitional fossils are missing because rapid evolutionary jumps (which they called punctuated equilibria) occurred over these gaps. They did not explain how this could happen.
Many geneticists are shocked by the proposal of Gould and Eldredge. Why would they propose something so contradictory to genetics? Gould and Eldredge were forced to say that evolution must proceed in jumps. Never explained, in genetic and mathematical terms, is how such large jumps could occur. To some, this desperation is justified.
u "... the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing." David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282.
u "Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." David B. Kitts (School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma), "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467.
u "In spite of the immense amount of the paleontological material and the existence of long series of intact stratigraphic sequences with perfect records for the lower categories, transitions between the higher categories are missing." Goldschmidt, p. 98.
"When a new phylum, class, or order appears, there follows a quick, explosive (in terms of geological time) diversification so that practically all orders or families known appear suddenly and without any apparent transitions." Ibid., p. 97.
u "There is no fossil record establishing historical continuity of structure for most characters that might be used to assess relationships among phyla." Katherine G. Field et al., "Molecular Phylogeny of the Animal Kingdom," Science, Vol. 239, 12 February 1988, p. 748.
b . "The prokaryotes came first; eukaryotes (all plants, animals, fungi and protists) evolved from them, and to this day biologists hotly debate how this transition took place, with about 20 different theories on the go. ... [What was thought to be an intermediate between prokaryotes and eukaryotes] is no longer tenable." Katrin Henze and William Martin, "Essence of Mitochondria," Nature, Vol. 426, 13 November 2003, p. 127.
c . If evolution happened, nonvascular plants should have preceded vascular plants. However, fossils of nonvascular plants are not found in strata evolutionists believe were deposited before the earliest vascular plants appeared.
The bryophytes [nonvascular plants] are presumed to have evolved before the appearance and stabilization of vascular tissue—that is, before the appearance of these tracheophytes [vascular plants]—although there is no early bryophyte [nonvascular plant] fossil record. Lynn Margulis and Karlene V. Schwartz, p. 250.
"The actual steps that led to the origin of seeds and fruits are not known ..." Ibid.
u "It has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years. As yet we have not been able to trace the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present." Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947), p. 7.
u "... to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of classification, it would be the knell [the death signal] of the theory of evolution. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. Textbooks hoodwink." E. J. H. Corner, "Evolution," Contemporary Botanical Thought, editors Anna M. MacLeod and L. S. Cobley (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p. 97.
u "The absence of any known series of such intermediates imposes severe restrictions on morphologists interested in the ancestral source of angiosperms [flowering plants] and leads to speculation and interpretation of homologies and relationships on the basis of the most meager circumstantial evidence." Charles B. Beck, Origin and Early Evolution of Angiosperms (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 5.
u "The origin of angiosperms, an 'abominable mystery' to Charles Darwin, remained so 100 years later and is little better today." Colin Patterson et al., "Congruence between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, Vol. 24, 1993, p. 170.
d . "The insect fossil record has many gaps." "Insects: Insect Fossil Record," Britannica CD, Version 97 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1997).
e . Speaking of the lack of transitional fossils between the invertebrates and vertebrates, Smith admits:
As our present information stands, however, the gap remains unbridged, and the best place to start the evolution of the vertebrates is in the imagination. Homer W. Smith, From Fish to Philosopher (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1953), p. 26.
u "How this earliest chordate stock evolved, what stages of development it went through to eventually give rise to truly fishlike creatures we do not know. Between the Cambrian when it probably originated, and the Ordovician when the first fossils of animals with really fishlike characteristics appeared, there is a gap of perhaps 100 million years which we will probably never be able to fill." Francis Downes Ommanney, The Fishes, Life Nature Library (New York: Time, Inc., 1963), p. 60.
u "Origin of the vertebrates is obscure—there is no fossil record preceding the occurrence of fishes in the late Ordovician time." Arthur N. Strahler, Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1987), p. 316.
u "The problem is easily stated—vertebrates have so many special features, from large brains to complex physiologies to unique tissues such as enamel and bone—that their evolution from invertebrates is obscure." Henry Gee, "Origin and Evolution of Vertebrates," Nature, Vol. 520, 23 April 2015, p. 449.
f . "... there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world." Taylor, p. 60.
g . Evolutionists believe that amphibians evolved into reptiles, with either Diadectes or Seymouria as the transition. By the evolutionists' own time scale, this "transition" occurs 35-million years (m.y.) after the earliest reptile, Hylonomus (a cotylosaur). A parent cannot appear 35-million years after its child! The scattered locations of these fossils also present problems for evolutionists.
[See Steven M. Stanley, Earth and Life Through Time (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1986), pp. 411–415. See also Robert H. Dott Jr. and Roger L. Batten, Evolution of the Earth, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), p. 356.]
...
Can those who believe even in apes-to-men evolution explain how these things can be? If not, can anyone deny man had to be specially created?
"27. Fossil Man
Bones of modern-looking humans have been found deep in undisturbed rocks that, according to evolution, were formed long before man began to evolve. Examples include the Castenedolo skeletons,a Reck's skeleton,b and possibly others.c Remains, such as the Swanscombe skull, the Steinheim fossil, and the Vertesszöllos fossil present similar problems.d Evolutionists almost always ignore these remains."
Footnotes:
a . Bowden, pp. 78–79.
u Frank W. Cousins, Fossil Man (Emsworth, England: A. E. Norris & Sons Ltd., 1971),pp. 48–50, 81.
u Sir Arthur Keith correctly stated the dilemma evolutionists face with the Castenedolo skeletons.
As the student of prehistoric man reads and studies the records of the "Castenedolo" find, a feeling of incredulity rises within him. He cannot reject the discovery as false without doing an injury to his sense of truth, and he cannot accept it as a fact without shattering his accepted beliefs. Arthur Keith, The Antiquity of Man (London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1925), p. 334.
However, after examining the strata above and below the Castenedolo skeletons, and after finding no indication that they were intrusively buried, Keith surprisingly concluded that the enigma must be resolved by an intrusive burial. He justified this by citing the unfossilized condition of the bones. However, these bones were encased in a clay layer. Clay would prevent water from transporting large amounts of dissolved minerals into the bone cells and explain the lack of fossilization. Again, fossilization depends much more on chemistry than age.
b . Bowden, pp. 183–193.
c . Ibid., pp. 79–88.
u J. D. Whitney, "The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California," Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard College, Vol. 6, 1880, pp. 258–288.
u Bowden, pp. 76–78.
u Cousins, pp. 50–52, 82, 83.
u W. H. B., "Alleged Discovery of An Ancient Human Skull in California," American Journal of Science, Vol. 2, 1866, p. 424.
u Edward C. Lain and Robert E. Gentet, "The Case for the Calaveras Skull," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, March 1997, pp. 248–256.
u Cousins and Whitney state that the Calaveras skull was fossilized. This does not mean that it was preflood. Fossilization depends on chemistry much more than time.
For many years, a story circulated that the Calaveras skull, buried 130 feet below ground, was a practical joke. This tidy explanation conveniently overlooks hundreds of human bones and artifacts (such as spearheads, mortars and pestles, and dozens of bowls made of stone) found in that part of California. These artifacts have been found over the years under undisturbed strata and a layer of basaltic lava that evolutionists would date at 25-million years old—too old to be human. See, for example:
v Whitney, pp. 262–264, 266, 274–276.
v G. Frederick Wright, Man and the Glacial Period (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1897), pp. 294–301.
v George F. Becker, "Antiquities from under Tuolumne Table Mountain in California," Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 2, 20 February 1891, pp. 189–200.
d . Fix, pp. 98–105.
u J. B. Birdsell, Human Evolution (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 316–318.
From Dr. Brown's book, Evidence from Life Sciences: Astronomical and Physical Sciences The Universe, Solar System, Earth, and Life Were Recently Created: Theories for the Evolution of the Solar System and Universe Are Unscientific and Hopelessly Inadequate.
43. Strange Planets
Many undisputed observations contradict current theories on how the solar system evolved.a One theory says that planets formed when a star, passing near our Sun, tore matter from the Sun. More popular theories hold that the solar system formed from a cloud of swirling gas, dust, or larger particles. If the planets and their known moons evolved from the same material, they should have many similarities. After several decades of planetary exploration, this expectation is now recognized as false.b [See Figure 23.] According to these evolutionary theories:
Backward-Spinning Planets. All planets in our solar system should spin in the same direction, but Venus, Uranus,c and Pluto rotate backwards.d [See "Is Pluto a Planet?" on page 30.]
Backward Orbits. If planets and moons evolved from swirling dust clouds as is commonly taught, each of the almost 200 known moons in the solar system should orbit its planet in the same direction as the planet spins, but more than 30 moons have backward orbits.e Furthermore, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have moons orbiting in both directions.
Tipped Orbits.
Moons. The orbit of each of these moons should lie very near the equatorial plane of the planet it orbits, but many, including Earth's moon, are in highly inclined orbits.f
Planets. The orbital planes of the planets should lie in the equatorial plane of the Sun. Instead, the orbital planes of the planets typically deviate from the Sun's equatorial plane by 7 degrees, a significant amount.
Angular Momentum. The Sun should have about 700 times more angular momentum than all its planets combined. Instead, the planets have 50 times more angular momentum than the Sun.h
44. Earth: The Water Planet
The amount of water on Earth greatly exceeds that known to be on or within any other planet in the solar system. Liquid water, which is essential for life, has unique and amazing properties; it covers 70% of Earth's surface. Where did all Earth's water come from?
If the Earth and solar system evolved from a swirling cloud of dust and gas, almost no water should reside near Earth—or within 5 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. (1 AU is the average Earth-Sun distance.) Any water (liquid or ice) that close to the Sun would vaporize and be blown by the solar wind to the outer reaches of the solar system,a as we see happening with water vapor in the tails of comets.
Had comets, asteroids, or meteorites delivered Earth's water, the energy of such impacting bodies would have vaporized the transported water, leading to a runaway greenhouse on Earth, that would have made life on Earth permanently impossible. Although comets contain considerable water,b comets did not provide much of Earth's water, because comet water contains too much heavy hydrogen, relatively rare in Earth's oceans. Comets also contain too much argon. If comets provided even just 1% of Earth's water, our atmosphere should have much more argon than it does.c Meteorites that contain water also have too much heavy hydrogen.d [Pages 303–381 explain why comets, asteroids, and some types of meteorites contain so much water and heavy hydrogen. Pages 387–441 explain why comets have so much argon. Heavy hydrogen is described on page 313.]
These observations cause some to conclude that water was transported from the outer solar system to Earth by objects that no longer exist. If so, many of these "water tankers" should have collided with the other inner planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) as well. Actually, their water characteristics are not like those of Earth.e Instead of imagining "water tankers" that conveniently disappeared, perhaps we should ask if the Earth was created with its water already present."