Evolutionists, Darwinians, and other misguided folk...

Great Debates
41

Royal Sampler wrote:

[QUOTEIf evolution occurs over millions of years, the amount of evidence should staggering. Yet we can’t find the fossils that show it.[/QUOTE]

If you’re saying that there are no transitional fossils – which is what it sounds like you’re saying – then you’re just plain wrong. Here’s a starting point that might give you an inkling into the staggering number of transitional fossils that have been found:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

And if you prefer to talk about transitional human fossils, you can go straight to the section on primates, at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2a.html#primate, and the separate Fossil Hominid FAQ at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/.

42

Royal Sampler wrote:

If you’re saying that there are no transitional fossils – which is what it sounds like you’re saying – then you’re just plain wrong. Here’s a link that might give you an inkling into the staggering number of transitional fossils that have been found:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

And if you prefer to talk about transitional human fossils, you can go straight to the section on primates, at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2a.html#primate, and the separate Fossil Hominid FAQ at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/.

43

This thread proves what I was saying: that evolution is being used to push atheism. When that is done, the faithful will push back, both with and without ‘logic’.

If we won the lottery, so to speak, then all human acts, even the highest of rational thought, must be purely random acts as well, since they are derived from purely random actions of millions of years of natural selection. All this is an illusion of order, even logic. If you are not prepared to argue that, then don’t try to argue that the Divine does not exist and biology and evolution proves it.

44

[quote]
then don’t try to argue that the Divine does not exist and biology and evolution proves it.

[quote]
So what? No one has claimed that biology and evolution “prove” there is no god. Many of us in this refutation of Royal Sampler’s strange post are theists, specifically Christians.

There have been a couple of posts to the point that the “logic” that there “must be a source” works equally well against god as against an unknown origin. No one, however, has claimed that God cannot exist. You seem to be engaging in a debate with people who are not even here.

45

I am not clear and what you are trying to say here. Do you feel that a scientific explanation, one that does not include a creator, leaves you feeling empty inside and therefore cannot be true? I feel the same way about taxes, but I assure you that they do indeed exist.

You also misuse the concept of randomness. Simply because the mutations that fuel selection happen with a degree of randomness (incidentally I think I could make a case that the better term is ‘chaotic’, since there are some rules being followed, however complex) it does not follow that every action downstream is also random.

You’ve essentially set up a false dichotomy: “if there is no creator in the system, then everything is random.”

46

Nope, no false dichotomy, because we don’t argue that structures such as houses, cars, boats, are built by random, but instead by humans. In fact, we allow no possibility that any of the above can be built without some human involvement, such as creating and maintaining the robots that build he car. We allow no possibility that the computer just typed on is created purely by random. Yet we allow that we ourselves are made by some lottery, purely by random. Also, the development of natural selection must is a random process as well. That’s the dichotomy.

If you are going to argue that all humans were was made in a purely random process, then you must take it further, that all products and processes humans have devised, including logic itself, has to be made come from purely random process as well, as derivatives of the original process of the development of homo sapiens. I don’t believe that randomness is the be and end all, as some do. And yes, I do believe that, without a creator manpulating the possibilities, all things are purely random. I don’t misuse the concept of randomness; I do allow the possibility that someone higher than us has manipulated it. There are those who think that the process requires no manipulation. I think that that is wrong, for we do it ourselves, especially in programming.

47

capacitor: *Yet we allow that we ourselves are made by some lottery, purely by random. Also, the development of natural selection must is a random process as well. *

Uh, no. Evolution depends (as has been pointed out on these boards approximately 1,773,229 times now) on random mutation plus natural selection. I do not understand what you mean by saying that “the development of natural selection” has to be “a random process as well.” Are you trying to say that, say, the environmental changes that determine which mutations are adaptive also depend on random events? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that the whole process is entirely undirected and disorganized and that all possible outcomes are at all times equally likely. So no, we did not evolve “purely at random”.

48

What? There is an element of chance inherent in evolution, so there is no order, logic or morality in the world? I don’t even know how to argue against that, it is so ridiculous. And by the way, it is a dichotomy the way you presented it, and since there are millions of people who make logical and moral decisions every day without the input of religion, yes it is a false one.

Not true at all. So far we haven’t found a typewriter that has eveolved through natural selection. But we don’t rule out the possibility that one could evolve if the genetic variation was there and the environment favored it.

Once again: Evolutionary theory doesn’t rule out the existence of God; it doesn’t address that topic at all.

49

capacitor: We allow no possibility that the computer just typed on is created purely by random.

Of course not, because computers are tools, not living beings with the capacity to change their characteristics over several generations via genetic mutation and selective reproduction. (However, some AI research these days is working on evolutionary models for artificial intelligence by means of “descent with modification”, so the day of the “evolved computer” may not be that far off.)

50

capacitor wrote:

Whassa matter, capacitor, you didn’t make your “poor little downtrodden Christian martyr” quotient this week?

51

No, atheism is not a neccesary corrolary of evolution. Please, that old charge is so pathetic I feel silly even bothering to refute it.

Many atheists believe in evolution. But so do many Christians, many pagans, many Hindus, many Jews, many Muslims, and many Budhists. You can believe in both God and evolution. You aren’t kicked out of the scientists club if you go to church. The vast majority of believers in evolution are theists of one sort or another. The pope himself, an avowed theist, has proclaimed that evolution and theism are compatible.

I really can’t understand why you evolution-deniers believe this nonsense.

And as everyone has pointed out, evolution is not “just randomness”. Yes, it has a random element to it. So does life…you might get hit by a car tomorrow. All “random” means is an unpredictable event. It is impossible to predict exactly which nucleotide bases will switch to different nucleotide bases the next time one of your cells divide. That is why we say that mutations are random. But the random change from mutation is not evolution.

Cars and computers cannot evolve, because they have one important difference from entities that can evolve. Entities that can evolve must be capable of replication. Without the capacity to self-replicate, then yes evolution is impossible. That is why cars don’t evolve, computers don’t spontaneously assemble, and books don’t write themselves.

So, replication is key. And so is mutation…what Darwin termed variation since in his time the chemical basis of genetics was unknown. But that is not enough. That variation also has to be heritable. And there must also be differential survival and replication of the next generation of variable replicators. And we know that a change in the DNA is heritable. So we know that a replicator can create entities that resemble itself, but that some will be slightly different. The difference is random. What happens next is not. The non-random environment that the replicators find themselves in will cause some of the varied replicators to either replicate more or less frequently. And those that replicate more frequently will, surprise, make up a greater than chance percentage of the next generation of replicators.

Now, you notice something interesting. Evolution can only work on varying replicators. But before there was life, there were no replicators on Earth. Well, this is a problem. We don’t really know how life on Earth started. But, we do know that there are non-living replicators that can be formed from fairly simple chemical compounds. Perhaps those non-living replicators formed somewhere on Earth 3.5 billion years ago. And some of those non-living replicators were better at replicating than others and soon every replicator was one of the better replicators. And that may have been the basis of life.

Be that as it may, the inability of biologists to describe in exact chemical detail the genesis of life from an unliving planet does not oblige biologists to assert that some sort of supernatural process must therefore have been at work. We don’t fully understand the genesis of life. That doesn’t mean it was supernatural. We don’t know who killed Chandra Levy, but that doesn’t mean that God killed her and dumped her body in the Potomac river.

Or perhaps you believe that because our universe is orderly, and has understandable physical laws that there must have been some sort of agency that created those laws. Well, that’s fine. If you want to label the sum total of all physical laws in the universe “God”, then that’s fine with me. This is not exactly the being that is written about in the Bible.

Science doesn’t disprove theism. But it does disprove certain theistic notions. Science can disprove that Zeus lives on top of Mt. Olympus. Science can disprove that thunderbolts are caused by Thor’s chariot. Science can disprove that the entire world was covered by floodwaters 5000 years ago. Science can disprove that notion that the world is 6000 years old. Science can disprove the notion that land plants existed before sea animals. Science can disprove the notion that humans and primates did not have a common ancestor. Science can disprove the notion that the sun revolves around the earth. Science can disprove the notion that the sun is a flaming chariot driven by Apollo. Science can show that a particular shroud could not have been used as the burial shroud of Jesus. But science cannot show that God, or the divine, does not exist.

See what I’m getting at? You can be a theist, but science can show that only transcendent notions of God are supportable. If you believe in a transcendent God, then your religion is safe from scientific assault. If you believe in a God that made the world 6000 years ago then science will inevitably be a threat to you. The solution is to realize that science is not a threat to religion and that Biblical literalism is a trap and an error.

So stop with the nonsense that evolution is just a lie to get kids to become atheists and reject morality and embrace chaos. Because it’s not true.

52

Holy trainwreck Batman! :eek:
24 hours, 50 posts, 2 pages. Is this some sort of record?

RickJay

Well there’s another theory that needs to be reviewed

53

Gaspode said:

Nah. Not even close. It’s pretty much normal for when a creationist comes trolling by with the same old crap (of course, that’s all creationists have, so I guess I’m being redundant).

54

Gaspode wrote:

No no no no – he said that in an evolution thread started by a supporter of evolution, the thread will collapse out of disinterest.

This thread was started by an **anti-**evolutionist – which, according to RickJay’s Ninth Law, will become so voluminous that it will crush the OPer under its weight.

55

Royal Sampler, I have a question.

How many anti-evolutionist books have you read, and how many books on biology have you read?

-Ben

56

Good. Then stop treating it as such. The tone of some is mocking the faithful, and it will be resented. Oh by the way, I am not Christian. I am a deist.

57

Except that you are confusing two issues:

  1. the equation of evolutionary theory to Atheism

  2. the mocking of people for their beliefs (or, maybe, their posts).

You are the one who has asserted number 1 (although Royal Sampler has implied or stated a similar misunderstanding in one thread or another). If people did not make the mistake of equating the Theory of Evolution with Atheism, then there would be far less. . .

Mocking of people who post errors on the board and then get indignant when those errors are pointed out. (The mocking will never go to zero. There are enough people in both camps who feel that they are fully justified in mocking anyone who differs from them.) However, the posts that I suspect set you off were responses to very seriously flawed logic that tended to focus on religious belief because that religious belief was entertwined with the error in logic.

58

Glad to see that rational thought seems to have prevailed here…I just want to mention that the book Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller was very instrumental in helping me take off the blinders of Creationism…I suggest that book to many people because Miller is himself a theist, it seems, and he makes some impressive arguments that demolish creationism at the same time…myself, I think I am abandoning theism altogether. Oh well…

59

Welcome to the SDMB, Cuckorex, good first post.

My own blinderectomy was performed by Dr. Sagan.

60

My blinderectomy happened after I fell for a “Pure Trust” scam. I guess I had to get burned before I came to my senses.