It seems to me that you are saying that Christianity and Science are not compatible which, while an interesting statement and I think a good topic for another thread, is a little off the point. I asked if Evolution disproved the Christian God, or any god for that matter. Ther consensus seems to be “no.” Do you disagree with that?
This is not in the exact topic of the OP, but it seemed in the spirit. Correct me if I am wrong.
It seems that, under the evolutionary model, ethics or morality (there must be a difference, but I am too lazy to look it up) must be considered one of three ways:
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Ethics evolved. The moral standards of humans are another product of evolution, and in some way ensure the prolonged survival of our species.
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Ethics are invalid. That is, since each different animal species has its own behavioral standard, there really aren’t any “rights” and “wrongs.” By an evolutionary standard, the “right” ethics are the ones which ensure species survival, so you can go ahead and experiment.
Is that any different than #1? I think it is, slightly.
3.Ethics Arrived. Somewhere along the line of human evolution, the became graced with a higher moral conciousness.
I don’t know who would actually hold to that one, but it is a possibility.
Comments? Did I miss or mis-represent a possibility?
Lord Ashtar, everybody, if this is too far off topic, I’ll move it to a new thread.
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If I ask you whether you’re saying A or B, “sure” isn’t an appropriate answer. It wasn’t a yes-or-no question!
I used to be both a Christian and an evolutionist, and certainly many other people have no problem reconciling the two.
Personally, my reasons for no longer being a Christian are, at most, only dimly connected to evolution, if at all. If you ask me, Christianity (or at least what most people describe as such) is so riddled with problems and inconsistencies that your question becomes meaningless. I mean, sure, you can believe in God and evolution- people can believe that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, too. People can believe that the moon landings never happened, and can reconcile that with the evidence, in their own minds. Does any of it make sense? No, but people can believe it. Clearly they’re “compatible” in people’s minds. If you ask me, that’s the only issue you can address: can people be comfortable with believing both? Because if you’re asking whether, in any logical sense, Christianity and evolution can be fitted together without contradiction, then I think that makes as much sense as asking “can a belief that 2+2=5 be logically reconciled with belief in evolution?” They can’t, but it’s not because evolution has anything to do with 2+2=5.
The following is, of course, simply my opinion but I’d be interested in hearing what others think of it. My impression has always been that those who express belief in both God (at least the Christian God) and evolution actually believe in a sort of “guided” evolution. This, is NOT Darwinian evolution. Before Darwin, scientists were aware of the idea of common descent and of the similaritites between species. But the idea of common descent was not accepted by the scientific community because there was no naturalistic explanation as to how it could occur. Darwin’s contribution was the idea of natural selection. Natural selection is a process of blind unthinking trial and error. This type of process does not have a “goal” and does not necessarily lead to an intelligent creature. Christianity assumes that the whole purpose of the universe is to support the existence of human beings. Therefore for the idea of common descent to be consistent with Christianity you have to accept a guided evolution. This is not what Darwin proposed, and it is not the prevailing scientific viewpoint. If you do not accept natural selection then you are throwing out the part of the theory that caused it to be accepted in the first place.
Any thoughts on this?
This was the feeling of the first proponents of the scientific method. Everything seemed to be fitting together. It was like solving a huge puzzle. Then Darwin came along and it seemed like the puzzle fell apart.
Today, with so many new discoveries some scientists are returning to the original assessment. Just think of everything that science has brought us since Darwin and for that matter how much more we have learned about the evolution since then.
Scientists never work on the presumption that there are absolutes, they constantly are testing and questioning and looking for better explainations, theories or ideas. Why should faith be any different? As the atheists will gladly point out, we have never proved even the existence of God, so how can we be so presumptuous as to say we can ever stop searching for the truth or that theories from 2000 years ago are absolute?
Concerning the time issue. Saying that one day equals a thousand years is almost as misleading as just saying “one day” since it is related to a measurement that has no meaning when speaking of God. He is a everywhere at all times then obviously time and space have no meaning to God. Most people think that eternity equals forever, but that is a measurement of time. Eternity equals timelessness is about as close as we can come to understanding what time means to God, that is if we can truly wrap our minds around that statement.
It’s not clear to me where you’re drawing the line between two issues:
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Why are humans capable of understanding morality? (i.e., is there an evolutionary advantage to morality which caused humans to be able to understand it, just as we evolved to be able to use language?)
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What is the meaning of morality, if evolution is true? (i.e., is morality “merely” a way of ensuring the survival of the species?)
As for #2, here’s my FAQ:
—Just to clarify, the scripture is not “my approach”, it is the word of God. Time outside of how we experience it here could be completely different and/or irrelevant to God.—
This IS your approach. Plenty of other people approach scripture differently, in ways that do not permit this sort of reading, and I see no reason to declare your particular theology the correct reading, just because it best reconciles evolution and genesis.
—“A day is like a thousand years” seems to me a statement that God made to try to help us understand how his “time” works compared to our earthly time.—
Most 6-day creationists have plenty of perfectly valid reasons for rejecting the non-literal day reading, even taking this passage into account. This passage does not in the least suggest that every “day” spoken of in the bible is actually thousand years, and they can point to plenty of circumstantial evidence that shows that the days in genesis are actual days: since not only do they coincide with the movement of the sun, but the exact same word for “day” is used very soon after in Genesis in what can only be a reference to human days.
Again, it’s not my job to decide which reading is right or not: but I do think it’s off the mark to say that your particular theology is anything ohter than your view of how ot interpret scripture.
davidm:
Why would god need to guide evolution? God could simply have created everything, knowing beforehand what would naturally result from it. There is no need to believe that god is sticking around to guide evolution. If it were discovered that there are no scientific explanations for the processes of evolution, that would be a point in favor of supernatural forces. Finding scientific explanations for evolution does not disprove supernatural forces at all. By their very nature, supernatural forces cannot be disproved. However, they can be found to be unnecessary, which is what makes some people resistant to accepting evolution. Incidentally, I have not yet seen a comprehensive and convincing scientific explanation of the processes of macroevolution. If anything, christians should be hoping that science will support god’s existence, because there is no way it can disprove it.
I also think you are unclear on the current theory of evolution. Darwinian evolution is no longer the prevailing theory. Natural selection plays a role, but so does genetic drift. Personally, I think genetic drift is actually more important than natural selection. It just seems more intuitively important to me. It means, among other things, that neutral mutations propagate themselves. It never seemed plausible to me that only beneficial mutations could result in anywhere near the variety of species we currently have, because mutations are not generally beneficial. Still, we have a long way to go to adequately explain the processes that lead from a common ancestor to the variety we have today. It is incredible to me that life would develop into forms with consciousness and intelligence like ours, but the fact remains: life is incredible.
—Why would god need to guide evolution? God could simply have created everything, knowing beforehand what would naturally result from it.—
As Mill noted, artifice is rather suspicious when supposedly employed by an all-powerful creator, because artifice is exactly what an al-powerful being does NOT need. All-powerful beings do not need process and natural systems and the related waste to create.
Dawkins likewise has, at the end of the Blind Watchmaker, a very telling observation: many people can without problem believe that God had a hand in guiding evolution. However, they should not fool themselves into thinking that this hypothesis is necessary to explain life on earth. The latter belief is what a lot of people seem to hold: sure evolution happened, but I can’t see how it could have happened like THIS without the help of God. To these people Dawkins (and to a greater extent, the author of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,” whose name escapes me at the moment) suggests that they have not actually understood what evolution can do as far as explaining the sort of life we see on Earth.
Indeed, the idea that complexity and intelligence were designed is actually sort of self-defeating, according to Dawkins: because it simply presumes a priori exactly what we were trying to explain the surprising (to us) existence of. As an “explanation,” that’s extremely unsatisfying.
—It never seemed plausible to me that only beneficial mutations could result in anywhere near the variety of species we currently have, because mutations are not generally beneficial.—
Actually, they don’t have to be. Most mutations are neutral: they increase variety. But variety and competition is all that is needed for selection to do its work: favoring one extreme in the population of variety over others. It is mistaken to think of evolution as requiring beneficial mutuations to “come along” before progress can be made: instead, a given environment determines what slice of a diverse population is going to survive to the next generation. And the next generation likewise has a spread of variation to choose from, and so on (all the while new variation is emerging: but before the environment selects, there is no real way to say that one variation is 'beneficial" than another).
Indeed, natural selection actually seems to SLOW DOWN the rate of genetic change, not require it to go faster than is plausible.
Apos:
Point taken. An mutation that changes an animal’s coloring, for instance, is not beneficial on its own, but once that animal is placed in an environment in which its coloring affects its chances for survival, selection comes into play. But even so, I do not believe this type of selection is as important as was once believed. Genetic drift means that even in the absence of any type of selection, genetic variety will change. A mutation that is not at all relevant to the environment can still increase. Also, events not related to selection, such as effects that decrease the population randomly, can still greatly influence genetic variety.
—Genetic drift means that even in the absence of any type of selection, genetic variety will change.—
Sure: but this is hardly much help for adaptation. The gene pool can drift in a nearly infinate number of directions: but without selection doing its work, there’s no reason to expect adaptation, and hence the real “lifting work” of evolution.
—A mutation that is not at all relevant to the environment can still increase. Also, events not related to selection, such as effects that decrease the population randomly, can still greatly influence genetic variety.—
All true: but again, this does none of the “lifting work” that people think of when they think of evolution. Any particular pool of variety is only one component of evolution: and in the long run, not a very meaningful one.
Gould and Lewontin have, in my opinion, done much to confuse the issue on points like these, which, while certainly important factors to consider, really aren’t even close the radical critiques that they are presented as. Everyone knows that, were life to evolve again, things wouldn’t be exactly the same. However, it is with good reason that we would expect to see many of the same “solutions” to the same problems, regardless of where genetic drift takes things. And it is with good reason that we would expect the evolutionary process to start from simple organisms and, in addition to retaining the simple, also produce more complex ones.
Apos:
Actually there are many people who believe genetic drift is even more important than selection. First of all, most mutations are neutral even when confronted with the environment. Few mutations provide reproductive benefits. Also, it is not accurate that evolution is always doing “lifting work”. Evolution does not necessarily make species better. Evolution may create differences that provide no benefit, and it can even create harmful differences.
The reason genetic drift can be powerful has to do with population size. In a large population, neutral mutations would even out. However, I believe that much of the biggest changes caused by evolution happened in very small populations. In a small population, neutral mutations can and do take over. For instance, if most of a population dies off, then whatever genetics the survivors have will be reproduced, regardless of selection. Also many populations are started by a “founder”, in which case the genetic make up of the founder will be all important. Also most populations consist of small, inbreeding groups, and it is these populations in which genetic drift will have the biggest effect, even overpowering selection.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. It just seems to me that small, inbreeding groups and neutral mutations can account for as much variety as natural selection.
—The reason genetic drift can be powerful has to do with population size. In a large population, neutral mutations would even out.—
Again, this is a questionable Gouldian principle which has actually given major ammunition to creationists. It relies upon the idea that a few singular individuals represent evolution: but their merits are dwarfed by the populaiton as a whole. This, however, is not how selection normally works. Selection picks not individuals, but a particular range: a favored direction for the variation in an entire population, not just promoting a very few hopeful mutants.
—Actually there are many people who believe genetic drift is even more important than selection.—
Who? I know of some of these people: and, like Dawkins and Dennet, I very much disagree with them. They are the Gould and Lewontin school I was referencing before, and they seem more interested in finding Marxist irony in evolution than they do actual mechanisms for explanation. Gould is popular in the U.S., because he was a phenomenal writer, a true crusader for science, and real wit. But his theories on evolution are not taken as sreiously, or thought to be as interesting, as he himself makes them out to be. Most people in the U.S. seem to think that Gould was the pre-eminent authority on evolution: but in Britian, and in actual journals, the popularity of his views are largely seen as an American pop curisority.
Dennet has likewise pointed out that when people from the school of Gould and Lewontin face creationists, their responses are almost always exclusively about natural selection, almost by necessity. Only natural selection can really face the sorts of challenges forwarded by IC theory: genetic drift cannot.
—It just seems to me that small, inbreeding groups and neutral mutations can account for as much variety as natural selection.—
Natural selection does not account for variety within breeding populations: it uses variety to better adapt these populations to the environments that they each face (which leads to variety in the tree of life as a whole, as well as complexity)
Agreed, but there is far more diversity than what is required to “solve” certain problems. However, this does not necessarily mean that things would not happen in a similar way. Even genetic drift is not completely random, because the process of passing on genes to the next generation is not completely random. We just usually think of it as random. In reality, some neutral mutations are much more likely to occur than others, regardless of selection.
It is very difficult to show that genetic drift has happened, because to do so you would have to prove that selection did not happen. Selection is much easier to see (or infer) so it makes sense it is a stronger argument against creationists.
Yes, but selection is not always necessary. Given that variety exists, there are many ways a certain variant could prosper. Maybe a large part of the population dies. Some animals have been hunted to near extinction, and the survivors are not “fitter”, they are just lucky. Yet their variant will be the one that goes on. Maybe the population was small to begin with, in which case it is likely one variant will take over eventually. I still think it is important to note that most mutations provide no advantage in the real world.
I wasn’t talking about selection, I was talking about genetic drift. Genetic drift is less likely in a large population for the very reason that it is not necessarily a favored direction for the variation in an entire population. It really is a seperate thing than selection, and I don’t see why it would give any ammunition against selection.
—Given that variety exists, there are many ways a certain variant could prosper. Maybe a large part of the population dies. Some animals have been hunted to near extinction, and the survivors are not “fitter”, they are just lucky. Yet their variant will be the one that goes on.—
Again: that’s true, but it’s not really relevant to the very explanatory advantages that are offered by evolution: i.e. how creatures are so well adapated to their environments, how they became complex, etc.
You stated before that “It never seemed plausible to me that only beneficial mutations could result in anywhere near the variety of species we currently have, because mutations are not generally beneficial.” This is the Gouldian psuedo-critique of Darwin, but it is invalid, because that is not how selection operates (as a slave to the arrival of “beneficial mutuations”).
You also stated that Darwininan evolution is no longer the major component of evolution. But this is a very controversial claim: while Darwin was certainly unclear on many things that have since been refined, most evolutionary theories outside the camp I noted still think that the ideas of selection and adapation are exactly what account for what we think of as “evolution.” They certainly are next to useless for helping to explain our intelligence.
Drift may indeed play a part in minor differences between scattered populations: but it does not have any of the “lifting power” necessary to explain real adapation: it does not explain how good “solutions” are found, as opposed to what creationists believe: that we are claiming that they are just randomly hit upon eventually.
Maybe beneficial mutations is not the best term, because the mutations by themselves are not beneficial, but rather are selected by nature. However, it still seems to be a valid point that mutations do not generally make a difference that will cause them to be selected. Most mutations, when viewed in the context of nature, are neutral. I don’t see how this is invalid. To the extent that evolution occurs based on mutations that do not affect selection, genetic drift is involved. I think it is logical that given small, inbreeding groups, and the fact that most mutations do not affect selection, genetic drift is an important factor in evolution. Genetic drift is the only way for neutral mutations to become fixed in a population.
I am not trying to discount natural selection. It is obviously an extremely important component of evolution, and explains adaptation and solutions. I am just saying it is not the only component of evolution. I would think additional processes of evolution would only strengthen it. Maybe, as you say, genetic drift largely confines itself to creating relatively minor differences in scattered populations. Maybe in small population groups these differences build up over time. Evolution is not a straight line. There are many possible adaptive peaks, and there are many non optimal traits that become fixed in a population.
This looks like it is going to take a bit of explaining, and that it is not in the main stream of this thread. Refer to:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=130246
What I meant was, sure, I’ll debate whatever point you would like. Try not to take everything so personally, Ben. I wouldn’t have posted this thread in GD if I didn’t think there would be a point or two to debate.
I’m not sure that your comparison of 2+2=5 to creationism is a valid one. For a long while, I considered evolution to be an attack on my belief structure. I thought that it was saying that there was no God. I now realize that those concerns were unwarranted. Evolution is concerned with how things happened, not who did it, if anyone did at all. If you consider belief in God to be equivilant to an obviously flawed statement such as 2+2=5, then you are certainly entitled to your opinion.