I think it means that just about anyone who believes in any kind of a god is a Christian. Now if you could just get them to pay dues.
I’m actually with DerTrihs on this. Denominations can set minimum standards of belief, but I for one don’t feel like I can reject anyone’s claim to a generic type of Christianity. It’s not like the union of claims would be any more inconsistent than it already is.
To re-reiterate again once more, that is the definition I used for purposes of this thread. I can’t even think of any other purpose for which that definition would be useful.
No, not any non-natural impacts, but all of them. God would have had to intelligently cause the billions upon billions of mutations and select for all of those which will be carried on from the first single cell all the way to humans since he planned for our existence. That goes beyond breeding and is not natural selection.
No, the mechanism for The Theory of Evolution is natural selection.
It does if you plan on making humans from millions of years of modifications starting with a single cell.
The theory of evolution "stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) “descent with modification”. That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism’s genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival – a process known as “natural selection.”
Natural selection and evolution are not synonymous.
My understanding of evolution is that it is change in a population over time. Period.
Natural selection is the primary cause of that. That doesn’t mean it’s the only one. Artificial selection still causes changes in a population.
Now, I could be mistaken in my interpretation. But it seems silly to distinguish between evolution caused by natural selection and evolution caused by artificial selection since they’re both gradual change over time.
Not period. For one thing, the change needs to be heritable.
I understood you to be comparing the process (called evolution) that caused humans to appear on earth, with the breeding of dogs. Natural selection is a necessary component of that process.
Absent speciation, humans would never have developed. Now, if you take a bunch of different breeds of dogs and let them breed willy-nilly over several generations, you will no longer have a bunch of different breeds of dogs. You will have a bunch of generic dogs. They’re all the same species. I suppose you could argue that those changes are also a kind of evolution, but it seems kind of silly if you are trying to make a point about how humans came to be.
And even if dog breeding were evolution, the hand of man is very apparent in it. Where is the hand of God in human evolution?
Debating the details of something we both agree didn’t happen is somewhat less useful than debating the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin - but that is what GD is all about, so what the hell. I doubt very much that God would have had to control every single mutation. Say he only had to influence a dozen or so. Would that still be evolution in your book?
As for selection, if you are familiar with the mathematical models that Dawkins has written about, you’ll know that very small selective advantages spread very quickly through the genome. Assuming God knew to cause the mutation in an individual not destined to get eaten before reproducing, it is unlikely that he’d need to make any sparrows fall - or keep any from falling. I assume that the deity who took Saturday off is lazy.
No, modification and selection. The modification part, which comes from mutation and which is enhanced by sexual reproduction, produces the pool of characteristics selected from. Natural selection has been called a tautology - those with reproductive advantages reproduce more on average - so I think the modification part is more important. After all, evolution would never happen if characteristics were not passed down, and if every child started off with a random and uninherited set of characteristics. Those who happened to have a reproductive advantage would still reproduce more - but the advantage would not get passed to their offspring.
That doesn’t address my question. Is it evolution of the environment not natural? I think it arguable that animal husbandry is an example of evolution, but remember that Darwin discussed this quite extensively in the Origin, and clearly got a lot of ideas from human fiddling with the characteristics of species.
Whether you call it evolution or not, there is no really significant difference between purely natural selection, selection determined by humans to force the process, and selection unintentionally influenced by humans.
That is true by definition - but the Jews for Jesus types would disagree. If something is stupid, you are almost guaranteed to find an example of someone doing it.
I thought of a way to kind of test for theistic evolution. We understand the natural mutation rate, and given that we can model the amount of time expected to cross the search space to get from molecule to man. Now, if God were intervening, wouldn’t we expect a much higher useful mutation rate? That would correspond to less time to get to us. If there is a significant variation in expected times, we’d be able to determine which is closer to what happened. I’d suspect purely natural evolution would win.
This won’t prove anything, since that god is darn tricky, and can be said to have built a universe that looks like he’s not home. But it is at least a somewhat testable hypothesis.
True. However, that definition still doesn’t have anything to do with why the changes occurred.
I was referring to humans breeding wolves into dogs, which is speciation. If humans weren’t actually responsible for that, then I propose a hypothetical, in which we take a species, and breed it until it is a new species. Regardless of whether or not it did happen, it could and we are capable of it (if we can keep the project going long enough).
So, speciation by natural causes is evolution. I say speciation by artificial causes is also evolution.
It seems a kind of silly distinction to me.
No, there isn’t any evidence for any outside entities guiding evolution. I don’t think any outside entities did. But I don’t think such guiding makes it not evolution.
Really, this whole thing is a problem of definitions. Does evolution require these changes to be a result of natural causes? If so, then “guided evolution” is an oxymoron. If not, then there’s no problem with it.
No, I’m sorry, but it is not. God’s perspective is irrelevant to scientific description unless God intervenes in altering the rules of the universe. Indeed, for all you or I know, God simultaneously created a hundred quadrillion universes, all with different physical laws, and allowed them to all progress, some of which randomly created humans and some that did not. Since the other universes are unknowable to us, it’s irrelevant to science how many universes God created to ensure at least one would pop us out, but there’s no limit to how many recipes he put together. God is not subject to any limitations, not even logical limitations. We are. Science can only describe what occurs in the known universe.
I’d also be a little careful about what definitions you find on the Internet for “theory of evolution,” when the one you picked appears to imply that evolution is a movement from simple to complex. That is, obviously, wrong. Evolution is not necessarily a movement towards complexity.
Well, if you’re basing your entire definition of the theory of evolution on one sentence you picked off the Internet that has at least one glaring error in it, I suppose you can make any point you like. But that doesn’t really defend the OP’s claim.
That’s not the way a lot of Christians, if not most Christians, understand it. So unless you define them away as not being Christian, Rand Rover’s point isn’t being defended.
I have always thought this was the classic apples and oranges problem.
“Who” did what is the question of God
“How” is the question of evolution.
There is no conflict between the two. I have no problem being Christian, and accepting evolution, as a genetic mechanism.
The argument is usually “When”, when they mention the necessity of earth being only 6000 years old. I think that problem revolves around translation of “Days” to mean 24 hours, rather than just periods of time, eons, or what ever transition.
You are being wilfully obtuse at thia point. Do you really not understand why I used the term “christian”? Do you also not realize that you are the only person who doesn’t understand what’s going on here?
If a person has free will there should be no consequence for his action, except for the natural reaction, such as: if a child is told not to touch a hot stove and he does, then he could learn a lesson, but a good Father doesn’t let his child stab himself with a knife knowing it would kill him(or her).
Saying my way or the highway isn’t free will.
God is supposed to know all things, future and past, so if He knew the persons He created were going to go bad, He punished them for something He knew was going to happen and is at fault, more than His creation.
Why would an all knowing being play such games unless he is a Sadist? The babies and children would all be innocent as they had no free will as to what the adults did.
See, here’s the problem. Some of the posts upthread made me accept the fact that one can believe that god somehow either set the ball in motion just right or poked and nudged all along so that evolution worked out exactly the way it did (or, for Liberal and others, at least in a manner such that some intelligent being was created). However, when someone says what wsbenge just posted, I have no confidence that he (i) understands that evolution is a process of descent with modification and natural selection in response to environmental stimuli (and not just the idea that “one type of thing turned into another type of thing over time”) and (ii) believes in the ideas discussed above (i.e., the setting in motion and/or the poking and the nudging). Rather, it just looks to me like he doesn’t fully get what the theory of evolution is all about and thinks about it in a rather simplistic way.
