PGarrison: “You seem to have missed those two little words “in biology,” which results in your comment about the Dobzhansky quote being nonsense.”
Well lets jump forward a couple years to seventh grade elementary biology. It all made sense. I had no trouble with biology. Now according to hardcore Darwinists, (who get frustrated at my argumentation) – for me to understand evolution, I should study evolutionary biology otherwise nothing would make sense in biology, right? So therefore without having studied evolutionary biology in the seventh grade, biology should have made no sense to me but yet it did, thus my labeling of the slogan as banal. Which it is.
Now I’m not sure to which “amateurs who have no training or experience in a field” you refer. I have gone up against professional biologists on the blogs who can never seem point me to a study in say cell biology that strictly establishes and enumerates “mutations” AND establishes the so-called randomness. And supports any assertions of such with rigorously established non-correlation among the “mutations”. Such as mutations typically responsible for the uptake of novel nutrients. Now please, I would be indebted to someone who can point me to studies that establish strict non-correlation among all of the steps involved in new function AND definitively can describe the fitness advantage to be ascribed to each step or “random mutation” or whatever thus “selected”. Please, just one paper that shows this, and I’ll be a good sport and offer thanks. If not, then so much for the anti-bluster of referring to a failed paradigm. BTW the origin of life is something investigated in biology, and the origin of life makes no sense in light of evolution and the origin of life is not nothing. And the print on a page is more than chemistry and physics, it is also information, and the word “information” is common in discussing genetics: Genome - Wikipedia
@Groovimus, I think it would be fair to say that a seventh grader’s understanding of biology is not the kind of “make sense” that the biologists are talking about. When scientists speak of nothing in biology makes sense without an understanding of evolution, they are talking about the big picture of the biosphere. They are not talking about memorizing biology terminology and definitions. They are talking about making sense of the totality of the data science has compiled from that biosphere. It doesn’t make any sense without The Theory of Evolution. There is no other explanation which explains why the the genomes and the morphological data reflect the same nested hierarchies. Indeed, it is in the phylogenetic trees which coincide at all levels which make sense under common descent but make no sense under common design.
It is so important that I will repeat it: Scientists aren’t just saying that various animals look similar and therefore evolved. No, it is the nested hierarchies of those comparisons of features which are so remarkable–both at the morphological level and at the molecular level. The phylogenetic trees are the strongest argument for The Theory of Evolution. An example of a specific nested hierarchy phenomena is ERVs. They make complete sense under Common Descent. They don’t make sense under Common Design. So it is clear to me that God diversified life through evolutionary processes. (Of course, that is just one of many important arguments with huge piles of evidence behind them.)
I’m a born-again Christ-follower who recognizes God as the creator of all and the Bible as God’s revelation to man. I fully concur with the scientists who say that the data compiled from the earth’s biosphere makes no sense without the explanations and predictions provided by The Theory of Evolution. I believe the answers God has given us in his scriptures and in his creation and The Theory of Evolution makes sense of both because God clearly used evolutionary processes to diversify life on earth. For many years I was an ardent Young Earth Creationist and an anti-evolution debater/speaker. But the evidence is undeniable so I have no problems praising God for his wisdom and power as displayed in those evolutionary processes which carried out God’s will for the biosphere.
If you believe you have found evidence which debunks The Theory of Evolution, by all means publish it. Considering that The Theory of Evolution so beautifully explains what we observe all around us, any alternative theory you might propose has a huge hurdle to exceed—because a better theory must provide a better explanation for the data. And that would be very very difficult feat.
Of course, you also have a huge theological problem to consider: Why would God fill his creation with piles and piles of evidence for millions of years of evolutionary processes if evolution is just an illusion? Back in the 1950’s I knew ministers who told their congregations that “God put dinosaur bones in the ground to test the faith of His people and to confuse the evil atheist scientists.” At least they admitted the deceptiveness of a creator who would try to fool us in that way. I refuse to believe that the God of the Bible is a liar and deceiver. I believe we can trust the answers God provides for our questions, both in the Bible and in his creation. And because God authored both the Bible and his creation, I can expect both to be in harmony. If ever they appear to not be in harmony, I will assume that my interpretation of either or both must be wrong.
Thankfully, I don’t find them in conflict. After much study of the Hebrew Bible and creation itself, I find The Theory of Evolution fully in harmony with both. I will accept the answers God has provided until I find evidence to suggest that I’ve erred in understanding the scriptures and/or the created universe. When I was a Young Earth Creationist, I found science and the Bible in constant conflict. Now see I nothing but harmony in both of God’s great revelations. I wish that peace for all of my brethren.
The Theory of Evolution has survived over a century and a half of falsification attempts. Genome mapping was yet another huge test of The Theory of Evolution. The theory passed with flying colors. Indeed, the prediction of a conjoined chromosome #2 in humans was just one of many successful predictions of the theory which was published years before the data was available to confirm the prediction. “Special Creation” has no such successful predictions in its history.
Does the Bible say that God created every species (or kind) one by one? No. Genesis 1 says that God commanded THE WATERS and THE LAND to bring forth the various living creatures. That fits what the scientific data tells us: the waters and soil of the earth’s surface produced the organisms we observe today. Everything comes via abiogenesis: biological life from non-living ingredients, just as the Bible says and Science confirms. The chemical elements of the earth’s crust (“the dust of the ground”) is what the Bible says humans and all the animals come from. We are made from dust and to the dust we shall return. And what do we eat? We eat food that comes from the chemical elements of the earth’s crust, the waters and the land.