Discovery Institute Exposed

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Buzzard

Told by saltationists like Gould and Eldredge, for example.

While Gould occasionally toyed with saltationism, he never seriously proposed it, and as far as I know Eldredge never had anything to do with it. Punc. eq. is not saltationism. The former proposes different tempos (and locations) of phenotypic evolution within species and during speciation, while the latter proposes that major phenotypic change occurs in a single generation because of one mutation.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Buzzard

In effect, ID introduces the possibility of God into the equation when faced with certain observations that science cannot explain.

ID makes a much more specific claim: the presence of intelligent design can be detected scientifically. It’s making scientific claims.

[Buzzard]

@Dale

Actually, we have a pretty good idea.

Splendid! If you understand how life on earth evolved, you shouldn’t have any trouble telling me how you would evolve a two-cell organism from a one-cell organism … which in the grand scheme of things, is a very fundamental evolutionary progression. So, what would be your first step in achieving that basic evolution?

Alternatively, what would be your first step in making a prokaryote evolve into a eukaryote? That’s another very fundamental evolutionary progression, so your knowledge of evolution should be able to easily cope with that basic task too.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

I would say that God’s sovereignty over ‘lucky coincidences’ can bring molecules together and mutate them wherever, whenever and however he pleases has all the bases covered (yeah, including ACGT). That’s all I need to know since I am not in a research position where I would be trying to investigate further. Tell me again how you believe in God’s sovereignty.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Buzzard

Splendid! If you understand how life on earth evolved, you shouldn’t have any trouble telling me how you would evolve a two-cell organism from a one-cell organism

I wouldn’t, since it’s quite unlikely that single-celled organisms evolved into two-celled organisms. Far more likely is that single-celled organisms evolved to form colonies of identical cells (which we can see readily today), which then evolved into colonies where some of the cells took on specialized roles (which we also see today).

[Buzzard]

@DGX37

Thanks to science we can more fully understand how complex this world is and so we can be more amazed with God’s creation.

Well said. It was studying the complexity of the cell that convinced me that there must be a Creator.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Yes, our intuition is correct, that there is a Designer. Our intuition is incorrect however, when it concludes that ID is science. You’ve heard of exaptation, I presume.

[CSTR (Caleb Strom)]

@DGX37, I would agree. I would also say that even if phenomena can be explained naturalistically or in terms of material causes that it does not mean that God was not involved in the process. Thomas Aquinas, for example, taught that God works through nature. He would not have had a problem with the idea of God using geochemistry to create life or evolution to create new species. God created the universe. Science just uncovers the “technology” that God used to create it.

[Buzzard]

@Dale

You’ve heard of exaptation, I presume.

No, I’ve never heard of exaptation.
Big words scare me, and “exaptation” is a very big word.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

It’s the same length as ‘prokaryote’ which you used above. Wikipedia is our friend (most of the time ; - ).

[Buzzard]

@glipsnort

I wouldn’t, since it’s quite unlikely that single-celled organisms evolved into two-celled organisms. Far more likely is that single-celled organisms evolved to form colonies of identical cells (which we can see readily today), which then evolved into colonies where some of the cells took on specialized roles (which we also see today).

So you’re saying is more likely that single-celled organisms formed colonies, which in turn formed the first multi-celled organism(s)?
If so, that’s a fascinating idea … but I bet scientists have fun trying to figure out how that could have been coordinated!

Time to pull put out the “God done it” card again, me thinks.

[Buzzard]

@Dale

I would say that God’s sovereignty over ‘lucky coincidences’ can bring molecules together and mutate them wherever, whenever and however he pleases has all the bases covered (yeah, including ACGT).

I wouldn’t disagree with that, but by pulling out the “God done it” card as an explanation, you’re admitting that you don’t understand how evolution works.

I mean, if you don’t know something as basic to evolution as how to produce (evolve) a eukaryote from a prokaryote, then you can hardly claim to understand how evolution works, can you?

That’s all I need to know since I am not in a research position where I would be trying to investigate further.

I doubt if anyone in research has ever produced (evolved) a eukaryote from a prokaryote, so they wouldn’t know either - in fact, I would venture to say no scientist on the planet would have the foggiest idea about how to produce a eukaryote from a prokaryote.

So on that basis, I think it would it be fair to say no one really understands how evolution works.

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

I doubt if anyone in research has ever produced (evolved) a eukaryote from a prokaryote, so they wouldn’t know either - in fact, I would venture to say no scientist on the planet would have the slightest idea about how to produce a eukaryote from a prokaryote.

So on that basis, I think it would it be fair to say no one really understands how evolution works.

There’s a difference between understanding the mechanisms of how life changes and the specifics of how life changed for one specific example. We don’t throw out our understanding of how geology works just because we don’t know the entire history of a single geologic formation.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

We can look at nested hierarchies and DNA sequences and say yes, we know how evolution works. We can also look at God’s providential timing and placing of events (the DNA mutations and the solar eclipse in my nephrectomy account, for instance) and know that he is in control. You appear not to have looked through the conversation I referenced above, Questions about nested hierarchy.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Well put.  

[Buzzard]

@T_aquaticus

There’s a difference between understanding the mechanisms of how life changes and the specifics of how life changed for one specific example. We don’t throw out our understanding of how geology works just because we don’t know the entire history of a single geologic formation.

The progression from prokaryote to eukaryote is one of the most basic and primative progressions in the evolutionary story. If one doesn’t know even the first step of how to achieve that progression, one can hardly claim to know how evolution works, I should think.

[Marshall (Marshall Janzen)]

@Buzzard

I mean, if you don’t know something as basic to evolution as how to produce (evolve) a eukaryote from a prokaryote, then you can hardly claim to understand how evolution works, can you?

That confuses two meanings of “basic.” There’s a difference between basic as bedrock and basic as simple. It’s like saying, if we don’t know something as basic to gravity as what a graviton is, we can hardly claim to understand gravity. (Or to move outside of science, if we can’t pin down something as basic to Christianity as how the atonement works, we can’t claim Jesus saves.)

Scientists understand quite a bit about how evolution works by studying what they do have easier access to. The mysteries that remain in understanding transitions for which less evidence remains don’t make what we do know go away. And they’ve made enough progress on even the hard questions that it would be foolish to wager one’s faith against them.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

That is sort of like telling my pastor that is he is not fluent in ancient Hebrew, he has no idea what the Bible says. Certainly, it would be nice to be fluent, as there are words we still do not really know the meaning of, but we can get a pretty good idea based on context and what we do know.

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

The progression from prokaryote to eukaryote is one of the most basic and primative progressions in the evolutionary story. If one doesn’t know even the first step of how to achieve that progression, one can hardly claim to know how evolution works, I should think.

You are confusing history with mechanism. They aren’t the same thing.

The reason we don’t know how prokaryotes evolved into eukaryotes is that we don’t have enough evidence from that period in history. It isn’t a matter of not understanding how evolution works. It’s a matter of not having the evidence necessary to know which specific evolutionary pathways were taken.

Let’s say you are a crime scene investigator. At a murder scene you show up just a few hours after the victim died, and the crime scene is loaded with evidence. There’s a bloody knife with the criminal’s fingerprints, hair from the criminal, bloody shoe prints from the criminal, etc. It’s easy to understand the mechanisms of how this person died. At another scene there is just a skeleton. There isn’t any real evidence you can find to determine how the person died.

Now, would it be fair to say that you can’t know how the murder victim died at the first scene because you can’t identify how the other person died? Obviously not. You know of many ways of how a person can die, and can understand the mechanisms of how a person dies when there is ample evidence present. On top of that, would someone be justified in claiming that the second person died because of evil Leprechauns simply because you couldn’t determine how that person died?

[Buzzard]

If I asked you how a sheep dog can be produced from a wolf, you would be able to tell me how to achieve that evolutionary progression. But you can’t tell me even the first step required for producing a eukaryote from a prokaryote. That suggests you don’t really understand how evolution works.