The quickest response that I can think of is, for example, is that of deriving the wave equation from classical physics on force, energy, and waves. The internet provides high school info to show this. I cannot see anything simitar for Darwinian thinking, or if you prefer neutral drift and descent.
I am not glibly dismissing your favourite theory in biology - I see a smugness amongst evolutionists as they proclaim a universal (or similar to a theory of everything) meaning to evolution, when in fact, at no point have I seen such a theory of biology taught in any class on physics and chemistry. Similarity in this case is in the eye of the beholder and not the sciences. I do not need to dismiss something that is irrelevant to doing science in my field - so I look at why people make a theological inference based on a limited and often faulted theory.
Me thinks you emphasise far too much for ToE.
Uncertainty and error bars come after foundational maths based on sound theory. For example, I and others have not managed to model the formation of a simple compound from gas phase precursors, even though we can reproduce experimental data on the chemical kinetics to a good degree of accuracy. If the problem arose from a poor theory of chemical kinetics, all of us would accept that and work on that problem. As it is, the theory is sound because we can measure things accurately, and examine our model to any point we wish - and we can provide a hypothetical scheme to account for the liquid and solid phases of this compound. Yet we do not claim anything else - we simply do not know the actual mechanism, and that is that.
My example “explains” the problem, and also shows the strength of chemical kinetics, and our limited understanding. From what I have read here and in references made in support of ToE, evolutionists are very sloppy in mixing terms such as “infer” with “predictable” with “accurate”. Indeed I fail to see anyone making a distinction between the fundamentals of ToE, and data collection/observations. Yet an prominent fellow states, if we re-wound evolution, you will fail to reproduce the results.
Some explanation, what??? (not similar to physics and chemistry).
Firstly, I will concede that this is not a demonstration of the creation of a new species of bacteria. And I must also disclose that I have added some colored lines to emphasize the exquisite drama being portrayed in this laboratory demonstration. Look at what it so beautifully demonstrates, and unequivocally so!:
bacteria, confronted with toxic environmental factors cannot proceed past a virtual “line of death”;
bacteria, known for being able to use “sloppy” genetic replication to rapidly create variants, very soon create multiple “ground zeros” where a mere speck of a new genetic variant, sprouts into expanding cones of robust penetration into the zone of death;
once again confronted with geometrically more deadly levels of toxin, we see the process repeated over and over … not just from one unusual group, but from “ground zeros” springing up all over again, repeating the same process, but obviously with an even more resilient form of anti-toxin genetics;
and all of this without benefit of any intelligent plan cooked up by the bacteria, either in local committee or in a table-wide federation of bacteria.
This demonstration brilliantly shows several things:
i) spontaneous variation at the genetic level;
ii) competition between expanding “cones” of different variants;
iii) replication of the process in multiple locations and multiple zones of toxin concentration;
iv) common descent from one cone of expansion, that produces yet another cone of expansion with a new genetic configuration > yielding survivors that are very different from the original bacteria that could not survive the lowest levels of toxin.
Do we have any doubt that this demonstration could be repeated hundreds of times and produce virtually the same behaviors and the same conquest of the growth media by bacteria who landed in the demonstration in an eerie “come as you are” party of Struggle and Survival?
I’m not sure what you think is so implausible or flawed about The Theory of Evolution … perhaps it is the issue of speciation that stops you. But certainly we can see right in front of us what Natural Selection and Common Descent can do when it can happen fast enough for us to note its adaptability.
Sigh - I suppose I have to state for the nth time that ToE is the paradigm in evolutionary biology and that biologists are not part of a world-wide campaign to misinform all of us. So yes there is much said in favour of ToE - just as there has been much said against it, and it has, without a doubt, been part of an ideology that seeks to promote materialism over all else.
So George, tone down your responses and try to distinguish between a limited (and in my view, a boorish generalisation that biologists cannot get past to a better view), and the overblown claims made for ToE - be they of a theological flavor, or a materialistic one.
Yikes . . . as the millennials might say: Such a ‘buzz kill’!
Like any idea that offers a powerful tool for examining the natural world, it can be used for negative and for positive things.
Because of BioLogos, the Theory of Evolution is now also part of a vibrant, spiritually-grounded ideal that seeks to unite the biology of the human body with the spiritual aspirations of men and women around the world who love God and all parts of His Creation.
Many physicists are on a quest for a theory of everything, and they believe it excludes any involvement by a divine Creator. So you would classify many of the claims circulating in the physics community as overblown, correct?
Nice to hear from you. Theoretical physicists have pondered on the simplicity of theories and wonder if all of physics may eventually be understood by equations that fill half a page.
This is fine - however, if these same physicists then expound theistic or anti-theistic notions from this, I for one would be very critical of such discussions, and theological inferences based on these hoped-for equations would be overblown, at the very least. I am not aware of such inferences, so I cannot add to this comment.
Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, and Stephen Hawking are prominent physicists who have made theological–or perhaps I should say anti-theological–inferences from physics.
But I am of course encouraged by the Christian devotion displayed by scientists such as yourself and the many biologists at Biologos!
I see these people as using their position within physics to promote their materialism and nihilism. I cannot see a link between the physics they undertake with their materialistic outlook. Indeed I see them as indulging in philosophical error, which (if you can appreciate the point) is not dissimilar to those who make pro-theological inferences from physics. It gets a bit complicated so I end on this note.
I think we’ve all met the scientist, or just an amateur witness to the splendor of the Cosmos, who is so overwhelmed by the beauty he or she finds in the Universe that they equate the beauty to the “Design” of a divine being. You and I apparently agree that such conclusions are deceptive and overblown!
I made an entirely reasonable statement about evolution in response to a question, then @GJDS somehow dismisses it because atheist interpretations of evolution, and because it isn’t taught in physics class? There has to be a better way to talk to people in other fields.
And here comes the non-sequitur.
Yes, physicists are usually ignorant of biology. What does this tell us about biology? Nothing.
And why @GJDS gets a pass on Krauss, when I have to account for Dawkins? We will never know. Materialism has nothing to do with this conversation. I am not an atheist.
I doubt if I (or anyone else) can answer your question Joshua, just as I wonder out loud, why so much resistance and hostility to my outlook. I will try a simple sentence and leave it at this:
ToE is the current paradigm of biological thinking, but it is insufficient to warrant a re-think, (or be considered a basis or add-on, to) Christian doctrine or theology.
And before we get side-tracked on who is or is not a Christian or a scientist, I am not against biology or any other branch of natural science. Nor am I advocating YEC, since I think they too go into areas they should not on nature and the creation.
