Do not be unwilling to consider the possibility that scientists do consider hidden factors. But the physical factors do provide a good physical explanation of many things that ID and YEC claim have no physical explanation. They are demanding that science be able to detect the hidden factors and demanding particular gaps in the working of physical factors.
If God designs and directs natural laws, then there is no need to hunt for gaps. He is at work in all of it. He can span a gap miraculously if He wants, but thereâs no need to insist on gaps.
For example, creating some variety in reproduction results directly from the fact that DNA copying isnât perfect. Environments vary, so having variation in populations is advantageous. Genes canât tell what variations will be useful, but as long as the variants work well enough to survive and reproduce, theyâll do.
Theologically, we can see that and say that God designed and directs that system well to achieve His goals.
I am sorry but there it seems that your scientific dogmatism is separate from your theology. It is one thing to say âGod did itâ it is another to say âGod did it this wayâ. You are claiming the latter regardless of whether the results match theology.
That God designed Natural laws is a given if god is the creator. That man can successfully see and understand those laws is human vanity. Science cannot distinguish between random and God . Science cannot identify parameters that might channel changes or mutations in one direction or exclude others.
Science cannot explain why certain sequences mean certain things or nature is supposed to realise it. The result being A body part lottery whereby if the right sequence is found âBingoâ we have a limb, or a heart. That âcodeâ if it exists, is a sure sign of God.
I wonder if you have ever considered the number of automated actions it takes to live for just a few seconds? Who teaches a foetus to do them? Many wild animals can stand up and run within a few minutes of birth: who teaches them? Did you teach your child to walk as such, or was it more encouragement? (if you have children, sorry if not) Does a mother bird teach to fly or just give the fledgling a push.
It would appear that there must be some sort of coding to activate these autonomic responses and actions. My driving is a learned response, my heart beat is not in my conscious control. Boy do I wish could control my blood pressure!
IC includes the ability to use or incorporate the organ or system into its already functioning system. Limbs need muscles, cartilage, nerves,(and reciprocal brain function) blood, let alone the right positioning and pairing. All just taken for granted it happened so it must have been like this!
Forgive me, I am not ridiculing science, I am just pointing out the shortcomings that are not revealed in the language and demeanor of scientists.
Iâm reminded here once again of the paper I read that argued that an upright, bipedal, warm-blooded, tool-using creature was inevitable. I donât know that I buy the argument, but the fact that it was seriously considered to me at least suggests that no more plan than the laws of nature were required to get humans.
Interestingly I also ran across this idea in a sci-fi novel, where humanity had met its fifth or sixth alien race and every single one was humanoid, whether their ancestry was amphibian or avian or whatever, and scientists of this newly-met race expressed astonishment that humans hadnât figured out that this form was inevitable!
Amen! Intelligent design is found in the basic constants of the universe.
Our grasp of natural laws is imperfect. But Genesis 1 tells us that God has tasked us with being good rulers of the earth. From the rest of Scripture, it is clear that being a good ruler means serving and taking good care, not trying to grab everything for yourself. We canât take good care of creation if we donât understand how it works. Miracles are not meaningful if we say âRisen from the dead? Funny how stuff varies.â We need to know that is not what happens normally.
Miracles are quite rare in the Bible, and in everyday experience. The designation as âsignsâ emphasizes their distinctive function as pointing to God, not merely for convenience. Jesus rejected the idea of using miracles to make bread in place of trusting God. Leftover fish and bread was saved. Early in Acts, Peter and Cornelius or Phillip and the Ethiopian are gotten together using miraculous means so that a conversation can happen-no miraculous instruction in the gospel. It seems to be a pattern that God tends to use ordinary, natural law-type ways of acting most of the time.
Also, science works quite well. As everything is parts of Godâs creation, we should expect consistent patterns. The theory of relativity showed that Newtonâs law of gravitation was only an approximation of the true pattern. But if youâre not in an extreme situation, Newtonâs law is a pretty good model.
Science can explain a lot of physical processes. The physical is not all that there is. But science works very well. We do know much of the molecular signaling that happens to tell what part of the body should develop where. Itâs not perfect. A planarian that loses a part can regrow that part. It knows what to grow based on the relative concentration of particular chemical signals. Produce a chemical at one end, and you can tell generally how far you are from that end. Normally the worm regrows a tail or head as needed. But if you cut a thin slice from the âneckâ, all of that slice has a similar, high level of âIâm close to the headâ, so it grows two heads and no tail. Basic muscles and nerves are present in organisms as simple as jellyfish. Fins donât have to be too elaborate, but they can be made more flexible and strong. None of the components of limbs appear out of nowhere. The observed patterns of biological features fit very well with evolutionary expectations.
Emphasizing that science is only looking at the physical is important. Science canât prove that other possibilities donât exist. But claiming that science canât explain something that it does describe well physically discredits you. As far as we can tell, evolution is a very good physical description of the normal way to create new kinds of organisms. Any better explanation has to build on that success and go beyond. The several examples of evolving limbs are not particularly puzzling. They are completely reducible.
In truth, I really do not care if science thinks it is correct other than the fact that it is unabashed at saying so. If science was not so vocal and insidious It would find less opposition. Christianity learned that a long time ago, although it hasnât been absorbed by all.
Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him . . . .
There are two sides in these claims.
One side is that certain kind of characteristics give an advantage in certain kind of environments. That can be used to predict what type of creatures are likely to emerge if natural selection is given enough of time and the environment does not change too much.
The other side of the coin is that our experiences may restrict our imagination in ways that lead to false conclusions.
One characteristic that is likely to give an advantage is appendices that can hold and manipulate small objects (tools). In our case, that would be hands. At the same time, there is a need for efficient movement through the environment.
If we start from four legs (+ a tail) in a terrestrial environment, we might end up to bipedal creatures that have two handlike appendices, two appendices for movement (legs) + potentially a tail.
However, bipedal creatures are not an inevitable endpoint. If we would start from a creature that have many appendices, it might be that two or more develop to hand-like parts while the rest may become leg-like appendices. It is even possible that there would be other type of appendices in addition to those that have the role of âhandsâ or âlegsâ.
In aquatic environments, legs are not the best solution, so we could have a swimming tail instead. Moving in multiple types of environments might benefit from solutions that unite leg-type appendices to a tail. That might happen through turning the terrestrial-type tail to a swimming tail.
In animals moving through air, there would again be different optimal solutions.
So, upright bipedal creatures are not the only possible solution, although they might be the most likely one in terrestrial Earth-like environments if we start from creatures with four legs.
Warm-blooded creatures are not either an inevitable endpoint. Activity demands much energy. If finding food is not easy and occurs rarely, then cold-blooded creatures may have an advantage even if they have slower movement and slower thinking. The competitively superior warm-blooded animals may simply starve to death and leave the scene to the cold-blooded creatures. My guess would be that such animals would have some ability to regulate their internal temperature, switching between colder energy-saving mode and more active warm mode when there is enough of food.
That is true.
Predictions about the characteristics that might evolve through natural selection are based on the assumption that certain characteristics may change without changing everything else in the creature. Individuals with or without the âevolvedâ or âmutatedâ feature would face similar selection pressures, except the advantage that the âevolvedâ/âmutatedâ feature gives.
By the way, four legs do not always win two legs. Running on two legs might save energy and reduce heat buildup and thereby, allow for a longer duration of running. Humans may catch fast prey animals by chasing them until they are exhausted or overheat.
Four legs donât seem to be particularly more effective than six or eight, and are less effective in some circumstances (e.g. loss of a limb).
Starting with six legs (+ a tail) or eight legs (+ a tail) and finishing with warm-blooded quadripedal/hexapedal warm-blooded tool-using creatures canât easily be ruled out.
Though I think the crabmen would lose out to the centaurs.
Lets just say that the diversity of nature and the quirks of things like paradise birds and Lion Fish bely simple natural Selection and Evolution. There are creatures who by all logic, should not exist. (But I am not going down the rabbit hole of trying to cite them)
Depends on the circumstances. Four legs may be more cost-efficient: sufficient mobility with less investment in development and use.
Four legs (+ tail) is now the standard of mammalian morphology. What led to this situation is one question, what are the most likely paths forward from this starting point is another one.
Our thinking may be limited by our experiences. The lifestyle of western civilizations does not prepare us for such hunting, except perhaps those individuals that run in competitions.
In some older cultures and still today among the San people in the Kalahari, persistence hunting was and is one hunting strategy. It works best in warm temperatures because prey animals may overheat faster in such conditions.
What is âwarmâ is a relative word. At northern latitudes, warming climate threatens caribou and reindeer because these animals overheat easily. If somebody chases them when the weather is warm, the animals may overheat and even die after relatively short running distances.
I am also different from scientists, because I am not a scientist. What I know about science is miniscule.
I am not qualified to say much of anything.
I donât see evidence that scientists think they know it all.
There is a lot that happened that is pretty obvious if you have been doing the physical research, say looking at fossils with an accurate understanding of the species, location and layer where they were found. For example as @T_aquaticus showed here: Irreducible Complexity and other Tangents - #78 by T_aquaticus
It is possible for scientists to say a lot about what happened. They keep explaining why and how and even what they understand to be reasonable for them to say as well as investigate further.
They donât seem to be unwilling to me.
They are studying nature to understand nature - both what it is and how it works. The study goes where the next questions lead. The answers are not âmade up.â The trail of research is something that can be followed back through any particular field. And it can be evaluated.
Christians can take this understanding of nature and marvel at what God has done without dictating where or how God fits into, or insisting on evidence of Godâs âfingerprintsâ where there are none. This is something we have to take on faith, not science.
There is no point in insisting on âIrreducible Complexityâ or any other such idea, when there is a clear record of development that shows the concept to be false. Hanging on to a concept like IC, insisting that it must be so because we must include God in the equasion, doesnât make IC true or demonstrate Godâs involvement.
Insisting on it makes Christianity look ridiculous rather than strengthening reasons to believe in God at all.
Evolution is an ongoing phenomenon. Whenever one variant (phenotype) produces more (grand)offspring than the others, that variant is likely to become more common in the population.
As the external conditions change, also those that are favoured will change. That means that the direction of evolution may change. Humans may serve as an example:
150 years ago most families had many children and many of the children died before reproduction. That favoured those characteristics that enhanced survival to reproductive age.
Today, in countries with modern healthcare, only a low proportion of children die. Instead, having more than one child (or more than zero) has become the feature that seem to affect fitness more than the factors related to survival. Another factor may be the age of reproduction because a growing proportion of women postpone the attempts to get children to a later age, even to the point that they may not get any children because of their age. That favours those who get children at a relatively young age.
Current selection pressures may change in the future, for example if antibiotic resistance spreads and makes children again vulnerable to infections and infectious diseases.
