This just shows that you have no idea. And I have been wasting my time.
It is not about specifying It is not even about what I may or may not believe
It is about you promoting a theory that does not (cannot) include God. And therefore confirming to those reading that there is no God.
It is about you objecting to me for including God in the conversation because it is science Therefore showing that God and science cannot be mixed.
On one hand you claim God is in control but you only show controls that exclude Him.
Even if you believe that God is part of evolution you deny it in the way you argue.
You are so obsessed with science not showing God that you are telling people that God is not part of it.
I cannot do what you ask. Because scientifically it is impossible. (as llong as you insist on abiding by scientific rules) AKA If you are going to argue against science you must use science.
I cannot give you an argument about (or that includes) God in a field where He does not exist.
And you insist on the idea of theistic evolution, and since evolution is science, guess what, you imply there is such a thing as the science of theistic evolution. And you talk of other people having cognitive dissonance. Good grief.
@moderators, echoing @jammycakes, this is not going anywhere and I think the time has come to shut this merry-go-round down because there have been any number of failures to grasp the presented brass rings. Any seconds for the motion?
No, that is a false reasoning… Yo have tried to throw my argument back at me, but becasue you do not undertand it you have failed
Absoutely
You are claiming that theistic.science cannot exist, because of the rules of science (without God)
I am not implying anything. I m stating that it does and that it does not follow the rules of science that you insist on.
Theistic science is science that includes God
Science, as you believe it, cannot include God because it cannot prove or disprove Him. Therefore science excludes God and you say theistic science cannot exist.
Get it right.
If you are right then there is no such thing as theistic evolution. and therefore this website is a fallacy.
the best way to do good science is to challenge your own research by devising adequate controls or analyse adequate control populations. If you look for example at the COVID vaccine in the context of cardiovascular problems such as the the number of myocarditis cases or the number of vaccinated people still catching Covid, the gullible could be convinced that this indicates that the vaccines don’t work by ignoring the adequate controls.
I once camped on a frozen lake. Another time a blizzard hit when we were setting up camp.
I actually miss those severe midwest winters.
About a quarter of my science instructors took off summers and sometimes an additional term on a regular basis to do research; about a third were engaged in research and the funding sources were always posted. That makes a majority of my science profs getting grants.
It was interesting to see the time limits on those. Many were one-year-renewable; some were X amount of money to be spent within a specified number of years (three was common) but that meant it could be spent faster; the most interesting was “with participation” and a list of options for participation was given – that was a biology grant for research in remote isolated environments, which took some botany and some zoology professors on “camping” trips to isolated “cloud island” environments in Central and South America at least every other year. Then there was an arrangement that several professors had with JPL that allowed two of them to spend summers at JPL doing whatever was of interest!
There were also a bunch of grants for research into anything pertaining to forests, most of them from endowments established by long-ago ( and a coupe of more recent) lumber tycoons who wanted to further forest science, so there were substantially more forestry professors per student than I think any other department on campus (they also owned their own extensive arboretum and their own research forest!), and they were constantly doing research (lucky students got to participate and there were always a batch of summer forestry research internships – I had friends who plotted brown spotted owl populations and devised new ways to find them, who researched the benefit of standing dead timber to the forest, who looked into the ideal size of a timber clear-cut for “harvestable” wildlife – i.e. species that get hunted, who proposed and studied alternative to clear-cutting, and other bits). [Ever seen a nine-layer overlay for a plot of forest, representing nine different points from which a forest could be evaluated?]
Or as we did in some classes, propose a way to analyze something, then hand it over to someone else to find holes in it, and pass it around a half-dozen people till it comes back so heavily annotated that hypertext would fare poorly in doing it justice!
I’m sorry you cannot articulate your “theory of theistic evolution” in a more compelling fashion. All you have done is express your incredulity and that God couldn’t have created the complexities of life over the eons and quadrillions of mutations through [not] ‘random chance’ without ‘poofing’ the major differences in morphologies and metabolisms that we see today.
That, and deny his sovereignty and providence.
Can God not providentially control storms?
And there are these (not exhaustive), or haven’t you read:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29–31
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16–17
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. “Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it. Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Isaiah 45:7–9
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. Proverbs 16:33
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. 1 Chronicles 29:11
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Genesis 50:20
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13
The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:1
For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; Daniel 2:21
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Proverbs 19:21
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, Ephesians 1:11
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5
He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away. Job 12:23
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15
I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Psalm 119:75
John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. John 3:27
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. Colossians 1:16
The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Proverbs 16:4
A man’s steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way? Proverbs 20:24
For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. Psalm 135:5-7
And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. [said Joseph, having been enslaved, falsely accused and imprisoned to that end for God’s purposes] Genesis 45:5
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! Romans 11:33
Why should I bother?
You will just shoot it down in flames because it includes both science and God in the same sentence.
Yes
Does He on a daily basis? No
You quote Scripture like you quote me… out of context.
We have already covered this and I seem to remember you admitting that His control is by providing the appropriate mechanisms. He does not control the minutia whether the Bible seems to say so or not. You may as well accept the 7-day creation.
It is now an old argument.
Look, whether you believe there is providence in evolution or not, you do not argue it. You argue pure science (without God) You argue scientific methodology (without God) and you claim that science can answer all the criticisms against evolutionary theory (without God!)
I argue ‘pure science’ methodologically when talking about science, and that includes statistics and ‘randomness’. You fail to do that and conclude ‘poof’ out of incredulity.
I argue God’s providence when speaking about purpose and meaning when speaking about faith and religion ‘philosophically’. You fail to do that and deny his providence and sovereignty in the face of scripture.
What readers see in Richard is illogic and denial of science, and they recognize an argument from incredulity when they see one and an insistence on ‘poofing’ in spite of all the scientific evidence against it, your inability to recognize the same being obvious.
So you’re in denial philosophically, denying God’s sovereignty in spite of multiple scriptures, and you’re in denial scientifically, in spite of the multiple and overwhelming evidences for nested hierarchy.
Signed,
Dale, the evolutionary providentialist “who leaves God out of evolution” per Mr. Gillett, good grief, and yes, only the scientific part of it which cannot address that aspect.
“We have to believe in free will, we have no choice.” I.B. Singer I feel so much like a puppet and think everyone else is too.
And that is exactly proper until someone devises a way to be able to say, “Yep, that one is God at work”.
Precisely. Since he won’t tell us if he has a divine-o-meter to be able to pinpoint where in physics and all the rest God has left “footprints”, his arguments are suspect: science is about observing, and unless you can observe a thing you can’t say, “There it is!”
Whaat? You do not even understand what I argue and believe so you make a totally nonsensical statement. That needs to be moved over to the humor thread.
This question of altruism in non-human animals is interesting to me. Given that evolutionary biology implies that animals care for their offspring, what should we make of altruistic acts, such as caring for unrelated peers, among animals? Jane Goodall observed an instance of a chimpanzee “adopting” an unrelated chimpanzee that had lost his family. That is an altruistic act, and there are many stories of altruism among the “higher” animals from people that had observed them closely.
I wonder if any ethologists/philosophers have made disciplined studies of altruism among animals. And if a case could be made that higher animals have some conception of a calling of God upon their lives? Psalm 145 seems to me to say that all living things look to God for His provision.
This is one of the “mysteries” of God’s creation that I find interesting to think about, but for which I’ll never have a clear answer. I can accept that.
Hi Andy.
The quest for true altruism in animals is a fascinating one and yes, ethologists/behavioural ecologists have been looking for an unambiguous case for decades, but there are none that I know of. Lots of cases of cooperation and tit-for-tat certainly (where both sides benefit), but altruism (sacrificing one’s own reproduction for the sake of a non-relative…no). So I’d be curious of the supposed anecdotes of altruism you’ve heard about because on closer inspection, it usually turns out that the “altruist” is probably getting benefits from the act. There are some really bizarre cases like birds shoving worms into the gaping mouths of goldfish at a pond, but those are attributed to a super-normal stimulus of a bright, gaping mouth that looks like a nestlings beak, and which triggers a rare (mal-adaptive) automatic/reflexive parental response by the bird, i.e., not an intentional, selected behaviour.
Rearing unrelated individuals is extremely rare in nature. Usually when genetic testing is done, it turns out that the individuals involved in adoptions are related (i.e. Kin selection is involved). From the reading I’ve done, adoptions in chimpanzees are usually of kin and so the adopter is getting some indirect fitness by saving the lives of (nieces, nephews, cousins etc.). As you say, a few adoptions of non-relatives have been noted, but a factor in chimpanzee troops is the benefit of coalitions (both among females and among males) for reaching dominant status within the group. Such coalitions are frequently formed by family members (those reared together), so adopters get the advantage of having the young that they raise becoming part of their own social group/coalition into the future. From what I’ve read, adopters are often individuals that have recently lost their own offspring so they would not be diverting care away from their own offspring very much at that stage, by taking on a juvenile to rear. So in this case, the adoption isn’t seen by biologists as purely altruistic, but more like “tit-for-tat” with the adoptee helping the adopter eventually rise in status within the social group.
For an altruistic act in an animal, I think it would need self-consciousness and the mental capacity to judge alternate courses of action and their consequences into the future, and then override its instinct for “best” option in terms of Natural Selection (the self-interest option) to chose instead the maladaptive self-sacrifice option. I read a paper by philosophers/ ethologists discussing whether chimpanzees showed such high level moral-reflection and they concluded there was no clear evidence of it.
re Psalm 145. I take this as beautiful poetry which speaks of God’s general care for all creatures (and creation’s dependence on God for its upkeep), but don’t think it says anything specifically about the “thought” processes of animals.
For example, someone once told me of a NY Times article called “Milk of Human Kindness Also Found in Bonobos” based on research by Brian Hare and Jingzhi Tan.
However, it illustrates a typical shortcoming of claims of altruism in the literature (and especially in sensationalized public reporting). First, the bonobos were all orphans reared in a captive zoo situation, and such reports of “altruism” have not been able to be replicated in normal, wild-raised animals. Biologists have suggested that behaviours in captive situations (where primates are kept in artificial conditions with ample food and no predators) can not be interpreted as “normal” for the species. Secondly, in one experiment, a bonobo shared its food with a stranger, but only if the stranger rewarded the donor with a “positive social interaction”. The authors of the study suggest this may be a way for the donor to extend (and benefit) from creating relationships to form a larger social network. So this is not true altruism, but reciprocity, because the donor gets something back (better social position). In a different experiment, a bonobo allowed a stranger to access a food pile, but only if it had food itself and did not have to give it up. Thus, there were no costs to the “donor” bonobo, and hence no true altrism there.
I feel so much like a puppet and think everyone else is too. 
