Based on what evidence? Or is it just opinion?
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What, God as theory, as the theory for increased biological complexity? How does that in any way improve on stochastic, emergent, factorial, blind, dysteological, meaningless evolution? Apart from swapping your most early incredulity for other’s incalculably more rational?
As you should already know, I am all about God and his providential interventions, and have given objective evidence of them into the lives of his children, even the timing of DNA mutations. None have broken any natural laws. And I don’t think you are understanding the broad evidence based scientific reasoning for common ancestry. Your appeal to God makes it sound like you want God to have poofed new species into existence. We have neither scriptural nor scientific reason to believe that is how he did it, just the opposite. (Nor is anyone saying that God could not do it that way, just that he did not.)
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I have always believed in divine guidance of evolution as opposed to random deviation and blind luck creation. Dawkins et al will deny God any access. Most here seem to be of the “light the blue touch paper and retire immediately” view of divine creation. The problem I am addressing with the ancestry assertion is that it is claiming the proof that evolution can join them all together. i.e. it is removing any need to construct a model of change. All Evolution needs is a pathway. It does not have to actually follow it, or understand any difficulties that might exist in doing so.
And the answers on this forum do not show any knowledge of complexities and inter reliance, ecology, or metabolisms. They are just minor details that evolution will automatically conquer.
Richard
I think, rather, you do not show any knowledge of the genomic complexities that are explained by evolutionary speciation.
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I think you have no idea what I know. Or understand where my arguments are derived from.
I also think that you think I am not qualified to argue with you.
I also think that Evolution is not open to debate.
Richard
That is correct, like gravity. All you are providing is opinion. (And why do you capitalize ‘evolution’?)
All hail the God Evolution?
Evolution is nothing like gravity, but clearly you will see that as an opinion not a fact. Evolution is the title of something so it can carry a capital letter.
It is hard to get down to the nitty-gritty if the nitty-gritty is never allowed to be seen.
I am still waiting for the summary of the Evolutionary process that contradicts the one I gave so long ago. Without it, there can be no specific scientific arguments. Without it I cannot describe a shortfall or chasm that cannot be breached. Without it I can only use the information I was taught.
Richard
That is very close to the line of questioning my faith, if not over it. Watch yourself.
Then be consistent.
Evolution is treated as a god, I am not questioning your faith. But, most proponents of Dawkins style of Evolution do question your faith. They dismiss God as a fallacy and claim Evolution as sovereign over creation. That is the bed you are lying in. I am sorry if you did not know it.
I am sorry that sarcasm and irony are not always visible in print. I am very consistent.
Richard
Then you do not understand the principles that BioLogos was founded on. The way evolution works is independent of faith in God. Like gravity. Have you ever read The Language of God?
Dale
I wish you could tell the difference between the theory of gravity and the theories that make up Evolution. Like i have said elsewhere. if you understood abstraction you would not make that connection.
The views expressed in this thread are not Biologos. They are pure Evolutionary dogma.
I said I believe in theistic evolution. Why do you not accept that?
Richard
Because you deny Evolution works, scientifically, for speciation?
Read up on it:
I know you are getting hammered from all sides here, but I did try to find your summary and was unsuccessful. The search function is rather limited and your posts are spread across multiple threads. So if you could please repost your summary I would be glad to point out where your understanding which might have been correct years ago is no longer correct.
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Ok, so here is the Evolution I was taught.
The process of evolution is a change caused by a deviation/mutation during reproduction. For that deviation to persist it must be both viable and beneficial. When I was taught it genetic progression was basically Mendell’s model and dominant and submissive gene inheritance. The main point being the scope of change. It was a single deviation in a single being that may or may not be duplicated elsewhere. It was random and inexplicable and certainly not part of some master design. (There was no talk of a herd transformation so that the change may be somehow spontaneous in a group, becoming endemc and therefore the original group is superceded.)
TOE was the extrapolation that this process could change a microbe to a human over time
Also, there was a timeline which started at an Amoeba (which is a little ironic because an amoeba is considered a development) and ran forward through fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal-human. There were other trees that showed diversification Incidentally Birds did not stem directly from Dinosaurs, that came later. Archeopterix was the first bird but its ancestor was unclear. The tree version had been proposed but it was not adopted.
Classification was the standard Latin naming. DNA was barely discovered let alone understood more than a double helix and sequencing of rhizomes. It was obvious that these sequences underpinned the creature make up and changing that would change the result. I don’t remember any sort of cross-species comparison of DNA, other than it was probably the same basic building blocks. And that was it: DNA was the building blocks of creatures. The commonality was obvious! You used the same building blocks! A sequence defined a feature and if the creature had that feature it would have that sequence.
So, clearly the thrust and specifications of Evolutionary theory has changed to this ancestral kick which seems to ignore the basic method of change, which, last time I heard was a little vague and without limits.
I went to school in the 1970s. College in 1980 (Studying Biology) But Evolution was not the hub that it appears to be now. All biology did not revolve around Evolution, or reference it.
Richard
Can we all please stop asking @RichardG about his education. He has explained his relevant training and cleared up the previous confusion. So let’s keep the conversation about ideas and evidence, please.
Thanks.
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DNA was discovered by biochemists 20 years before you studied biology at high school. And what have continuously growing horizontal underground stems which put out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals got to do with it?
Unlike you I have read Darwin, Monod, Dawkins, Lane and their elegant expositions of evolution. I ask again why did God make brain cells irreplaceable? Why should I take anything you say as contributing to the reconciliation of faith and science except for you personally in a way that is not at all transferable, based on your fallacious incredulity? What has the fact of evolution, like the ultimate fact of eternity, or fact of gravity, or electromagnetism got to do with God revealed through Christ?
Textbooks in poor schools can be quite out-of-date. I suspect he was talking about ribosomes not rhizomes and DNA/RNA sequencing was still in its infancy at the time (c. 1980).
The “fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal-human” seems very chain of creation not evolution (but a lot of textbooks fall into that trap). Evolution is more bush like and modern humans are no more (or less) the current endpoint than the trout in the stream or the willow by it.
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Abolutely nothing. And that is the whole point. I am not arguing theology. If I were, you would find my qualifications a little more to your liking (but not a lot)
Richard
PS I read Darwin, of course. I have not read Dawkins and wouldn’t if you paid me.