Is it dangerous to teach evolutionary theory to children?

You cannot belief that—but those of us who have actually written such programs and seen them solve problems far beyond our own ability to device solutions to a wide variety of problems, even those unrelated to biology “believe” in such programs because they work! OF COURSE it bolsters the theory because it demonstrates that the mathematics are sound!

You’ve been asked to show the math behind your claims—but like every other argument and evidence refuting your claims, you simply ignore them!

Your entire denialist argument comes down to “I consider these ideas evil and I can’t believe them!” That’s not an argument. That’s not contrary evidence. It is just an expression of your personal stubbornness and defiance.

Do you have any SUBSTANTIVE arguments? Or do you make decisions entirely on the basis of your emotions and “common sense”? I don’t think you understand that other people don’t make decisions as you do.

Most of all I’m amazed at how defiant you are of the wisdom and power of God. Your entire argument comes down to “No, I don’t think God would do things that way because I wouldn’t do things that way!”

Why would it be “silly”? Evidence is far from silly. However, at least your calling it silly reminds readers of why you don’t understand scientific evidence.

Wrong. Why would that refute evolution? And why do you pretend that feathers only have one purpose? For example, they are often very useful for retaining body heat.

What is “devolving”? I’ve never seen it in a science textbook. Perhaps you could define it for us and how you made that determination.

By the way, ALL POPULATIONS of organisms are evolving. (The only exception would be when a population is in its last gasps of dying out because reproduction has stopped. Evolution depends upon reproduction.)

Where there is reproduction, evolution is at work. Nothing stops evolution except extinction. (Of course, other living populations evolve in response to another population’s extinction.)

Grog, do you have arguments that are based on anything except denial of things you don’t understand?

And wouldn’t your arguments be stronger if you bothered to learn what evolution is? That would help you to avoid making more of your straw man arguments.

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My substantive argument is taking a step back from the decades of detailed and layered attempts to prove only a theory that now we are using those layers themselves to prove it.

I have the luxury of taking that step back from the picture you describe to see exactly what you are saying. For example flight. you are saying that one can possibly describe a statistical probability that flight came by chance through evolution when the very idea of a 4 legged creature happening upon feather like appendages from no where that happen to be beneficial and seemingly designed for flying but absolutely useless and really a wind drag for escaping prey thus the quality would be more likely selected out instead of in…that the compounding details in just this one idea are so deep that it is impossible to even assign probability to it and not blush! One has to consider the feathers themselves…how does this feather even become a reality on the four legged animal? How does one assign a probability to even this? Evolutionist make guesses and that is it…guesses. I don’t care to hear about ones guesses to prove their guess that evolution from common decent is reality. One cannot assign a probability. Scales would be better for fending off prey. And how would they learn how to fly? The natural reaction from a 4 legged animal is that they run with 4 feet on the ground not flap. Flapping and not running means getting eaten and means it would be selected out from the realm of adaptation.

We cannot even assign probability to this incredulously complex item at hand where the details of such an event are such anyone’s guess. And we develop computer programs that try to mimic the guessing? This is even more ludicrous to my God given common sense than anything to date.

I am certainly no expert, but my limited knowledge is that feathers are probably derived from scales, that may have developed feathery edges, which then was beneficial in protection from cold and sun protection, may have provided coloration changes beneficial for mating or for camouflage, and only later became adapted for flight. In flightless birds like emus and penquins, feathers still play important roles in adapting them to survive in their environment.

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One more time: proofs and proving belong in mathematics. Determining probabilities in science is something else entirely.

Once again you remind us of the Kruger-Dunning Effect. You actually believe that ignorance of a topic gives one a natural advantage. That is hardly a luxury.

Why don’t you bother reading some scientific papers which describe exactly how statistics are used by evolutionary biologists? Don’t you think that might be wise—instead of reminding us of your total ignorance of what it is that you are denying?

Tell us, Greg. Have you EVER made any effort to determine HOW scientists go about such investigations? Is your answer “No.”?

How do you know that?

Why? How do you know that?

More straw man arguments. You appear to believe that evolution takes place when some individual animal wants to do some particularly thing or tries to some particular action.

So what? Why do you assume that the only time an animal flaps its wing is when in immediate danger.

Greg, have you EVER tried to read a book explaining evolution in a very simple way. I could even recommend some videos for you.

Until you know what evolution is, you will continue these inane straw man arguments.

You say “we” as if you are a scientist and know what you are talking about. You aren’t and you don’t.

Another demonstration that you have no clue as to how genetic algorithms solve problems in a wide variety of fields. They work quite well—and that destroys your argument.

So you believe God gave you “common sense.” How do you know that? Does the Bible say that our “common sense” is infallible? Or does it say that our “common sense” is fallen and carnal? Usually those who deny evolution keep telling us that scientists are wrong because their analysis is corrupted by the fall. So is YOUR “common sense” uncorrupted by the fall.

I used to deny evolution by citing my “common sense.” But once I educated myself on the science and the evidence, I found my “common sense” changing. Indeed, genetic algorithms (aka evolutionary algorithms) totally revised my sense of “common sense.”

Lots of people’s “common sense” tells them that if they flip a coin 10 times and get all heads, the chances of a tail on the next flip is very high!
They are wrong. It is a famous fallacy. Did their God-given “common sense” mislead them.

And why is your “common sense” opposite of mine? Does God only give YOU correct common sense but the rest of us got a flawed version? It sounds like yet again you assume yourself special. You put a lot of stock in your EMOTIONS and sense of COMMON SENSE and even think you have a LUXURIOUS ADVANTAGE because you are uninformed in the basics of science. Really?

The Book of Proverbs describes your mind-set—but I don’t think you would find it a laudable assessment of your wisdom.

All of your arguments are Arguments from Ignorance fallacies and Arguments from Personal Incredulity fallacies. I don’t think you will ever be appointed to a university science faculty.

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This argument is so fragile! The assumptions that layer the argument are what base the math. Of course the observance of adapted creatures will tend toward wanting to be acceptable proofs that species evolve from common decent and we can determine artificial indexes all day long to make us feel better about this!

We have never witnessed bacteria become non bacteria yet we can define an index that proves common decent?

the much better way to accomplish results from this whole discussion would for someone in Biologos to answer the question I posed towards you and others in a simple and honest way.

To set this stage for developing this answer, I give you a precept in Hebrews 12. We are surrounded by witnesses in this endeavor of deciding how life came to be on earth. I take the Bible really really seriously so let me name some of those witnesses according to Hebrews 11: Abraham, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel and all of the prophets. These are folks according to the end of Hebrews who were willing to be flogged, jeered at, stoned, sawed in two and killed for what they believed. These folks, according to the precious Word of God are watching the answer to the question I ask of you and Biologos to give that will help us understand this situation.

Of course, no pressure to say that the other witness is God. He knows exactly what He did in creation and the precept in the beginning of this very same Hebrews chapter, “that the universe was formed at God’s command” is defining this real and true God, a God of of such transcendence to be able to bring to life something out of NOTHING that His ways may not be traceable.

So no more politicking around the subject. Let’s take one step at a time starting with a simple simple question I provide. I know it is one that is confounding but you are the one who chose to mesh the supernatural God with the philosophy of naturalism, not me.

According to the Bible, ignorance can be beneficial…a childlike faith. I am amazed about how human being adults who have lived a lot of years and worked for companies etc become so layered that they essentially miss the forest for the trees. That is the exact argument with Paul not bothering to focus ministry on those religious types because convincing such a layered individual of truth is uphill.

Ask a child if a book was written by someone they laugh. Ask an adult if the earth came by chance, they give an artificial algorithm that makes them feel better about such nonsense.

How many times will you repeat this straw man argument? If ever we witnessed a bacteria produce a “non-bacteria” it would be a powerful argument against the Theory of Evolution!

Greg, do you even read our replies to your posts? Aren’t you at all curious why a bacteria producing a non-bacteria would refute the Theory of Evolution?

Greg, have you ever considered that every time you repeat a mindless arguments that we’ve told you is a straw-man, it presents yet another stumbling block to non-Christians considering the Gospel? Many non-Christians see such behavior and tell me, “I could never become a Christian because it requires dishonesty and ignorance.” They confuse the foolishness of the cross with just plain foolishness.

Greg, a question for you:

Did a Latin-speaking couple give birth to the first child who spoke Spanish? Or did the Spanish language gradually evolve from Latin-speaking populations?

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No. A “child-like” faith is not the same thing as being “child-ish”.

The Bible says that we are to be ignorant in matters of evil. Not ignorant in general.

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Wow. You have horribly misunderstood Hebrews 11 and 12. I scarcely know where to start. However, unfortunately, many exegetically-ignorant preachers have helped foster that mental image of “the stadium bleachers filled with past witnesses” watching currently-living Christians on the field still playing the game.

No. Abraham and Noah aren’t watching our debate and they didn’t watch the Ken Ham and Bill Nye debate. Origins issues were not what they were bearing witness to.

I must admit that you have discouraged me greatly.

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Greg, based on your refusal to address my arguments and evidence, I don’t think there is much to be gained from my posting any further. With one last attempt, I will remind you of a previous question to you:

If you refuse to engage it, I’ll take that to mean that you have no answer and have no intention of staking your position on anything but your emotions and elevated sense of your “God-given common sense.” (Needless to say, I consider the “common sense” of even committed Christ-followers to be no more “sensical” than the evidence and logic supporting it. Nowhere in the Bible are we told that our “common sense” is inerrant or even reliable.)

Greg, it took me many years to become aware of my own ignorance of many the topics on which I used to pontificate as a young professor. Because I had an academic position and pastors always gave me gushing introductions when I spoke in their churches----purely because I was a professor at a respected secular university, despite the fact that it was in a field irrelevant to evolution—I thought myself an authority on every possible topic. Now I realize how little I understood of my own ignorance. There is no shortcut to knowledge other than actually learning the material! The Holy Spirit doesn’t give us superior knowledge of every topic just because we are personally acquainted with the Creator! Thus, I do hope you will come to this understanding more quickly than I did.

Like you, I was heavily driven by fear of science. I was afraid that science denied my religious beliefs. Now I realize that science posed a far greater threat to my favorite man-made traditions learned in my church, not to my salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that you will some day reach the same conclusion.

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Ten hours later…

This is why it is frustrating to try to increase your knowledge of the world. Am I supposed to provide a whole thesis to back up my statement before you will believe it or correct your argument? Would you read it if I did? You seem to need information presented in a particular way, not too technical, nor too brief, maybe simplified and reemphasized like a children’s Bible study recital, before you are willing to do the world the immense favor of believing the simplest facts you are presented with. When I am uncertain of details, I google them. It’s not that hard! But I don’t want to say untrue things carelessly because I didn’t bother to check. You seem to expect others to do this checking for everything you say. You are doing yourself the biggest disservice with this attitude.

On the other hand, it means we can talk specific details rather than make vague vague big-picture claims about how unbelievable all this seems.

So here goes again. Let me know if I hit the tone right.

Lots of dinosaurs ran on two legs! The ‘baseline’ or ancestral form of all dinosaurs was, in fact, two-legged. All of the theropods, the meat-eating dinosaurs like T-rex and Velociraptor, ran on two legs! The theropods were the group which eventually evolved into birds, and they walked and ran on two legs! Nobody who knows anything about dinosaurs claims that an obligate quadruped evolved to fly. The evolution of bipedalism so vastly predates the evolution of flight, it’s like saying an egg-laying creature evolved into a seal! It’s only true if you completely ignore a heck of a lot of intermediate steps.

Where did you get this notion that four-legged dinosaurs evolved into birds?

Here is a link you can use to confirm what I just said. Dinosaurs: Two legs or four? | Dinosaurs | The Guardian

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Hi Greg,

I see you decided not to even look at the post I linked to. If you had looked at it, you would realize that a well-structured mathematical analysis of consistency index empirical research leads to a very strong conclusion in favor of common descent.

This explains a lot. You don’t enjoy working through the details so you can understand the analysis. I thought that might be the case.

No problem with that, though. You enjoy working with your hands (when they’re not injured) and building things. That’s a different gift than scientists have. The world’s a big place, Greg, and God has given everyone something to contribute. I’m glad you have your niche and are doing well in it.

But consider this: scientists want to use their gifts–which are very different than yours–to make an important contribution, too. Be careful lest your attitude run afoul of Paul’s admonition in Romans 14:

The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

A Christian scientist is a servant of God even as they do their scientific work, Greg. You don’t have to understand their service in order to please the Lord. Just like I don’t need to understand carpentry to please the Lord. We all just have to understand–and practice–Romans 14:4.

Godspeed on your journey, Greg. May the Lord bless the work of your hands and give you, and yours, an abundant life in Christ.

Chris

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And I wonder how Greg explains the fact that birds still have “deactivated” genetic code which was useful for those birds’ therapod ancestors? I wonder if Greg has ever heard the expression “rare as hen’s teeth” and understands that some old-timers who spent a lifetime dressing their own chickens for Sunday dinner would speak of finding the occasional hen with teeth. It is a great example of a vestigial structure explained quite well by evolutionary processes—but not so well explained by “special creation” where the Creator decided to give all chickens “dinosaur code” that would rarely get expressed. (Did God plant such misleading evidence just to throw us off and test our faith? That is what some pastors in my youth used to say about “God placed dinosaur bones in the ground so as to test the faith of his people and to confuse the evil atheist scientists!” I respect them for at least being honest enough to admit that they saw the Creator as trying to deceive us.)

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It says the exact opposite, Greg! Here, let’s look at the actual words of our Lord:

“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” - Matthew 10:16

Our Lord’s command is to have an attitude of child-like innocence, but have the wisdom and knowledge of one of the shrewdest animals.

That should be plenty clear enough. In case it’s not, let’s look at the Epistles:

“make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge.” - 2 Peter 1:5

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Many of us have explained to Greg that EVIDENCE is the basis for our understanding of evolution, not “guesses”. But Greg continues to imply that we are all lying.

Incredibly, he makes the determination that scientists depend upon guesswork even while refusing to look at the evidence. This reminds me of Jesus observing that the Pharisees refused to consider the miracles he performed and the ways in which he carried out his Father’s will. Much like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, Greg refuses to consider the evidence of what God has clearly done in our midst!

Yes, when people deny the evolutionary processes God has created, they are denying God’s revelations of his glory in his creation—just as some deny God’s revelations in the scriptures. Either way, it is mocking and denying what God has commanded and done.

It certainly does. The Book of Proverbs has a lot to say about those who deny and mock those who would try to instruct them. I don’t really care if someone decides that they don’t find the evidence for evolution personally compelling. That is their right. But when they claim that everybody is lying to them and simply “guessing”—despite the evidence which they refuse to consider—that is pathological dishonesty.

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You say: You already made a claim about statistics, Greg. In a universe where words have meaning and people say what the mean, I as your reader could rely on your words to conclude that you had calculated a probability.

I won’t even go the length of producing stats when we have never seen one single example in the lab of something coming from nothing or even a bacteria becoming a non bacteria. There are times in life when one sees such a magnificent display of first of all the fact that there is matter and energy and this combined with complexity, order, design, they must get themselves to steer away from attempting reasoning them statistically for, whether you like this or not, a godless form of naturalistic evolution that relies on non intelligent forces and just admit that a source of intelligence behind this is screaming at the top of its lungs! This is the exact argument that the apostle Paul uses in Ro chapter one and Biologos is significant in undermining and destroying this argument. Okay, so you will explain to me the difference between the methodology of naturalism and the philosophy etc. In my world, when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is a duck. The only difference that I have detected from you so far from the naturalistic philosophy is that God planted the bacteria seed and not an alien. Period. Am I wrong? In all, this appears to me that the forces of indoctrination by the philosophy of naturalism in the science classrooms which represent probably 99% majority of science curriculum over the past 50 plus years in the world has cause for ears to be defened to not hear the screaming!

You say: Not at all. The only silly claim made about feathers in this thread was when a certain individual claimed that feathers would slow down any unfortunate animals that had them but couldn’t use them for flight. Chickens prove that that silly claim is without merit. Feathers don’t slow down chickens.

Chickens can be caught by humans. a Bobcat cannot. What convinces you that lets say a creature with the speed of a bobcat with four legs that is helpful for escaping a hungry dino all of a sudden grow feather like appendages (that mind you just so happen to be appendages that are more seemingly designed and suitable for flying and mind you again are supplied to the animal by chance of course) that could inhibit the ability in that cat like creature in everything from how its paws grip the surface of the earth to all of the other factors that make the idea of feathers not only useless for that cat like creature but additionally subject for that creature to select out from the umbrella of the need for these feathers? This would be an example of selection disproving evolution that relies on selection to prove it. It makes no sense. This is just a small example of the confusion with the whole of evolution. a partial eye makes no sense. A partial sexual organ makes no sense. I read the articles explaining these things on a purely hypothetical level and they make less sense. God is not the author of confusion and this is highly confusing. I am not interested to see any more videos of baby birds flapping wings while they run up branches to explain how flight evolved. That is silly and an example of common sense being thrown out the door for attempting to prove an indoctrinated belief based on the religion of naturalism. And I have not even gotten to the incredulous jumping through hoops that chance naturalist have to jump through to produce sexual beings and brains and eyes and ears and olfactory senses etc. Now I want to scream. I am now, can you hear it?

It is mind blowing how powerful indoctrination is Chris. I am trying to be nice and not sound judgemental but need this emphasis to make the point as strong as I can.

I am inundated with dozens of theistic evolutionists daily and I am fatigued from the bombardment of decades of intelligent sounding arguments for naturalistic evolution that has been in the hands of some of our brainiest folks on the planet…but wisdom is different. Anyway as I am inundated by these, I have ALWAYS come out from the back end of all of this absolutely more in love with God as the Creator of kinds who has given us the ability to circumvent the politicizing over a man made thought for engaging common sense that is Biblically ordained to us by God for cutting through the wordy and scientific justification for the truth that our God of transcendence is significantly behind the design, creation and implementation of all of life on earth.

God designed plants and creatures. God designed them to adapt and may have indeed involved himself in redesigning them in time of need. I am not against this. And natural forces have NEVER produced one single bit of evidence that they have the capability to design anything. We have never duplicated this idea in the lab ever. If common decent is a bacteria that can reproduce, the suggestion that this can become a complex being with a design by the energy from the sun is no different to me than a natural force producing complex from nothing…they are both not worthy of my attempt to assign a specific stat because probability consideration should only be worthy on things that are more than nearly impossible like not picking one of two playing cards after a million tries.

I consider you my brother in Christ, Chris. My negative emphasis here is not to put you down but for the sake of love that delights in the truth and truth according to the bible is always honing in towards the apostles and prophets who wrote it as we have no where else to go. The Bible not only makes a lot of sense when it comes to the creator themes in it…to rely on the idea of God’s existence for complex life than relying on energy, chance and selection is theism, the part that biologos claims in semantics but leaves out in function. that is why churches are pushing towards creationism and away from evolutionism.

(Sound of me banging my head against the wall.)

Also, I am no longer even sure, reading your latest screed, that you know the difference between a feather and a wing. No wonder it is confusing to you.

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I think a lot of us are nursing head wounds from this thread.

Technical support calls centers in India are not the only people who are deaf and reading from a script that ignores what they are being told.

I decided that I would never get an answer to my question:
“Did a Latin-speaking couple give birth to the first child who
spoke Spanish?”

Perhaps I should have asked, “Has a Latin-speaking couple ever given birth to a non-Latin-speaking offspring?”

(I wonder if evolution-deniers would say that because nobody can name the Latin-speaking couple who produced the first Spanish-speaking child, the Spanish language must have been specially created by God and no language-evolution was involved? Would an ID proponent claim that I must be able to define the complete path of intermediate steps by which Latin grammar, word order, and inflection became Spanish grammar, word order, and inflection, language evolution is entirely “guesses” based upon my worldview? By the way, I once heard a guy ask Ray Comfort these kinds of questions, and Ray was absolutely baffled. He couldn’t follow the logic and had no idea that Spanish is a Romance language or the fact that that made it evolved from Latin. I thought it was such a great analogy but I’ve never dealt with an evolution-denier who understood even the analogy. Maddening.)

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Greg,
How about if you quit using this absurd straw man?

One would think that after two decades, you might have figured out that evolution happens to populations, not to individuals.

Can you grasp that simple fact, Greg? And stop with that straw man? One creature does not “evolve into” another creature. I’m confident that I speak for the others here when I point that out.

If you think that I and others have been saying that, please point to the quotes. Not your interpretation of them, but the actual words. LITERALLY.

If I may indulge in a little Greg-style interpretation, your constant use of this straw man tells me that you don’t care to learn the truth before lecturing others.

Is that correct?

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You clearly don’t know the meaning of the words “statistics” or “stats.”

Evolution happens only to populations. Never to individuals.

Would you please stop using that straw man?

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