Most scientists’ work has nothing to do with evolution.
This is nonsense. Science excludes supernatural prejudices by definition. Looking for explanations other than the lame clergy fallback to “Godmagicdidit” is the whole point of the work of all science. Every single success in science yanks the rug out from the “God of the gaps” arguments by theists trying cram their personal ideas down the throats of other people. If the theory of evolution does this more than most, it is only because it is the most successful of all scientific theories with more accumulated predictions (evidence) than any other.
Depends on how you measure it. If you go by numbers of people you are wrong, because there are more in the biological sciences than in the physical science. But anyway your argument is spurious. The participation of people from all religions in science is just as true of the biological and evolutionary science as it is in the physical sciences. The point was that ones beliefs are irrelevant in science and this is just as true in biology and evolution as it is in any other science.
That is one of the laziest strawmen arguments I hear anywhere. God created an orderly universe that follows laws which he set into motion. There are times to invoke the supernatural, but they are rare. Or have you come up with an explanation for what happened in the first few nanoseconds or what goes on in a black hole? For that matter, why are there moons, planets, stars and whole galaxies that rotate the wrong way?
Two of the greatest miracles are life and the new life given by God. The fact that any creature lasts from conception to adulthood should be staggering to anyone who gives it a little thought. The fact that God wants such people as we is even more amazing.
True, and some even teach evolution in schools and colleges. Many believe it. And that is the crux.
They believe it even though you won’t find a competent journal that describes the truth of evolution. There are facts and there are theories, but truth is not something that can be shown scientifically.
“God of the gaps” are the lamest arguments because science continues to be successful in explaining things and shows not the slightest sign that it will stop doing so – certainly not just because you would prefer it to stop for the convenience of your personal religious agenda.
It depends on what you mean by the word “miracle.” If by miracle you mean it is a product of the work of God then I would agree. If by miracle you mean God has to violate the laws of nature according to which He made the universe operate then I do not agree.
The medieval alchemist notion of life stuff which can be given to something in order to make it alive does not exist. That is why the Walt Disney interpretation of the Bible must be discarded as nothing but complete nonsense. Life is a self-organizing physical process. Self-organization is the very essence of what life is and means. Living organisms do what they do for their OWN reasons – that is the whole point of life. Without that it simply isn’t life. Thus living organisms are a product of the self-organizing processes of growth, learning and evolution. Design has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Magic tricks are staggering to people who are ignorant of what is going on behind the scenes outside of their awareness. The more you know of what is actually happening the less surprising it all becomes to be replaced by expectations that it should go on. That is why we have forensic science, because we know that if it doesn’t go on according to those known processes, then something had to have happened to make it stop.
Incorrect. Most accept what the evidence demonstrates to be the case, accepting the fact that their personal beliefs change nothing. So what MOST Christians do is they adjust their beliefs to fit the evidence instead of closing their eyes to the world out of the total arrogance of willful ignorance refusing to be corrected by anyone or anything even God who sends us all of this endless evidence from the earth and sky.
Incorrect. There are untested hypotheses and there are tested hypotheses and when the tests confirm that the hypotheses are correct then they can build a theoretical framework for understanding a broad spectrum of physical phenomenon. Your equivocation between the word “hypothesis” and the word “theory” changes nothing. When something becomes a routine tool in the work of science then it is a scientific fact (as solid and factual as the bridge you drive over every day). Uncertainty has no part in the meaning of the word “theory” in science.
The are all kinds of “truths” and a lot of them are little more than BS, but those revealed by science can be demonstrated by anyone to anyone by following written procedures and that is what makes them so useful in devising technological solutions to world problems – truth with some actual substance and meaning!
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What a great statement illustrating how our views of evolution differ. You seem to see evolution as chaos, uncertainty, randomness. I (and I think most EC here) see evolution as bringing order to chaos, something of beauty, and a part of the work of God ordering the chaos of the universe as described in Genesis, Job, Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible. Perhaps as you learn more, you will come to see it that way too. God bless you in whatever path you take.
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A quote from Darwin that you may find interesting:
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So, it’s a religion? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Patently false. You don’t understand the science you think you are critiquing.
It’s not a supposed theory. It is a theory. Theories in science are well-supported, repeatedly tested, highly predictive models. Not guesses. Not religions.
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That’s strange, given the fact that big parts of both those fields are based on random processes producing the order we see. Thermodynamics relies on randomness. Brownian motion relies on randomness. Quantum mechanics is based on randomness and probabilities.
If what you say is true, God wouldn’t be able to create new and functional species by changing the DNA sequence of genomes. Just think about it for a moment. What you are actually saying is that there is only one perfect genome, and any changes to that perfect genome is harmful. What do we see in reality? We see trillions and trillions of different genomes, all of which are functional within very functional species. What you are claiming can’t be true.
Let’s say these two DNA sequences are from humans and chimps, and the genetic difference between the sequences is functional and beneficial in one of the two species.
ATTGTGCCGTAACGTGGCT --human
----------*--------
ATTGTGCCGTTACGTGGCT --chimp
You would argue that God created this difference, and it is beneficial. Now, what if the natural process of mutation that we see operating throughout biology produced this mutation. Would the very same mutation now be harmful simply because it came about through natural processes?
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Incorrect. The truth is a little more complicated. In any organisms more complex than viruses mutations are not purely random because they efficiently repair random damage and have evolved mechanisms for introducing variation into their genome which is less likely to be harmful. In the case of viruses where it is purely random, with the lack of organism complexity making the mutations less harmful, they are still very close to being population lethal. For this reason medicine has been able to treat viruses by increasing the mutation rates thus killing off the virus.
In more complex organisms the complexity doesn’t allow for purely random sources of mutation. So with bacteria, random damage (like from UV radiation) is routine repaired while selectively protecting some damage to introduce variation into the genome. For more complex organisms even more control is exerted on variation (like with sexual reproduction) in order minimize the probability that these will be harmful mutations.
The science is fascinating if you are willing to learn. God created the natural world. Why don’t you look and listen to what He is showing us?
I have read it. One problem I have is that many sites have no qualms about cheerleading evolution, or speaking about it as fact, including the inferences like you posted. You have to find the actual studies or quotes by the scientists involved to get the ‘we think’ and ‘this could be’ and so forths.
Yes, God created nature, and he put limits on it. Otherwise, it would have been all to easy for us to be wiped out of existence. He gives rain in its season and limits where the seas can encroach. And that still leaves natural disasters that cause devastation where they occur.
Yes there are people who only listen to God when He says things they agree with. It can be very frustrating for Him and explains why God has so many problems with religion in the Bible.
It is one of the advantages of science. No matter how much they don’t want to believe what the evidence tells them, it doesn’t leave them much choice. They have to accept what the evidence shows them, whether they want to believe it or not. So… for example, no matter how much Einstein didn’t want to believe “God plays dice with the universe” the evidence was simply irrefutable (not that what Einstein said really had anything to do with a belief in God).
I find the same thing happening all the time with
gravity and thermodynamics … as if they weren’t still subject to revision.
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The theory of gravity could change. Every law we have could need revisions given enough data. Evolution is not in the same league as most theories or any law. It’s like comparing biology and zoology to cryptozoology. Speaking of which, I suppose the skunk ape could be considered a transitional form for something.
Actually, I went the other way. I agree with God first, and it takes a fair amount of proof, not conjecture to move me too far. That coming from a former Southern Baptist turned messianic. I had to relearn everything from the ground up.
For each kind of plant and animal, there is one original. But God designed us with adaptation in mind. Take dogs for an example. We began with one wolf kind, and it held all the genetic information necessary to become every dog and wolf and whatever else came from the original kind. Tall, short, every color of fur, every fur length and thickness, etc., was all in the first.
What is the offset? Changes from the original mean loss of information. More change, more loss. Too much change, and you get unfit organisms, sterility or death.
Adam and Eve and Noah and his family had the genes to become every color and culture of man today. I don’t like the term race when it comes to people, because that infers that we are different, rather than just different expressions of the original people. Has anyone here seen what evolution caused for the Aborigines in Australia?
Agreeing with your church and religious leaders is not the same as agreeing with God. The Bible makes that crystal clear. The Bible with all its parables and metaphors does not disagree with evolution the way it disagrees with creationism. Sure you can edit the Bible to make creationism fit – insert a little incest, add A&E breeding like rabbits with octuplets every time, add some fairy tale giants to go with the talking animals and magic fruit, till you have quite a comic book by the time you are finished. But without that kind of alteration, the Bible does not provide any excuse for refusing to accept all the data God sends us from the earth and sky. That is why the majority of Christianity accepts evolution. So why are you letting your church group turn you away from what God says? Or are you talking about some private revelation to you personally?
There is nothing in the Bible about genetics… nothing in the Bible about Adam, Eve or Noah being the genetic progenitors of all people on the Earth. There is more than one way for someone to be a father than genetics and biological ancestry. Your reduction of humanity to genetics and a biological species is what is really making a link to racism – as if genetics has something to do with our being the children of God. I mean come on… get serious… the most extreme and recent racism is in the background of which branch of Christianity? Isn’t that precisely the ones pushing creationism?
Oh but don’t these stories talk about the whole earth? Yeah except the whole earth is described in the Bible as a table not a planet, so the “earth” these stories are talking about is only a small section of the whole planet, just as the sky and universe is only a very very small portion of what we know to be out there in modern times, just as the length of time and history spoken of in the Bible is a very very small portion of the age of the universe.
But there can’t be, according to your argument. There can only ever be one perfect genome, and any changes to that genome will be harmful. This means there can only ever by one kind, and any species that are descendants of that perfect original ancestor all carry harmful mutations.
What about changes between kinds?
That is true. Just look at Star Wars.
Pretty much correct. Take the bear kind. We now have polar bears, brown bears, black bears, etc., All are lesser than the original, having lost information over time along with a degraded genetic code.
Doesn’t happen. Even the labs haven’t been able to force mutations to the point of new information. There have been one or two where a substitute protein was capable of replacing the old one, but there was no advantage gained by it, and no evolution.
May the force be with you.
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