By rationality we know that there are infinite from eternity. Whether God grounds them or not.
Nothing will ever “need” a god to be “explained”. (Yeah, I think ID barks up the wrong tree.) You can always just leave the unknown, unknown. Or assume that some new theory will come along that “explains” it, forgetting that the new theory will inevitably have its own mysteries. It’s not unreasonable at all to suggest the answers to some mysteries is simply “because God did it”. For example, here’s Richard Feynman on the fine structure constant:
Re 19, it turns out I’m behind the times and the discovery of neutrino mass pushed it up to 26. A list here:
https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/constants.html
Edit, sorry to trigger the cuss word filter! It was a direct quote.
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I cannot see how anyone could doubt fine tuning. Since the HGP (human genome project) has been studied, it seems obvious to me that we could not possibly exist without fine tuning. We cannot, even yet, reproduce in a laboratory the formation of the simplest life. We cannot understand how the millions of mutations necessary for our evolution could have occurred. Each gene accounts for 1-4 protein molecules, and even a single mutation of a single base pair results in loss of function and cell death. So the probability of it all happening by “chance alone” with selection promoting selective survival is calculated by some scientists as one in trillion-trillion-trillions.
And in regard to our planet, there are hundreds of circumstances that had to have occurred in order for Earth to support life. Location, atmosphere, degree of gravity, laws of physics, etc.
Abiogenesis (creation of life from inanimate molecules) has nothing to do with evolution of course. The evidence for one is unrelated to the evidence for the other. Proving that natural processes can produce life from non-living molecules does not address the issue of mutations followed by natural selection (Darwin, 1859). Importantly, few who have studied the science doubts evolution, including those scientists who are devout believers in a higher power. So this is about the science of the creation of life, whether or not “intelligent design” was (or is) also a factor in creating the environment for the process. In case anyone is interested, the most scientific analysis for creationists is here, a thorough work by Jerry Bergman Ph.D. They are recently categorized as Theistic Evolutionists, believing that God is compatible with science and was the “first cause and immanent sustainer of the universe”. Indeed, this article in the WSJ by Metaxas points to the quickly shrinking number of possible planets that would have been capable of evolving and supporting life, suggesting that an intelligent design may have laid the ground-work for our planets unique situation in the universe. But that’s another story…
Among the many indisputable and complex conditions that must exist for de-novo life to erupt, there must be precursor molecules necessary for self-replication. The Big Bang was definitely 13.8 billion years ago and the biochemistry of life may have begun during the first 10-17 million years following (first .072% of the time). Earth formed 4.51 B years ago and water shortly afterward .2B yrs later (200 M). Earliest undisputed life is 3.5 billion years ago as microbial mat fossils in sandstone in Western Australia. Others are a biogenic substance in rocks in Western Greenland at 3.7 B years ago. There are 10-14 million species on Earth but 99% of all that ever lived are now extinct. The first synthesis of a compound which is known to occur only in a living organism was in 1824 when Oxalic acid was created from cyanogen. In 1828 urea (CO(NH2)2) was synthesized from inorganic salts. There followed the synthesis of many organic compounds from inorganic ones, without the involvement of any living organism. The most famous was in 1953 in the Miller/Urey experiments. They filled a sealed glass apparatus with methane, ammonia, H2 and water vapor, then spark-discharged into it simulating lightning while a heating coil kept the water boiling. After 3 days, a reddish stain occurred, analysis of which revealed several amino acids. They produced 10 of the 20 essentials required for life. Thus the term “primordial soup” was coined. This “proof of concept” discredited the oldest “common denominator” which was the concept of “vitalism”, or some spark necessary for living things. Some equated this with the soul and Hippocrates (460-370 BC) named the “four temperaments and humours” as melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine and choleric, as evolved from the classic elements of earth, water, air and fire. Also used were dry/wet, cold/hot, and it was only in the late 1828 that these were rejected (by the synthesis of urea). Famously, Thomas Huxley compared vitalism to stating that water is the way it is because of its “aquasity”, creating a word to beg the question.
So the first life (3.5B yrs ago) became layered in “microbial mats” with each layer living on the products of another layer, the highest “form” becoming the top of the food chain. After 500M yrs (1/2 a billion) photosynthesis evolved (3B yrs ago), creating a by-product of energy from light, the first O2. Then organisms evolved that could use O2, and by definition, became more efficient as a consequence. Anaerobic fermentation produces 2 molecules of ATP per molecule of glucose, while aerobic produces 36! Next, a billion years later, (2B yrs ago), came the “eukaryote” cell, one with a nucleus and enclosed in a membrane containing mitochondria (for energy) and the Golgi apparatus (to collect and dispatch proteins, also called membrane transport). This allows for both mitosis (diploid division into 2 identical nuclei) and meiosis (haploid single-chromosome necessary for sex replication), both necessary for further evolution. But these were still single-cell organisms. This gets us up to only .5B years ago, and all life had been in the RNA “single strand” World. DNA adds a strand is more stable, exchanging the uracil of RNA to the pyrimidine thymine, the other 3 being the same, purines guanine & adenine, and pyrimidine cytosine. The chemical structure is almost exactly the same, RNA having a C=O at the 2 carbon site which makes it unstable.
Multi-cellular “animals” came next, but always associated with a microbial mat. This happened only 500M yrs ago beginning the Cambrian Explosion so it took 4B years to get this far. Why evolution to larger organisms took so long is uncertain, but it may be that until more O2 was available, smaller was better (survival of the fittest). This period of such a rapid appearance of most animal phyla, lasting only 25M yrs, was mentioned by Darwin as “the best objection made against the theory of evolution by natural selection”. It remains so today.
The 4 most commonly held theories depicting the actual mechanism of abiogenesis are each a subset of the two views of possible transition from abiotic organic compounds to autonomous self-replicating molecules. They are:
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Iron-sulfur world: This postulates the evolution of biochemical pathways as fundamentals of evolution. It is consistent in tracing back to ancestral reactions assembling organic building blocks from gaseous compounds.The beauty of this theory is that it does not require external sources of energy, using energy released from reduction reactions with metal sulfides.
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Zn-World: Primordial atmosphere was 100 times more pressure, and IR radiation 100 times more intense, so ZnS provided just the right energy conditions to energize the synthesis of metabolic and informational molecules and nucleo-bases.
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Deep sea vent hypothesis: Hydrogen rich fluids emerge from the sea floor. Sustained chemical energy is created and electron donors such as H2 react with electron acceptors such as CO2 creating an environment ideal for an abiogenic hatchery for life.
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Thermo-synthesis: Similar to todays fermentation process. Life needed an energy source to create peptide bonds of proteins and RNA, and the process of chemiosmosis provided it. This is similar to the ATP synthase enzyme exists today and may be the progenitor for this process. The “first proteins” would have bound substrates and condensed them to a reaction product until a temperature change released them.
Now, in the search for other hospitable planets, a little history is important. The first exoplanet was detected only 20 years ago. We have now confirmed another 1,000 to 4,000 with NASA’s Kepler space telescope. An important issue now is figuring out what to look for that suggests life. While conditions do not have to be exactly like planet Earth, all scientists agree on certain prerequisites necessary, no matter how versatile evolution is. Temperature, gravity, density, atmosphere…
It’s not as simple as finding O2 in an atmosphere, because O2 can be produced by processes that don’t involve living things. All agree that 2 components are sine-qua-non: ability to replicate and ability to store energy. And to have this, there must be liquid water and organic polymers such as nucleic acids and proteins. Scientists agree on these points. How rare would it be for a new planet to have conditions suitable for abiogenesis? Since the conditions required also change as life evolves, the conditions themselves must “evolve” accordingly, such as high temperatures early on, but cooling at a perfect rate. So from 4.51 B ago to 4 ago, both cooling and water appeared. Early surface temps were -40. We needed to have a bit of global warming.
How much time would be necessary for life to emerge? If it took us 4B yrs to evolve to multi-cellular creatures, we are lucky, as the sun’s life-expectancy is only 10B years and our universe is only 13.8B. Again, time matters and nothing is permanent.
The best argument to persuade a “creationist” to the certainty of evolution is the pseudogene to produce Vitamin C. Most mammals have a gene that produces an enzyme called GULO that produces Vit C, but primates such as chimps, gorillas and humans require Vit C, but we have the gene to produce it, only it does not work. If we were all created similarly because of a God, then why would he bother to put the GULO gene in us at all? So we have a “common descent” not a “common designer”. And a bat’s wing, dolphin fin and human arm have the basic same structure, even with 2 bones in the forearm and finger bones. If design similarity was the point, why didn’t God design the dolphin’s fin to be like other fins that work so well, like the shark? Only mammals have fins like ours.
As incredible and improbable as our evolution seems, it becomes more-so when viewed in the context of our many mass-extinctions. Imagine that 252M yrs ago 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrates suddenly became extinct. So most of the process had to “start over” (the P-Tr or Permian-Triassic event). Then 200M yrs age, the Triassic-Jurassic event (Tr-J) occurred, eliminating 34% of marine life and all non-dinosaurs became extinct. Of course, the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary event 65M ago was the end of the dinosaurs along with 75% of all animal life and 80% of plants. This event is the one impacting at the current Gulf of Mexico by comet/asteroid impact. This profound effect on evolution allowed other organisms to flourish and we saw the first mammals growing and filling the niches left. So it is unlikely that we would be here absent many such episodes.
I did not read everything, but I eventually will and will respond to what I have a opinion on.
One thing that stands out to me though is that immediately it seems like the argument style known as “ god of the gaps and improbable coincidences”.
To me a worthy intelligent design argument can’t rely on what we dont yet understand and can’t rely on something we think is highly unlikely, despite could have happened another way. Instead it must rely on we know for sure this can’t just happen this way and it requires supernatural powers to occur.
To begin there are already tons of responses about how mutations account for part of natural selection and evolution. There is also plenty of speculation that supports the possibility of other worlds that may have life or be habitable. With evolution we see multiple sciences all supporting it. We see morphological basal and divergent traits that are then supported by genetics. But what we see is also supported by what we don’t see. We don’t anything other than evolution occurring.
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I don’t think we have fins.
Only 5 so far, and we may be in the middle of a sixth.
What fine tuning?
Which is it? And which scientists?
Easily obtained in the one to ten trillion worlds in our galaxy alone.
You can’t have the latter without the former. And evolution becomes an analogy in all pre- and post-genetic environments including the eternal, infinite multiverse and religion.
1692 isn’t recent. And God cannot be the first cause prior to the eternity of nature; only in terms of prevenient unimaginable, incalculable, unnecessary complexity. So how many of the at least trillion worlds of our galaxy of at least a hundred billion are left by the suggestion? Just the one? Wow! Out of a trillion, trillion worlds. How rational is that? Ah, your sources say ‘calculated by some scientists as one in trillion-trillion-trillions’, so we’re special by one in a trillion even by being alone in the entire universe. That rational.
PS, we all know the science, the history.
More like 10 big ones (probably a few in the Precambrian, two in the Cambrian, O-S, D-C, Cenomanian, P-T, T-J, K-T, and current) and dozens of small ones.
Y’all do they future eras will not be defined by the loss of animal life but geological eras will be based on the mass extinctions of plants lol. Jk
Given the false claims that followed that statement I’m not sure why we should give any weight to your opinion.
500 years ago we couldn’t reproduce lightning in the lab. That didn’t mean Zeus was hurling lightning from the heavens.
We understand the processes of mutation quite well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21322/
I don’t think you have a full understanding of how common mutations are in coding regions. I took a quick look at the human gene MMP3 and I count over 500 known missense mutations in that gene alone. Most of them are rare and many are tolerated just fine.
Then those scientists are wrong. The chances of humans having those mutations is 1 in 1, because it happened. What you are falling for is called the Sharpshooter fallacy. No matter which mutations occurred the chances of those specific mutations is 1 in trillion and trillions. The very process of evolution guarantees that we will see extremely unlikely outcomes.
These basic mistakes alone cast serious doubt on the reliability of your opinion. I can address your other claims if you wish.
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I’m under the impression the multiverse is suspected as a potential byproduct of quantum mechanics and cosmic inflation.
But to be clear. I don’t know enough about quantum anything let alone physics and mechanics , and I have no idea what the science for inflation. I’m just parroting what I see as various things I’ve read, though by scientists on it.
Most would say 5 major mass extinctions.
if it’s not a secret, what are these reasons? I am experiencing a crisis of faith, so the opinions of other believers are very important to me. thanks.
Even if there were (hypothetically) multiverses, that would not incapacitate the God who is from providential intervention, as Herr Doktor @Klax’s straitjacketed one is. Multiverse theory is also preferable to nontheists, because it allows there to be no beginning.
Read Maggie’s testimony, and maybe follow the advice given at the end of Tim Keller’s book:
During a dark time in her life, a woman in my congregation complained that she had prayed over and over, “God, help me find you,” but had gotten nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she might change her prayer to, “God, come and find me. After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep.” She concluded when she was recounting this to me, “The only reason I can tell you this story is—he did.”
Tim Keller, The Reason for God, p.240
As Maggie’s testimony demonstrates, God can providentially intervene without breaking any natural laws. He is sovereign over time and place and timing and placing. People who pooh-pooh God’s providence could think that someone could win five lotteries in a day without something being rigged, and then someone else the next day.
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Is the question “‘why do I believe in God despite not personally believing in any concrete evidence for his existence?”
No secrets on my end. At least not about my faith.
It’s definitely understandable that if someone is raised up to believe in a perfect Bible without flaws in a world where science clearly points towards a creator and then they find themselves realizing some of the gaps in the Bible snd they realize how ID and YEC just seems to always fall short to suddenly find themselves deconstructing their faith and struggling. It’s very common and almost everyone goes through through phases to various degrees.
For me the things that mostly help me are rather simple arguments.
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Science does not know everything. We don’t really understand cosmic inflation, multiverses and so on. It’s so grand it goes beyond what we can figure out at the moment. Even if a multiverse is proven and it explains our particular universe it simply pushes back the question of where did the multiverse comes from? How did cosmic inflation begin. If you keep backtracking “ where did this come from “ science eventually starts hitting “ we don’t know right now”. I personally do find God in gaps and I do find God in unlikely coincidences. It seems like it’s a forever door that God can life in. But this is no evidence. It’s faith. I can’t prove in orbs exists by pointing to the fact that someone can’t say they don’t exist in another dimension. There lack of answers does not mean my answer is true or evidence. But nonetheless in the gaps of science and history I fill them in with Yahweh through faith.
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This is a other issue of faith. I feel something calling. I feel a tug at my soul and it won’t go away. No matter the doubt I face, there is this tugging, pushing and pulling towards God. I simply believe in a higher power. I understand people from every faith can make that claim. At times I feel a tug towards other things. But I always find myself back on Yahweh. I can’t shake him. No matter how much doubt there is. No matter how much peer pressure there is. No matter how equally convinced others are of something different t I find myself drawn towards God. I have faith that it is the Holy Spirit searching my heart and influencing it.
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This is also a issue of faith. Ive experienced things in my life thst I believe are miracles. Not miracles like those shown by the laying on of hands where a man howls like a beast and breaks steel and tosses people around only to be silenced and healed by words. It’s not a corpse sitting back up taking in air and it’s not stage four cancers being healed instantly by finger tips. Instead I’ve had a few prayers and coincidences happen that seems as if it’s directed by the supernatural. One on one I can come up with statistics on coincidences. I could possibly explain away each one. But the sheer number leaves me to istead place faith in God.
So ultimately it’s looking at the world through the lens of faith.!
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And the score is: splitters 10, lumpers 5 … maybe 6.
That’s a little outdated (maybe 20 years). There are five really big ones with enough data to be obvious: the Precambrian ones are speculative, the Cambrian ones were only recognized within the last five years, and the end Cenomanian one blurs into the P-T boundary.
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(See my previous response)
The American Museum of Natural History lists 5 major ones. I’m sure there were smaller ones. I’m also pretty sure we’re in the middle of one.
I’m always a bit curious about the various debates of mass extinctions and how much of it was major die offs versus how much of it was simply better fossil making environments and times.
Most of the extinctions also are centered on animals.
Do y’all have any info concerning how quantum sciences could play into a way God could manipulate a extinction?