I guess you can justify anything if you look hard enough, but whether those “advantages” are real, or substantial enough is another matter.
You may have reminded me that there are such things as dominant genes that do not necessarily conform to “survival of the fittest” and could make a trait persist regardless of any advantage. Or we could just change the rules completely and decide that any change could survive if it is not detrimental instead of being positive.
The ultimate question is whether we are making the rules fit our theories or whether we enforce the “Laws” regardless of the desired result.
Forgive me, but I am still a Christian who sees God as an integral part of the creating process rather than the progenitor who , as I said elsewhere “Lit the touch paper and retired immediately”.
Aye, my friend. It might not be pleasant to hear this, but you do not understand what you are talking about. This is such a mix of non-sequiturs and confusion it’s hard to know where to start.
If a trait is disadvantageous and the result of an allele dominant to its corresponding wild-type allele, it is more readily removed from a population than an allele recessive to its corresponding wild-type allele. And that’s just for starters. You have zeal, friend, but it is not according to knowledge.
No need for forgiveness on that front - many folks here (though not all, these forums are open to everyone) hold to that view. I am also one. But I don’t look for God’s activity in gaps in our knowledge. I believe that God is an integral part of all mechanisms we call “natural”.
I took a quick gander. There is more there than a quick look can comprehend. However, perhaps you would like to confirm or deny that the basics have not changed? That evolution is still primarily changing through deviation? And that the scope of those deviations has limits? Or has Evolution become so paramount that such things are no longer required (or desired) And you can now jump as far as the next fossil without worrying how it got there! Or justifying the existence of something beyond it being necessary to fulfil your theories.
People see what they want to see. Having seen a BBC documentary happily show that the first section of the Gill could become bone and turn into a jaw (because they are the same shape) I am very sceptical of visual discoveries and interpretations of fossils.
I do not have access to primary data, so I cannot make my own judgement. But I do remember the euphoria at the “discovery” of the Piltdown man.
Indeed. That’s par for the course for any modern theory in science.
Evolution is about populations shifting their average characteristics over time as populations. That is ultimately fuelled by new genetic variants entering the population by mutation. That process doesn’t have “limits” in the way I think you’re thinking about it, no.
One analogy I’ve used many times is to compare evolution to how languages change over time. Again, we see average characteristics of a population shifting over time, and there are not “limits” that stop the process from forming new languages.
Perhaps this lecture would help? It’s a talk I gave earlier this year.
No limits? Really?
Do you know the word game chain letters? Whereby you change one letter at a time to change from word to another? In theory you could create any word? But it is not true because many words are too complex. Transfiguration for instance. Take one letter away, or change any one letter to form a new word… there isn’t one, so matter where you start or how many changes you make you cannot reach that word. Time is irrelevant. You just cannot do it.
Evolution must have limitations because of the nature of the process. There are some things that even time cannot produce because there is no intermediary stage. Each change, each variance, or mutation must, in itself be viable. Not only viable but beneficial (Or at least not terminal)
You cannot change from an ectotherme to an endotherme in small steps. There is no intermediary possible. The systems are so different and interconnected, if you remove one then the creature dies. Period. Now, this passage may not be part of the modern theory, I can never get a straight answer. The traditional Tree seems to have disappeared, but…
Changing from a fish to a… mammal? The Amphibian may well provide an intermediary, but not the reptile. Is that what is believed? But as for this notion of changing a reptile (dinosaur) into a bird! Feathers are not the only issue. The bird metabolism is so divorced from a Reptillian one there can be no intermediary of that. The Archaeopterix has too many bird characteristics, Always did have. And I still would love to see at what point the beak came into existence. Is that one change? jaw to beak?
On a previous forum I was told that some of the dinosaurs were actually endothermic which would throw up the change over problem again or demand an explanation as to why mammals never got that big after the Cambrian Explosion.
Has Evolutionary theory decided that physiology is irrelevant? And the notion of “complex design” dismissed as a Christian fallacy!
I am sorry, but you cannot just change the parameters like that. It would appear that Modern Evolution is so divorced from Darwin that it should not bear the same name.
I am tired of the way modern Science claims to know so much but forgets even more. But, unfortunately, most of the opposition comes from biblical creationists rather than true science. And “Theistic Evolution” would appear to be a nod in the direction of God starting it all and therefore negating the need for Abiogenesis.
The intermediates don’t have to actually be words. They could even have a slightly negative effect on the individual so as long as they can still produce viable offspring.
Would you be open to changing your mind or rethinking some things? Or are you going to kind of roll with what makes sense to you given your current understanding?
No.
Not quite.
There are great ways to check for clues to this process like look for pseudogenes:
No.
That’s not why “irreducible complexity” isn’t a real scientific concept.
Darwinian evolution is part of the modern theory of evolution but not the whole thing.
Definitely not true. There is essentially no opposition from what you mean by “biblical creationists” because they don’t bother to actually interact with the scientific community. Instead they make their own journals and write their own articles and are not subject to peer review from the outside community.
I have no idea what this means. Can you elaborate? I am perfectly fine with scientific theories of abiogenesis and that’s not a nod in the direction of God. I believe that he oversees the whole process. He is the originator and the sustainer of it. There is never a part where he is not actively involved in this process. He didn’t just get it started and check out. He didn’t realize that the awesome physical laws that he made were insufficient and then have to intervene and then check out. He also didn’t seem to leave any evidence of him spontaneously poofing organisms into existence. But instead there is an off a lot of evidence for common ancestry.
My apologies. I thought abiogenesis was a pipe dream of atheists.
I am sorry, but as far as I am concerned God created me specifically not as a random result of a process that He started several billion years ago. I see design, order and balance in Creation. Something that random chance cannot possibly produce no matter how intricate the parameters or perfect the starting point. I accept that science is part of God’s creation and shows us some of His workings and methods but I cannot leave Him on the side lines as you seem to.
Perhaps we are too far apart for this discussion to work. I see flaws in the basic Evolutionary model that clearly you do not for what ever reason. And I have discussed this enough with others to know when I should stop. I will have to wait for the next Darwin to have a eureka moment and be in a position to be heard and believed.
You will be telling me that Dracula was a real person soon. When Jurassic Park came out it was common knowledge that the Velociraptor was invention. It was even mentioned in “The Vicar of Dibbley” as a ludicrous idea of reality.
That it should now have been “discovered” as real seems to me to be beyond belief. And that it should also have feathers… wow.
Yes; and this is not the only such finding. the amber containing feathers is really cool; and there are lots of fossils with soft tissue impressions. Good one thanks.
Ok, so humour me please. Why is “irreducible complexity” not a real scientific concept?
Are you claiming that everything can be broken down in to gradual growth and improvement (each step being both viable and beneficial)
Is this because it is so, or because it “must” be so?
Join the club!It’s good to learn though, isn’t it?
For my 2 cents–irreducible complexity means something we don’t know. “science” means something we do. If by definition we can’t know something, we can’t apply science to prove that we don’t know something, can we?
I knew a very smart Christian man once who declared he doubted anyone could argue against him about the existence of irreducible complexity in biochemical systems (he worked for the World Health Organization in feeding starving 10 lb, 2 year old children and taught in medical school. He was a Christian). However, that brought me to wonder–what is he trying to prove? That something isn’t understandable? But what if someone does find the answer to what he doesn’t know? That doesn’t disprove God, does it?
Not quite- it’s an exciting active area of research that many Christians are a part of to various degrees (myself included as of last year).
We know for a fact that from our perspective, various mechanisms like random mutations truly are random. But that doesn’t mean that specific outcomes cannot occur, especially for anyone who believes in some aspect of God’s sovereignty.
Think about the lottery for example. Random game but intentionally designed to achieve a guaranteed outcome (the states make money on average). Like how I believe God interacts with creation, God is the designer of this lottery (ie evolution) and continually sustains the process throughout. Again, there is never not a moment where God would not be involved in the evolutionary processes.
The problem here is that part of your argument is an argument from incredulity. I completely agree with you nor can blame you for the conclusions you are drawing based upon your current understanding. If evolution worked in most of the ways you’ve thought it did, scientists would reject it too! I would encourage you to keep learning and keep asking questions. It’s great to have questions, but not so great to be ignorant or to ignore the answers as sometimes people can do.
Unfortunately there is a growing body of evidence that supports commonly ancestry and that many of the mechanisms we understand explain how such changes cane about. So anything that could replace it will have common ancestry as part of it.
This is based upon the fact that no one is actually trying to prove anything else. The only objectors (audible) are the fanatical Christians who base things on Scripture rather than science or even what might be provable. They can be “shouted down” easily enough. And, for my sins, I concur. But, Evolutionists, Christian or not, seem to go to the opposite extreme and push God so far to the sidelines that He becomes impotent.
The whole notion of ancestry is based on the common denominator. Yet, there can be more than one reason for having a common denominator, but Science is not looking there so it will not see it. It seems that Evolutionists get very blinkered in their outlook. What it needs is for someone to stand back a bit and take a more encompassing view. To critically assess the whole and see the gaping “holes” that Evolutionists claim not to be there (and accuse people like me of ignorance over).
I am not going to convince you so I am going to just leave it that I am not in agreement with your assessment of Evolution or Creation.
That is definitely wrong. Scientists are continually looking for evidence to falsify our models and ideas.
A simple example more from my type of field could be with radiometric dating. There is an incredible amount of background research and painstaking effort to quantify limitations of such methods, potential sources of error, to crosscheck results with other types of physics, to try and break radiometric decay rates, and beyond. But in the public perception, especially the branch of Christianity that rejects the evidence for an old earth and universe, scientists just “assume” stuff. That is a terrible lie though and could not be further from how science is actually done. The same principles apply to evolution.
That is literally what scientist do every day. The entire premise of scientific research is based upon identifying things that we don’t yet understand and then aiming to fill in gaps in our knowledge. Scientists are continually focused on things we don’t understand.
Awareness of our ignorance lies at the heart of scientific thinking. What makes a good scientist is what one does in light of their ignorance.
