What if someone would like to know, instead of just make an assumption either way?
I guess the whole ID program is one response to that desire. Do you think it’s possible that we may have some desires that may never be fulfilled or satisfied on this side of the grave?
My inclination thus far is that if that particular curiosity is ever to be sated, it will be from scriptural study and the leading of the Spirit. And that (at least on the scriptural side) leaves aside the details of any such answer. But I’m guessing that may be the only satisfaction to be had. I could be wrong. And maybe the Spirit may use science to grab somebody’s attention. Science by itself, though, seems to remain a two-way street with regard to matters of faith. People seem as likely to use its exit ramps from the faith as they are its entrance ramps.
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Hi, I assume that this is tongue in cheek. After all to err is human LOL
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I assume that you mean “scientists” and refer to a particular sub-set of scientists
Just for sake of illustration, assume evolution is represented by randomly typing in numbers, and the design specification is the PIN. If someone gains access to the account, we can infer it was design and not evolution, i.e. not typing random numbers but using knowledge of the PIN to type the correct numbers. Much of our modern information and economic infrastructure is built upon the premise the explanatory filter is highly reliable. Why should this principle suddenly become invalid when we look at biological history?
As you can see from the introduction to that paper, calculating from the interspecies difference with chimps is one of three main approaches to estimating the mutation rate.
There is some discrepancy between estimates from the different methods, but you’ve got the direction wrong. ~80 mutations per generation per person, or 40 mutations/genome copy, is a rate of 1.4e-8 mutations/base-pair/generation. Five million years at 28 years/generation (a currently fashionable estimate, I believe) gives 179,000 generations. Assuming the same generation time for chimps, that would give a total divergence for single base substitutions of 0.5%, which is much lower than the observed 1.2% difference.
A big factor that’s missing here is ancestral variation. The ancestral population had plenty of variation in it, i.e. the time to the most common ancestor of a piece of chimp DNA and the homologous piece of human DNA is substantially longer than the time to the species split. That adds an extra 4Nµ to the divergence, where N is the effective size of the pre-split population. If that was, say, 50,000, that would add an extra 0.28% to the divergence.
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Deadly serious Marc. It’s no LOLling matter ; ) Rationality cannot possibly be wrong by any rational definition of possibly.
Again, not an analogy that parses for me.
Evolution is what it is, rationally inescapable following on from the same with regard to abiogenesis.
No. With regard to abiogenesis and evolution, there can be no rational error. There is no rational alternative.
What does that mean?
That we’re separated by a common language.
My reply to Marc above your question says the same thing that you question.
Sounds like you are saying evolution is a logical necessity. This is Dawkins argument at the end of TBW, also, that Darwinian evolution is the only way in principle to get organized complexity.
As there is, can be, nothing else rationally on offer, Dawkins has no choice. Neither does any one else rationally.
Philosophically speaking, this is flawed. If our reason is entirely a result of evolution, it is first a survival mechanism, not a truth seeking mechanism. Whatever it is has been selected for and has survived. Its actual relationship to truth is unknowable. (Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies has a much more comprehensive discussion.)
On the other hand, if God exists and is a rational being, that provides a sound foundation for rationality in humans, and for our reason being truth oriented, not survival oriented. Since it is very reasonable to believe in God, and that he may indeed act, evolution may have gotten help. Perfectly reasonable. In this post I’m not arguing that it happened that way, just that reason soundly supports both the existence of God and the possibility of his acting.
Dawkins is a sloppy philosopher, and an embarrassment to many thoughtful atheists.
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I will agree there. I don’t have a philosophy degree, but a comp sci degree, and Dawkins makes numerous claims that are false from a CS perspective. E.g. his argument at the end that God has to be more complex than His creation is easy to present a counter example by comparing finite automata and Turing machines. That appears to be the lynchpin to his claim that Darwinism is the only possible source of organized complexity, so his whole argument falls apart.
He’s a great writer, and great at popular level argument, but very ignorant of numerous relevant academic fields.
Well, whether there is a defensible counter example or not, whatever gave rise to the Big Bang is almost certainly more complex than our universe. So his assertion that this is an argument against God is just plain dumb.
I think you discussed this here
Thanks for those thoughts. Yes, I have also heard the basic idea that God so intricately and carefully designed the physical laws, and the initial conditions, to allow all manner of complexity. And philosophically, I take no issue with that. It seems in principle a reasonable attempt to account for the extraordinary complexity and design of life. But in practice, I simply can’t grasp the idea’s efficacy, given how we see the basic laws of the universe currently functioning, Otherwise I could learn to cheat at poker, and try to tell people that my extraordinary success was the result of God favoring me by having set up the laws of the universe and the initial starting conditions such that I would always come ahead when I play poker.
It is one thing to stack the deck beforehand, but another entirely to deal a Royal Flush whenever desired after someone else has shuffled the deck.
i was dumbfounded, when i first read God Delusion, just how often this writer - who spent a whole chapter explaining that morality is merely the Darwinian byproduct reinforcing ancestral behavior - would call something “evil”… and he clearly meant it in an objective, absolute, universal sense.
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@Daniel_Fisher, the ideal system is not the one where the right people win. It is where everybody wins. God is not interested in stacking the deck for some people or some creatures, but for all.
The dinosaurs had their say for millions of years. They were not failures because they did not last forever. No one lives forever. Everyone lives and everyone dies. We have faith that the saved will live forever with Jesus, but that is icing on the cake as far as I am concerned, but important icing on the cake.
God’s desire is that everyone play the “game” of life fairly. It is not whether you are rich or poor, but how you play the same, that is do you love God, which wants us to do good and do you love others, which is doing good.
God created the rules of evolution also. Plants grow and feed animals. Animals help plants. We all live together in the balance of nature or ecology. God does not waste resources in fighting as humans do. God tells us not to worry about the future and to struggle against others. Jesus was anti-Darwin and pro-Margulis.
Please read my essay, God and Freedom on Academia.edu.
What is your takeaway?