Hi Richard,
I don’t see any mention of God, either for or against His involvement, in your list of what you were taught. I suspect that is the case for most if not all subjects, not just science courses.
I think I understand. You think that evolution should be taught, just not the way it is currently taught. That it ought to be taught in a way that gives credit to God’s involvement. Do I have that right?
Thank you
Yes
No. That would contravene US laws specifically about religion and probably UK ones as well
It is not about the inclusion of God but the admittance that all this is theoretical and not the certainty that is currently proclaimed. There is no alternative theory. But that does not mean they have got it all right yet. IOW it is a theory, not a fact.
As a Christian, I am going to believe that God is involved, but I have no right to impose that view on anyone else.
Richard
The sorts of truths that are true for all - regardless of whether they accept or understand it or not - are the sorts of truths that we like to give more of our attentions to. Francis Collins’ science works whether you’re a Muslim or a Morman, a heathen or a Hindu. We don’t need to discuss it all again as this has all been beaten to death in postmodernism threads. If you are needing a recap, I’m sure they can be found.
Ad infinitum
That is just how this forum works. I reckon every argument has been repeated at least once, and others are just rewordings. You know the idea.
You didn’t get it the first time round so try this…
As if understanding the argument will convince you.
How can you not believe…
ad nauseum
Richard
They had no “belief that God can work invisibly” because they were atheists or agnostics. They saw the elegance of how evolution works and concluded there had to be a Designer behind that elegance. Evolution is a superb example of “the complexity, order, and balance of the universe”, and chance is integral to that elegance.
If you think that cosmology is really any different than evolution then you either don’t understand evolution, don’t understand cosmology, or don’t understand either one. Just as cosmology rests on a small set of constants and equations, evolution rests on a small set of chemicals and interactions, and both proceed from those small sets playing out.
As for evolution driving people away, the only times I saw that happen was when students arrived at university with the sets of views that you share with YECists – but it wasn’t evolution that drove them away, it was the erroneous theology that led them to conclude that the scriptures must be false.
There are, and they have been explained.
That right there is why many Christian students at university abandoned Christianity – they had been taught that what you say is true and found out that it isn’t. They recognized that you and the YECists are actually using an argument from incredulity and/or from failure to understand, and concluded that such dishonesty or inability indicated that the scriptures must also be flawed.
This is like asserting that because you can only stack a few bricks without them falling over then there can’t be brick buildings.
This list proceeds from a failure to pay attention here and from muddling theology with science. You insist on mixing the two and thus can’t actually comprehend either one – and thus such a nonsensical list.
But that isn’t what random means. Randomness can have pattern, control, and constraint, and in fact in the real world always does. The randomness of a die roll is constrained to a result from one to six and is thus controlled by the choice of a six-sided die instead of one with four or eight or twelve sides; the randomness of a pair of standard dice follows the pattern set by the distribution of the combined values and is thus controlled and constrained over time to a bell curve – and the same sort of patterns and constraints arise from any physical system where there is randomness for a simple reason: the number of possible results is finite. Only if the set of possible results is infinite can you have a random system that is not constrained and does not follow patterns.
The only real difference between rolling dice and evolutionary change is that the number of possible variables in terms of DNA is much vaster plus that the result of a change in DNA has to be at least non-detrimental. Another way to look at it is that whereas dice are limited to producing results found within a restricted set of possibilities, thus only repeating the same information, changes in DNA can actually produce new information and thus increase the set of possibilities for the future.
Fine – I had atheist professors who vehemently disagreed with this guy’s views for the simple reason that the opinions he expresses are unscientific.
In my experience, believers who take definitions from militant atheists are far less interested in understanding things than in having enemies to oppose.
Sp what is the difference between rolling a dice and
Or are you claiming that rolling a dice is somehow predictable?
No they have not.
neither you nor anyone else here has attempted to describe the scope of a single evolutionary change.
So either do so, or stop just contradicting me.
Richard
Please read carefully:
“Dice” is plural. And if you roll a bunch of them, the results are predictable because they are constrained by the fact that there are only a finite number of possible results. DNA just has a lot larger finite number for its constraints.
I assume you recognize the word “mutation” and the term “natural selection”.
Evolution works just like building a brick building, one small bit at a time.
Sounds interesting. Please explain.
But we’re not discussing the “mechanisms of evolution” - we’re discussing the theory of evolution - the theory all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor via known biological mechanisms - which you claim is a “fact” utilised by many forms of applied sciences.
No one is disputing that the “mechanisms of evolution” have proven useful to the fields of applied science that you mentioned.
Absolute ages are estimated using radiocarbon and radiometric dating techniques - ie, nothing to do with the “fact” that all life on earth descended from a common ancestor via known biological mechanisms.
That is your assumption, which seems to me to be logically baseless. The fossils in question prove useful because they’re known to form recognisable sequences, which are useful as (relative) age markers. The fossils’ alleged evolutionary relationship is irrelevant - it doesn’t matter how or why those fossil sequences were formed - you can put it down to the activity of pixies or aliens or angels if you like, and the fossils sequences will still prove just as useful.
Please point out in that article where it describes a practical use for your “fact” that all life on earth descended from a common ancestor via known biological mechanisms.
You’re probably referring to the concept of so-called conserved (DNA) sequences, which are based on the theory of common descent.
However, the use of conserved sequences doesn’t prove that common descent or ToE is a fact and the use of conserved sequences could be just a “happy accident”.
So-called conserved sequences is Darwinist-speak for similar DNA sequences found in different species … humans and chimps, for example. Unsurprisingly, humans and chimps share similar DNA sequences because they share similar morphologies and physiologies.
Other than the aforementioned use of conserved DNA sequences, what practical benefit has resulted from research based on the “fact” that all life on earth descended from a common ancestor via known biological mechanisms?
Hi Richard. Thank you for the clarification.
Given what you wrote:
I hope you can see why I thought your objection was based on whether God was included/excluded when teaching about evolution. I am not the only one who came to the conclusion that this was the basis of your objection to evolution being taught.
In the interest of moving the conversation forward, what are some aspects of evolutionary theory that you would agree could be taught as fact?
Science is incapable of testing for the presence of deity or spirits or anything supernatural, thus any assertion that science proves or disproves anything supernatural is unscientific.
This is Richard Dawkins’ foremost error. It really boils down to asserting that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but the problem is that scientists such as the one you quoted are making claims that science can’t address as though science can.
Those atheist professors were sticklers for what science can and can’t test for and thus can and can’t claim.
I’m not sure that your understanding of what the phrases “theory of evolution” and “mechanisms of evolution” refer to are the same as mine. That is probably going to cause some confusion. It tends to in discussions about this kind of subject, because different people use the word “evolution” to refer to different things. Very often, because they’re more interested in shouting at each other than in actually determining what are facts and what aren’t.
I’m not actually clear either what exactly you’re referring to when you use the expression “theory of evolution.” Do you believe that (a) all life on earth shares a common ancestor, but that it needed something in addition to known biological mechanisms to get to where we are today, or (b) all life on earth does not share a common ancestor but descended from a variety of different life forms that had separate origins? In the latter case, which species do you believe do share common ancestors and which ones do you believe to be separate?
Well yes, I am making some assumptions here because I don’t work in the oil industry so I could possibly have misunderstood something. But I’m only going to accept that my understanding is baseless if I’m told so by someone who is qualified to tell me that that is the case. And that means someone who does have experience as a geologist working for the oil industry.
Do you have any experience working as a geologist for the oil industry? If not, what makes you think you’re qualified to tell me that my understanding is baseless?
Have you calculated how statistically likely it would be for these sequences to be just a “happy accident”?
Consider endogenous retroviruses for example. There are more than two hundred thousand of them in the human genome that are found at exactly the same places in chimpanzee genomes. Consider also that the human genome has more than three billion base pairs. Even if the number of possible insertion sites for ERVs were limited to just a handful rather than anywhere at all in the three billion character sequence, it would mean that the probability of getting them inserted in the same places was smaller than one in 10^{200,000}. That is so vanishingly improbable that it could only be the result of a conscious and deliberate attempt by somebody to make us look like we were related to the grate apes when in fact we were not. Which is basically omphalism.
There’s nothing “Darwinist” about this whatsoever. It’s just basic maths.
The basic process. The galapogus fiches etc. That thngs do evolve. All this is as near fact as science gets.
There is nothng wrng with proposing heredity and offering up what evidence there is. What is wrong is the way Evolutionary ancestry is just stated as fact.
“Birds come from reptiles”
The evolutionary line comes from…"
And so on
You can’t watch any nature program without evolutionary dogma being drummed into it.
It is just the whole attitude and certitude and the superiority of science that gets my goat.
Richard
Have you calculated the odds of anything at all being viable without design influence?
Statistics are irrelevant.
Richard
No. Have you?
That’s not the point. The point is that statistics cannot prove anything either way. What happened happened. Against the odds or not. The whole cosmic fluke principle still stands.
Richard
So paleontologists dubbed it “the Cambrian explosion” because all those novel phyla appeared in the fossil record soooo slooowly.
LOL.
Sure, the Cambrian peroid lasted about 52 million years, but the Cambrian explosion lasted about 10 million years. In that time appeared all the body plans that exist, most of them without any evidence of evolutionary predecessors … that’s a problem for ToE.
“The collapse of the Ediacaran fauna is followed by the spectacular radiation of novel life-forms known as the Cambrian explosion. All of the main body plans that we know now evolved in as little as about 10 million years. It might have been thought that this apparent explosion of diversity might be an artifact. For instance, it could be that earlier rocks were not as good for preserving fossils. However, very well preserved fossils do exist from earlier periods, and it is now generally accepted that the Cambrian explosion was real.”
MARTIN SCHEFFER, CRITICAL TRANSITIONS IN NATURE AND SOCIETY (PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009), 169-170.
Besides the lack of evolutionary predecessors, the Cambrian explosion presents another contradiction of ToE - disparity followed by diversity. ToE predicts the opposite, diversity followed by disparity.
“The 1909 discovery of the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies provided the best fossil record of the Cambrian explosion until the 1984 discovery of the slightly older Maotianshan Shales in Chengjiang, China. Because of their excellent preservation, the Chengjiang fauna (many of which were soft-bodied) document the Cambrian explosion in exquisite detail, and Jun-Yuan Chen was the world expert.
In his February lecture at the Burke Museum of the University of Washington, Chen described many of the Chengjiang fossils and argued that their abrupt appearance in the early Cambrian was a problem for Darwinian evolution. Darwin’s theory predicts that minor taxonomic differences (such as species and genera) gradually evolve into larger differences (such as classes and phyla), whereas the fossils show that the phyla and many classes appeared first and then diversified into a variety of genera and species. Chen called this “top-down” evolution [disparity followed by diversity], to contrast it with the “bottom-up” evolution [diversity followed by disparity] required by Darwin’s theory. Afterwards, scientists in the audience asked him a lot of questions about specific fossils, but they completely avoided the topic of Darwinian evolution. When Chen later asked me why, I told him that perhaps they were just being polite, because most American scientists disapprove of criticizing Darwinism. At that he laughed, and said: “In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”"
I’m sorry, Richard, but this is where you lose me completely. When you start hand-waving away entire mathematical disciplines—statistics included—as irrelevant, you are descending deep into crackpot territory. I’ve made this point before already.
Yes, statistics can be abused. Yes, they can be distorted or twisted. But the correct response misuse is not disuse but proper use. The correct response to distortion and twisting of statistics is to point out, in mathematical terms, exactly where the distortion and twisting is taking place. To just hand-wave away the entire discipline as irrelevant is completely unwarranted.
And statistics can give you a degree of confidence so high that they are, to all intents and purposes, proving things. Especially when the probabilities you are talking about are far, far, far, far lower than one part in 10^{200,000}. To dismiss something such as that as not a fact is pedantic and unreasonable.
Yes Richard, you have. And I would respect your statement if I saw it in your actual posts. But you are arguing against far, far more than just specific aspects of the theory of evolution in practice.
You have objected to me pointing out that science has rules, as if that kind of line was some sort of childish playground talk. But every discipline has rules. Accountancy has rules. Law has rules. Modern languages have rules. Cooking has rules. Driving has rules. Medicine has rules. If science didn’t have rules, you would be able to claim that mermaids were evidence for a young earth, because treknobabble. Denouncing the fact that science has rules as “childish” is effectively demanding the right to make things up and invent your own alternative reality. In other words, it is demanding the right to tell lies.
And now you are objecting to the very concept of basic mathematics. Sorry, but when it gets to that point, I’m outta here.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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