Part III - Commandment 1: Thou Shall Have No Other gods Before Me
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Evolution-Part 3.mp3
We come finally to part 3 of this survey of Evolution. What evidence supports the theory and what is the nature of that evidence.
Can something come from nothing? There is no field of thought where it is considered rational to do so, yet to believe in the theory one must do exactly that. The theory requires its followers to make many leaps of faith; to believe something came from nothing for example. But evolution requires a second leap of faith in that order came from disorder. We have the very opposite of a quality arising from the quality itself. Thirdly, to be an evolutionist you must believe that orderly, inorganic matter had life sprung from it. And fourthly, variations arose from the same identical factors. Once there was a blob then the blob had X, Y and Z act on it to give it life. The evolutionist then says that the blob is no longer a blob, but now it’s carrots, tigers, germs and human beings. In the original state of things all the factors were the same, but in the output of things we get variations. Now I want to know, how do you go from common factors to varied consequences? It is utterly un-scientific to argue in this way. If all the factors were the same in the primordial blob then nothing is going to change in the primordial blob. And if it changes then it will all change. We reason by means of types; the same type of factors causes the same types of results. Is this not one of the laws of science; something has the same type of thing happen when the same type of thing is brought to bear on it. Where would science be if that were not a fundamental presupposition of the natural world?
So Evolution requires four leaps of faith:
1. Something came from nothing.
2. Order came from disorder.
3. Life sprang from non-life.
4. Variations came about from identical factors.
But there are even more leaps of faith for the evolutionist: Somehow this blob turned into a humanoid form (as opposed to a microscopic germ) and then intelligence arouse from non-intelligence. We have a creature without intelligence, not self-aware and without the ability to reason from A to B to C, but now we have a creature capable of all that; how in the world is that possible? Finally we have morality from what is non-moral. If evolution were true, why did human beings become unsatisfied with what is the case and start making judgments on what ought to be the case? Where did we get the concept of, you ought not to go to bed with your neighbor’s wife? I would like an explanation of the evolution of morality.
So what am I getting at? To believe in evolution you must have incredible faith. Greg Bahnsen said once that, “over and against the evolutionist I feel like a complete rationalist as a Christian. I look at this world and I have to say that it was an intelligent God who made all these things. The evolutionist comes along and says man that’s nothing, we don’t have a god, we don’t have any of that. Something came from nothing, life came from non-life, and intelligence sprang from non-intelligence…” In all fairness, the evolutionist does not come out and admit these things, but this lack of evidence and logical cogent support for what he proposes makes his propositions just that, leaps of faith. Now I will be more than happy to eat humble pie and present a part four of this series where I will recant all my pronouncements, if one of you can just give me some logical cogent answers to my questions.
I want to ask another question; what advantage or function is a partially developed sex organ? Allegedly evolution takes place through a series of small incremental changes and that these changes occur over long periods of time; the more advantageous changes are allowed to continue. By the way, I would like an explanation as to what or who is making these intelligent decisions. I would like to know, what does a partially developed genitalia do for you? Can you propagate the species; is it advantageous from the standpoint that it gives pleasure? What is the advantage? How could we have survived in this state given the fact that we couldn’t survive in this state now. If there are any malfunctions in the reproductive system today, couples won’t have kids. How does the evolutionist account for the evolution of the reproductive system? But it gets even better: How did organisms reproduce in their infancy; probably by cell division. Back then billions of years ago when the primordial Blob was struck by lighting (I have read this before and granting the evolutionist absurd request that we give them something came from nothing as an assumption), Life began but that life was simple, single cell organisms and they reproduced how; well by cell division. Now let’s jump to the end of the line: Men and women reproducing in the way we know babies are made today. I would like an explanation as to how we got from cell division to copulation. Why did the different sexes arise out of the blob and why we aren’t all girls or all boys? How did the male and female know what to do to reproduce? But again, it gets even better. How long is a woman capable of reproducing? I’m going to be very generous and say one hundred years (it’s actually closer to 50 on a good day. A woman in India just had a son at age 72). Remember that evolution took place over billions of years and so I ask, is it reasonable to believe that in the span of billions of years, a female humanoid developed a reproductive system while at the same time (within the span of 100 years, but more like 50 for this fertile humanoid female), a male humanoid developed a complete and compatible reproductive system and had a baby? Do you believe that? That is preposterous! Let me put it this way: A female with a fully developed reproductive system evolves in say 200 million B.C. She is now standing around saying to her self, “sure wish I had a man right now to impregnate me. I hope one comes along in the next hundred years or before I die so that we can do this.” Then low and behold, within the span of her being fertile, a fully evolved man taps her on the shoulder and says, “here I am babe let’s go take care of some pressing business.” If you believe that, I have an oil refinery that I would like to sell you. And yet the evolutionist would have us believe this is how you and I came to be.
What about the human eye? I’m not going to go into all the details about how intricate and interdependent all the components of the human eye are, instead let me read you a short article from an evolutionist explaining how the human eye could have evolved:
The eye of a vertebrate or an octopus looks so complex that it can be difficult to believe it could have evolved by natural selection and it has traditionally been an argument against Darwinism by advocates of creationism.
Nilsson and Pelger simulated a model of the eye to find out how difficult its evolution really is. The simulation does not cover the complete evolution of an eye. It takes light-sensitive cells as given and ignores the evolution of advanced perceptual skills (which are more a problem in brain, than eye, evolution). It concentrates on the evolution of eye shape and the lens; this is the problem that Darwin's critics have often pointed to, because they think it requires the simultaneous adjustment of many intricately related parts. Nilsson and Pelger allowed the shape of the model eye to change at random, in steps of no more than 1% change at a time. This fits in with the idea that adaptive evolution proceeds in small gradual stages. The model eye then evolved in the computer, with each new generation formed from the optically superior eyes in the previous generation; changes that made the optics worse were rejected, as selection would reject them in nature.
How long did it take? The complete evolution of an eye like that of a vertebrate or octopus took about 2000 steps. Nilsson and Pelger used estimates of heritability and strength of selection to calculate how long the change might take; their answer was about 400,000 generations. Far from being difficult to evolve, the model shows that it is rather easy.
The work illustrates the value of building models to test our intuitions. Darwin referred to the evolution of complex organs by natural selection as presenting a problem for the imagination, not the reason. This computer study supports his remark.
Seems plausible, what’s the problem? First of all this is an argument for a type of intelligent design. It is interesting that in all the saber rattling against intelligent design, those who are against it end up arguing for intelligent design simply by reintroducing it under a different identity, mainly natural selection. I want you to notice something, in the model there was a computer making decisions as to what constitutes an advantageous change and eliminates changes that are of no benefit or of negative benefit; where does anything like a computer program and a programmer exist naturally in nature? In another article I read in favor of evolution, the writer tried to show the myth of impossible odds in the theory. The writer gave the illustration of trying to get sixes to appear on 20 individual dice. It is false, the writer said, to think that evolution tries to get sixes to appear on all twenty dies with a single throw. What is more accurate is seeing what the odds are if while throwing the dies you allow the sixes to remain on the floor, pick up the non-sixes and re-cast them and so on and so forth. This is how we are told evolution works so that long odds become more of a sure thing. It’s no longer a question of if the human eye will form; it is now a matter of when. Seems like an intelligent design buster that is until you realize that picking and choosing non-sixes requires intelligence similar to the computer program and programmer. There is nothing like a person picking out the undesirables, out there in nature now is there? What good is half a heart? What good is half a lung? I’ll do you one better, what good is a whole heart without a lung or a whole lung without a heart? Now we are supposed to believe, based on the theory of evolution that pure chance guided the process whereby the vast majority of animals require a fully functional heart and lungs to work together. The fact of reality testifies to the impossibility of evolution of species through small chance mutations, given that animals need big changes to occur instantaneously. We need big full hearts and big full lungs now. There is so much more to say on that but I want to proceed to my final point here and perhaps the most devastating, because evolutionists work very hard to hide this fact:
The fossil records contain lots of proofs of species turning into other species right? Wrong! The fossil record contains no and I repeat no taxonomic record. Taxonomic gaps in the fossil records means gaps indicating the series of changes from one organism to another. Please follow me here; you may have believed in the past that the intelligent design people have a body of evidence but that the body of evidence for supporting the evolutionist is so vast and overwhelming that we just can’t compete. I am saying that the evolutionist have NO proof of speciation in the fossil record. And yet they claim science and beat us over the head with it at every turn.
So then, why should I as a rational human being believe in evolution? There are no facts to support the theory; the theory was invented as an anti religious dogma and it lacks logical cogent support. And so I feel justified in reasserting what I said at the start of this series and that is, the theory of evolution is not scientific, never was and never will be. And I have shown that at every point where science calls upon a theory to be scientific, the theory fails. And even as a philosophical world view, cogent logic is noticeably absent from the theory; yet I am sure many of you will take issue with that. I want to hear from you; show me where I’m wrong. I hope you found this work informative and helpful, even if I was unable to persuade you. As always I want to hear from you and until next time, good bye.
©2008 DANIAN MICHAEL HERON
Evolution-Part 3.mp3
We come finally to part 3 of this survey of Evolution. What evidence supports the theory and what is the nature of that evidence.
Can something come from nothing? There is no field of thought where it is considered rational to do so, yet to believe in the theory one must do exactly that. The theory requires its followers to make many leaps of faith; to believe something came from nothing for example. But evolution requires a second leap of faith in that order came from disorder. We have the very opposite of a quality arising from the quality itself. Thirdly, to be an evolutionist you must believe that orderly, inorganic matter had life sprung from it. And fourthly, variations arose from the same identical factors. Once there was a blob then the blob had X, Y and Z act on it to give it life. The evolutionist then says that the blob is no longer a blob, but now it’s carrots, tigers, germs and human beings. In the original state of things all the factors were the same, but in the output of things we get variations. Now I want to know, how do you go from common factors to varied consequences? It is utterly un-scientific to argue in this way. If all the factors were the same in the primordial blob then nothing is going to change in the primordial blob. And if it changes then it will all change. We reason by means of types; the same type of factors causes the same types of results. Is this not one of the laws of science; something has the same type of thing happen when the same type of thing is brought to bear on it. Where would science be if that were not a fundamental presupposition of the natural world?
So Evolution requires four leaps of faith:
1. Something came from nothing.
2. Order came from disorder.
3. Life sprang from non-life.
4. Variations came about from identical factors.
But there are even more leaps of faith for the evolutionist: Somehow this blob turned into a humanoid form (as opposed to a microscopic germ) and then intelligence arouse from non-intelligence. We have a creature without intelligence, not self-aware and without the ability to reason from A to B to C, but now we have a creature capable of all that; how in the world is that possible? Finally we have morality from what is non-moral. If evolution were true, why did human beings become unsatisfied with what is the case and start making judgments on what ought to be the case? Where did we get the concept of, you ought not to go to bed with your neighbor’s wife? I would like an explanation of the evolution of morality.
So what am I getting at? To believe in evolution you must have incredible faith. Greg Bahnsen said once that, “over and against the evolutionist I feel like a complete rationalist as a Christian. I look at this world and I have to say that it was an intelligent God who made all these things. The evolutionist comes along and says man that’s nothing, we don’t have a god, we don’t have any of that. Something came from nothing, life came from non-life, and intelligence sprang from non-intelligence…” In all fairness, the evolutionist does not come out and admit these things, but this lack of evidence and logical cogent support for what he proposes makes his propositions just that, leaps of faith. Now I will be more than happy to eat humble pie and present a part four of this series where I will recant all my pronouncements, if one of you can just give me some logical cogent answers to my questions.
I want to ask another question; what advantage or function is a partially developed sex organ? Allegedly evolution takes place through a series of small incremental changes and that these changes occur over long periods of time; the more advantageous changes are allowed to continue. By the way, I would like an explanation as to what or who is making these intelligent decisions. I would like to know, what does a partially developed genitalia do for you? Can you propagate the species; is it advantageous from the standpoint that it gives pleasure? What is the advantage? How could we have survived in this state given the fact that we couldn’t survive in this state now. If there are any malfunctions in the reproductive system today, couples won’t have kids. How does the evolutionist account for the evolution of the reproductive system? But it gets even better: How did organisms reproduce in their infancy; probably by cell division. Back then billions of years ago when the primordial Blob was struck by lighting (I have read this before and granting the evolutionist absurd request that we give them something came from nothing as an assumption), Life began but that life was simple, single cell organisms and they reproduced how; well by cell division. Now let’s jump to the end of the line: Men and women reproducing in the way we know babies are made today. I would like an explanation as to how we got from cell division to copulation. Why did the different sexes arise out of the blob and why we aren’t all girls or all boys? How did the male and female know what to do to reproduce? But again, it gets even better. How long is a woman capable of reproducing? I’m going to be very generous and say one hundred years (it’s actually closer to 50 on a good day. A woman in India just had a son at age 72). Remember that evolution took place over billions of years and so I ask, is it reasonable to believe that in the span of billions of years, a female humanoid developed a reproductive system while at the same time (within the span of 100 years, but more like 50 for this fertile humanoid female), a male humanoid developed a complete and compatible reproductive system and had a baby? Do you believe that? That is preposterous! Let me put it this way: A female with a fully developed reproductive system evolves in say 200 million B.C. She is now standing around saying to her self, “sure wish I had a man right now to impregnate me. I hope one comes along in the next hundred years or before I die so that we can do this.” Then low and behold, within the span of her being fertile, a fully evolved man taps her on the shoulder and says, “here I am babe let’s go take care of some pressing business.” If you believe that, I have an oil refinery that I would like to sell you. And yet the evolutionist would have us believe this is how you and I came to be.
What about the human eye? I’m not going to go into all the details about how intricate and interdependent all the components of the human eye are, instead let me read you a short article from an evolutionist explaining how the human eye could have evolved:
The eye of a vertebrate or an octopus looks so complex that it can be difficult to believe it could have evolved by natural selection and it has traditionally been an argument against Darwinism by advocates of creationism.
Nilsson and Pelger simulated a model of the eye to find out how difficult its evolution really is. The simulation does not cover the complete evolution of an eye. It takes light-sensitive cells as given and ignores the evolution of advanced perceptual skills (which are more a problem in brain, than eye, evolution). It concentrates on the evolution of eye shape and the lens; this is the problem that Darwin's critics have often pointed to, because they think it requires the simultaneous adjustment of many intricately related parts. Nilsson and Pelger allowed the shape of the model eye to change at random, in steps of no more than 1% change at a time. This fits in with the idea that adaptive evolution proceeds in small gradual stages. The model eye then evolved in the computer, with each new generation formed from the optically superior eyes in the previous generation; changes that made the optics worse were rejected, as selection would reject them in nature.
How long did it take? The complete evolution of an eye like that of a vertebrate or octopus took about 2000 steps. Nilsson and Pelger used estimates of heritability and strength of selection to calculate how long the change might take; their answer was about 400,000 generations. Far from being difficult to evolve, the model shows that it is rather easy.
The work illustrates the value of building models to test our intuitions. Darwin referred to the evolution of complex organs by natural selection as presenting a problem for the imagination, not the reason. This computer study supports his remark.
Seems plausible, what’s the problem? First of all this is an argument for a type of intelligent design. It is interesting that in all the saber rattling against intelligent design, those who are against it end up arguing for intelligent design simply by reintroducing it under a different identity, mainly natural selection. I want you to notice something, in the model there was a computer making decisions as to what constitutes an advantageous change and eliminates changes that are of no benefit or of negative benefit; where does anything like a computer program and a programmer exist naturally in nature? In another article I read in favor of evolution, the writer tried to show the myth of impossible odds in the theory. The writer gave the illustration of trying to get sixes to appear on 20 individual dice. It is false, the writer said, to think that evolution tries to get sixes to appear on all twenty dies with a single throw. What is more accurate is seeing what the odds are if while throwing the dies you allow the sixes to remain on the floor, pick up the non-sixes and re-cast them and so on and so forth. This is how we are told evolution works so that long odds become more of a sure thing. It’s no longer a question of if the human eye will form; it is now a matter of when. Seems like an intelligent design buster that is until you realize that picking and choosing non-sixes requires intelligence similar to the computer program and programmer. There is nothing like a person picking out the undesirables, out there in nature now is there? What good is half a heart? What good is half a lung? I’ll do you one better, what good is a whole heart without a lung or a whole lung without a heart? Now we are supposed to believe, based on the theory of evolution that pure chance guided the process whereby the vast majority of animals require a fully functional heart and lungs to work together. The fact of reality testifies to the impossibility of evolution of species through small chance mutations, given that animals need big changes to occur instantaneously. We need big full hearts and big full lungs now. There is so much more to say on that but I want to proceed to my final point here and perhaps the most devastating, because evolutionists work very hard to hide this fact:
The fossil records contain lots of proofs of species turning into other species right? Wrong! The fossil record contains no and I repeat no taxonomic record. Taxonomic gaps in the fossil records means gaps indicating the series of changes from one organism to another. Please follow me here; you may have believed in the past that the intelligent design people have a body of evidence but that the body of evidence for supporting the evolutionist is so vast and overwhelming that we just can’t compete. I am saying that the evolutionist have NO proof of speciation in the fossil record. And yet they claim science and beat us over the head with it at every turn.
So then, why should I as a rational human being believe in evolution? There are no facts to support the theory; the theory was invented as an anti religious dogma and it lacks logical cogent support. And so I feel justified in reasserting what I said at the start of this series and that is, the theory of evolution is not scientific, never was and never will be. And I have shown that at every point where science calls upon a theory to be scientific, the theory fails. And even as a philosophical world view, cogent logic is noticeably absent from the theory; yet I am sure many of you will take issue with that. I want to hear from you; show me where I’m wrong. I hope you found this work informative and helpful, even if I was unable to persuade you. As always I want to hear from you and until next time, good bye.
©2008 DANIAN MICHAEL HERON
posted by Danian Michael at
10:54 PM
8 Comments:
Well it's about time Danian. I was anxious to see what you would do in part three of this series. And you didn't disappoint. I like what you had to say about the reintroduction of intelligent design under another name. I also appreciated the examples you gave and how you pointed out the intelligent designer in all the example. Do you know how this is countered by the evolutionist? I do have some critique of your presentation for example, are you sure the fossil record don't show any proof of one species turning into another? That fact made me do a "double-take." Is this really true. More later...
Danian,
Male and female (in your example of sexual reproduction) are of the same species. Therefore, they do not evolve seperately to one day meet somewhere "down the line."
This argument implies that a giant leap occurs, but that is exactly opposed to the theory of evolutionary biology. The changes happen in minuscule steps over extremely long periods of time, as you mentioned. There is no reason to believe that large steps must occur.
It is a misunderstanding of evolutionary biology to believe that at some time in history, a humanoid walked around with half a heart or half a lung. That is like saying that in the evolution of the automobile, Henry Ford built (literally) half a Dodge Viper. No--cars evolved in gradual steps. It is reasonable to believe that there were hearts, lungs, eyes, and engines of less complexity.
You should elaborate on your statement that there exists no taxonomic record. I think you mean that the record is not 100% complete. (This is true and will always be true). The records that we do have, however, ALWAYS support evolutionary theory. The fact that there are "holes" does nothing to disprove evolution. Should we pretend that evolution did not happen until we have every single bone ever buried? No, we should make a logical conclusion based on available evidence. This is not a leap of faith, this is reason.
Agent of Change,
Thank you for your comments and kind words. The answer to your question is yes it is true; there is no taxonomic information in the fossil record. Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.
As to your question about how the idea of the intelligent designer is countered by the evolutionist; I'm not even sure they are aware of that problem in their explanation of natural selection or impossible odds. They, that is to say the evolutionist, tend to anthropomorphize natural selection when they explain its role in nature. But no, I'm not sure they are even aware of the problem or even if they would acknowledge it as a problem.
Sad Machines,
Welcome back and thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.
Let me respond to your first comment (the first three paragraphs): I like your use of the Henry Ford/ Dodge Viper analogy and equating the evolution of species to the evolution of the car. I have to respectful reject your premise that cars evolved in the same way that the evolutionist would say human beings evolved. Cars have design teams with PhD’s and engineering degrees solving problems and improving on the design. I ask again, where does anything like an engineering team exist in nature? Again you have unintentionally presented an argument for intelligent Design. And with all due respect, men and women are very different in some very important ways. From a natural science point of view, sure we study men and women under one group but from an evolutionary stand point the different sexes can not just be taken for granted, it must be accounted for in the process of evolution. So I ask you, did male and female develop completely compatible reproductive systems at the same rate and at the same moment in time? And if so, why during the process did the evolution of the reproductive system continue given the fact that there is no advantage to a partially developed sex organ or in your case a partially developed less complicated sex organ? You see in your car analogy even less complicated cars needed a fully functioning engine, transmission and fuel distribution system. And I think you would admit that there was a point when a car was not a car but was only rolls of sheet metal, oil in the ground and natural deposited minerals. It took an intelligent designer to see how the combination of these useless things (apart from each other) could be used together to serve a larger purpose. Where was natural selection in this process?
With regards to the fossil records: I meant to develop this further in the presentation but decided against it for brevity. So here it is, my development: I am going to say it again that there contains NO record of intermediate species in the fossil record. So embarrassing is this fact that your buddy Steven J. Gould forwarded the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium over and against Gradualism. Others helped but Gould was the main guy; the theory states basically this: Evolution does not occur uniformly and over long periods of time. Instead what you have is a lot of evolutionary activity and then (almost like the snap of a finger) it stops and levels out. Thousands of years past and then (again like the snap of a finger) evolution picks up again creates a bunch of species and then snap, it levels out again. If evolution occurs in short burst as Gould believes then there won’t be any record of intermediate species. In Steven Gould’s own words, this is why there is no record of intermediate species in the fossil record.
Now Sad Machines, if you believe there is in fact taxonomic record in the fossil record, then I hate to tell you this but even your own idol (sorry just being funny) Steven J. Gould don’t believe that and that you hold a minority view (in the face of counter evidence) to your colleagues who know what is going on out there in fossil world.
What say you? Hope you write again…
Danian,
My automobile example only provides an argument for intelligent design if you assume that all design must be intelligent. If you want a better example, then please explain the "intelligent design" in spoken languages. You would certainly agree that language changes with time and geography...who makes up the linguistics team making all of the decisions for the subtle changes?
Female and male sexuality evolved from a-sexuality. Once again, this did not happen at a moment in time. Regarding partially developed sex organs, you are assuming that the only sex organs that provide any benefit are those as we know them today. There WAS a benefit for a partially developed less complicated sex organ. Genetic diversity = better odds for survival.
As for punctuated equilibrium, let us analyze Gould's position. Gould (with Eldredge) looked at the available evidence at the time (absence of intermediate species), in 1972, and came to his logical conclusion: evolution happens in "bursts". Well, that sounds to me like science. And by the way, not all evolutionary biologists hold this viewpoint. There have been other hypotheses forwarded.
There an important point here: science is willing to revise its position when new evidence suggests to do so. Science does not just insist that the traditional view is a single truth and we should ignore any new discoveries that might contradict it. No, that thought process is for another group.
Punctuated Equilibrium is not an argument against evolution, it is merely one forwarded hypothesis to explain the known fossil record.
Sad Machines,
I must say that I was looking forward to how you would respond:
Anyway, I have to respectfully reject your premise that not all design is intelligent; design implies intelligence. And even if you were right, all the examples you sited had an intelligent designer. So then you can’t have it both ways Sad Machines; if you believe that the eye is what it is because of un-guided, pure chance (however you want to say that) then don’t use the automobile as an example. May I suggest that a better approach might have been to say that the eye was not designed, eliminate your example of the car, rejected the computer analysis and also the idea of natural selection and then say that the eye is what it is because of pure chance; which by the way some evolutionists have done. As I have said before natural selection requires decisions on what constitute an advantageous change with also a grasp of the big picture, of the final product if you will and that requires intelligence of some sort. Let me illustrate: If I’m going to develop a carburetor for a car then I must have some idea of how it will fit into the whole car. If I constructed say a mouse pad, the only way I could reject the mouse pad as being of no advantage in my car is if I know what is required in a whole car. Do you get my point, although I’m sure you will disagree with me.
The only reason I sited Gould was to refute your position on the fossil record. I was not using it as an argument against evolution; it would be foolish and dishonest of me to say that Steven Gould was trying to tear down his own position. My point was simply this; you said I was wrong about the absence of taxonomic information in the fossil record so I sited the leading evolutionist’s support of what I had stated. That is all I was doing.
Now we can get into the arguments for and against Punctuated Equilibrium if you wish but I will say this: The development of that theory proves what I have been saying all along and that is; the evolutionist has a pre-commitment to the theory and nothing is going to be allowed to prove it wrong. Don’t get me wrong, we all do this, Christians too have a pre-commitment to the truth of scriptures but we have never been uncomfortable with that. Atheists have a pre-commitment to atheistic views. The question is: Whose pre-commitments make sense of life and experience and whose does not.
Great discussion can we keep it going?
Hi, Danian. I think your last statement wraps up this never-ending evolution vs. creation debate. We all believe that we came to be in a certain way and not much will change the average person's view.
Your opening states that evolution requires faith as does any religion. Is there complete proof that evolution is legitimate? No. Is there complete proof that the Bible contains 100% truth? No. You seem to be saying that the data and theories are too outlandish for you to bite. I feel the same way about the Bible. Who's right? You and I will never know.
Neither you nor I are experts at evolution providing for an intelligent debate of the subject. All we could really do is lob grenades from fact sheets we've come across, never converting one another. For example, I just did a search on 'evolution' on Amazon and found over 330,000 results, and the very first book listed, written by a geologist, claims to dispel your claim that there is no taxonomic proof.
Whose pre-commitment makes sense of life and experience? Mine works just fine for me.
Danian,
I agree that the evolution of the automobile was guided by intelligence, however, I have not used this example to show an example of natural selection, but merely to show that in the steps taken to achieve the highest order (the car as we know if today) there were intermediate levels of less complex mechanisms. Certainly, the motor in the Model T was appropriately designed and functioned well for the Model T. This same motor would not provide the function in a modern vehicle to achieve the current performance expectations. In the same way, some level of sexual reproductive organs was beneficial in early ancestors, but that does not mean that the same sex organ would be beneficial today. Similarly, the evolution of the eye is explained. Would an early creature benefit from have a couple of light-sensitive cells? Certainly. Then, would the following generation benefit from having light and motion-sensitive cells? And so on and so on until we have what is known as the eye today. Just because the eye is a complex organ does not mean it must be designed by intelligence. Anyone interested can find a simple explanation on YouTube given by Richard Dawkins about 20 years ago.
You are right that I will disagree with your view on "decisions" made for evolution. To truly understand this theory, you have to let go of the notion that an intelligence must be guiding changes. Why can't environment dictate the changes? To quote your favorite evolutionist Gould, "It got colder before the woolly mammoth evolved its shaggy coat."
I agree with Reality Check that citing example after example seems get us nowhere, and I think we should acknowledge the reason for this. I feel as though Evolutionists and Creationists are slightly offset. I mean, the two opinions are really on different subjects. Religious faith, by definition, is supernatural. It can neglect the evidence found in nature whenever it wants, claiming that metaphysical explanation trumps. This is why a Creationist claims that there are no transitional forms in the fossil record. The evolutionist, though, would cite the remains of reptile-birds, reptile-mammals, ape-humans, and legged whales and seacows as reasonable evidence. When will it be enough? Many creationists say that if evolution is true we should unearth a dog with antlers or a mermaid. Well, that is simply a gross misunderstanding of evolution and natural selection.
Let us look at it this way: Evolution can be proven or disproven with scientific evidence. Whether or not science has a precommitment to evolution does not matter, as long as some contradicting evidence is brought to light. Danian, you would argue that this evidence has already been shown and the evolutionists will not accept it, but of course I disagree. Creationists have only pointed out what science might not yet know, and they have rejected reasonable scientific evidence to support evolution. On the other side, intelligent design cannot be proven with scientific evidence, and it cannot be disproven either. This is why so many schools appropriately decide not to teach ID as science. This brings me to the conclusion that any resolution will have to come from raw data, as evidence that is not questionable. So, even though hurling examples and citing quotes might seem to get us nowhere, ultimately it is evidence that will resolve this issue.
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