Theory of Evolution exposed

[jlay]

Spare me your anecdotes, answer the quesation. What EMPIRICAL evidence do you have for God?

I've already told you, if you can't deduce that function equals design from what you observe everyday (empirically) in your own life, then what would convince you? And further, what does that have to do with the theory of evolution being correct or not? I can show you any functioning device, simple or complex and then explain how function dictates a mind. You just refuse the evidence, which is stubborn.
There are no anecdotes. I've shown how you have continually misrepresented my position, built strawmen, conflated, equivocated, and begged the question. You refuse to acknowlege the issue I've brought forth, and resort to moving the goal post, or accusing me of anecdotes. I honestly don't know if it's pride or delusion. If you want to continue on this path, then your stubborness is here for all to see.

Would there be disagreement in regards to the following?
Evolution is change over a period of time that allows for a living organism to adapt to the demands imposed by it's environment.

Actually, you can find several issues with this. For one, it presumes evolution is a force. Saying evolution is change is fine. Saying it "allows," implies that it is a force acting on nature. Changes over time may result in the survivability of an organism. You and I are living organisms. What adaptations can our environment account for? The flu virus is NOT adapting. It is simply the result of lost or distorted code resulting in an advantage.
The word adapt means to MAKE suitable or fit. Fitness in the case of the flu is an accident. Evolution is not a thing that it "makes" anything. Nor is NS. Darwinism smuggles in an unseen force shaping things in nature. It is a God without a moral conscience. This is the question begging that saturates this way of thinking. So much, that most of these fallacies are committed in ignorance.
Now let's talk about the demands of environment. Let's take thick fur. Thick fur would be an advantage in cold weather. Does nature know this? No. Does the organism? No. Over time thick furred animals will prevail because an accidental trait was more fit to survice. The thin fur will die out. OK, now how does this account for fur in the first place? We can see how the genetic info was passed on to each descendant. Neo says that this is evidence that humans and apes share a common ancestor. But as I've shown it requires question begging among other fallacy. It presumes that biological material can presume what it will need. Vision, hearing, taste, etc. and then over billions of years of coding errors, pop out a fully functioning eye that works in conjunction with all these other functioning systems.

Fallacious You are assuming that it is empirical to observe function in nautre, jumping to the conclusion of God. It is emprical proof that such a thing as function exists but not emprical proof of God. That is only a logical assumption.

Neo. No assumption. You don't have to assume. Take a pair of scissors. Without ever seeing the designer I can deduce a designer because the scissors function. When we observe funtion in scissors, electronics, etc., we can know that design preceeds function, and design requires an intelligence. Even your own worldview says that a designer designed the laws that made it all happen. It doesn't dictate that the designer be the God of the Bible, per se. ID doesn't make those arguments. However, as a presuppositionalists, I find many compelling reasons to infer the God of the Bible. But for the sake of discussion I am not claiming "made by the Christian God." In that regard I am not an evidentialists. So once again, you have misrepresented my position.

[RickD]

neo wrote:
Fallacious You are assuming that it is empirical to observe function in nautre, jumping to the conclusion of God. It is emprical proof that such a thing as function exists but not emprical proof of God. That is only a logical assumption.

neo, emperical evidence is knowledge derived by observation or experimentation. Observation shows me that an ecosystem, and the human body have function written all over them. And function needs a designer. How can you argue against that? Your argument for "function doesn't demand a designer", would be like me observing a lamborghini racing down the street, and arguing that it was randomly formed without a designer.

I think faith in naturalistic evolution has caused you to check your brain at the door, Neo.

[PaulSacramento]

PaulSacramento wrote:Would there be disagreement in regards to the following?
Evolution is change over a period of time that allows for a living organism to adapt to the demands imposed by it's environment.


Actually, you can find several issues with this. For one, it presumes evolution is a force. Saying evolution is change is fine. Saying it "allows," implies that it is a force acting on nature. Changes over time may result in the survivability of an organism. You and I are living organisms. What adaptations can our environment account for? The flu virus is NOT adapting. It is simply the result of lost or distorted code resulting in an advantage.
The word adapt means to MAKE suitable or fit. Fitness in the case of the flu is an accident. Evolution is not a thing that it "makes" anything. Nor is NS. Darwinism smuggles in an unseen force shaping things in nature. It is a God without a moral conscience. This is the question begging that saturates this way of thinking. So much, that most of these fallacies are committed in ignorance.
Now let's talk about the demands of environment. Let's take thick fur. Thick fur would be an advantage in cold weather. Does nature know this? No. Does the organism? No. Over time thick furred animals will prevail because an accidental trait was more fit to survice. The thin fur will die out. OK, now how does this account for fur in the first place? We can see how the genetic info was passed on to each descendant. Neo says that this is evidence that humans and apes share a common ancestor. But as I've shown it requires question begging among other fallacy. It presumes that biological material can presume what it will need. Vision, hearing, taste, etc. and then over billions of years of coding errors, pop out a fully functioning eye that works in conjunction with all these other functioning systems

.

There is no need to presume evolution is a force, it's just a name used to categorize beneficial changes that a living organism goes through to help it survive.
We should start debating WHY these changes happen much less what is the driving force until we agree what it means, right?
Some changes happen that help the organism survive, others that don't ( I am not sure if changes happen that hinder but IF evolution is random, I don't see why not).
I think the issues seems that one group says it is UNGUIDED and that "nature" goes through a process of random change till it hits on the right one to survive.
The other things that the process must be guided and must be intelligent.
IMO, both have merits and both have serious issues.
IF change is unguided and all is by chance, they it seems that I should have won the lottery by now since the chances are far higher than evolution working under certain species under the given timelines.
IF Change is 100% guided and intelligent, how do we explain the appendix or parasitic wasps?
Know what I mean?

[jlay]

Paul,

Again, I think this will be harder than you think because like so many, there are many presuppositions in how the terms are used that aren't accounted for.
It kind of seems in your wording that you are making these same presumptions.
You have a concept of survivability.
Do the changes in the flu virus happen as a result of survivability. Or is survivability a result of change? The devil is in the details. I would say the later is true.

IF Change is 100% guided and intelligent, how do we explain the appendix or parasitic wasps?
Know what I mean?

I've had several detailed threads on the appendix. The appendix is an example of atrophy. Just as if an ey, that was always in the dark would not develop the same as one in the light. What is lost in the appendix is a perfect illustration of function. Why did the appendix atrophy? It's function isn't being utilized. But how does this account for the existance of the appendix in the first place? it doesn't.

So, I wouldn't state that the change is guided and intelligent. Only in the sense of a first mover as conceived of by Aquinas.

[PaulSacramento]

Paul,

Again, I think this will be harder than you think because like so many, there are many presuppositions in how the terms are used that aren't accounted for.
It kind of seems in your wording that you are making these same presumptions.
You have a concept of survivability.
Do the changes in the flu virus happen as a result of survivability. Or is survivability a result of change? The devil is in the details. I would say the later is true.

IF Change is 100% guided and intelligent, how do we explain the appendix or parasitic wasps?
Know what I mean?

I've had several detailed threads on the appendix. The appendix is an example of atrophy. Just as if an ey, that was always in the dark would not develop the same as one in the light. What is lost in the appendix is a perfect illustration of function. Why did the appendix atrophy? It's function isn't being utilized. But how does this account for the existance of the appendix in the first place? it doesn't.

So, I wouldn't state that the change is guided and intelligent. Only in the sense of a first mover as conceived of by Aquinas.

Ah, I see, so A case of God instilling in Us (living organisms) the ability to adapt and to survive in our every changing environment, yes?
That some organisms adapt in what may be seemed as a "horrific way" ( parasitic wasps) is only because God does NOT directly guide the process of adaptability, yes?

[Philip]

Mine is belief that there is and can be considerable change within a species - micro evolution, yes; macro evolution, no. Sea creatures becoming land animals? No. An ape to man? No! Whatever length of time to do so - no!

[Philip]

Evidence for God is abundant, as there are so many incredible things that naturalism can't explain. The Big Bang was not just some random explosion - but, within moments of beginning, it exhibited a very precisely orchestrated event with the specific properties necessary for the universe that it created. What caused it and how did its properties just happen to be exactly what the universe to come would need to exist - pure dumb chance. Only atheists and agnostics have such faith.

But naturalism is chock full of so many theories and concern mechanisms and properties that came into existence by themselves - just mind-blowing, exponentially incredible process after process that are not only astonishing by themselves, but that also much function in countless interdependencies and perfect sequences. If true, pure dumb luck is way smarter than any mathematician can ever calculate.

[Sam1995]

Quick question, is the Big Bang regarded as the beginning of time or is time eternal in line with the Big Bang theory?

SB

[PaulSacramento]

Quick question, is the Big Bang regarded as the beginning of time or is time eternal in line with the Big Bang theory?

SB

One of the big questions.
Is time relative?
What was before there was time? can there be a "before" without time?
Of course these are NOT questions physics can answer because science and physics were born in time and slave/dependent to time.
IF the universe had a beginning, then time as WE know it, began there to since time as WE know it is based on THIS universe and it's laws.
As WE know them.

[bippy123]

Mine is belief that there is and can be considerable change within a species - micro evolution, yes; macro evolution, no. Sea creatures becoming land animals? No. An ape to man? No! Whatever length of time to do so - no!

Exactly what I now believe Philip, and it took me 42 years to get to that point and that was because in my first 42 years I had accepted macroevolution as true A Priori, without even looking at the evidence for it, and I would even debate on the side of macroevolution, but once I saw how much macro was based on assumptions then real science I started to have doubts about macro. It was a long 3 year process but it was one based on the lack of evidence for it not because it effected my theological beliefs.

[Philip]

Plus (and this has probably been redundantly stated), Bippy, but if one wants to believe that man evolved, then he also has to throw out all literal understanding about how Adam and Eve were created - separately so from ALL animals, and with neither of them having earthly parents. And, certainly, if Adam and Eve were the results of some long evolutionary processes - and thus each came from a mother and father - then they would not have been the only ones of their species already alive. Even if various hominids were alive at the time of Adam's creation, and Scripturally, they would have been considered animals.

"And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. THEN God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Note the differences between "according to its kind" and "according to their kinds." If God took a pre-existing hominid and then installed it with a soul/with His Image, why doesn't it say so? Why come from the "dust" and a "rib?"

(Genesis 1:25-26 ESV)

If the Genesis story of Adam and Eve is not true - merely allegorical - then the whole deal with eating the forbidden fruit, original sin, etc. - throw it out if you believe in evolution. Eve coming from Adam's rib? Only a Sunday School story!

Genesis 2: "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." My understanding of this would mean that 1) Adam was formed from dust and that AFTER his body was completed, THEN God breathed life into his nostrils.

"But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Eve wasn't born either - she was formed FROM ADAM'S RIB.

In Romans 5:14 Paul refers to Adam as a real person. The genealogies of Scripture refer to Adam as being in lineage leading to Christ. How could he not have been a real person?

Belief in evolution means stripping the classically understood origins of Genesis' first human's from Scripture. And why would God put myth-like descriptions (akin to something out of a children's book) into His word?

[Byblos]

Belief in evolution means stripping the classically understood origins of Genesis' first human's from Scripture. And why would God put myth-like descriptions (akin to something out of a children's book) into His word?

Not true at all. The Catholic Church affirms (de fide) the literal Adam and Eve and yet leaves open the door for believers to consider the theory of evolution. There is no conflict between the two. As bippy said, if you want to reject it, reject it on the basis of lack of evidence but please stop peddling the idea that it contradicts scripture.

[RickD]

Philip, I'm not a Theistic Evolutionist, but I'll give it a shot.

Philip wrote:
Bippy, but if one wants to believe that man evolved, then he also has to throw out all literal understanding about how Adam and Eve were created -

That would depend on what one's definition of "literal" is. TEs may believe the "literal" interpretation of the Genesis creation account was symbolic or metaphorical.

Philip wrote:
If the Genesis story of Adam and Eve is not true - merely allegorical - then the whole deal with eating the forbidden fruit, original sin, etc. - throw it out if you believe in evolution. Eve coming from Adam's rib? Only a Sunday School story!

Philip, Even as an OECer who believes in a literal reading of Genesis, I'm not sure a literal fruit is necessary.

Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
If I'm wrong here, please correct me. Don't TEs believe God took an existing hominid, and gave him a spirit? Is that what making man in the image of God means? Maybe then, TEs believe God took that first human, first because he was the first with a spiritual nature, and then made the first woman from him?

Again, I'm not a TE. Just trying to understand from the compromiser's, er I mean TE pov.

[Philip]

Evolution most certainly DOES contradict Scripture. If not, please explain how the creation of Adam and Eve can accommodate that - per Genesis.

[Philip]

Philip, Even as an OECer who believes in a literal reading of Genesis, I'm not sure a literal fruit is necessary.

Rick, I might agree with that.

But the Genesis account states that Adam was the first of his kind (confirmed by 1 Corinthians 15:45), and of the only kind made in God's image. There is no indication whatsoever that Adam was the end result of parents of any kind, hominid or otherwise. And he was formed BEFORE receiving the breath of life from God, as he had nostrils that received God's breath. And as Eve was formed from Adam - so Theistic Evolutionists, SPIN THAT. How do you work evolutionary processes into THAT. You can't - UNLESS you deny the plain meaning of the wording in Genesis.