ID...why isn't it religion?

[Gman]

Back in the 80's I was definitely taught macro-evolution in the public school systems. If they are not teaching it now it is because there is no proof of it.. That is why the lean is on micro-evolution now.

[obsolete]

Back in the 80's I was definitely taught macro-evolution in the public school systems. If they are not teaching it now it is because there is no proof of it.. That is why the lean is on micro-evolution now.

I was taught the same thing back then. I have noticed that they always change how they teach and evaluate evolution. Yet, creation stands firm. But even micro-evolution is shakey at best. Especially when you look at things from a biochemical angle.

[Gman]

I was taught the same thing back then. I have noticed that they always change how they teach and evaluate evolution. Yet, creation stands firm. But even micro-evolution is shakey at best. Especially when you look at things from a biochemical angle.

Yes, also interesting they would still call it micro-evolution. How can you have micro without having the macro?

[godslanguage]

LOL, yes GMAN makes an excellent point.

I suspect micro is used more often in scientific research in laboratories. Macro changes would be extrapolated not so much from research in the laboratory, but through the fossil record, gathering data that way. Both are of course different types of research platforms and making the distinction between types of evolution would seem correct. The problem of course is whether evolution actually works the way demonstrated on a micro-scale to fit a macro-scale and vice-versa, the evidence suggests a big no no, according to Professor Behe who explored those limits with hard data, particularly with malaria(malarial parasite) and HIV(another parasite). I think I might go through a summary of each chapter on a brand new thread just to put things into perspective for those who haven't read it.

[Kurieuo]

"Macro" evolution only exists in the minds of creationists. Modern science makes no such distinction. We could be swayed if you could tell me when "lots of micro" becomes "macro" and what can possibly stop that from being so. Does God go "whoa whoa whoa, let's stop evolving now"? lol

I've heard both micro and macro used within modern science and scientific journals. Are you sure you are not meaning "Himantolophus science"?

doesn't matter, you still haven't "drawn the line" where one becomes the other. Species to species, genus to genus, family to family? What?

Actually I have on numerous occasions on this board defined the difference as I see it between macroevolution and microevolution, and I am fairly certain within thread you would have participated. Do a search for kurieuo with macroevolution and microevolution as keywords. I'm sure it will turn them up.

[godslanguage]

The other question is whether evolution is still occurring, according to Professor John A. Davison present evolution is at a screeching halt. Next, we add Behe's claims to the equation, do those fit well with JAD's hypothesis which BTW is the prescribed evolutionary hypothesis? Given the hard data by Behe on what DE can do (which is very little), given JAD''s hypothesis that evolution took place but is no longer occurring and was predetermined....

[Barbara]

Why would it have to be a religion? ID, in my opinion, should be collective intelligence.
This is obvious if you research all of the extinction records. I study microbiology, origin of life, DNA, religion, and every other field of science that inspires me to know the real truth. In my early 30's, I believed that God did not exist. I did understand its strong influence that probably prevented us from extinction from killing each other in early history.

Anyway, the more research I did of microorganisms, I realized that the information I was learning was very similiar to what is taught of God's power and abilities. I had to go back and read Genesis and I found that the stories were very similiar in interpretation. I looked at many other religious beliefs concerning how life began, both current and ancient religious cultures and I found the same similiarities in how it was interpreted and shared.

Science and religion are talking about the same creator (s) but in many different versions for humans to relate to and how they lived socially in their environment since the dawn of mankind.

I understand what was really meant when God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge, 7 deadly sins, 10 commandments and how it all relates to microorganisms. I understand why God promises eternal life upon your death in how it is important to microbes in the cycle to sustain life.

I have been writing my thoughts, theories, and so on that I see the same pattern of factual truths from all experts in their field of science and all religions. This planet is home to trillions of microbes that live in us (so we can live) and completely cover the entire earth right up to the ozone layer and probably beyond.

Our vision of reality (conscious mind -self awareness) is an allusion but our emotional being is ancient and it knows it is connected to the entire web of life and this is where our spiritual connection to a higher being is creating in all life forms.

[Leprechaun]

@ godslanguage
Here is a link suggesting that human evolution is actually speeding up rather than coming to a "screeching halt".
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives ... lution.htm

[godslanguage]

The evidence clearly and plainly tells us evolution is going nowhere. Due to the present environmental pressures (alot of which is human induced) it is obvious extinction is taking place at a much more rapid rate and that looks to be the direction it will continue to go while at the same time scientists are going haywire in trying to find concrete evidence for change such as those that lead to new complex structures. It should be backwards given the past 150 years have been the most influencing period this planet and its subsequent inhabitance have ever experienced.

Just to add, why extinction? The answer is forced migration. This is where the creative powers of Darwinian Evolution are supposed to kick in. The Darwinians will tell you that this is predicted as well, and natural selection is just doing its job, filtering as well as creating. I will say one thing, the evidence for filtering is much greater then it is for creating, do we draw absolutes with this? I think not, but it supports the notion that evolution is not acting the way for upgrades as well as it is acting for downgrades. At this rate, you never know how long homo-sapien can keep up with the changes they're inducing which all eventually have a feedback effect.

[Himantolophus]

Actually I have on numerous occasions on this board defined the difference as I see it between macroevolution and microevolution, and I am fairly certain within thread you would have participated. Do a search for kurieuo with macroevolution and microevolution as keywords. I'm sure it will turn them up.

I looked up the past post and I won't say anymore on the definitions of macro vs. micro although I still can't see where the line between the two is drawn. I still see a small accumulation of changes (species to species) as being seen as "microevolution", but an even larger accumulation of changes (genus to genus) is something more. Additional changes over time warrant family to family differences. Now if we stop and compare both of these families as single units, they would have appeared to be significantly different ("macroevolved") YET they diverged by "microevolutionary" means over long periods of time. I can see YEC being against this (long timescales), but I don't see why this cannot be at least considered by OEC's as being possible. Oh yeah, it would take "creationist" and "design" out of nature. That's the only reason I can see for the objections.

So I guess the fact that the words are in use or not means nothing. Creationists accept microevolution solely because it can be observed. Macroevolution, since it cannot be observed, is still theoretical? Is it that simple?

The evidence clearly and plainly tells us evolution is going nowhere. Due to the present environmental pressures (alot human induced) it is obvious extinction is taking place at a much more rapid rate and that looks to be the direction it will continue to go while at the same time scientists are going haywire in trying to find concrete evidence for change such as those that lead to new complex structures. It should be backwards given the past 150 years have been the most influencing period this planet and its subsequent inhabitance have ever experienced.

although timescales may not allow us to witness life's evolutionary reaction to Man's destruction, and Man's burgeoning presence may not allow complex life to act as it did in the past to change, it is quite a statement to assert that evolution is going nowhere! Speciation is occurring as we speak and coevolution (pred-prey arms races) are constantly ongoing. Man's rapid destruction of the natural world has simply gone at too fast of a pace for the slow processes of evolution to keep up. Life has shown a poor ability to deal with rapid environmental changes (see the 6 mass extinctions). However, a select group of survivors always takes over and there seems to be an evolutionary "burst" due to the opening of new unoccupied niches. How exactly the evolution suddenly goes into overdrive is unknown (the uniformitarian vs. punctuated equilibrium debate). The correlation between mass extinctions and rapid diversification is an interesting question. Since we are smack-dab in the middle of the mass extinction, we cannot really tell or predict what will happen when Man is removed from the equation (and it won't stop until Man eventually wipes himself out).

[David Blacklock]

Hi Hman,

Very good post. I have been listening to an audio about fossilized relics in DNA. There are undoubtedly thousands of them, where a useful gene slowly falls into phenotypic disuse while being "selected out." The gene eventually gathers mutations which don't affect the phenotype but leaves family tree evidence that can't be ignored without...uh...just deciding to ignore it. That's not completely true - there is a relative learning curve about scientific things I probably take too much for granted. This is relevant to the thread in that these relics are completely antithetical to ID - yet they exist in abundance and by and large confirm the family trees put together by paleontology and related evolutionary disciplines.

DB

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

Our vision of reality (conscious mind -self awareness) is an allusion but our emotional being is ancient and it knows it is connected to the entire web of life and this is where our spiritual connection to a higher being is creating in all life forms.

Could you elaborate on this a little? Thanks!

FL

[Kurieuo]

Actually I have on numerous occasions on this board defined the difference as I see it between macroevolution and microevolution, and I am fairly certain within thread you would have participated. Do a search for kurieuo with macroevolution and microevolution as keywords. I'm sure it will turn them up.

I looked up the past post and I won't say anymore on the definitions of macro vs. micro although I still can't see where the line between the two is drawn. I still see a small accumulation of changes (species to species) as being seen as "microevolution", but an even larger accumulation of changes (genus to genus) is something more. Additional changes over time warrant family to family differences. Now if we stop and compare both of these families as single units, they would have appeared to be significantly different ("macroevolved") YET they diverged by "microevolutionary" means over long periods of time. I can see YEC being against this (long timescales), but I don't see why this cannot be at least considered by OEC's as being possible. Oh yeah, it would take "creationist" and "design" out of nature. That's the only reason I can see for the objections.

It is possible a natural mechanism exists for creating new biological information (macroevolution) and we simply do not know what it is. I personally see too much design to not believe in it. Perhaps you miss this design I see. For example, we need not only dwell on biological evolution but can take the issue back to how life came to be. How did life evolve from non-life? We can take it back to the "big bang". How did our universe as intricate and stable as it is come to be? Or, if one opts for a multi-universe scenario, then where did the natural laws which govern each individual universe and also the cross-universal laws (for example, those laws which govern the spawning of each universe from one to the next) come from? Presumably such laws could have been otherwise. I see no valid reason why these natural laws could not have actually been different to what they are. Thus, they are contingent, but upon what?

Let us both not kid ourselves. It takes a decision based upon faith on either side to believe one way or the other. I just happen to think more evidence is on my side that a real Designer does in fact exist behind it all, and I believe this Designer to be a being such as God. I further find Christianity to be the most plausible and compelling of God-based beliefs. I find it to be rationally consistent with beliefs we intuitively believe or take for granted, for example, that there is an ultimate meaning to life, some things really are bad and some things really good no matter what anyone says, we each really do have a unique identity, we ultimately have the freedom to choose and as such we are responsible for our actions, justice really can be carried out since people really are responsible for their actions (rather than the Naturalist alternative that our actions are determined by chemical reactions and physical atoms colliding), guilt is not something to be discarded as an adaptation we would be better with out, and I could go on.

For myself, all this and more form a collective argument for God over and against Metaphysical Naturalism. Therefore I have little faith in positions which arise out of a cultural climate that virtues natural-only solutions regardless of how implausible they might sound. I think it takes more faith to rule out "creationist" and "design" solutions altogether.

[Himantolophus]

It is possible a natural mechanism exists for creating new biological information (macroevolution) and we simply do not know what it is. I personally see too much design to not believe in it. Perhaps you miss this design I see.

Yes, it is easy to see that things "appear designed", but whether God was intimately involved in the creation of all species or if he simply created evolution as his mechanism of creation is up to anyone's guess. Both are possible considering the impossibility of going back and seeing for ourselves or testing it directly. I still think the microevolutionary changes we have observed in speciation can be extrapolated into macroevolution over long time spans. There is no evidence coming from the OEC/ID side that explains when/how/why God created each new species. A naturalistic "species generator" calibrated in the Beginning by God seems more likely (aka evolution).

For example, we need not only dwell on biological evolution but can take the issue back to how life came to be. How did life evolve from non-life? We can take it back to the "big bang". How did our universe as intricate and stable as it is come to be? Or, if one opts for a multi-universe scenario, then where did the natural laws which govern each individual universe and also the cross-universal laws (for example, those laws which govern the spawning of each universe from one to the next) come from?

I believe God created the Universe in the Beginning, whether that be the current one or whatever was first. He appears to have created it in "Big Bang style" since it is expanding from a single point.

Presumably such laws could have been otherwise. I see no valid reason why these natural laws could not have actually been different to what they are. Thus, they are contingent, but upon what?

Without evidence for these "changing rates" in the past, I have no need to think they were any different. The only rate that appears to change is the rate of evolution (coinciding with the aftermath of mass extinctions). Could God have programmed it to work that way to quickly repopulate the planet)? Who knows.

Let us both not kid ourselves. It takes a decision based upon faith on either side to believe one way or the other. I just happen to think more evidence is on my side that a real Designer does in fact exist behind it all, and I believe this Designer to be a being such as God. I further find Christianity to be the most plausible and compelling of God-based beliefs. I find it to be rationally consistent with beliefs we intuitively believe or take for granted, for example, that there is an ultimate meaning to life, some things really are bad and some things really good no matter what anyone says, we each really do have a unique identity, we ultimately have the freedom to choose and as such we are responsible for our actions, justice really can be carried out since people really are responsible for their actions (rather than the Naturalist alternative that our actions are determined by chemical reactions and physical atoms colliding), guilt is not something to be discarded as an adaptation we would be better with out, and I could go on.

I'm not looking to change anyone's mind here. I agree with most of what you have said in this paragraph except for the extent of God's intervention in creation. I don't consider naturalism as a religion since we aren't "worshipping" evolution. We "believe" in it because of the evidence, not because of religion. Science is separate from religion. Naturalism vs. theism is another topic altogether and I'm not prepared to get into that

For myself, all this and more form a collective argument for God over and against Metaphysical Naturalism. Therefore I have little faith in positions which arise out of a cultural climate that virtues natural-only solutions regardless of how implausible they might sound. I think it takes more faith to rule out "creationist" and "design" solutions altogether.

I'm not an atheist naturalist so I'm not going to be taking that stance. There is ground between atheism/naturalism and OEC/ID. That's where I stand.

[Himantolophus]

Simply put: If God created naturalistic evolution, can it really be considered naturalism?