Evidence for God from Science

Felgar wrote:Well, given that God designed the universe, and that we cannot leave the universe, His design permeates everything. Let's take just a normal mountain: Is it designed? It is affected by water erosion, gravity, tectonic movement, plant growth, animal activity, etc. All of those things are a result of God's design, so how can we ever see something that's NOT designed? In the end everything is bound by God's design.

I suppose I can understand. Because of God's nature, everything is designed somehow. But, as the example of Mount Rushmore was used, somethings may not be directly designed. For example, God may wind up his machine and let the thinks go as he wanted them to.

I think we're disagreeing because we're not thinking of the same definition of "design". I'm thinking more of design as in literal, like a statue or Mount Rushmore.

Sorry, I never meant to say that science and faith are not compatible. On the contrary, my work as a scientist has only increased my faith. My comment is directed at explaining a specific observation by invoking the supernatural; when one does this, one effectively gives up pursuing an explanation using scientific methods.

It is my observation that religion historically has been used as a supernatural explanation for observed phenomena, and if these explanations had been accepted as a matter of unquestioned faith, the world would indeed very a very different place now. (We wouldn't be having this discussion using the internet.)

Biology in general, and evolution in particular, are current examples of this practice. ID and its chief proponents use the concept of some outside force guided by intelligence (which sounds like the supernatural) to explain the existence of life. Unfortunately I think this is philosophy, not science, as there is no way to demonstrate this; and much of what is accepted as proof are just arguments based on our current lack of full scientific explanation.

However, one thing is very clear: most of us have a very strong desire to to keep our current beliefs--whatever they may be--intact and untouched. This desire often leads one astray from the path to truth. I think that the theory of evolution and all its implications, if true, is a threat only to one's ego, not one's faith.

But Evolution is a fact.

Darwin_Rocks wrote:But Evolution is a fact.

Yes it is to some extent, but you don't have to be atheist/agnostic to accept it.

Darwin_Rocks wrote:But Evolution is a fact.

May the giant hammer of August drop upon you.

Fact? Define fact you turkey.

Darwin_Rocks wrote:But Evolution is a fact.

When Did Evolution turn from Theory to Fact Evolution at this point in Science is the best way for Scientists to explain the World we Live in HOWEVER it does not mean that Evolution is Fact!

But Evolution is a fact.

Sigh. Here we go again....

Yes, micro-evolution is a fact. No, macro-evolution is not.

Why don't you prove what no scientist has been able to do beyond reasonable doubt, prove that macro-evolution is a fact?

And just to help you in your quest, you can start from here:

Is Evolution a fact? A great deal of publicity has focused on this important question. It is relevant to the fossil record because the assumption of an evolutionary sequence remains the primary means of dating rock layers. We must define the terms at the outset. Gould gives an excellent definition: "Scientific Fact is a theory that is so thoroughly confirmed it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." (Gould, Stephen J. , Evolution as a Fact and Theory, p.119). Evolution, in the origins debate, is simply molecules to man transformation. Anything less requires a creation act of some kind. Let's leave aside the tremendous challenges that cosmic evolution faces in explaining a universe that is fine-tuned for life. Suffice it to say that the field of cosmology has provided a ream of articles over the last few years focusing on the evidence of intelligent design from the universe. Let's also leave aside the complete failure of chemical evolution and organic evolution scenarios (theories of how the building blocks of life evolved and how life came from non-life--abiogenesis). Suffice it to say that the spontaneous generation of specified complexity faces huge probability problems in the area of information theory. Instead we will focus on biological evolution. A number of obstacles for macroevolution have been identified in recent years. The work that must be done for evolution theory to surmount these formidable hurdles alone should cause it to fail the test as a scientific fact.

The genetic challenge:
Where are the beneficial mutations that are adding new information to become the basis for an evolutionary novelty? Since by anyone's estimation most mutations are not beneficial, can a population reasonably bear the cost of removing the deleterious mutations via differential survival? And what is the impact on the reproductive capacity along the way? This argument, called Haldane's Dilemma, is well articulated in Walter ReMine's wonderful book The Biotic Message.

The mechanism challenge:

Many people, scientists included, seem unaware that there is no consensus in the evolutionary community regarding the mechanism of macroevolution. Some biologists believe that the mechanisms of macroevolution are fundamentally different from those of microevolution (or genetic variation), while others hold that large-scale biological evolution is merely cumulative variation. The mechanism of natural selection is fraught with tautology and is woefully inadequate when one moves past the typical naí¯ve presentation to a complex fitness terrain with epistasis/heterosis (complex gene interactions and recombinations), and polygeny/pleiotropy (multiple genes coding for a trait and single genes influencing multiple traits). The origin and maintenance of sexual reproduction and consciousness in humans remain fundamental problems for the darwinian materialists.

The complexity challenge:

The sophistication and apparent design of biological systems cry out for an explanation. In his book Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe argues that the evidence from the field of biochemistry gives new force to an argument begun by Paley. William Paley pointed to a watch as an illustration of a system that must be designed because freak chance and the work of natural laws can not explain it. Darwinian gradualism completely breaks down when faced with irreducibly complex systems.

But what about the evidence in favor of evolution? Evolutionists present five general arguments. The first (and arguably the best) is the fact that there is a pattern to life--twin nested hierarchy. We can classify organisms by a cascade of similarities both in morphology and genetics. Second is Darwin's riddles. These arguments against the creation model begun by Darwin and eloquently articulated by Gould asks questions: "Why would a Designer sometimes use the same pattern for different purposes? Why would a Designer use different designs to accomplish the same ends? Why would an intelligent Designer use jury-rigged and odd designs?" Third is the general trends of simple to complex in the fossil record. More rarely, evolutionists argue that patterns in embryology and biogeography (the geographic distribution of organisms across the world) give evidence of common ancestry.

Various exhibits deal with the difficulties for the Darwinists in the fossil record. The last two arguments have largely been discarded by leading proponents of evolution. If one reads the anti-creation books of the 1980's and even the recent NAS primer on teaching evolution, the biogeography argument is not even discussed. Indeed, no modern book surveys this field as evidence for or against evolution. "We conclude, therefore, that biogeography (or geographical distribution of organisms) has not been shown to be evidence for or against evolution in any sense." (Nelson & Platnick, Systematics and Biogeography: Cladistics and Vicariance, 1981, p.223) The embryology argument, once powerfully presented by Haeckel and still discussed in some textbooks, has been completely discredited in recent years. Not only has the argument lost its force, but recent evidence indicates that Haeckel fraudulently altered the data to bolster the evolutionary illusion.

Walter Remine argues eloquently for the presence of odd designs being deliberately designed to call attention to the message inherent in the panorama of biological systems. The message is that life was designed by a single designer specifically to confound naturalistic explanations. His book lists several reasons for nested hierarchy. (The Biotic Message, 1993, p. 465)

1. It allows for enormous diversity (making it cumbersome for evolution to explain), while
2. uniting all of life together, often in a visible way.
3. It confounds simpler explanations like transposition (lateral transfer of genetic material) and
4. highlights the absence of identifiable phylogeny (ancestor-descendent lineages).
5. It conveys the single designer message even when the observer lacks much of the data.
6. The pattern is embedded deeply into each organism, thereby making the biotic message resistant to mutation.
7. The nested pattern cannot be the haphazard result of a single civilization (panspermia) but rather points to the action of a single Designer.

Evolution never predicted nested hierarchy and Carl Linnaeus' work on classifying organisms preceded Darwin by over a hundred years. To the extent the patterns did not exist, evolution would happily accommodate with processes of loss, replacement, distant hybridization, anagenesis, transposition, unmasking, panspermia, or multiple biogenesis. Gould stands ready and willing to invoke transposition (the idea of a lateral transfer of genetic material between organisms...vastly more elementary than convergence or natural selection) if the pattern were obliging. "The debate about lateral transfer does not center upon plausible mechanisms. ...The issue is not plausibility but relative frequency. Lateral transfer is intelligible and feasible, but how often does it happen in nature? This crucial question must be established by example, not by theory." (Gould, Stephen J., 1986, "Linnaean Limits," Natural History, vol. 95, no. 8, p. 18.) To the extent that biodiversity exhibits nested hierarchy it supposedly supports evolution. To the extent that it does not, evolutionists will happily accommodate with a variation on their theory. Evolutionism adapts to data like fog to a landscape! Indeed most of these other mechanisms would be far simpler than the current theory involving natural selection and convergence. They could handily explain troublesome features of the fossil record without resorting to punctuated equilibria. There is no good naturalistic/evolutionary reason for some of them not to have occurred. But the nested hierarchy pattern is intractably resistant to these alternative explanations.

The evidence for the theory of evolution certainly does not qualify it to be called a scientific fact. Indeed, as science has progressed Darwinists have had to retreat completely out of the scientific arena into unfalsifiable positions or resort to contradictory models to deal with special problems. The smorgasbord of competing hypothesis that are left should not even qualify as a scientific theory, much less a fact. Again, ReMine is insightful: "1) Life systematically lacks a pattern of fine-gradations of fossils joining disparate lifeforms together. 2) Life systematically lacks a pattern of clear-cut ancestors and lineages joining disparate lifeforms together. 3) Experimental demonstrations, in the laboratory and in the field, systematically fail to demonstrate a plausible naturalistic origin of our disparate lifeforms. Let me emphasize that these are three separate, independent, failures for evolutionary theory... Any one of these three areas would be sufficient to establish evolution as a fact. Yet the systematic, independent failure of ALL THREE shouts that evolutionary theory is wrong."

It is an easy matter to cut and paste other people's arguments (http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/fact/fact.htm); much more difficult to articulate one's own thoughts. This is the hallmark of a lazy mind. (Hey, I don't understand this. Forget about it! This is the product of a supernatural God!) Anyone can find verbiage on the internet to support one's beliefs.

Let's look at this in some detail:

The genetic challenge: The genetic record is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for ToE: genomic parasites, non-coding introns (clearly not the work of intelligent design; only sloppy design) are more easily explained by random genetic drift and mutations as evolutionary mechanisms.

The mechanism challenge: Science does not require an understood mechanism to establish scientific fact. Examples include the patterns of inheritance (established by Mendel long before the mechanisms of inheritance were understood) or gravity (which is taken as fact even though its mechanisms are still not understood).

The complexity challenge: Using this argument, one could claim that our whole economic system could not have evolved since components of it (the power grid, the internet, transportation technologies, mass media, etc…) are essential to its existence. Likewise, aerobic metabolism is essential to human life, but it is well known that transitional organisms are capable of both metabolic pathways (as are certain parts of our own anatomy—evidenced by the last time you felt sore muscles after strenuous activity). Thus, what is essential now was once only an adaptive adjunct to life.

In the chess game of scientific debate, it is essential that all players know the rules. Otherwise, the debate quickly degenerates in to arguments over what moves a given piece is allowed to make. No reasonable discussion can proceed under these conditions. In this spirit, I would ask all those who reject ToE to search the basis for their beliefs to find anything which is not based on current inadequacies of scientific progress, but rather is positively asserted by experimental evidence. (That is to say, find some evidence that contradicts ToE, not merely evidence which might be lacking to support ToE.)

I don't care what personal beliefs anyone holds, but to reject principles which have lead to the only demonstrable miracles which any of us have actually witnessed, leads me to believe that many faithful are more interested in preserving their beliefs (based on intellectual laziness) than finding any truths.

I doubt anyone here will rise to this challenge.

The genetic challenge: The genetic record is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for ToE: genomic parasites, non-coding introns (clearly not the work of intelligent design; only sloppy design) are more easily explained by random genetic drift and mutations as evolutionary mechanisms.

http://www.rae.org/introns.html

Note: Yes I did read most of it. No I did not understand most of the terminology. I leave it to you, someone who is has professional training in the field to draw conclusions. Yes, I am skeptical, but that's due to my own ignorance. Yes I do believe the article is biased but I also believe it has good points because I remember a bit of a discussion I had with some colleagues who have more experience in biology about the purpose of introns in DNA.

The complexity challenge: Using this argument, one could claim that our whole economic system could not have evolved since components of it (the power grid, the internet, transportation technologies, mass media, etc…) are essential to its existence. Likewise, aerobic metabolism is essential to human life, but it is well known that transitional organisms are capable of both metabolic pathways (as are certain parts of our own anatomy—evidenced by the last time you felt sore muscles after strenuous activity). Thus, what is essential now was once only an adaptive adjunct to life.

Last time I checked, all the components of the economic system have existed in some shape or form since it's inception and that it's development was guided by intelligent design (namely that of humans).

In order of increasing advancement:

Transportation: Legs, the wheel, carts, horse carriages, steam powered trains, cars, etc.

The Internet: Not essential? The economy existed before the internet, the internet merely enhances communication. Communication existed in the form of speech. Then written language, then the telegraph, telephone, computers, the internet, etc.

The Power Grid: Animals and humans investing energy to do something. Electricity is merely energy, energy dedicated to some function. Work energy has been available to the economic system since it began in the form of humans, and then later domesticated animals, burning of fuels, steam power, etc.

Mass Media: The economy never needed the media. The economy existed before communication. Mass media was an addition to the economy from an intelligent source (humans).

Well?

...and life existed before aerobic metabolism.

My only point is that whole industries would either die or be forced to change dramatically without our present infrastructure. If someone from another world looked at Amazon.com and tried to imagine their business model w/o the internet, they would conclude that the internet is an essential component to the life of this business. Likewise, if we were to delete some essential component to human life--like aerobic metabolism--human life would cease (as would many other life forms), but life itself would continue. Thus, the argument of irreducible complexity at best states that certain forms of life depend on certain biochemical functions; it cannot make any conclusions on how these life forms acquired these functions. It is not an argument against human evolution any more than the necessity of the internet is an argument that Amazon.com was created by God.

You summed it up well to say that our economy existed before any of these technologies did, and it has evolved to depend on these technologies just as higher life forms have evolved to depend on certain biochemical functions. Our economic system--as life itself--has evolved to require certain components that, once upon a time, were merely competitive advantages; and before that, were not even a consideration to doing business.

The reason the economy evolves is because of intelligent input from humans. It is far different from evolution which is a mindless, blind process as opposed to the process that produces new technology that is propelled by intelligent thought.

The economy is a bad example anyway, it's a seamless whole. Life has so many different structures and processes that a single model like an economy cannot be an adequate analogy. If we expand the analogy to include other systems of human interaction, we will arrive at irreducible components that may or may not be complex in nature. I won't elaborate unless it pertains to the debate, and I don't want to stray too far from the current train of thought.

I agree that this is getting a bit off topic, but the reason I used the example of the economy is that, as a whole, it is not guided by direct human input. (Otherwise, recessions would not occur, and everything could be controlled by human forces.) It is not a seamless whole, as components of it come and go according to selective pressures of business, just as species do. My only point is that many familiar systems require certain components to function; this requirement does not mean they could not have evolved. Anyway, I agree that it is an inadequate analogy.

The more important point is that one cannot conclude from a snapshot of life at a particular time—and the components that may or may not be essential to any given life form at that time—that the intricacies one sees in this snapshot could not have happened by chance.

However, if one were to believe that an intelligent designer made each and every life form, then one would have to conclude that that designer is not very skilled. This is based on the many examples of very sloppy design in life forms: the amount of junk DNA, the Wnt signaling pathway, and G-protein crosstalk, to name just a few. To use another analogy, if these design practices were applied to automobiles, we would have a whole host of non-functioning components in our cars: carburetors, many versions of transmissions and engines, and everything from mechanical spark timers to a whole generation of microchips. Life's structures and functions follow very different patterns than the examples we see of design in our day-to-day lives. If there is an intelligent designer, He uses a vastly different concept of best practices than anything we currently accept.

Kelly wrote:I agree that this is getting a bit off topic, but the reason I used the example of the economy is that, as a whole, it is not guided by direct human input. (Otherwise, recessions would not occur, and everything could be controlled by human forces.) It is not a seamless whole, as components of it come and go according to selective pressures of business, just as species do. My only point is that many familiar systems require certain components to function; this requirement does not mean they could not have evolved. Anyway, I agree that it is an inadequate analogy.

The more important point is that one cannot conclude from a snapshot of life at a particular time—and the components that may or may not be essential to any given life form at that time—that the intricacies one sees in this snapshot could not have happened by chance.

However, if one were to believe that an intelligent designer made each and every life form, then one would have to conclude that that designer is not very skilled. This is based on the many examples of very sloppy design in life forms: the amount of junk DNA, the Wnt signaling pathway, and G-protein crosstalk, to name just a few. To use another analogy, if these design practices were applied to automobiles, we would have a whole host of non-functioning components in our cars: carburetors, many versions of transmissions and engines, and everything from mechanical spark timers to a whole generation of microchips. Life's structures and functions follow very different patterns than the examples we see of design in our day-to-day lives. If there is an intelligent designer, He uses a vastly different concept of best practices than anything we currently accept.

I assume you have refuted the link I posted previously? If so, could you share it with us?

The irreducible complexity argument is based not on current snapshots, but on observations in bacteria. For one example, the flagellum is pretty advanced with several genes regulating it's construction and operation, and many proteins being involved in precise configurations. As far as I know, there hasn't been a good precursor for the flagellum that can explain how it evolved from simpler parts.

Of course, there is one really big point that needs to be addressed.

Evolution doesn't conflict with intelligent design, they both can be correct at the same time. Evolution, if true, is a very ingenious system if implemented by a designer. There is absolutely no reason for this debate except if it leads to searching for alternatives to evolution that can be tested. As far as I know, there isn't an alternative to evolution that doesn't involve intelligence. Maybe I've overlooked it.

Dan, I agree with your main point: evolution and ID are mutually compatible.

By snapshot of life I meant all life—bacteria included. It is common for the ID people to speak up whenever something new in biology comes along. It seems that everything is fair game as far as providing evidence for ID. The link you gave above about introns is a classic example: there is evidence to suggest that some non-coding regions of DNA serve a function, which leads the author to conclude that ID must be responsible. Why?

As far as alternatives to ToE, there are many. However, there is no evidence to support any of these other theories, including ID. ToE will itself evolve over time, and no doubt the theory will be altered as it is refined. Nevertheless, there is no positive scientific evidence of any other natural mechanisms (other than ToE) for the diversity of life on this planet.

I don't know Kelly, the processes defined in the ToE seem too sophisticated to not have something even more fundamental, a theory of fundamental biology so to speak, that explains exactly why the mechanism in the ToE can produce such successful results. It goes against probability, it goes against physical and chemical data. It goes against the notion of entropy and how every other complex structure has formed in the universe.

If the theory of evolution is true, then there is a large piece missing. The proteins and genes within even the simplest bacterium match some of our most advanced computers. Computers operate in a very similar fashion on the fundamental level, but they aren't nearly as elaborate as the development and regulation of cell organelles.

There are no problems in the theory in a purely biological viewpoint, but in the whole scheme of science, there are red flags, big red flags that could be seen from space. These issues haven't been resolved in over one hundred years and many aspects of darwin's original theory have been thrown out because they don't match empirical data.

If anything, the theory of evolution doesn't explain what it was meant to do as well as it should. I predict that if the theory of evolution holds up to data in the future, it will be shown to be inadequate and more fundamental, more elaborate theory will be formed that will both match physical and chemical data and observations in experiments and the fossil record.