Evidence for theistic evolution

[abelcainsbrother]

able
,but even if you think micro evolution is change,that is not evolution

Ken
According to you it is not evolution; according to science it is

able
and yet they -scientists are using micro evolution for evidence for macroevolution and yet you accept it.

Ken
I have never heard anyone claiming microevolution is evidence for macroevolution. Where did you hear this?

able
My question is why do you think giving evidence for micro evolution is evidence life evolves because as we can see there is no evolving going on as I pointed out with the evidence you brought up?

Ken
I don’t recall you presenting any evidence that life does not evolve. Perhaps I missed it. Would you mind presenting this evidence again?

able
Do not think of evolution as just change,because evolution has always been about one kind of life evolving and changing into another kind of life over time and this is what the evidence does not show,even though they say it is evidence life evolves.

Ken
No, Evolution has always been about change. It is also about species change.


Ken

Sorry but no intellectual honesty.Nothing I said was untrue and yet to keep holding on you must change the meaning of evolution and deny the evidence they show and say and present as evidence life evolves.If evidence will not change your mind?What will? You know viruses,bacteria,fruit flies,salamanders,frogs,etc is peer reviewed evidence life evolves and yet as I showed it does not show life evolving and yet you ignore this in order to keep believing it.

What evidence did you show? I don't remember you ever presenting evidence. As I asked before, if you have evidence please present it.

Also I gave you evidence for global floods and yet you reject evidence to believe life evolves without evidence it does.

No! You gave an impossible scenario of what would have to take place in order for such a flood to happen. Now if you have any evidence of a global flood; please present it.

Ken

PS I will be going out of town for a few days. Come up with a good answer and I will respond when I get back

I already have came up with a good answer and yet you ignore it.I showed you how the peer reviewed evidence for evolution does not show life evolving and yet you just weaken the meaning of evolution to just change ignoring that the change we see does not show life evolving.

Then you brought up Noah's flood and I gave you evidence showing you that there is enough water on the earth for a global flood that you deny but I was showing you there is no need to add water to the earth that you brought up implying the amount of water it would take for a global flood.You then imply science has proven it wrong a global flood but you're wrong because even science teaches a global flood happened billions of years ago which shows they even believe in a global flood the only difference is timing.

I just gave you evidence for global floods and showed there is no evidence in science that shows life evolving yet you believe life evolves with no evidence and reject my evidence for global floods.

[Audie]

What "enormous odds"?

Probability of two species needing each other proliferating into existence at the same time.

Consider the symbiotic mutualism between an ant, a plant and fungus:

• The well-studied, ancient and highly evolved mutualism between fungus-growing ants and their fungi has become a model system in the study of symbiosis1, 5. Although it is thought at present to involve only two symbionts, associated with each other in near isolation from other organisms1, 5, the fungal gardens of attine ants are in fact host to a specialized and virulent parasitic fungus of the genus Escovopsis (Ascomycotina)6. Because the ants and their fungi are mutually dependent, the maintenance of stable fungal monocultures in the presence of weeds or parasites is critical to the survival of both organisms. Here we describe a new, third mutualist in this symbiosis, a filamentous bacterium (actinomycete) of the genus Streptomyces that produces antibiotics specifically targeted to suppress the growth of the specialized garden-parasite Escovopsis. This third mutualist is associated with all species of fungus-growing ants studied, is carried upon regions of the ants' cuticle that are genus specific, is transmitted vertically (from parent to offspring colonies), and has the capacity to promote the growth of the fungal mutualist, indicating that the association of Streptomyces with attine ants is both highly evolved and of ancient origin. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 701a0.html)

Several entomologists explain in detail this relationship, and explain that there are actually five known symbionts:

• The fungus-growing ant symbiosis is a model system for studying the ecology and evolution of symbiotic interactions. The symbiosis currently contains five identified and characterized symbionts:
  
  1) Attine ants,
  2) the fungi that they cultivate for food,
  3) cultivar-attacking microfungi in the genus Escovopsis,
  4) antibiotic-producing bacteria in the genus Pseudonocardia, and
  5) a black yeast parasitizing the ant Pseudonocardia-mutualism.
  
  The diversity of interactions in this model system provides a wealth of opportunity for scientific inquiry, particularly beyond bipartite interactions.
  
  (Insect Symbioses: A Case Study of Past, Present, and Future Fungus-growing Ant Research (numbering mine; highly recommend)

RTB summarises this relationship plainly:

• (1) the ants cut waxy leaves from the plant, chew them into a pulp, and lay down the pulp on a substrate for the mushrooms;
  (2) the mushrooms that grow from the pulp-lined substrate produce structures called gongylidia, which the ants then harvest for food;
  (3) a micro-fungus in the ants’ gut enables the ants to digest the gongylidia.
  
  Neither the ants nor the mushrooms can feed on the leaves directly. The leaves contain biochemical toxins (insecticide) dangerous to the ants and are covered with a waxy coating the mushrooms cannot penetrate. The ants remove the waxy coating for the benefit of the mushrooms. The mushrooms "process" the chemical toxins so that the ants, with crucial assistance from gut micro-fungi, can then digest their food.

Endosymbiosis (where one of the symbiotic organisms lives inside the other) is quite pervasive and foundational in anthropods (i.e., insects).
When you have scientific articles titles like: Extraordinarily widespread and fantastically complex: comparative biology of endosymbiotic bacterial and fungal mutualists of insects... Really... did they really mean extraordinary? I agree.

I cant figure out if God -belief is scientific or not.

Is that a response to my question, "Do you consider belief in God as more unscientific to no belief in God?"

"Belief in God", having "no belief in God" or "believing God doesn't exist" are philosophical positions.
Therefore they are no more or less scientific than the other. However, Naturalism (belief that the physical or natural world exists without any "super" natural being/s) is often equivocated with (what I call "smuggled in") as science. It's not as easy to pick up on as God belief, since science obviously studies the natural order of the world so a trade on "nature/naturalism" is easier to do.

The point I wanted to make is that when performing science, these personal beliefs might help shape the interest of science being down, but these positions are no more or less scientific than each other. The question I asked purposefully commits a category error to try make this point. By category error, it's like my asking, "is blue rounder than red?"

Therefore belief or no belief in God is no more or less scientific. But, if someone believes otherwise, then they are mixing their personal philosophical beliefs in with their science. I feel it is important to understand that.

Because we see some Christians mix in their beliefs in God and call it a science (e.g., ACB's Gappism), but such mistakes often go unnoticed when Atheists mix in their Naturalistic beliefs that exclude God and call it science (e.g., Naturalistic Evolution, not to be confused for natural evolution).

I'm not sure if that's making sense to you. I'm trying my best to explain as I feel it is highly important.
But, "Naturalistic Evolution" would presuppose God does not exist (or any other "super" natural beings for that matter).

This is very different from just "natural evolution", where one might assume natural evolutionary laws and processes are solely responsible for the diversity of life that we see. Theistic Evolution and Naturalistic Evolution are both philosophical positions that support "natural evolution" to these extremes.

So I was trying to get at these points, by asking a question.
The point of my question is that Naturalism is no more scientific than Theism is or vice-versa.
One's beliefs in God and one's beliefs that no God exists are not of a "scientific" category.
Hope I made sense.

Symbiosis, convergent and parallel evolution seem to be to be an obvious and
inevitable aspect of evolution. I wonder what you find odd about it.

What is odd? The improbability.

I mean, with symbiosis, when you have mutualism that requires two a more species to exist along side each other. The odds are greatly stacked against such naturally occurring. It seems more like someone planned the nature and intricacies of how such symbiotic relationships would work, thought it would be good to create such dependencies, and then "created" the symbionts together.

How would this be an inevitable aspect of evolution? You might have some species coming later that draws from a previously evolved species (a parasitic relationship perhaps), but to have them both needing each other for survival at the same time... that's quite an extraordinary feat. And the more symbionts in the relationship that mutually require each other to live, the more extraordinary.

Or convergent evolution the probability of some complex biological structure randomly coming into being once, is well, contingent on a great deal of randomly improbable factors. So to see the same structure "evolving" over and over again -- well now it looks like someone is stacking the deck. Wouldn't you think?

If naturalism is about precluding a god, then Im not that. And as Im obsessive about avoiding a tan at the beach, thats also a sign that Im not a Naturalist.

Yes, hopefully my more detailed explanation above helps to clarify.

I must say that you surprise me here -- not precluding God's existence (or "a god" even).
Maybe you've changed slightly, or maybe I've just not understood you.
I've always considered you to strongly deny that such exists?

Really do think it is an all-so important point to understand the difference between just examining natural laws and Naturalism (a philosophy that presupposes God or "super" natural beings do not exist). Then perhaps the raw science of evolutionary theory, and just bare facts in nature, can be discussed more neutrally and separately from one's philosophy (whether that is Theism or Naturalism).

At the end of the day, I find studies submitted to journals so interesting.
For me, it helps to better understand how God designed the world to work.
For someone else, it might be better understanding what randomly unfolded in nature devoid of any purposeful design.
Both these views of the world still produce that feeling of awe one might get while camping out in nature and looking up at the stars?

These personal beliefs are what help to inspire, leave us in awe and want to learn more.
It is therefore a shame that people often murky physical sciences, strongly asserting what one can/can't believe in regarding their more personal philosophy or beliefs.

I do have a biol. degree,but tnx for examples anyway.

Dependent relationships among plants / animals / people
start out as non vital. They can become essential to the survival
of both individuals in the course of their individual lifetimes!

How much more if an association lasts for thousands of generations!

God, if there is such, is surely far more grand than to be found
in pockets where you've not done much research. Dont you think so?

[Proinsias]

Darwinism is what we call a historic science and since from our experience we have only seen specified complex information arising from only a mind , the burden is on the Darwinian (notice I said Darwinian Rick, you made a good point ) evolutionists must prove beyond a shadow of doubt that naturalistic causes can create specified complex info. The burden of proof isn't on the anti Darwinists.

I think the burden is very much on yourself. The theory of evolution has been a landmark in scientific understanding of Newtonian proportions, the theory of specified complexity arising from mind has borne little fruit in the 20 years or so it's been around. Expecting a theory based on mutation and natural selection to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt seems like an easy way to dismiss a viable possibility.

[Kurieuo]

What "enormous odds"?

Probability of two species needing each other proliferating into existence at the same time.

Consider the symbiotic mutualism between an ant, a plant and fungus:

• The well-studied, ancient and highly evolved mutualism between fungus-growing ants and their fungi has become a model system in the study of symbiosis1, 5. Although it is thought at present to involve only two symbionts, associated with each other in near isolation from other organisms1, 5, the fungal gardens of attine ants are in fact host to a specialized and virulent parasitic fungus of the genus Escovopsis (Ascomycotina)6. Because the ants and their fungi are mutually dependent, the maintenance of stable fungal monocultures in the presence of weeds or parasites is critical to the survival of both organisms. Here we describe a new, third mutualist in this symbiosis, a filamentous bacterium (actinomycete) of the genus Streptomyces that produces antibiotics specifically targeted to suppress the growth of the specialized garden-parasite Escovopsis. This third mutualist is associated with all species of fungus-growing ants studied, is carried upon regions of the ants' cuticle that are genus specific, is transmitted vertically (from parent to offspring colonies), and has the capacity to promote the growth of the fungal mutualist, indicating that the association of Streptomyces with attine ants is both highly evolved and of ancient origin. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 701a0.html)

Several entomologists explain in detail this relationship, and explain that there are actually five known symbionts:

• The fungus-growing ant symbiosis is a model system for studying the ecology and evolution of symbiotic interactions. The symbiosis currently contains five identified and characterized symbionts:
  
  1) Attine ants,
  2) the fungi that they cultivate for food,
  3) cultivar-attacking microfungi in the genus Escovopsis,
  4) antibiotic-producing bacteria in the genus Pseudonocardia, and
  5) a black yeast parasitizing the ant Pseudonocardia-mutualism.
  
  The diversity of interactions in this model system provides a wealth of opportunity for scientific inquiry, particularly beyond bipartite interactions.
  
  (Insect Symbioses: A Case Study of Past, Present, and Future Fungus-growing Ant Research (numbering mine; highly recommend)

RTB summarises this relationship plainly:

• (1) the ants cut waxy leaves from the plant, chew them into a pulp, and lay down the pulp on a substrate for the mushrooms;
  (2) the mushrooms that grow from the pulp-lined substrate produce structures called gongylidia, which the ants then harvest for food;
  (3) a micro-fungus in the ants’ gut enables the ants to digest the gongylidia.
  
  Neither the ants nor the mushrooms can feed on the leaves directly. The leaves contain biochemical toxins (insecticide) dangerous to the ants and are covered with a waxy coating the mushrooms cannot penetrate. The ants remove the waxy coating for the benefit of the mushrooms. The mushrooms "process" the chemical toxins so that the ants, with crucial assistance from gut micro-fungi, can then digest their food.

Endosymbiosis (where one of the symbiotic organisms lives inside the other) is quite pervasive and foundational in anthropods (i.e., insects).
When you have scientific articles titles like: Extraordinarily widespread and fantastically complex: comparative biology of endosymbiotic bacterial and fungal mutualists of insects... Really... did they really mean extraordinary? I agree.

I cant figure out if God -belief is scientific or not.

Is that a response to my question, "Do you consider belief in God as more unscientific to no belief in God?"

"Belief in God", having "no belief in God" or "believing God doesn't exist" are philosophical positions.
Therefore they are no more or less scientific than the other. However, Naturalism (belief that the physical or natural world exists without any "super" natural being/s) is often equivocated with (what I call "smuggled in") as science. It's not as easy to pick up on as God belief, since science obviously studies the natural order of the world so a trade on "nature/naturalism" is easier to do.

The point I wanted to make is that when performing science, these personal beliefs might help shape the interest of science being down, but these positions are no more or less scientific than each other. The question I asked purposefully commits a category error to try make this point. By category error, it's like my asking, "is blue rounder than red?"

Therefore belief or no belief in God is no more or less scientific. But, if someone believes otherwise, then they are mixing their personal philosophical beliefs in with their science. I feel it is important to understand that.

Because we see some Christians mix in their beliefs in God and call it a science (e.g., ACB's Gappism), but such mistakes often go unnoticed when Atheists mix in their Naturalistic beliefs that exclude God and call it science (e.g., Naturalistic Evolution, not to be confused for natural evolution).

I'm not sure if that's making sense to you. I'm trying my best to explain as I feel it is highly important.
But, "Naturalistic Evolution" would presuppose God does not exist (or any other "super" natural beings for that matter).

This is very different from just "natural evolution", where one might assume natural evolutionary laws and processes are solely responsible for the diversity of life that we see. Theistic Evolution and Naturalistic Evolution are both philosophical positions that support "natural evolution" to these extremes.

So I was trying to get at these points, by asking a question.
The point of my question is that Naturalism is no more scientific than Theism is or vice-versa.
One's beliefs in God and one's beliefs that no God exists are not of a "scientific" category.
Hope I made sense.

Symbiosis, convergent and parallel evolution seem to be to be an obvious and
inevitable aspect of evolution. I wonder what you find odd about it.

What is odd? The improbability.

I mean, with symbiosis, when you have mutualism that requires two a more species to exist along side each other. The odds are greatly stacked against such naturally occurring. It seems more like someone planned the nature and intricacies of how such symbiotic relationships would work, thought it would be good to create such dependencies, and then "created" the symbionts together.

How would this be an inevitable aspect of evolution? You might have some species coming later that draws from a previously evolved species (a parasitic relationship perhaps), but to have them both needing each other for survival at the same time... that's quite an extraordinary feat. And the more symbionts in the relationship that mutually require each other to live, the more extraordinary.

Or convergent evolution the probability of some complex biological structure randomly coming into being once, is well, contingent on a great deal of randomly improbable factors. So to see the same structure "evolving" over and over again -- well now it looks like someone is stacking the deck. Wouldn't you think?

If naturalism is about precluding a god, then Im not that. And as Im obsessive about avoiding a tan at the beach, thats also a sign that Im not a Naturalist.

Yes, hopefully my more detailed explanation above helps to clarify.

I must say that you surprise me here -- not precluding God's existence (or "a god" even).
Maybe you've changed slightly, or maybe I've just not understood you.
I've always considered you to strongly deny that such exists?

Really do think it is an all-so important point to understand the difference between just examining natural laws and Naturalism (a philosophy that presupposes God or "super" natural beings do not exist). Then perhaps the raw science of evolutionary theory, and just bare facts in nature, can be discussed more neutrally and separately from one's philosophy (whether that is Theism or Naturalism).

At the end of the day, I find studies submitted to journals so interesting.
For me, it helps to better understand how God designed the world to work.
For someone else, it might be better understanding what randomly unfolded in nature devoid of any purposeful design.
Both these views of the world still produce that feeling of awe one might get while camping out in nature and looking up at the stars?

These personal beliefs are what help to inspire, leave us in awe and want to learn more.
It is therefore a shame that people often murky physical sciences, strongly asserting what one can/can't believe in regarding their more personal philosophy or beliefs.

I do have a biol. degree,but tnx for examples anyway.

Dependent relationships among plants / animals / people
start out as non vital. They can become essential to the survival
of both individuals in the course of their individual lifetimes!

How much more if an association lasts for thousands of generations!

God, if there is such, is surely far more grand than to be found
in pockets where you've not done much research. Dont you think so?

You wanted the data, so I spent much time laying one case out for you.

Also, this is a public forum. Right?
So my message is as much for others reading as it is someone like yourself with a biology degree.

If you feel what I presented can be accounted for through "less vital" relationships, then I'm more than happy to read information about how such mutualism evolved.
Even if you have other cases, but I'm interested in mutualism where we see two or more species depend upon each other for survival.
Is there a specific case, or can you point me to some studies or reports that show such systems mutually evolve?

Re: finding it in pockets, I'm sure this mutual symbiosis is not just found in pockets.
As the title of that article I referenced noted: Endosymbiotic bacterial and fungal mutualists of insects are extraordinarily widespread and fantastically complex.

Ants have been studied in depth for over 100 years.
We've only in about the past decade discovered these intricate relationships.
The work requires a lot of effort, and modern techniques allow us to explore these relationships on a deeper level.
I expect we'll be hearing more and more about such mutualistic relationships as more research is done.

My position is that such mutualistic relationships point more towards an intended design (Theism) than random chance (Naturalism).

Note, I did not say this rules out evolution throughout.
It does point heavily away from Naturalistic Evolution as I described in my previous post (the philosophy that our natural world exists without any "super" natural beings like God).
However, it does leave Theistic Evolution where the evolutionary processes are "stacked" to unfold in a particular order.
I think the odds certainly point away from a Naturalistic position.

What is more likely in your eyes given the more mutualistic relationships we find --
Evolution following an intended design (Theistic Evolution [1]), or
Evolution following an entirely random and unguided process (i.e., Naturalism [2])?

I certainly know Progressive Creation has been kicked under your table, but that doesn't phase me.
So I'll withdraw it as a contender to leave you with these above two positions to decide between.

[Audie]

Ive done so much reading today, Im going crosseyed. I will read and respond 2moro.

[abelcainsbrother]

I know science does not claim the earth's surface was leveled off but I'm saying if it was the whole earth would be flooded over the tallest mountains on land on the earth right now.

I agree! But that's a different subject. Do you have any opinions on the other points I made?

Ken

How is it a different subject?You brought up Noah's flood implying how much water it would take to flood the whole earth,then asked where did the water go? I simply showed that if we leveled out the earth's surface the whole earth would be flooded over the tallest mountains on land.

It is a different subject because your answer involves a hypothetical that never took place.

Ken

A Baptist told me that a wind wafted all the extra water to Neptune, where it shines to this day as a warning beacon against incoming rogue angels.

I believe comets are evidence for Lucifer's flood inwhich God removed water from the earth and put it above the firmament in outerspace Genesis 1:6-10 and yet when we look for evidence in outerspace we find comets and way more water there than the water on the earth,while in Noah's flood no water was removed off of the earth and I have showed there is enough water on and inside the earth for a global flood.
We have evidence for both floods Moses was right about water in outerspace.

[bippy123]

Darwinism is what we call a historic science and since from our experience we have only seen specified complex information arising from only a mind , the burden is on the Darwinian (notice I said Darwinian Rick, you made a good point ) evolutionists must prove beyond a shadow of doubt that naturalistic causes can create specified complex info. The burden of proof isn't on the anti Darwinists.

I think the burden is very much on yourself. The theory of evolution has been a landmark in scientific understanding of Newtonian proportions, the theory of specified complexity arising from mind has borne little fruit in the 20 years or so it's been around. Expecting a theory based on mutation and natural selection to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt seems like an easy way to dismiss a viable possibility.

Proinsias just because something is popular doesn't make it true .
As I said before in all our experience in human history please show me just one example of specified complex info coming about by anything other then a mind . Show me just one .
I can show u many many examples . The burden of proof is on the one trying to show what has never been shown to happen before . Instead most evolutionists will try to water down DNA and not call it a code .

Perry marshall an engineer by trade showed how he went into the infidels website and argued this for 3 months. At the end of that 3 months not only could they not show him one example of specified complex info coming from anything else but a mind but a few of the more honest atheists on there admitted he was right and even chastised the other members of the forum for nit admitting to the rationality of the point that he was making .

Proinsias I was an evolutionist for 41 years . I changed my mind not based on popularity but on points like these .
Today alone I passed by a few hundreds of examples of specified complex information systems , and not on you them came about through random chance and chemical interactions.

Proinsias ur assuming that science And academia aren't prone to worldview paradigm a just as everything else is .
Throughout the history of science this has been shown in fact not to be the case .

[Kurieuo]

Hi Bippy,

I think you and I would generally see eye-to-eye with each other.
However, I would add some qualification to "naturalistic causes".

Just that I don't see that Proinsias needs to drops the theory of evolution to accept complex and specified information (CSI) exists. Nor that, CSI rules out naturalistic causes. What it does rule out is Naturalism -- a philosophy that'd rule out intelligence being the ultimate cause stacking the odds via natural mechanisms.

In fact, many ID proponents still embrace the theory of evolution and Darwinian evolution. They just draw the line when people try to draw the philosophical position that an unintelligence (Naturalism) can account for all the diversity of life that we see including the CSI exhibited. That is ultimately what it comes down to.

Clear to both of us, are that the odds appear stacked if evolutionary processes were at play.
Such that Theism provides a better foundation for any evolutionary natural processes causing CSI rather than random chance (or Naturalism).

What I am here saying is not a statement of whether I accept all of evolution as true or false, but rather that CSI (Complex and Specified Information) is not necessarily incompatible with evolution. The dice appears weighted, that's the main thing to realise I think. CSI is only incompatible with philosophical position of Naturalism and not necessarily "naturalistic causes".

I'm being very careful here with my words. As I think it is important to take care not to equivocate Naturalism with natural causes.
Naturalism says that there was no design or plan behind the natural laws and causes we see playing out (whether that's evolution, chemical reactions or physics).
Theism says that there would be a design and plan behind the natural laws and causes we see playing out in those same fields including evolution.

So if one indeed assumes that evolutionary thought is true (like Proinsias and Audie do), then I have been arguing that Theism actually provides the better foundations for embracing evolutionary theory and all we see in life.

I hope that's making sense.

[abelcainsbrother]

Shhould I accept the idea life evolves because it is popular? I can find no evidence in science that would lead me to believe life evolves,I see no reason to accept it because it is popular.I see no real evidence to believe life evolves and it bothers me that so many people believe it without real evidence life evolves.Instead of accepting it because it is popular,why don't you demand scientific evidence first? This is what I do and yet if you read through this thread you only really see evolution apologetics with no real evidence life evolves.How am I supposed to believe God used evolution to produce the life in this world with no scientific evidence life evolves?

[bippy123]

Hi Bippy,

I think you and I would generally see eye-to-eye with each other.
However, I would add some qualification to "naturalistic causes".

Just that I don't see that Proinsias needs to drops the theory of evolution to accept complex and specified information (CSI) exists. Nor that, CSI rules out naturalistic causes. What it does rule out is Naturalism -- a philosophy that'd rule out intelligence being the ultimate cause stacking the odds via natural mechanisms.

In fact, many ID proponents still embrace the theory of evolution and Darwinian evolution. They just draw the line when people try to draw the philosophical position that an unintelligence (Naturalism) can account for all the diversity of life that we see including the CSI exhibited. That is ultimately what it comes down to.

Clear to both of us, are that the odds appear stacked if evolutionary processes were at play.
Such that Theism provides a better foundation for any evolutionary natural processes causing CSI rather than random chance (or Naturalism).

What I am here saying is not a statement of whether I accept all of evolution as true or false, but rather that CSI (Complex and Specified Information) is not necessarily incompatible with evolution. The dice appears weighted, that's the main thing to realise I think. CSI is only incompatible with philosophical position of Naturalism and not necessarily "naturalistic causes".

I'm being very careful here with my words. As I think it is important to take care not to equivocate Naturalism with natural causes.
Naturalism says that there was no design or plan behind the natural laws and causes we see playing out (whether that's evolution, chemical reactions or physics).
Theism says that there would be a design and plan behind the natural laws and causes we see playing out in those same fields including evolution.

So if one indeed assumes that evolutionary thought is true (like Proinsias and Audie do), then I have been arguing that Theism actually provides the better foundations for embracing evolutionary theory and all we see in life.

I hope that's making sense.

Yea Kurieuo, is agree that we do see eye to eye on this and as I said to Rick, it can happen this way . In fact when william lane craig called michael behe a theistic evolutionist he wasn't far from the truth . The only objection I have would be if a theistic evolutionist called one kind if animal a descendent of another kind of animal , simply be used I see a leap of information that would make them different kinds and I believe in what genesis said when it said that God created each animal after it's own kind . Now how he did that is up for interpretation. This is why the area between evolution and ID starts to become grey and fuzzy . What I see is a massive leap of information between kinds , now whether u would interpret that in a front loaded of pre programmed evolutionary way or God stepping in between intervals is really a great matter for scientific investigation , but like I told Rick I could live with either interpretation as lomg as it's in line with genesis .
And I agree that we both agree that it rules out a pure naturalistic explanation .

I'm fine with this either way Kurieuo

[bippy123]

Kurieuo, there is a blog that is run by a Catholic pro ID guy called IDvolution. The guy who runs it is buffalo from the main ID blog uncommon descent .

I haven't really looked at it for a year or 2 but it might be in favor of this hybrid stance on evolution and ID.

[abelcainsbrother]

I like probably 90% of ID and I think it is good to try to find ways to see design from intelligence in the universe but what I don't like about it is that any religion can use it,as I have seen muslims use ID to show atheists evidence for design by an intelligent being.Also they seem to accept a certian amount of evolution.I don't know if it is maybe to make it more presentable to people or if they really accept some of it.Like I hear natural selection talked about like its true,yet natural selection seems to have no effect on any life that has been able to adapt to survive a hostile environment.I cannot accept natural selection based on evidence.ID however has had the biggest impact when it comes to atheism and naturalism in science.They are defeated in debates becuase of ID.

The Gap theory which is what I believe I believe is the only creation theory that can defeat evolution.YEC cannot do it as it is about a tie against evolution and always comes down to who a person chooses to believe,it does expose a lack of evidence for evolution though which is why it is a tie,with neither side really persuading people to change their mind based on evidence.

I don't see how OEC defeats evolution although they make much more sense from a scientific standpoint.I don't think we christians can just reject evolution without giving another biblical alternative based on much of the same evidence evolutionists use as evidence and the Gap theory does this.We can not just reject evolution and point out the lack of real evidence but must provide a biblical theory too with evidence.No muslim,etc could use this as evidence.

I really feel like had the church not forgot about old earth gap theory creationism and had been teaching it instead of the others,not as many people would've fallen away from the bible based on science and evolution would not be so popular.The problem is people don't really know about or really understand the Gap theory and they under-estimate it because of more popular creation ideas and theories.

It is time church to take off the gloves when it comes to evolution and actually defeat it.

[Proinsias]

Bippy,

I'm trying not to appeal to popularity but to practical utility and explanatory power. Microevolution, a term which I'm not too fond of, is observable, testable & somewhat predictable. On the small scale, which almost all seem to agree with, it unites all life in a common language, if we extend the small scale observed variation outwards we have the working model of the tree of life. I'm not calling true or false, just saying that it is an observable catalyst for variation and novelty in nature which has the potential to account for the variety of life in general. This does not contradict the idea that a certain specified complexity seen in biology, or the entirety of being, is likely the product of mind. What it does give us is a model of how our own intelligence, and mind, came to be.

In contrast if I, for a moment, take on board that the specified complexity seen in biology is in fact the product of mind I don't feel it interferes with my current understanding of evolutionary theory. I am immediately confronted by the difficulty of accounting for the inference of a mind which has not arisen from earthly biology. I'm trying to think of an answer which would be helpful to a biologist and I'm struggling....if it's God, ancient aliens, deism, pantheism or dharma it doesn't further our understanding of biology.

Front loading sounds cool but what was front loaded and how it unfolded is largely undefined. If the first cell was front loaded with the capacity to slowly unfold into all the variety of life we see today there is no conflict with evolution as in my understanding evolution accounts for the change and expansion of life over time and not the mystery of how the first basic unit(s) of life came to be. Similarly if the universe was front loaded to unfold as it has done it does not develop our understanding of physics. Agents acting upon the genome causing large scale change also sounds cool but the who, when, where & how isn't very specific at all.

[bippy123]

Bippy,

I'm trying not to appeal to popularity but to practical utility and explanatory power. Microevolution, a term which I'm not too fond of, is observable, testable & somewhat predictable. On the small scale, which almost all seem to agree with, it unites all life in a common language, if we extend the small scale observed variation outwards we have the working model of the tree of life. I'm not calling true or false, just saying that it is an observable catalyst for variation and novelty in nature which has the potential to account for the variety of life in general. This does not contradict the idea that a certain specified complexity seen in biology, or the entirety of being, is likely the product of mind. What it does give us is a model of how our own intelligence, and mind, came to be.

In contrast if I, for a moment, take on board that the specified complexity seen in biology is in fact the product of mind I don't feel it interferes with my current understanding of evolutionary theory. I am immediately confronted by the difficulty of accounting for the inference of a mind which has not arisen from earthly biology. I'm trying to think of an answer which would be helpful to a biologist and I'm struggling....if it's God, ancient aliens, deism, pantheism or dharma it doesn't further our understanding of biology.

Front loading sounds cool but what was front loaded and how it unfolded is largely undefined. If the first cell was front loaded with the capacity to slowly unfold into all the variety of life we see today there is no conflict with evolution as in my understanding evolution accounts for the change and expansion of life over time and not the mystery of how the first basic unit(s) of life came to be. Similarly if the universe was front loaded to unfold as it has done it does not develop our understanding of physics. Agents acting upon the genome causing large scale change also sounds cool but the who, when, where & how isn't very specific at all.

Ok Proinsias i see what your saying and it's somewhat what Rick said (and I'm mostly ok with that ) but where I disagree with u on is The extrapolating Macroevolution from micro because of the multiple mutations that are needed at the same time to happen.

Whale evolution is one example

This video by doctor David berlinski illustrates this perfectly . Macro evolution is way to complex to simply say many successive micro evolutionary steps , or if your more comfortable with this , adaptations ).
http://youtu.be/VHeSaUq-Hl8

And the tree of life is very subjective and depends on the bias that a person has when looking at the fossil record . Certainly for me it isn't a theory that has enough evidence that would or should prompt any biologist to call it fact .

Intelligent design can also account for so e sort of tree of life simply because of the fact that if a designer designed life he could use the same basic material to create these life forms and naturally they would have similarities .
The photo of the evolution of the automobile was used by a famous Darwinian biologist years back until it was pointed out to him that even though all the cars had many similarities to each other , they were still designed by a mind , so he stopped using this example .

Now if as doctor David berlinski says, if natural selection and random variation were the main mechanisms then we should be able to see this evidence in lab experiments , but in fact we see the opposite . We see inherent species limitations . A bacteria stays a bacteria , a fruit fly stays a fruit fly . We have don't this experiment with fruit flies even speeding evolution up to the equivalent of a million years but we see no Macroevolutionary change at all. Same with bacteria .

Another video by berlinski also shows why micro can't just neatly be extrapolated by macro , because as in whale evolution there needs to be multiple morphological changes happening at the same time or the animal won't survive . He also talks about how the fossil record doesn't support these changes with the few supposed transitional fossils it has .

http://youtu.be/IZdlQK0cOlI

But this video was before paleontologists found an basilosaurus fossil dating 49 million years ago swimming in water at the same time as it's supposed key ancestor ambulocetas is, which make doctor berlinski's criticisms even more problematic for evolutionary biologists
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intellig ... antartica/
You won't hear any of this in biology classes and the paper was t very publicized .

These things should cause anyone to pause for a moment and rethink the theory , but instead we don't see any kind if criticism academic circles . It's as if it's blasphemy to criticize it at least a little . Now it might be that a combination of ID and evolution occurred (and I'm open to that ) , but it's hard to stay open when we can't bring up questions like this is academia without being called delusional and idiotic . These are serious questions .

I've always been a non conformist and the worst to do with a non conformist is tell not allow him to ask questions or use constructive criticism. It makes me highly suspicious . I felt that way with young earth creationists when I was debating them when they criticized the theory of evolution (when I was an evolutionist ) and I feel that way now when I see how the media is controlled by Darwinists .

An example of this was when one of the media spokespersons for Darwinian evolution eugenie Scott blatantly told a lie on cnn that there weren't any peer reviewed papers on intelligent design , and when doctor stephen Meyers pointed this out to her on national tv and even talked about the paper he even got published amongst others she still denied it , and on top of that instead of pointing out her lie to her the cnn interviewer changed the subject and went on the attack after doctor Meyers .

If ID is not science than academia should give it the attention that it needs , if only to show how blatantly wrong it is , but they do the complete opposite .
If I'm confident in a subject , like for instance the shroud of turin, and I'm constantly avoiding answering the tough questions on it then after a while people will know that I'm just a looney whistling in the wind (I still a looney but I don't whistle much lol)

Get what I'm saying proinsias .

I love the study of ancient animals and still remember how much I loved studying the animals of the Carboniferous period (fascinated with giant insects even though I she bugs being next to me lol)

We need a more open atmosphere in academia if only to increase knowledge in the truth .

[Audie]

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I do have a biol. degree,but tnx for examples anyway.

Dependent relationships among plants / animals / people
start out as non vital. They can become essential to the survival
of both individuals in the course of their individual lifetimes!

How much more if an association lasts for thousands of generations!

God, if there is such, is surely far more grand than to be found
in pockets where you've not done much research. Dont you think so?

You wanted the data, so I spent much time laying one case out for you.

Also, this is a public forum. Right?
So my message is as much for others reading as it is someone like yourself with a biology degree.

If you feel what I presented can be accounted for through "less vital" relationships, then I'm more than happy to read information about how such mutualism evolved.
Even if you have other cases, but I'm interested in mutualism where we see two or more species depend upon each other for survival.
Is there a specific case, or can you point me to some studies or reports that show such systems mutually evolve?

Re: finding it in pockets, I'm sure this mutual symbiosis is not just found in pockets.
As the title of that article I referenced noted: Endosymbiotic bacterial and fungal mutualists of insects are extraordinarily widespread and fantastically complex.

Ants have been studied in depth for over 100 years.
We've only in about the past decade discovered these intricate relationships.
The work requires a lot of effort, and modern techniques allow us to explore these relationships on a deeper level.
I expect we'll be hearing more and more about such mutualistic relationships as more research is done.

My position is that such mutualistic relationships point more towards an intended design (Theism) than random chance (Naturalism).

Note, I did not say this rules out evolution throughout.
It does point heavily away from Naturalistic Evolution as I described in my previous post (the philosophy that our natural world exists without any "super" natural beings like God).
However, it does leave Theistic Evolution where the evolutionary processes are "stacked" to unfold in a particular order.
I think the odds certainly point away from a Naturalistic position.

What is more likely in your eyes given the more mutualistic relationships we find --
Evolution following an intended design (Theistic Evolution [1]), or
Evolution following an entirely random and unguided process (i.e., Naturalism [2])?

I certainly know Progressive Creation has been kicked under your table, but that doesn't phase me.
So I'll withdraw it as a contender to leave you with these above two positions to decide between.

Lay out all you like for lurkers, I dont need the dtails myself tho, is all.

You asked for an example that would probably require a great deal of time, like thousands of generations,, to study. However, one might look at how dogs kind of domesticated themselves, found a way to fit in with humans, and how they are now totally dependent on us. Of course there is deliberate breeding, but some of it wasnt.

My basic point tho is that you can see associations among organisms that vary from
very casual, are of relatively little benefit,and are not obligatory, thru more and more interdenepdence. You seem to be presenting it as irreducible complexity.

I do know that your position is that things point in one direction. Its not the way to be objective. One little trap you keep walking into is the (sorry) but, mantra- cant of the creos, the "unguided random meaningless sheer chance, 747 vs the tornado, etc"

Its purpose, as I read it, is to reinforce the belief that its 747 / tornado, or, God. Worst either / or, ever.


The interrelatedness of living things is wonderfully complex and varied, and changing all the time. Do you figure a Designer keeps constantly meddling?

And as for kicking under the table, what do you think you have done with this?

Show me a way that a Designer might be called for, and I will pay attention. The symbiosis stuff, you can see it is so many stages, that make sense as "random brainless unguided...blah', I sure dont agree with where you put the odds.



Oh...do you think that a photo by bouncing off of your watch, say, acquires information coded into it?