Evidence for God from Science

the sleep of reason wrote:so to say evolution can be micro but not macro implies the character Evolution has a logical understanding of Linnaean classification and stops at it's made up borders. that it is conscious of what a specie is and consciously decides not to transcend it. just because we box things in for our understanding doesnt mean that's naturally where the cutoff line occurs.
i see the mircro/macro debate the same as geographical boundaries. you can say "ok this northern hemisphere is ALL new england." then you say 'ok it's too big, this part will be america" then you say "ok this part is different because it's sunny and warm, so it's california, but this part is cold and snowy, so it's alaska.' now you've created species. but it's arbitrary, you've just created lines to box in small areas for your brain to better comprehend.

Comprehend what? This is almost like saying that if you own a car then automatically you are going to have an accident....

jenwat3 wrote:I haven't been involved in this before, but I wanted to say a few things. Sleep, zebras and horses actually DO "know" that they are different species. Almost any animal knows the difference between its own kind and another kind, within the same type. For instance, horses and zebras are basically both "horses". But you will never see them naturally interbreed with one another. The same thing applies with lions and tigers. They are both a species of cat, but they know their boundaries. It isn't "natural" for them to interbreed. Microevolution, however, can and does exist. Just look at bacteria and viruses. For a long time, we were able to get rid of harmful ones with medicines. But eventually they "evolved" to become resistant. Is this not a type of evolution? As I said before, I haven't been involved in this before, so anyone can jump in and correct me if they think I'm wrong.

yeah. i guess "evolution" changes from micro to macro depending on who is watching. when christian's take notice, it logically decides to be 'micro' to fit their definitions.

zebras do NOT know they are a different species, they do not know they are zebras. they might know they are different than a tree, different from a horse, but linnaeus made up species classification. that doest not mean anything to the validity of the arguement. mico/macro is silly because it implies evolution knows what boundaries humans created and decides to stay within them.

Comprehend what? This is almost like saying that if you own a car then automatically you are going to have an accident....

i'm sorry but for the life of me i cant figure out what this is in regards to or what you mean.

No, of course they don't actually "know". God puts the instinct in them to stray away from kinds not their own. But this is not the case in bacteria and viruses that become resistant to medicine.

Canuckster1127 wrote:Sleep,

Creationists, Old Earth and Young Earth, believe the Genesis account is literal and not a myth or metaphore. As such a significant factor is that the influence and work of a creator is not something that is purely scientifically observable and provable (although the ID movement of late is questioning that and looking for ways to measure, extrapolate or infer evidence that on its own would indicate something more than just natural processes at work.)
Bart

excellent point. if you take the literal hebrew definition of the first book of the bible, you come up with the LITERAL account of the earth pre-existing and "in the beginning" pertaining only to the adamite world, thus LITERALLY opening the door for an agelessly old planet.
LITERALLY taken, one has to assume any amount of "days" could have passed from the creation of the earth until the sun was made, which only then created human earth days. and finally, literally taken, one cannot dismiss the plain scripture saying a day to God is a thousand years to us.

exactly how much time is needed for macro evolution, and just how much faster is ALL micro?

but here's the real issue: everyone here's stance is a retreat from 'evolution doesnt exist at all." i defy any single one of you that you'd have made the same concession of "ok, we can see things evolve" if you were alive some 100 years ago. i defy any single one of you to say you believed in a creator God AND any form of evolution prior to darwin or prior to scientific discoveries thus proving it further in the last 60 or 70 years. there used to be this huge gap in logical understanding of science, and we ALL of us used GOD as the gap filler. "how can this be? science cant explain it. well GOD did it!" as time has passed, we've found new evidence towards evolution and as that evidence becomes stronger, you guys concede further and further that GOd can still exist and you can accept these things.

but you're not there yet--you still only believe what you can SEE in science and toss out logical theories and again use GOD as the gap filler. i do not hesitate to say that your great grandkids, if as logical and spiritual as you, will in 100 years again concede that ALL life did evolve but there can still be a God *as the evidence mounts.

my point is: i believe in a creator God AND admit i dont know if evolution could have occured as theorized. i dont see any conflict in the creation account and darwanism because LITERALLY taken in hebrew the creation account says both the earth and the light and the waters existed for untold amounts of time before "in the beginning" which was just OUR tiny realm of existence, not the history of the planet.

that being said, i leave it open for science to prove. the burden of proof is on them to show me all life evolved. right now, yes--it's a leap of faith. but you guys called it "evilution" for a hundred years until science shoved proof in you face, now you concede only to micro because you'd be a fool not to, but can reconcile it with a creator Almighty. in another 100 you'll again concede to macro and STILl reconcile a creator Almighty. but for now you pointlessly argue against macro for a lack of evidence. you, the merchants of faith in an unseen God, will concede and reconcile only after irrefutable proof.

i'm thinking of a word.
the word is 'irony."

jenwat3 wrote:No, of course they don't actually "know". God puts the instinct in them to stray away from kinds not their own. But this is not the case in bacteria and viruses that become resistant to medicine.

this is exactly my point about cancer. cancer is macroevolution turbocharged, changing to devour new organs and to avoid medicines.

How is cancer macroevolution? It isn't one species changing to another. And for someone so deadset against evolution, of any kind, you just contradicted yourself, did you not?

zebras do NOT know they are a different species, they do not know they are zebras. they might know they are different than a tree, different from a horse,

Sleep, you haven't responded to my post. Species do recognize members of the same species, and in that regard, they DO know another zebra. Fish recognize their own species, birds recognize their own species...

And books still use the designations micro/macro evolution. This is still a research ongoing about how and what is needed and in what forms and rates speciation occurs. You cannot make such blanket generalizations. I shall find you some quotes from my books from grad school.

jenwat3 wrote:How is cancer macroevolution? It isn't one species changing to another. And for someone so deadset against evolution, of any kind, you just contradicted yourself, did you not?

i'm not deadset against evolution. i believe in evolution. i dont put a caveat on it like 'micro' or 'macro' in order to reconcile my believe in Almighty. i just say the burden of proof for evolution from nothingness into humanity is on science.

personally i dont pretend to know if God created man as we are or if 'man as we are' has to do with a deeper level of 'humanity' and consciousness and we've evolved into modern man since. it doesnt matter to me, i believe in observable science. i believe nature evovles, within and across all speices. that doesnt mean God couldnt have created a starting point that fits into any phase of this observable data. GOd could have created 9 different creatures that evolved into millions that we know now, or just a single cell that did the same, or modern man and MOST animals but not all, or any other concievable variant of this. science cant really discover any variant of this as proof that will disprove Almighty, tho.

so i dont play the game other's play here, conceding and re-structuring my spirituality only after science MAKES me. i go the other route--anchoring my believe in God no matter what science can possible bring up.

zoegirl wrote:

zebras do NOT know they are a different species, they do not know they are zebras. they might know they are different than a tree, different from a horse,

Sleep, you haven't responded to my post. Species do recognize members of the same species, and in that regard, they DO know another zebra. Fish recognize their own species, birds recognize their own species...

no, they do not. because they dont speak friggin english and didnt have BIO 1 and learn the lennaean classification systems. species is a made up term, so are animal names. the only thing animals can know is that they are different from something else and do not wish to breed with them. a gazelle DOES know it's not a lion, but diesnt know it's scientific name or clasification or anything else. it breeds how it breeds for PRACTICAL reasons, not for the sake of preserving a made up classification system.
likewise evolution does what it does for a practical reason, which means it wont stop at the borders of a species just because we put that arbitrary title there. if it's practical to evolve beyond that point, it will. macro and micro are made up terms, concessions christians make from 'evilution' because they HAVE to. but evolution is just EVOLUTION.

it's like bicycle paint. it's just paint. you can paint ANYHING with it, not just bicylces. it doesnt like fall off of other objects. just like evolution doesnt just stop when it reaches a species edge.

i mean jeeze. what on earth did evolution do before darwin? how did animals know how to behave befoer carl linaeus graced us with his classification system?
i guess evolution just didnt know the boundaries back then and had to wing it, huh?

zoegirl wrote: And books still use the designations micro/macro evolution. This is still a research ongoing about how and what is needed and in what forms and rates speciation occurs. You cannot make such blanket generalizations. I shall find you some quotes from my books from grad school.

all i'm saying is 70 years ago you would have said GOd created everything and nothing evoles. but science has proven you have to reconsider, and you are, but you're dragging your feet and limitting it to micro for little reason other than to preserve your biblical interpretation of creation. but alas, in another 70 years, that same you would again concede to proven science and you will again figure out how to reconcile a belief in the creator God and still believe in proven science of evolution (macro.)
this intermediary period of scientific foot-dragging is unneccessary for the substatiantion of a creator God. it doesnt conflict, at all. you will concede to macro once the evidence mounts, why not just get your spiritual feet planted now? i dont see any reason to argue against macro other than it conflicts your God-view (as canuckster pointed out).

again, 70 years ago you'd be making these same arguments against any form of evolution but science has proven this much true so you concede. it's just a matter of time...

the sleep of reason wrote:

zoegirl wrote:

zebras do NOT know they are a different species, they do not know they are zebras. they might know they are different than a tree, different from a horse,

Sleep, you haven't responded to my post. Species do recognize members of the same species, and in that regard, they DO know another zebra. Fish recognize their own species, birds recognize their own species...

no, they do not. because they dont speak friggin english and didnt have BIO 1 and learn the lennaean classification species. species is a made up term, so are animal names. the only thing animals can know is that they are different from something else and do not wish to breed with them. a gazelle DOES know it's not a lion, but diesnt know it's scientific name or clasification or anything else. it breeds how it breeds for PRACTICAL reasons, not for the sake of preserving a made up classification system.

I think we are all agreeing that they don't consciously know they are a zebra or their scientific name That was never MY point. My point has always been that members within a species do recognize each other and to that extent, species interbreeding is very rare. There are very clear levels that prevent species interbreeding.

likewise evolution does what it does for a practical reason, which means it wont stop at the borders of a species just because we put that arbitrary title there.

Let be VERY careful here not to imply that evolution is some sort of force. There is NO rhyme or reason to the mutations that occur and yes, selection itself is not random, bu the mutations are random. To that end, to change species recognition, there must be very clear mutations that address cellular recognition proteins or color pattern or behavorial patterns.

if it's practical to evolve beyond that point, it will.

Again, you are extrapolating at this point. Making broad sweeping generalizations.

macro and micro are made up terms, concessions christians make from 'evilution' because they HAVE to. but evolution is just EVOLUTION.

Actually, no, they are terms still in use. (but I see these terms changing quickly in RESPONSE to the critiques that have been brought up. But they were/are broadly in use by the scientific community)

it's like bicycle paint. it's just paint. you can paint ANYHING with it, not just bicylces. it doesnt like fall off of other objects. just like evolution doesnt just stop when it reaches a species edge.

Again, we have yet to understand the limits of speciation. The VERY few observable experiments that show speciation are still in the infancy.

Look, again, I personally have no problem with God using and directing a mechanism. But let's face it. There are right now too many extrapolations and generalizations at this point to know exactly how powerful a process like microevolution is.

yeah. i cant really argue any of that. i dont know how much time is involved for macro v micro or the complexity or any of the rest of it. right now i see humanity in the pre-renaissance of evolutionary understanding. i think the giant leaps are yet to be made, which started my involvement on this particular thread because frank argued mankind should already have the technology and info to reverse engineer a cell or whatever. i think we are in the infancy of understanding all of this.

i 'm beating a dead horse *pun intended* with the zebra knowing it's a zebra thing. we totally agree, i'm just debating the semantics of name calling (or species classifying). my point being that a zebra knows not to canoodle with fangy lions instinctually and not to mate with porcupines which wont propigate the species. which is kind of what every animal on earth wants to do, even us. but evolution is an adaptation for a spectrum of reasons to that same end. so to me, as i understand it, speciation is blind and not confined to mac/mic or species.

can i ask something again? do you deny a hirax and an elephant are related? in by being related, do you think they had a common ancestor? do you think both have always existed mutually exclusive of each other, or do you think they branched from common ancestors?

the sleep of reason wrote:

zoegirl wrote:

zebras do NOT know they are a different species, they do not know they are zebras. they might know they are different than a tree, different from a horse,

Sleep, you haven't responded to my post. Species do recognize members of the same species, and in that regard, they DO know another zebra. Fish recognize their own species, birds recognize their own species...

no, they do not. because they dont speak friggin english and didnt have BIO 1 and learn the lennaean classification systems. species is a made up term, so are animal names. the only thing animals can know is that they are different from something else and do not wish to breed with them. a gazelle DOES know it's not a lion, but diesnt know it's scientific name or clasification or anything else. it breeds how it breeds for PRACTICAL reasons, not for the sake of preserving a made up classification system.
likewise evolution does what it does for a practical reason, which means it wont stop at the borders of a species just because we put that arbitrary title there. if it's practical to evolve beyond that point, it will. macro and micro are made up terms, concessions christians make from 'evilution' because they HAVE to. but evolution is just EVOLUTION.

it's like bicycle paint. it's just paint. you can paint ANYHING with it, not just bicylces. it doesnt like fall off of other objects. just like evolution doesnt just stop when it reaches a species edge.

i mean jeeze. what on earth did evolution do before darwin? how did animals know how to behave befoer carl linaeus graced us with his classification system?
i guess evolution just didnt know the boundaries back then and had to wing it, huh?

Animals DO know what species they are. I am not saying that animals know in the same sense that you and I do, but their "knowledge" comes from God and is called instinct. If they did not have instinct, there would be cases of a cat trying to mate with a rabbit, for example. And evolution is not just evolution, either. There is the impossible kind, called macro, and the possible kind, called micro. While it is impossible for a species to evolve from another species, or for man to evolve from a monkey, it IS possible for a chihuahua to have evolved from a wolf. I am not saying that this DID happen, only that it is possible.

This may not satisfy you, but even if they did (have a common ancestor)....does that mean what we think it means?

Let me clarify my position. I follow the progressive creationist model. I think the godandscience site explanation is very adept at providing a framework to address your question.

A fourth view, which I am surprised many Christians still do not know by name, but which without considering the mechanics, many instinctively believe, is called progressive creationism. It is fair to say it lies in between theistic evolution and young earth creationism, drawing some points from both but always insisting on the input of an Intelligent Designer. It agrees with the former in believing that there was a much longer time frame than six twenty-four hour periods and holds that each new life form was not, necessarily, created out of nothing, or out of previously non-living material. Or at least that the "template" of previously existing life is used again - with adjustments. It agrees with the latter, not only in affirming the verbal inspiration of the Bible, but that God was present at every stage of the creation of life and that every new life form was a deliberate and miraculous act of God.

It is unfortunate that Progressive Creation, or Old Earth Creation, as it is sometimes known , is often tagged from the left and the right with the word "compromise" - given its "shameful or disreputable concession" meaning. But of course this has the built in bias that the truth lies in one of two or more extreme positions. We do not believe this to be the case here.

The word "evolution" is often so emotionally charged among Christians that its mere mention is upsetting. However in its ordinary usage it simply means "change in respect to time" whether short or long. To some Christians its definition is restricted to a narrow biological one implying natural processes that gave rise to all the different species. Christians need to learn to react less aggressively to a mere mention of the word.

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... ssive.html

With that in mind. Would we be surprised to find that DNA sequences are homologous and show common ancestry? Would we be surprised to find similar homologous structures? I don't personally have a problem with this. I DO have a problem with those that use this common ancestry as some sort of proof against God.

Look, I think that a lot of what you see in Christian circles today is backlash due to the insistence of some scientists that selection and microevolution are reasons to dismiss God. Naturally one would be defensive about this. I think many scientists do understand that they cannot use evolution as a means of rejecting the existence of God, but many atheists do use this as a means of "proving" God doesn't exist (erroneously).

I do get the impression, to some degree, from you, that we here are "d***ed if we do and d***ned if we don't". YOu use words like "concede" as if we reluctantly give in. You want to bring up the worst examples of Christian dogma (racism, spousal abuse, rejection of science) as if that is the only thing out there of Christianity. I am sorry that you have hear those things, and yes, I have no doubt that there are some sadly delusional people out there who use Christianity to rationalize their own sin. If you use these examples as your reason to reject the Bible then you are letting other's think for you (and secretly I wonder whether you want to treasure these stereotypes of Christians, as if this makes it esaier for you to reject the Bible and Christ.) You don't rest upon other extremes to define groups, I would bet, so I would encourage you to broaden the scope of what you know of the scripture.

Incidentally, there is a great section on the validity of scripture on the main site. (with loads of extra links) http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... icity.html

I know you were addressing this on another thread but thought I would include it here before I forget!!