RTB: Serious Problems with Evolution

[Kurieuo]

Bottom Line of my above argument: Either creatures can evolve naturally and randomly without God altogether, or life can't. If the second, then to be logically consistent and coherent, one can't place their theology in a box to discuss science or vice-versa. The two go hand-in-hand together.

Not at all. Your dichotomy is one of your own making, and I don’t acknowledge it.

You can choose to not acknowledge it like But, it's a knock down argument as I see it.

There is no way someone who believes in Theistic Evolution, can seriously, truly, believe in natural selection acting upon random mutations (core evolutionary theory concepts) except in mere lip service. True randominity is just incoherent with and contradicts a central TE belief that God either planned or guided life, especially us human beings.

What I believe happens, is people with their faith try to box their "beliefs" (Theistic) away when they come to doing science. You seem to me as such a person. Yet, such leads double-mindedness, contradiction and confusion within one's self and their beliefs, even if they don't realise or acknowledge such.

[Kurieuo]

Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking sees evolution as a random process, said to be unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design. Although, allowances are tolerated for those who believe in God, so long as any logical conclusions to such is kept to one's self.

Stephen J Gould said something like, "if evolution were rewind and played out again then we'd expect there wouldn't be any humans." Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker rejects the notion of many Theistic Evolutionists believe, God does not plant the initial seed or oversea such process to purposefully unfold into all other lifeforms right down to God's ultimate intention of forming us humans. Those who believe in Theistic Evolution would however, believe our world and humans would unfold each and every time: humans are a necessity in God's plan.

Interestingly, the National Association of Biology Teachers once described evolution as "an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process." This logically excludes any view of evolution mixed with God. But, they later removed these words from their definition and received much backlash for cowering to creationists, even if they were Theistic Evolutionists and/or believers in Intelligent Design. I found a page which goes into it here: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/nabt.htm

[crochet1949]

"Finches will always be finches". This is a wholly unjustified guess. Any examination of the past billion years suggests that at no time in the past would such a prediction ever have been true, so why should it be true now? Finches may well carry on being finches for some time, maybe another ten million years or so, but to speculate further than that is unwarranted.

And, Who, pray tell, Is examining the past Billion years ??? And Why would anyone Be speculating ten million years in the future. Flightless lizards becoming Birds ? Why not spend the time researching something Profitable.

My "speculation" based on God's Word is that 'maybe another ten million years or so' -- but probably a whole lot Sooner -- this old earth / or Young earth is going to be destroyed and God will bring the New Jerusalem down to earth for all His Children to live in with their glorified bodies. That 'way out speculation' is found in the last couple of chapters of Revelation.

And, after you've stopped laughing or having a good chuckle -- the discussion will Probably move on to more Interesting discussion. And that's okay.

The graph that's been included -- fascinating -- but how do birds or anything else survive those ice ages. With all that ice -- nothing will grow and the Cold would freeze everything.

All valid questions which I would encourage you to search answers for and don't think you know them via common sense only.

And by the way the same God designed another galaxy, our neighbour Andromeda which is heading straight towards us on a collision course and the glorious Jerusalem and new earth will be obliterated in due time. I hope that design is a part of revelations or how you see it otherwise its a very difficult thing to explain from a purposed-creation and design.

I looked that up about Andromeda -- the galaxy is heading towards our galaxy at about 250,000 mph and astronomers estimate that about 3.75 billion years from now -- the two galaxies will collide. The article continued on to suggest that the event will last for a million years or so and a new galaxy will emerge.

From the Biblical perspective -- this world Is getting worse and worse and nuclear war Could be possible. When nations go to war against nations -- there Is a grand finale of wars and then God Does intervene. We Are promised a new heaven and new earth. The old Will be destroyed. A new world Is promised.
When people are left to their own desires -- we are very capable of destroying the good. God created a perfect world for His people and He promises to renew it for those who follow Him.

Yeah probably a new galaxy may emerge. And whatever new earth we're promised will be destroyed. But would you say its intelligently designed? I wouldn't. And it flies in the face of what our understanding of revelations is.

What do you mean by a perfect world? And that also is my point, what is the purpose of renewing if there would be nothing to renew?

Edit:
To put it in a rough analogy. We were promised a train which will be renewed and continue on the track. The problem is there's another train coming on the track opposite to us. The collision is inevitable. The collision was not promised because no one ever thought that could happen.
People didn't know there were other trains as well.

So...I could explain why that is from my position. The problem is for someone who believes perfection and order in creation. Because this is not that. It's the exact opposite. Random chaos. We know it happens elsewhere in the universe and what is left is well not pretty.

Crochet, please don't think that I am belittling your faith. This is my sincere observation and thus question to people who think like you. I see no answer except a vague mystical answer like you gave up. I didn't get what you understand or hope to make sense of it.

For example on your perfect world remark. I will again say that sin or no sin death would always be on this planet. Take one small example of earthquakes. They are features of a live planet. Because of them this planet has its present life and without them nothing would be the same but that means that someone somewhere would die inevitably. That's an unescapable conclusion.And also that a planet without death atleast of our current life forms will be no planet. Death ensures fertility and other processes important for sustainability of life. Not to mention that a planet without death will not survive given that it will eventually be not enough for things that would never die but still multiply.

This is out of sequence with the present conversation -- but I wanted to respond to 'this'.

Re: a perfect world -- Genesis tells us that God Did create a perfect world for Adam and Eve. Perfect -- their relationship with God -- at least a few fruit trees available for them -- the animal world. The concept of death entered the world because Adam and Eve disobeyed God / gave in to the serpent and the punishment was physical death - Eventually. Otherwise they and everyone who descended from them would Not die. They would live forever. "The wages of sin is death" "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Yes, physical Death Is inevitable.

Life Was 'renewed' to Noah and his family and the animal life After the flood. After the water had receded enough - dry ground to walk on - they were told to spread out and continue to multiply. Before the flood, people were living as long as 926 or so years. Nearly 1,000 yrs. After wards the life spans decreased noticeably.

The next Major renewal will be the New heaven and New earth / New Jerusalem.

Because God is the one and only Almighty God. He created This world -- gave mankind freedom of choice and we've managed to make a mess. He's provided a gift for us -- Eternal Life. But it comes when We realize that there's Nothing we can do on our Own to get that Eternal life. It comes by way of the cross of Christ. His death and bodily resurrection so that We Can live. A person's Soul exists Forever. And a gift needs to be accepted to be any good for a person.

As for the possible collision predicted for several billions of years from now --I'm not worried about that. God created and God Does have a plan for this world. He won't let anything accidentally destroy His plan.

[Audacity]

Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking sees evolution as a random process, said to be unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design. Although, allowances are tolerated for those who believe in God, so long as any logical conclusions to such is kept to one's self.

I think this is a bit misleading. Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking does indeed regard evolution as unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design because there's to reason to assume it is intelligently planed or designed. These are aspects beyond science's ability to evaluate or confirm, so they're left out of consideration. But if someone wants to believe evolution is planed or designed science couldn't care less. Just don't bother bringing them into any hypothesis that attempts to explain some facet of evolution.

Stephen J Gould said something like, "if evolution were rewind and played out again then we'd expect there wouldn't be any humans."

Not quite.

"Stephen Jay Gould, who famously argued that if the "videotape of life" could be rewound and played again, vastly different life forms would evolve. Gould believed that chance, or "contingency," plays a big role in the history of life. The extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals on Earth, for example, resulted from a chance asteroid impact 65 million years ago."
source

[Kurieuo]

Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking sees evolution as a random process, said to be unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design. Although, allowances are tolerated for those who believe in God, so long as any logical conclusions to such is kept to one's self.

I think this is a bit misleading. Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking does indeed regard evolution as unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design because there's to reason to assume it is intelligently planed or designed. These are aspects beyond science's ability to evaluate or confirm, so they're left out of consideration. But if someone wants to believe evolution is planed or designed science couldn't care less. Just don't bother bringing them into any hypothesis that attempts to explain some facet of evolution.

Actually, they're not left out of evolutionary science at all, but concepts are full of them, and such perhaps must be that way if one is to faithfully apply methodological naturalism as commonly understood.

Stephen J Gould said something like, "if evolution were rewind and played out again then we'd expect there wouldn't be any humans."

Not quite.

"Stephen Jay Gould, who famously argued that if the "videotape of life" could be rewound and played again, vastly different life forms would evolve. Gould believed that chance, or "contingency," plays a big role in the history of life. The extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals on Earth, for example, resulted from a chance asteroid impact 65 million years ago."
source

I loosely quoted such, obviously, but the logical conclusion ends up the same even within your extended explanation. I'm also not alone in my analysis of Gould, for example, consider Scott James' book, An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics:

Scott James, An Introduction to Evolutionary Ethics

an-intro-to-evolutionary-ethics-scott-james.png (212.16 KiB) Viewed 4011 times

[abelcainsbrother]

This is typical with evolutionists. They'll preach it is true,but when questioned about the evidence? They play dumb in order to defend evolution. Suddenly they don't seem to know about evolution,but they sure can preach it is true using technical language making you think they know more than they really do.

So you admit your ignorance on the matter? On the topic at least yes we do know more. That is why instead of showing contrary evidence against the evidence that is for evolution, you are attacking people. Very nice!

Knowing more about any subject does not make you right. I'm not attacking anybody,I'm just telling the truth. Audacity is playing dumb about speciation after he had brought up not being able to breed explaining to Crochet how evolution works,then when I ask " What happens when they cannot breed?" He then claims nothing happens after he had already brought up not being able to breed. He is avoiding answering the question now. And this is typical with evolutionists when you challenge evidence and things taught as true when it comes to evolution. They either play dumb or avoid the argument.

Speciation is a myth proven by their own evidence as well as examples I used to show it is. You have said speciation is not a myth but you avoid my challenge and the reasons I say it is. You don't want to accept it,eventhough I have given evidence and explained why it is.Even evolution's own evidence shows it is and you should know about the evidence if you accept evolution.

[abelcainsbrother]

I'm just going to go back over some brilliant points I have made as to why evolution is a myth.

You cannot use normal variation amongst a population for evidence life evolves.

Here is why you cannot,it is not just because I say you can't. It is because Charles Darwin himself 150 years ago used normal variation to sell his theory to get people to accept it. Therefore normal variation cannot be evidence life evolves.Let me prove it. Here is a quote from Charles Darwin from his book " The Origin of Species" from 1859. "If,then,animals and plants do VARY,let it be ever so slightly,why should not VARIATIONS or individual differences,which are in anyway beneficial,be preserved and accumulated through natural selection?"

Yet,this is exactly what scientists are doing.

Scientists are documenting NORMAL variation amongst a population and when NORMAL variation amongst a population happens they claim it evolved while assuming everything else concerning evolution is true just like Charles Darwin did.

This is the case with every kind of life scientists have tested including viruses. When they see NORMAL variation amongst the population of viruses they claim it evolved.

Based on this they are assuming everything else as being true when it comes to evolution,making up myths such as speciation,natural selection,mutations,adaptation,micro-evolution,macroevolution,the whole evolution tree,DNA,etc. These myths are made up all because scientists have documented NORMAL variation amongst a population. There is no reason to believe anything they claim and have absolutely no credibility.

It does not matter how much evidence is behind evolution because everything about evolution is built by assumption,imagination and speculation.

[Audacity]

Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking sees evolution as a random process, said to be unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design. Although, allowances are tolerated for those who believe in God, so long as any logical conclusions to such is kept to one's self.

I think this is a bit misleading. Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking does indeed regard evolution as unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design because there's to reason to assume it is intelligently planed or designed. These are aspects beyond science's ability to evaluate or confirm, so they're left out of consideration. But if someone wants to believe evolution is planed or designed science couldn't care less. Just don't bother bringing them into any hypothesis that attempts to explain some facet of evolution.

Actually, they're not left out of evolutionary science at all, but concepts are full of them, and such perhaps must be that way if one is to faithfully apply methodological naturalism as commonly understood.

If you're going to quote Plantinga is Ken Ham far behind? While more literate and far more principled than Ham, his argument from incredulity (perhaps it would have helped if he knew a little about evolution) is no better than any of Ham's many fallacious arguments. But neither is surprising in that they share a common bias, which speaks all the worse for a professor of philosophy.

[Kurieuo]

Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking sees evolution as a random process, said to be unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design. Although, allowances are tolerated for those who believe in God, so long as any logical conclusions to such is kept to one's self.

I think this is a bit misleading. Contemporary evolutionary and scientific thinking does indeed regard evolution as unplanned and unguided without any intelligent plan or design because there's to reason to assume it is intelligently planed or designed. These are aspects beyond science's ability to evaluate or confirm, so they're left out of consideration. But if someone wants to believe evolution is planed or designed science couldn't care less. Just don't bother bringing them into any hypothesis that attempts to explain some facet of evolution.

Actually, they're not left out of evolutionary science at all, but concepts are full of them, and such perhaps must be that way if one is to faithfully apply methodological naturalism as commonly understood.

If you're going to quote Plantinga is Ken Ham far behind? Not that their targets are the same or are they anywhere close to being intellectual equals--- Ham should be so lucky as to have a quarter of Plantinga's intellect and integrity---but in their use of evolution both of their positions have gathered considerable and justifiable criticism. In short, I don't buy Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism.

I respect Plantinga, and he is well respected in philosophical circles as a Christian theist. I doubt you've read him, more than read about him from people who probably don't understand logical arguments. PS. I didn't quote him, however what is wrong with this definition of methodological naturalism and the way in which people often consider "science"?

The philosophical doctrine of methodological naturalism holds that, for any study of the world to qualify as "scientific," it cannot refer to God's creative activity (or any sort of divine activity). The methods of science, it is claimed, "give us no purchase" on theological propositions--even if the latter are true--and theology therefore cannot influence scientific explanation or theory justification. Thus, science is said to be religiously neutral, if only because science and religion are, by their very natures, epistemically distinct.

His argument however, in that paper linked to is this:

However, the actual practice and content of science challenge this claim. In many areas, science is anything but religiously neutral; moreover, the standard arguments for methodological naturalism suffer from various grave shortcomings.

A new thread should be opened up, however to discuss such. I linked to it, in case some wanted extended reading.

[Audacity]

Kurieuo,

My apologies, but after my posting, which you quoted---something I was unaware of---I decided to edit it and focus a bit more on Plantinga's statements in your linked article. I've copy/pasted it here.

"If you're going to quote Plantinga is Ken Ham far behind? While more literate and far more principled than Ham, his argument from incredulity (perhaps it would have helped if he knew a little about evolution) is no better than any of Ham's many fallacious arguments. But neither is surprising in that they share a common bias, which speaks all the worse for a professor of philosophy."

EDIT: His definition of methodological naturalism is just fine. And maybe a separate thread would be interesting.

[Kurieuo]

Re: Ken and Plantinga, the former is first and foremost a YEC (who has his own religious business niche to protect ). The latter is first and foremost a long-time respected philosopher who one will often come across when exploring epistemology, cognition or philosophy of religion. He is of Christian theistic persuasion sure, but any outright evangelism likeness appears to me a far, far second to his philosophy.

I read him during studies, before the more recent popularisation of his evolutionary argument against naturalism (which I'm sure you've read in passing critiques online). His main books included ones like "Warrant and Proper Function" (1993) and "Warranted Christian Belief" (2000) all really set the foundations for his most recent works and reasoning.

Sadly, many online aren't grounded in epistemology, if they even truly understand propositional logic, set theory, formal and informal fallacies, soundness vs validity and the like (i.e., in other words they're likely not even fit to logically critique). It's a complex area (epistemology), and I'd even need to brush up now a decade after studying, before I feel I could properly re-gather my thoughts. I haven't looked into any more qualified philosophical responses to his recent arguments, or even Plantinga's more recent works where I'm sure his thoughts have been developed even further.

Those who have followed his main works over the years, I expect would understand perfectly where he is coming from in recent thoughts. Yet, many who challenge him on the Internet (which is really a free-for-all) I doubt have seriously read any of his books to do with knowledge, the role of cognition in veracity and the like, even if they have a position of what justified belief looks like. If you took a good course in philosophy, studying such areas, I'm sure you'd be presented with Plantinga as a respected peer-reviewed philosopher in his area regardless of his Christian persuasion.

[Kurieuo]

EDIT: His definition of methodological naturalism is just fine. And maybe a separate thread would be interesting.

I've opened up a new thread here on Methodological Naturalism and science, religion, etc. It was something I discussed a number of years ago now in some depth, but I'd be interested to go over the thoughts again as they were in development at that time.

[Nicki]

"Finches will always be finches". This is a wholly unjustified guess. Any examination of the past billion years suggests that at no time in the past would such a prediction ever have been true, so why should it be true now? Finches may well carry on being finches for some time, maybe another ten million years or so, but to speculate further than that is unwarranted.

And, Who, pray tell, Is examining the past Billion years ??? And Why would anyone Be speculating ten million years in the future. Flightless lizards becoming Birds ? Why not spend the time researching something Profitable.

My "speculation" based on God's Word is that 'maybe another ten million years or so' -- but probably a whole lot Sooner -- this old earth / or Young earth is going to be destroyed and God will bring the New Jerusalem down to earth for all His Children to live in with their glorified bodies. That 'way out speculation' is found in the last couple of chapters of Revelation.

And, after you've stopped laughing or having a good chuckle -- the discussion will Probably move on to more Interesting discussion. And that's okay.

The graph that's been included -- fascinating -- but how do birds or anything else survive those ice ages. With all that ice -- nothing will grow and the Cold would freeze everything.

All valid questions which I would encourage you to search answers for and don't think you know them via common sense only.

And by the way the same God designed another galaxy, our neighbour Andromeda which is heading straight towards us on a collision course and the glorious Jerusalem and new earth will be obliterated in due time. I hope that design is a part of revelations or how you see it otherwise its a very difficult thing to explain from a purposed-creation and design.

You don't think the whole universe will be included in 'new heavens and a new earth' and 'make all things new'? I wouldn't have thought God would leave some other galaxy to come crashing into the new earth.

[hughfarey]

Lots of interesting ideas since I last commented, some of them based on what might be thought of as "self-evident" truths which, given a bit of thought, turn out not to be so self-evident after all.

Kurieou, it seems, is giving up on the self-evident truth that there is a kind of elastic band around 'kinds' of animals, as it is obvious that it is certainly not self-evident to many people. Instead, he's now advocating the "knock down argument" that as evolution is a random process, its progress cannot be inspired or directed. I don't agree that this is as self-evident as he seems to think, but perhaps some common understanding could be derived from what we mean by truly random. The word has a wild devil-may-care feel about it as if anything could be possible, but practically, of course, it isn't. "Pick a card," says the conjurer, "any card." And you chose one at random. Could it be the 14 of rubies? No, of course not. Any random event is constrained by parameters - 4 suits, 13 cards each. What's more, even after picking and replacing your card entirely at random, the subsequent cuts and shuffles brings it to the top, whatever it was. The process, as well as the initial conditions, constrains the result.

I find it telling that nobody saw fit to find out what Stephen Gould actually wrote, preferring to grab what they think is the basic idea from secondary sources. So here we go, from the Preface to 'Wonderful Life', itself a significant and deliberate reference to the 1946 film of similar title. 'The "pageant" of evolution as a staggeringly improbable series of events [...] utterly unpredictable and quite unrepeatable. Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale, let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.'

Well I disagree somewhat. I suspect that a replay of the 'initial conditions' similar to those found on earth would indeed not only result in some form of life, but that, given sufficient time, self-referential intelligence would evolve. Whether we would recognise it as 'human' is highly moot, but not, necessarily, relevant.

Now what's this 'methodological naturalism'? A philosophical doctrine which "holds that, for any study of the world to qualify as "scientific," it cannot refer to God's creative activity (or any sort of divine activity)." This is a rather airy dismissal of several thousand years of 'scientific study', whose sole purpose was to identify the workings of the creative activity of God, and I think assumes that any consideration of God by scientists will necessarily upset the rationality upon which science is based. The axiom is that Science is rational, but God is irrational, and the two are irreconcilable. But that ignores the entire basis of early scientific endeavour, which assumed that science was rational because God was rational. Methodological Naturalism is founded upon a "self-evident truth" which turns out not to be self-evident at all. Wrong, in fact.

[neo-x]

"Finches will always be finches". This is a wholly unjustified guess. Any examination of the past billion years suggests that at no time in the past would such a prediction ever have been true, so why should it be true now? Finches may well carry on being finches for some time, maybe another ten million years or so, but to speculate further than that is unwarranted.

And, Who, pray tell, Is examining the past Billion years ??? And Why would anyone Be speculating ten million years in the future. Flightless lizards becoming Birds ? Why not spend the time researching something Profitable.

My "speculation" based on God's Word is that 'maybe another ten million years or so' -- but probably a whole lot Sooner -- this old earth / or Young earth is going to be destroyed and God will bring the New Jerusalem down to earth for all His Children to live in with their glorified bodies. That 'way out speculation' is found in the last couple of chapters of Revelation.

And, after you've stopped laughing or having a good chuckle -- the discussion will Probably move on to more Interesting discussion. And that's okay.

The graph that's been included -- fascinating -- but how do birds or anything else survive those ice ages. With all that ice -- nothing will grow and the Cold would freeze everything.

All valid questions which I would encourage you to search answers for and don't think you know them via common sense only.

And by the way the same God designed another galaxy, our neighbour Andromeda which is heading straight towards us on a collision course and the glorious Jerusalem and new earth will be obliterated in due time. I hope that design is a part of revelations or how you see it otherwise its a very difficult thing to explain from a purposed-creation and design.

You don't think the whole universe will be included in 'new heavens and a new earth' and 'make all things new'? I wouldn't have thought God would leave some other galaxy to come crashing into the new earth.

Yeah, but there it is.