Posted on 03/17/2014 11:17:25 AM PDT by EveningStar
Last night, I watched the second episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" (the reboot of the 1980 series). It was entitled, "Some of the Things That Molecules Do."
One of the things Tyson dealt with in this episode was evolution.
Now, I myself do subscribe to the theory of evolution, but I found Tyson's treatment to be offensive, condescending, and smarmy.
I thought it was an in-your-face chip-on-the-shoulder response against skeptics of evolution.
I thought this was supposed to be a science show, not a political show.
But this is just my opinion. What is your opinion?
If you missed the episode and wish to see it, it will replay on the National Geographic Channel. You can also watch it online at Fox and Hulu.
Think I was expecting something along the lines of "Since Cosmos One", guess not from the first two episodes.
“I myself do subscribe to the theory of evolution”
How much does the subscription cost?
Honestly, I’m not qualified to tell professional scientists they’re full of crap, but I’ve seen them uses these fallacious examples, where they sneak their conclusion into their premises, so often, I strongly suspect that they are.
A lot of credulity
There are some general philosophical questions which they can’t just handwave their way past.
Careful.
In the Judeo-Christian story of Genesis, God cursed not just Adam and Eve but His creation.
Whether you believe it or not, best not to argue from a bad premise.
No well-read Christian (or Jew for that matter) views the fallen world as perfect. What God called good or very good was all before the fall.
Next attack point?
;-)
Now, understand that I know that ‘natural selection’ and mutations are real; and that recombinant DNA is a demonstrable reality; and that the definition of a ‘species’ is subject to debate.
Here’s where I have trouble with ‘evolution’ as currently espoused:
1. It generally is argued from a God-less perspective; i.e, there IS and WAS no Divine action.
2. It never answers the ‘how’ worth a flip, and its supporters have never really passed the hurdle of the ‘irreducible complexity’.
3. Its supporters cannot present a logical case for the presence of complex information in the genetic code.
4. Speciation (recall the definition is fungible) doesn’t seem to happen in real life - just the clever diagrams of fish walking on to dry land and becoming humans. Species can reproduce within the species. WHERE, *ever* in nature has one species evolved into another?
Let’s take these in reverse.
4. Speciation by evolution, i.e., the chance creation of a new species from the prior, implies the new one that cannot sexually reproduce with the prior species, or it it only a variant, not a new species. Gradualism doesn’t work in genetics - almost doesn’t count. Man descended from apes, well, non-human primates anyways, so goes the story. Apes and humans have a different number of chromosomes and other genetic differences, so a chance human offspring born to an ‘ape’ mother has “no” chance of breeding with an ape and producing producing fertile offspring. My question to you in this one example is this: over and over throughout the long history of purported speciation by chance and mutation, what did the first new members of the nascent species mate with? Hard to start a new lineage, be it a shrew or a human, with only one member of the species. It’s a REAL STRETCH to offer that ONE human ‘evolved’ at exactly the same time as another one, found each other, and produced a surviving population. It’s REALLY hard to go with that, unless there is a ‘god’ involved. Mathematically and naturally, it’s a non-starter.
So there’s the issue of how does genuine speciation REALLY happen, and thrive? Show it to me in today’s biology, please.
3. Information in the genetic code. OK, I await your (not just yours, not picking on you) explanation for the thousands and thousands of lines of logical code in the DNA of even bacteria. Billions of years of ‘monkeys at the keyboard’ molecular chance activity? Ever studied the SCIENCE (demonstrable, measurable, repeatable) of how a gene is duplicated, expressed or suppressed? You REALLY want to justify that a program analogous in complexity to LINUX occurred through the chances of Chemistry? A couple REALLY smart guys, with more degrees than I could ever earn — Singer and Collins - can take you through the ILLOGIC of arguing for information in DNA by chance. It’s easy to see how it could be there IF there is a Divine entity. Absent Divine intervention, it’s several orders of magnitude beyond Global Warming theory to ‘believe’ it got there by chemistry and physics.
2. Irreducible complexity. Evolution theory paints a broad brush over the HOW of its ideas. Scientists who aren’t afraid to have God in the model can see that evolution theory crumbles when asked to show how organs and organelles ‘evolved’. Like the eye, or the glomerulus. Or how might one explain, logically, the life cycle of certain aquatic organisms that require multiple symbiotic or parasitic hosts to survive.
If you want to read about “irreducible complexity” in layman’s terms, read Ann Coulter’s GODLESS. She covers it quite nicely.
The point is this: the theory of evolution NEVER explains HOW a primitive eyespot, sensitive to light can become even the eye of a shark. IT essentially just calls for a Deus est machina moment of ‘it just did over millions of years. Evolutionists cannot explain this sort of complexity within a species, let alone speciation.
1. Evolutionist are generally god-less. Perhaps not atheists, but they seek a reality absent the actions or will or intent of a deity. I used to be that way. I am now comfortable with faith in a Deity who ordered the universe and life in it.
Perhaps look at it this way: there is either a God, or there is not. If there IS a God, then everything could have been designed and ordered by Him. ANYTHING is possible in the NATURAL for a SUPERnatural Creator. If there is no God, then explain it all to me with a FAR BETTER theory than Darwinism.
THanks for listening.
And I thought I was being harsh ;)
“Has anyone ever managed to breed a dog that can’t successfully mate with other dogs?”
Have you ever met a straight chihuahua?
“1. It generally is argued from a God-less perspective; i.e, there IS and WAS no Divine action.”
Name one science that is NOT argued from a God-less perspective.
I know, I know, ... Angels keep the airplanes aloft.
Set the world, or some versions read, eternity. The word is probably “olam” (don’t have a reference handy).
That’s a challenging verse. Seems to me it might refer to the Garden folly. The knowledge of good and evil never could fit in a human heart. It’s a God-sized thang. But men pretend anyhow.
Intense programs of breeding (and inbreeding) frequently increase the organism's susceptibility to disease, and often concentrate defective traits. Breeders working with English bulldogs have strived to produce dogs with large heads. They have succeeded. These bulldogs now have such enormous heads that puppies sometimes have to be delivered by Cesarean section. Newfoundlands and Great Danes are both bred for large size. They now have bodies too large for their hearts and can suddenly drop dead from cardiac arrest. Many Great Danes develop bone cancer, as well. Breeders have tried to maximize the sloping appearance of a German Shepherd's hind legs. As a result, many German Shepherds develop hip dysplasia, a crippling condition that makes it hard for them to walk. When breeders try to force a species beyond its limits, they often create more defects than desirable traits. These defects impose limits on the amount of change that breeders can ultimately produce.Darwin's theory states that the unguided force of natural selection is supposed to be able to do what the intelligent breeder can do. But even a process of careful, intentional selection encounters limits that neither time nor the efforts of human breeders can overcome. Consequently, critics argue that by the logic of Darwin's own analogy, the power of natural selection is also limited.
Darwin's theory requires that species exhibit a tremendous elasticity -- or capacity to change. Critics point out that this is not what the evidence from breeding experiments shows.
- Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism
Examples of beneficial human mutations in evolutionary literature :
1. Sickle Cell Anemia
2. Cystic Fibrosis
3. Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency
4. Tay-Sachs Disease
5. Autism
6. Rape
7. Murder
8. Stupidity
The various types of dogs are breeds, in that they can successfully mate with each other and produce viable offspring.
Lions and tigers have more genetic distance, with successful mating being less likely, but still occasionally producing crosses.
Horses and donkeys have even more genetic distance, and while inter-mating produce offspring (mules), the offspring are infertile most of the time, but sometimes successfully mate. Horses and zebras are more distant than horses and donkeys, and while they can produce offspring, the offspring are not fertile.
Angels might be keeping the physical laws going, but that is not something the physical sciences should presume to declare upon, one way or the other.
“How much does the subscription cost?”
Apparently, one soul.
The lie was a promise that not only could a human know good and evil, but he could decide it.
And that’s the basis of modern liberalism.
It’s trust in God, not getting every theory about how God works correct, that is salvific. Still it is eminently reasonable to question what role, if any, a natural evolution could have taken in this world. Probably not anywhere close to the total role that atheistic misuse of sciences posits.
That’s plausible. But even just being able to genuinely know it needed faith. Instead foolish humans try to contain it in their own little noggins. Won’t work.
Engineering science requires no discussion of the supernatural. Well except maybe for designing for ‘acts of God’.
But I get your point.
Evolution could be a very interesting ‘science’ if ONE side would permit the ‘other’ side to maintain a belief in God. Science should not have to preclude the supernatural in order to make progress. God ordered the universe. Science discovers and maps outs those orders.
IT all depends on your starting point.
But there's the rub: they try to do just that. And as long as they can keep a critical mass from forcing them to address those questions, they seem perfectly content to continue ignoring them.
Kinda muddies the whole "quest for truth" they like to project.
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