Posted on 02/19/2015 12:24:31 PM PST by Heartlander
evolution is not verifiable.
You can breed dogs for a million years and never get a dolphin, or a non-dog.
I’ve been away from the Creation vs. Evolution debate for quite some time and after many years and hundreds of hours spent reading, watching, learning and simply observing each side of the debates themselves, I have come to certain conclusions.
Science over the years, has moved from the “Hard sciences” with its rules and structure to a “Soft science” built more and more on “inference”.
The Darwinian evolutionary theory, which was around long before Darwin, was popularized because of his formula that fell into the hard sciences. The standard rules of being “observable, falsifiable and repeatable”.
Darwin convinced many people and many more ran with his theory. Over time however, the theory, if you can even call it as such, has had its adherents blend what is or was accepted as hard science with the soft science of inference.
What we have today is a belief system among the players where each presupposes the basis of their knowledge.
From my observations I actually see substantially more “Hard Science” coming from the creationist camp than from the evolutionists.
There certainly was a time when the Creationist’s rebuttal was “Because the Bible says so”. That has changed.
On the other side, the evolutionist “Can’t” use their own methodologies to respond without invoking a claim that is “unprovable”.
They tell us that “this is how Science works”. We don’t know but we will find out and trust our conclusions in the meantime.
I love the debate, but I’m not sure a real conclusion would make any difference when you consider how willfully ignorant our society has become.
As a thought experiment or something you may want to try the next time you want to provoke someone at the bar.
Ask them, “What would you do?, if it were discovered beyond ALL DOUBT !!!, broadcast of every TV channel that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old?”.
I’ve done this on a number of occasions and have found that most people don’t want to even consider the implications.
IMHO, this is where the problem lies.
schaef21: "Excuse me, Moonman.... I should have said 'blood vessels'... "
A rare moment of humility, which we should pause and take note of, because, among other things it illustrates that much, if not most, of this debate involves different definitions of various terms.
To unpackage all these definitions, we have to start at the beginning, the Big Alpha.
If you believe in God (which about 92% do), even as deistically as some of our Founders, then you believe God created the Universe in such a way as to be highly friendly to life on Earth.
In that sense you believe in Intelligent Design, period.
So stop denying it, you believe it, you know you do.
On the other hand, every anti-evolutionist admits to the truth of what they call, "micro-evolution", or "adaption", or something else -- anything but the dreaded word.
In that sense you believe in Darwinian evolution, period.
So stop denying it, you believe it, you know you do.
Indeed, all pro-evolution believers agree that mankind is God's purpose in creating Earth and it's life -- purpose driven evolution.
And all anti-evolutionists admit the random nature of short-term "adaption" mutations.
Indeed, anti-evolutionists confess that short-term adaptions are not just scientific "theory", but confirmed, repeatable, scientifically verifiable fact.
So, what exactly is the basic problem?
Well, there are two -- science and religion -- so let's begin from the scientific perspective:
First and most important is the definition of the word "natural science", summarized: Natural explanations for natural processes.
Meaning, if you see a natural explanation for a natural process, then it can be considered scientific.
It might be an unverified hypothesis, might even be "junk science", but if it meets the criteria, it's still "science".
So for all who claim that evolution theory is not science because, you say, "it's not repeatable": it's still recognized as science.
On the other hand, if you propose a super-natural explanation, then that is not science, it's theology, or your religion.
Of course, the Universe must begin and end in theology -- the Big Alpha and Omega, but where does theology stop and natural science begin?
The truth is, nobody -- I mean no human being -- knows for sure.
God certainly knows, but He obviously enjoys watching us scratch our heads over it.
My view is that an omniscient and omnipotent God would likely create a Universe which from the first instant was set to allow: physics to become chemistry, chemistry to become biology and biology to grow into organisms.
But I'm not dogmatic on the point -- so if it's found that certain, ah... miracles were required along the way, well, that's fine with me.
But remember, that "miracle" is a theological/religious term, not scientific.
Regardless of how miraculous any event may appear to us mortal humans, science by definition can only examine, and attempt to explain, the natural aspects of it.
Natural science, as such, literally cannot see a miracle, even if it's slapping them in the face.
But spiritual human beings can, and do, and some of those even hold day-jobs as scientists.
So, what are we to make of this listing of ten alleged "problems" with evolution?
First, it's grossly oversimplified -- there are not just ten "problems", there are an infinity of "problems" which science cannot yet answer, plus a large number of answers which will doubtless need revision, sometime in the future.
Indeed, these illustrate that what we think we "know" today is surely less than 1% of what's out there to be known.
So science makes no pretense of answering every possible question, only those questions for which there is some physical evidence.
Second, as described by Eugenie Scott, in the article's first sentence: basic evolution remains unchallenged, as either theory or fact -- 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection, certainly in the short-term.
Longer-term, it's obvious the pattern is more complex, involving such ideas as "horizontal gene transfers" (read: interbreeding) and, who knows, perhaps visiting aliens, who spat in a pond and out crawls, millions of years later, little fishies.
And that would still be a scientific hypothesis, except that now you'd have to explain where those "aliens" came from.
But, as soon as you say, "God did it", that's a super-natural explanation.
Doesn't mean it's not true. In a sense, of course it's true.
But it's not natural-science.
The truth is, nobody — I mean no human being — knows for sure.
God certainly knows, but He obviously enjoys watching us scratch our heads over it.
Some buddies and I were talking about things like this the other day,
and it was pretty much a consensus that if we get to ask this question of the Creator, we’ll see just how irrelevant such a question is, because it works in an entirely different way than we were looking at it.
If you believe in God (which about 92% do), even as deistically as some of our Founders, then you believe God created the Universe in such a way as to be highly friendly to life on Earth.
...
I wouldn’t say it’s highly friendly to life. I would say Earth is highly friendly to biological evolution taking place over billions of years, however, relatively speaking it’s a lot friendlier to life than other places in the Universe.
Indeed, all pro-evolution believers agree that mankind is God’s purpose in creating Earth and it’s life — purpose driven evolution.
...
I’m very fond of the concept that God was born as a helpless infant to a biologically evolved species.
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