Untangling Evolution (A *MUST* Read)

First Things ^ | Stephen M. Barr

[medved]

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[Exnihilo]

You can post all the antiscientific vanities you wish

Name one thing anti-scientific about this post.

[Exnihilo]

I don't fear evolution. I think materialism is a dinosaur. Phil Johnson has his views, and I have mine. In time, everyone will come to recognize how absurd it is to have faith in the idea that natural forces can create specified complexity from chaos. In fact, this is all but a done deal. It's really only a matter of time before Dembski perfects his ideas, and proves once and for all that specified complexity can only come from intelligence. However, even if he doesn't, the materialists still must prove that natural processes are capable of information creation, which they have not even attempted to do.

[valhallasone]

Evolution and design can co-exist. Read anything by Arthur Peacocke or John Polkinghorne. Ian Barbour gives a good overview of science and religion. This is a non-debate except for the likes of Dawkins, Dennett and Wilson. These atheist scientists tend to make broad metaphysical statements, based on their methodological approach. Reductionism as a methodology to understand something does not support a metaphysics of reductionism.

[knarf]

yup

[soundsolutions]

Why would any of these authors you mentioned, be any more authoritative than the Bible is on Creation, which is design without any evolution?

[balrog666]

There’s no denying that historically evolution has been harmful to religious faith.

Really? Just evolution? Okay, for the sake of the discussion, I'll give you this one.

It has contributed to undermining confidence in Scripture and to promoting a naturalistic view of man.

So has every pursuit of explanantions of our natural universe. Scientific explanations of seemingly miraculous events have always rocked they faithful as those events were used to convince the stupid of the "unknowable" in the first place. So what?

In our own age, such atheists as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan

Are, or were, they all avowed athiests? Did they deny any possibility of a creator, even one unassociated with any earthly religion? Or is this just your biased view of their beliefs?

All this tripe in the first paragraph - why read further?

[is_is]

None, however, will give the impetus needed for me to begin worshipping an invisible man in the sky dreamed up by a band of desert dwellers thousands of years ago.

Whoa.....i would suggest that you rethink that at somoe point......like before you die.....

[is_is]

I believe God purposely left out the fine details of how he created us...we are to accept him thru faith...Faith is the center piece of a relationship with him......

If it was evolution....big deal....in my mind it is just as great a show of his power, to set into motion the processes (evolution) that arrive at what exists today. I believe thru faith that God created us.....what was the exact process?....did he do it in the blink of an eye....one day he'll tell me....until then, it doesn't matter much.....come to think of it.....it won't really matter then either....lol

[Delta-Boudreaux]

(Rom 1:20-22 NKJV) For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

{21} because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

{22} Professing to be wise, they became fools,

[gcruse]

Whoa.....i would suggest that you rethink that at somoe point......like before you die.....

I'm not going to overthrow my own rationality
and dive into superstition out of
fear that an imaginary being will get me if I don't.
How you can do that amazes me.

[jennyp]

In fact, this is all but a done deal. It's really only a matter of time before Dembski perfects his ideas, and proves once and for all that specified complexity can only come from intelligence.

LOL! OK, let me know when that happens. I'm no statistician or mathematician, so I can't mount a comprehensive critique of Dembski's Explanatory Filter, but I'll paraphrase a review of one of his books (which I can't find now): Velikovsky started out with an intriguing theory, but after being beaten down by critiques based on the laws of physics, he ended up arguing against gravity itself. Similarly, Dembski's theory started out with possibilities, but after being beaten down by critiques based on generally accepted mathematics & probability theories, Dembski is reduced to arguing against probability himself.

On a less combative note (perhaps), you should find this review of Dembski & Johnson interesting reading.

However, even if he doesn't, the materialists still must prove that natural processes are capable of information creation, which they have not even attempted to do.

Amino acids & nucleic acids spontaneously link & form longer & longer chains on the surfaces of minerals, even up to lengths where functional proteins & RNA start to be found. Genes duplicate & then diverge, one of which sometimes finds a new "job" in the organism. (See Miller, Finding Darwin's God, where he explains comprehensive detail Doolittle's feat of tracing the evolution of the blood clotting cascade.) Plants experience polyploidy (wholesale duplications of their chromosomes) all the time. (IIRC, not so much in animals.) What more does a person need?

[is_is]

How you can do that amazes me.

And your way of thinking amazes me.....your unwillingness to even explore the idea amazes me because it costs you an eternity in hell if your wrong.....Me....if i'm wrong, I end up where you do, where ever that is....no downside for me....but, sense i am right i get the upside, an eternity in heaven.

[tortoise]

In time, everyone will come to recognize how absurd it is to have faith in the idea that natural forces can create specified complexity from chaos.

So you doubt thermodynamics? Every minor increase in complex structure has happened at the expense of vastly increasing the entropy of the universe. The energy the earth gets from the sun isn't free you know (in the thermodynamics sense).

[tortoise]

However, even if he doesn't, the materialists still must prove that natural processes are capable of information creation, which they have not even attempted to do.

Perhaps because they assumed that it was sufficiently basic as to be "obvious". The earth is an open system; you can tap any entropy gradient to do "information creation". The local decrease in entropy will ALWAYS be less than the total increase in entropy of the system. Thermodynamics 101.

[gcruse]

..your unwillingness to even explore the idea amazes me because it costs you an eternity
in hell if your wrong....

It's wishful thinking, friend.  How much
of superstition has to be proved false
before you see the picture?  Or has
fear totally shut down your facilities?

[is_is]

It's wishful thinking, friend. How much of superstition has to be proved false before you see the picture? Or has fear totally shut down your facilities?

For those of us that have faith and believe in Christ as our Savior.....the proof that he is real is shown to us everyday......

You've bet the farm that he does not exist......i wouldn't even dare wish you were right. Me....I didn't bet on anything, just choose to believe what for me is crystal clear.

[William Terrell]

All we have to do is to look at germs that develop immunity to varius antibiotics to see evolution at work, no matter how evil immunity of germs to antibiotics is.

But they remain their own kind. They do not become another kind. They are still "germs".

[jennyp]

And your way of thinking amazes me.....your unwillingness to even explore the idea amazes me because it costs you an eternity in hell if your wrong.....Me....if i'm wrong, I end up where you do, where ever that is....no downside for me....but, sense i am right i get the upside, an eternity in heaven.

But you assume there are only 2 possibilities! You ignore the fact that Zeus is looking down at us all & is mighty pissed that neither you christians nor us atheists believe in Him anymore!

OTOH, this mullah is betting differently...

Will Christians and Jews go to heaven?

I have read that non-Muslims will all enter hell. Is this true or false. I know some really nice non-Muslims but seeing that they will enter hell doesn't seem right. Or am I wrong?

---

The fundamental requirement to enter into Jannat is accepting the Oneness of Allah and finality of the Prophethood of Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi
Wasallam). Non-Muslims will be rewarded in this world for their good deeds or alternatively the punishment in the hereafter will be decreased for them as will be the case with the Uncle of Rasulullah, Abu Talib, who protected him as safeguarded Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) from the harms of the disbelievers.

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

And of course there are myriad other possibilities. I actually believe that if there is a God and He's all-knowing & all-good & all-perfect, then He'll understand my lack of belief, and it'll be OK with Him, since only a person who's insecure in his Godhood would have a problem with that.

[valhallasone]

Why would any of these authors you mentioned, be any more authoritative than the Bible is on Creation, which is design without any evolution?

The Bible does not specifically say that God created the world, exactly as it is. There is nothing in the Bible to contradict evolution.

The only thing that could be construed to contradict a gradual creation is the reference to six days. However, the Bible also says that a day is as a thousand years to God.