Posted on 02/18/2002 4:59:53 AM PST by cracker
I guess so. He just equated all of us that accept the evidence for the scientific model of evolution with murderers and assassins. Sheesh!!!!
Can we know that?
Do you accept that God made a Universe in which free will and the possibility of sin could exist?
Is God lame to have allowed for the need for Salvatian?
Why do you assume a perfect God would only make a perfect Creation... by your reckoning?
Anytime someone chooses wrong--dumb...I wouldn't call that "free"!
Agreed that evolution is the best explanation thus far for the physical evidence.
Where I think the evidence gets rather thin (not that the thinness disproves evolution itself), is on the matter of what causes evolution. Fortuitous combinations of random mutations over time and filtered by natural selection is certainly a possibility... but is that demonstrated?
(Thanks for the book reference. I'll check it out.)
Tell me, were Adam and Eve free to sin?
There is far more involved here. Genetic drift and other factors play a part also. Unfortunately I start roaming into territory that is outside of my specialty and formal education. Astro/space is my expertise. Hopefully some of the Biologists/geologists will chime in. :)
to not sin...no---no freedom!
The random mutagenesis model strikes me as rolling dice. Now, maybe time is sufficient to get enough rolls to come up with new species... but look at all the species that have either existed or currently exist... that's rolling a lot of sevens.
Where I think evolution overreaches in in the presumption that we have a good handle on the mechanism for it. Maybe it's random, but I don't see how that's confirmed in the time frames we've been observing living species scientifically.
Galapagos finches (Geospiza fortis) have been studied for years by Peter and Rosemary Grant of Princeton University. They have been studying the beak sizes of these birds relative to the amount of rainfall the islands receive annually. In wet years, finches with smaller beaks are favored because of the abundance of small, easy to crush seeds. During drought years, only larger, tougher seeds are available. Finches with small beaks are unable to open these seeds and die out, while finches with larger beaks survive. This is natural selection (or evolution).
As a child...the sign baffled me---"Jesus Saves"---green stamps!
Your will doesn't exist till then...vegetables--alfalfa sprouts!
I think we use the word random too often. At the fundamental level (where it really matters) the chemistry is not random. Chemical bonds and long chain polymers follow a very distinct set of "rules". But remember, biochem is not my formal educational background. So if I have posted in error, I hope I will be corrected.
I don't dispute evolution per se, but "natural selection" in the circumstance you're talking about may only a mechanism for filtering a pre-existing gene pool.
That by itself doesn't mean you have a new species.
Let me be really clear... I'm not making the claim that I've disproven evolution.
I'm only suggesting that our handle on the causes of it aren't quite as firm as is frequently claimed.
Nor is the deeper physics underlying the chemistry.
My own big issue on these threads is the carelessness with which the term "random" is tossed around.
You've scored a rare coup.
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