Posted on 03/08/2002 7:55:48 AM PST by JediGirl
Psalm, I think that to even label "natural selection" or "genetic variability" as "micro-evolution" can be detrimental to the debate. I formerly used that word but soon found that using it wasn't beneficial simply because people have been spoon-fed to believe that little changes over time add up to big changes over time. It also tends to play into the tactics of those who use the old "bait-and-switch" tactic of changing the meaning of words.
A snip of an article I read puts it much better than I:
Another misused term is 'microevolution', used to describe the observable variations seen within basic types of organisms (for example, the famed industrial melanism of the peppered moth, variation in finch beaks in the Galápagos, antibiotic resistance, etc.). ReMine rightly argues that creationists should not use the term 'microevolution' as this plays into the hands of the illusion encouraged by evolutionists: that given enough time, microevolution adds up to macroevolution. The sort of observable variation evolutionists like to dub as 'microevolution' is due to re-arrangement of existing alleles, or degenerative changes, whereas evolution ('macroevolution') requires the formation of new, complex, information-laden genes to produce feathers on reptiles, for example.
And the sentence on careers was just to illustrate that we are not all rejects from the set of "Deliverence" - we are not mental defectives or morons, despite what we read on FreeRepublic about ourselves
You are absolutely correct! A biology professor at one of our local private universities is hailed as one of the best professors of evolutionary theory in the education system today, even having his work featured on the "Discovery Channel". However, if you didn't come with the same credentials as he, from the same universities, etc., then obviously you had a "bad" education and were dumb in spite of yourself.
Interestingly, I was a roommate with a fellow who graduated from the exact same PhD program as this professor, and were together in all the same classes. The professor's presuppositions of the world were the motivating factor for him staunchly holding on to evolutionary theory as his framework, while my roommate saw problems with evolution. Eventually my roommate subscribed to creation as the better model for explaining biological data (when he became a Christian during his last year of the PhD program).
As an interesting aside, the professor is an avowed atheist (and yes I understand and agree that not all evolutionists are atheists, and vice-versa) who uses his biology classes as an opportunity to try to disprove the Bible (even using the article from TIME quoted in a previous post). He was unable to criticize my roommate's educational credentials because it would be to his own detriment as well, and thus he embarked on a quest to find a way to undercut the creationists' arguments...if you can disprove the Bible then why would one want to believe what it has to say about origins? Or about Jesus?
I found it interesting that he was unable to debate Creationist theory with the evidence of biology and had to switch to an attempt at disproving the Bible using TIME Magazine articles.
...and that's exactly why I say it takes a "degree of faith" to subscribe to the totality of evolution theory - this is an extrapolation (spelling?) not based on verifiable evidence.
But alas, more and more these Creationism/Evolution threads are used as vehicles to bash Christians.
The FreeRepublic "no-bashing" dogma is ignored when it comes to Christian-bashing.
I'm starting to regret doling out cash to a vehicle that's being used this way.
I'd like to hear an orthopedic surgeon argue for intelligent design of the knee! or back.
Nobody has ever attributed life to chance alone. Chance plays a big part and life has evolved to make maximum use of chance -- inter and intra chromosomal recombination during meiosis for instance. You ignore the natural laws and selection.
The job is already done. Faith isn't involved at all. We are in the process of acquiring DNA sequences at a phenomenal rate. The history of each species is written in the genome. Computer mapping of the genomes describes with absolute certainty the relationships between disparate species. Most of the genome is junk. Sequencing the junk proves conclusively that life is related. We are no longer forced to rely (although this is evidence enough for a logical conclusion of relationship between homologous species) on anatomical similarities. Time since two different species had the same common ancestor can be demonstrated based on mutation rates and the relative number of changes in shared sequences. The junk, because it serves only a structural function can change continuously and randomly in a population without penalty (it is already junk). As the map is filled in with more and more species it will become increasingly clear to even the most committed Creationist that all life on the planet is related and that the genomes of each species have changed continuously through time.
New species arise because of the separation and isolation of breeding groups within an ancestral population. There is no disputing this. This was understood before DNA sequencing occurred and was based on the geographical distribution of related living species. The DNA similarities were predicted and have now proven the contention with absolute certainty. Do you consider the Camel and the Llama to be an example of evolution from a common ancestor? The populations were separated about 30 million years ago and it is still possible to interbreed the two.
No I do not. Let's take selection first: how could there be selection for life before there was any life? Clearly there could not be. The first life had to have arisen totally without the help of selection.
Now as to natural law. What do you mean by that? Are you postulating that the wind could have created such an orderly thing as a single cell? Or perhaps heat? Or perhaps gravity? There are no natural forces capable of creating anything as orderly as a cell, none at all.
And now one final question for all the evolutionists. You all speak a lot about natural law as providing the framework for order and materialistic progress. My question to you is: who made those laws?
There was selection for polymers with enzymatic properties facilitating polymerization and replication. Simple repetitive structures in proteins and RNA coupled with lipid membranes and concentration of activity at the interface between imiscible fluids are all selectable prior to the first viable cellular form. The cell organelles for instance are all inclusions (originally just food) or symbionts that have evolved into permanent obligatory constituents (mitochondria, ribosomes, chloroplasts, etc.). Your statement that selection does not operate prior to the first cellular life form is simply false.
"Now as to natural law. What do you mean by that? Are you postulating that the wind could have created such an orderly thing as a single cell? Or perhaps heat? Or perhaps gravity? There are no natural forces capable of creating anything as orderly as a cell, none at all." -- gore3000
Wind, gravity, and thermal gradients all exist, don't they? Therefore the evolution of the first life form must be consistent with the existence of these properties of the physical world. The more important laws, which you should have mentioned if you had actually given this any thought, are the laws pertaining to chemical kinetics. Life is just a set of chemical reactions. It does not violate any known laws. Therefore it must have arisen in a fashion entirely consistent with those laws. Under the right conditions life is inevitable. There are even extremely simple bacteria on this planet that live deep underground in fissures in basaltic rock.
"My question to you is: who made those laws?" -- gore3000
Why postulate the existence of a maker of laws? The laws exist. Beyond that there is only speculation. Postulating an anthropomorphic god who designed the Universe and wrote all the natural laws falls into the realm of the supernatural (i.e., beyond the natural). It is an unsupportable hypothesis: It cannot be proven logically (Hegel demonstrated this). And it cannot be shown by evidence in the physical world. Therefore my answer to your question is simply that the laws themselves have a proven existence. Perhaps the Universe is the be all and end all in and of itself.
Not so fast. Who did the selecting? In evolution you at least have living things doing the selecting, but before there was life you cannot say that. So the question is who did the selecting? What force did the selecting. No, the chemicals that make up life do not mix together to make anything complex without the help of living things. There has not a single protein been found in nature which was not produced by living things. Yes, chemicals mix such as oxygen oxidizing iron and there are lots of other similar chemical reactions. However, there is nothing even closely as complex fashioned as a living species by non-living matter.
"Wind, gravity, and thermal gradients all exist, don't they? Therefore the evolution of the first life form must be consistent with the existence of these properties of the physical world.'
You keep saying "must have" because your belief is that God could not have had a hand in the creation of life, but that is the question we are discussing so must have is not an answer. It is a tautology which says because I do not believe in God, then God cannot be the answer so natural laws must have created life. You are begging the question.
So tell us: what natural laws created life, how did they accomplish it? Give some examples of very complex things which have been created totally by the natural forces which you believe created life.
"Why postulate the existence of a maker of laws? The laws exist. Beyond that there is only speculation. '
I have postulated nothing. You came up with the answer of a maker of the laws, not I.
Regardless, if the universe is just random forces, acting in random ways, achieving random results - how could there be any natural laws at all? What constrains them from acting differently every time? What keeps them in check?
Let me just say this in conclusion - if the universe was not ordered it would not exist. It would have blown up, there would be no life, there would be nothing. It is because there is order in the universe that life and the universe itself is possible. Against this self-evident truth, the atheists in desperation have posited a universe of universes. This of course could not be, because if there were such a universe of universes with all but this one behaving chaotically, at least one of them would have destroyed this universe. So as you can see, there is no way you can get past the question of how did these natural laws arise? Who enforces them? Why are they enforced?
You have been at this long enough to know the answer to these questions by now. Do you have impaired long term memory? Selection is an algorithm that operates with inexorable and indefatigable certainty at all times and places. That doesn't mean it acts constantly in the same direction. The Dodo's ancestors, once capable of transoceanic flight, evolved was selected for flightlessness after it settled on its island home.
Here is a suggestion. Why not get your hands on a copy of Stephen Jay Gould's latest book, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory?" At 1464 pages it should answer most of your questions and you can refer to it during your frequent memory lapses.
What a novel idea -- science should be taught in science classes and religion should be taught in religious classes.
Creationism and creation science are two different things. Throughout this article, the author blurs the distinction in an anti-christian -- bigoted -- way.
You are being very dishonest. We were discussing abiogenesis, about how life first began. There was no life to select then. Evolution and survival of the fittest (even if true) did not work then. So you are just talking nonsense and being insulting because you have no answer. Again I ask you the question - who was doing the selecting before there was any life? You have no answer because there is absolutely no way life could have arisen from inert matter without a Creator.
Harrison Bergeron: I know exactly what you mean. I bought into the lie of electricity. Nobody's ever seen that either. How does it feel to have God's knowledge? Maybe you can answer the age old question: Can God make a person so heavy with hubris that He, Himself, can't lift that person?
f.Christian states his opinion and you think he is filled with hubris. You state your opinion and you think that you have no hubris? Tell me more about how that can be -- ah...according to Harrison Bergeron.
So, to simply state one opinion constitutes hubris? No, I don't think so. To claim to have "God's knowledge," now there's hubris.
If you believe I'm full of hubris for admitting that I don't know what electricity is made of, then I guess that's a harmless enough belief.
If you believe I'm full of hubris for admitting that I don't know what electricity is made of, then I guess that's a harmless enough belief.
The context of your post was your opinion that had nothing to do with electricity and everything to do with somebodies personal religious faith and hubris. You don't like what they preceive as the teachings of God, so you in *your* certainty imply that they are an arogant self-ordained prophet.
I give this example: People who go to church on Sunday instead of reading a scientific journal during that same period of time have opted for God's knowlegde over man's knowledge. You think that is the hubris of self-ordained prophets -- I think that is an example of people with faith looking for the teachings and knowledge of God.
While I make no claim that you have an anti-religious bias, your statements do communicate an anti-religious bias regardless of their intent.
The pomposity and arrogance drips from your words... to assume one has no faith in God because he's a scientist, what are you, a Moslem or something? How backwards to assume man has no knowledge worth knowing... do you think God gave us intellect for no other reason than to read the bible? Should we ignore scientific journals and the pursuit of reason that will lead to a cure for cancer because, in your mind this doesn't glorify the Lord to your satisfaction?
Too many of you modern day Pharisees confuse having "God's knowledge" with "knowing the mind of God." I don't know of a scientist walking the earth with that level of hubris.
There is no hope for you. I gave you the answer to your question. If you don't know what selection means by now and you won't bother to find out there is nothing more that can be done for you. This has all been explained to you numerous times. Without fail you repeatedly pretend as if you never heard of these things before.
The pomposity and arrogance drips from your words... to assume one has no faith in God because he's a scientist, what are you, a Moslem or something? How backwards to assume man has no knowledge worth knowing... do you think God gave us intellect for no other reason than to read the bible? Should we ignore scientific journals and the pursuit of reason that will lead to a cure for cancer because, in your mind this doesn't glorify the Lord to your satisfaction?
Pomposity and arrogance first originated from your words about f.Christian. I simply called you on it and treated you as you treated f.Christian and his belief and perceptions of God's knowledge. Apearently you don't like that do you.
Now on to your name calling filled judgement of me. Nowhere did I say that man has no knowledge worth knowing. I simply gave an example of what many non hubris people do -- go to church for an hour each week -- and explained that during that one hour, they are opting to spend time using their perceptions, gaining the knowledge of God over spending time using their perceptions, gaining the knowledge of science or objective reason. I never said that believing the knowledge of one -- religion or science -- excludes believing the knowledge of the other and I never said that one can prove the full knowledge of God as they attempt to gain the knowledge of God just as one can never prove the full knowledge of objective reason as they attempt tp gain the knowledge of objective reason. Just look at all the above cr*p your judgement reads into my above statement and how it differs from what I believe.
I'm an evolutionist. I believe in the reliability of the Paleontology of the stratographic record and have argued such here on this forum. My education is in Geology. I believe in teaching evolutionary science in science class and creationism in religion classes. However, I also believe in treating people who attempt to get their base of reality solely through faith with respect, and I treat them no differently then I treat people who attempt to get their reality solely through objective reasoning and I defy you to prove that one of these people has any less hubris than the other. Yet in your "perceptive" judgement. f.Christian has more hubris then you and I'm a whole bunch of names and some kind of science hater.
HAHaaaaaaaa, burn all the science journals, teach creationism in public schools, Bwahaaaa -- yeah that's me. </appropriate tag>
Too many of you modern day Pharisees confuse having "God's knowledge" with "knowing the mind of God." I don't know of a scientist walking the earth with that level of hubris.
Ahh, more names from you. Aren't you able to let the logic and judgement of your words stand on their own merit without insult?
Neither f.Cristian in his quoted statement nor I in any statement, have said we have God's full knowledge. We only refer to God's knowledge as the words or teachings of God and our preceptions of what we think it is. You seem to take us out of context to meet your own needs.
Let me ask you this relevant question: Do you feel that you are fully aware of objective reason, and if you are not, why are your opinions filled with any less hubris than f.Christians perceptions on the knowledge of God?
I like this response. Considering evolutionist theory is but a best guess, the exactness is more important than our own visualized problems with it. Evolution is a fact. Unwinding it is our problem. Creationism is a hoax.
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