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To: freedumb2003

“Attraction precedes love for the most part. Darwin wins this particular argument.”

The article is describing self-sacrificial love. Self-sacrificial love - the kind Jesus displayed when He died for the sins of the world - does not propagate itself through a genetic selection process.

The problem with TToE is mainly the attempt by many to make it into the theory of everything. It is the multi-level marketing scam of science. Its explanatory power is limited to a narrow range of changes within specific categories of living things.

There are endless faulty assumptions used to justify extrapolating minor observable changes into the claim that this theory explains the origin of all life forms traceable back to a singular original life form.

But things like love and morality are not even within the purview of science. Attempts to use it as a moral guide result in things like social darwinism which has treated genocide as morally acceptable because... evolution.

“At my college, the beautiful and brilliant people found the beautiful and brilliant people who had beautiful kids”

You cite this an example of TToE, but the logic here is problematic. While it is certainly observable that genetic flaws can diminish intellectual capacity and beauty (as subjective as it is), the extent of human intelligence is definitely not purely genetic. And there are many geniuses and gorgeous people who have come from questionable genetic stock.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And in the example you cited, it is arbitrary. Specific genetic traits that cause some to be beautiful and others not so much are particularly hard to quantify. Skin pigmentation, for example, is genetically determined for the most part. But whether someone is light- or dark-complected does not determine whether they are attractive or unattractive. Or, if otherwise, this has to do with cultural influences rather than genetic ones. (That is, genetics would only have the ability to determine beauty to the same extent that they determine what the beholder finds to be beautiful because beauty is not an absolute, measurable attribute.) Similarly, height has an arbitrary relationship with beauty. And on and on with whatever specific set of genetic trains you might observe.

This means that your logic is circular. You are essentially arguing that beauty exists because it exists. And this happens to also be one of the fatal flaws of TToE as well. Specifically, TToE beyond the very limited scope that I have stated and supported it for, is unscientific. And the reason is easily demonstrated. If we take any attribute of any living things, it can be accounted for by TToE. Why do people love? TToE. Why do people hate? TToE. Why do some people love chocolate? TToE. Why do some people hate chocolate? Because they are crazy, have broken taste buds, and TToE.

But seriously, there is no attribute that any living thing could have which would cause the proponents of TToE to say, “Wow, this disproves TToE.” And this means that TToE is unscientific because it can not be falsified. It really is that simple. Without limiting the scope of TToE to what it is useful for, it becomes this MLM monstrosity, this TOE, this dogma to which all others must bow.

Another flaw is the dependence on an endless supply of time within a constructive and safe environment. How is it that only progressive changes have supposedly happened in order to make modern man the pinnacle of TToE? Why is it unlikely that evolution would produce simple life forms such as viruses or bacteria that would cause an extinction-level event every few hundred thousand years? Or at least every million or so years? Do viruses and bacteria only thrive when intelligent species survive? Do their mutations occur more slowly than complex organisms so that such mutations, ones that are deadly to those complex organisms, can never catch up with the adaptive capabilities of the complex organisms? Wouldn’t complex organisms adapting more slowly provide a competitive advantage to lower life forms to kill off the more complex ones which are not required for the survival of the simpler ones?

How does evolution stop destructive radiation from penetrating our atmosphere and killing us? Did TToE cause this? Did it keep our atmosphere in a stasis as part of its survival mechanism? Or were we just lucky that it lasted for billions of years?

Are we also lucky that the earth has never been gobbled up by some larger body during life’s trek down through the eons? Or did TToE cause that too?

And this brings me back to your argument over beauty and intelligence. Some of us can see intelligence in the design of creation. We see the wisdom of the Creator. We also see beauty in the Creation. And there are theological explanations (rather than attempting to misuse science with its limited explanatory powers on such subjects) for why some things within the natural realm are neither aesthetic nor intelligent.

The problem with your side of the debate is that you have not even accepted that the argument (including your side of it) is a philosophical rather than scientific one. And this is because there is an a priori assumption on the part of TToE proponents that science has explanatory power about things that are outside of its domain, and the like assumption that things like divine revelation encroach upon the supposed realm of science.

TToE is ONLY A THEORY. I realize there have been endless debates around the “only a theory” meme. But they are unresolved simply because those on the wrong side of the argument will not accept the FACT that it is only a theory. Calling TToE a fact is like stating that it is a FACT that I like diet Pepsi more than diet Coke. Sure there is a TToE, that’s a fact. But it is not itself a fact or even a set of facts. Scientific facts are restricted to things that are observable and measurable. The explanations of these “facts” are what we call theories. Outside of this we have facts of law and facts of history. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is a historical fact, not a scientific one. Yet it is demanded that the theoretical suppositions and conjectures of TToE be treated on the same level as direct observations... no actually as more reliable than direct observation. That’s not science. It’s dogma.

And if you can see the logic of this argument, it is a thing of beauty and a sign of intelligence - things God gave you when He designed you.


7 posted on 07/13/2017 8:44:40 PM PDT by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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To: unlearner

>>TToE is ONLY A THEORY. I realize there have been endless debates around the “only a theory” meme. But they are unresolved simply because those on the wrong side of the argument will not accept the FACT that it is only a theory<<

I am not going to refight the CREVO wars here. The fact you posted this statement means you are ignorant about science. You do not know what a Scientific Theory is (hint: it is NOT a guess all grown up).

We cannot discuss this subject because it is like discussing trigonometry with someone who doesn’t know math or 3VL with someone who doesn’t know the Relational Model.

Good day.


8 posted on 07/14/2017 4:29:39 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (The Civil Rights movement compared content of their character to skin color and chose the latter)
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