Hixie recently felt it was important to point out that “Evolution is a fact” – but he doesn’t differentiate between micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
Micro-evolution is the process by which species adapt when under pressure from environmental factors. Hixie’s post rather niftily demonstrates how micro-evolution works using coins. It’s a pretty well-supported scientific theory; I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think it’s true.
Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is what people generally mean when they say “evolution is only a theory, it might not be true!” (We’ll have to forgive them their verbal ambiguity.) This is the doctrine that the processes involved in micro-evolution were also responsible for the origin of life.
“What?” I hear you cry. “Macro-evolution is not a doctrine! It’s a scientific theory!” Well, what is a doctrine?
- It’s a basic position that you hold about the nature of reality that’s not provable – it’s a faith position.
- It’s something that you put your trust in, and live your life on the basis of.
- It’s something you urge others to believe as the truth.
More familiar examples of doctrines are “Jesus Christ is the Son of God”, “All religions are equally valid”, and “God created the universe”. So is macro-evolution a doctrine?
Macro-evolution is certainly not provable (point 1). It’s never been observed in progress. It certainly doesn’t explain all the observed data, such as the mystery of the Cambrian explosion, and requires the assertion of some things for which absolutely no evidence has yet been discovered, such as the existence of transitional species. Therefore, those who hold it to be a fact certainly do so as a faith position.
Those who believe that life was created by mechanistic natural processes are certainly putting their trust in that fact, and living their life by it (point 2). If they are correct, and therefore there is no creator God, then they are fine. But if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big trouble. In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right.
And lastly, macro-evolutionists definitely urge others to believe that their view is the truth (point 3). Even if you discount such militant atheists as Richard Dawkins, every time someone asserts that macro-evolution is true, they are implicitly claiming that other views are false, their position is better, and that people should change their minds.
So, those who believe in macro-evolution as the basis for the origin of life are certainly no more “scientific” than those who believe life was created by God. Both positions are doctrines requiring faith.
“All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet.”
Nobel Prize winner Harold Urey
“This [macro-evolution] is the doctrine that the processes involved in micro-evolution were also responsible for the origin of life.”
Really? Dictionary.com seems to say that macro-evolution is “Large-scale evolution occurring over geologic time that results in the formation of new taxonomic groups.” Why can’t someone believe that God was the origin of life and that one of the ways he created/formed life was by macro-evolution?
I don’t see how a belief in macro-evolution and a belief in God the Creator, Savior, and Redeemer are mutually exclusive. If they are not mutually exclusive how does macro-evolution fulfill requirement #2 as a doctrine?
Awesome post.
The earth is flat.
Seriously, I know people who believe that (and think NASA is performing a cover up).
This is utter, complete horseshit. To put macro-evolution and creationism on equal intellectual basis is just wishful thinking. Believe in your God and his magical creation of life if you want, but don’t try to cast it as a equally rational deduction from the observed facts.
Of course there are gaps in the historial record of our evolution — it’s an extraordinarily difficult empirical problem, gathering evidence of stuff that took place centuries ago. But evolution explains a great deal, and has a great deal of predictive power. It has been confirmed and corroborated a thousand times over, by thousands of scientists working separately.
How shall we fill those gaps? By assuming that the scientific worldview will explain them, as it has explained so much else? Or shall we resort to supernaturalism, and say, “here, where science has not yet filled the blanks, here’s where God works!” To call both those positions equally based on faith is simply a joke.
The spaces for supernaturalism have been shrinking for centuries, and they continue to shrink. And yet there’s always people who clutch at those spaces, and find in them an excuse for irrationalism.
I won’t try to argue you out of irrationalism — the very word “argue” presupposes rational thought, after all — but spare us the notion that your bald assertions about ghosts in the sky are on equal footing with science.
Is it really necessary to rebut any views you see that are different than your own? Just because Hixie posted a blog post, does this mean you must?
“Those who believe that life was created by mechanistic natural processes are certainly putting their trust in that fact, and living their life by it (point 2). If they are correct, and therefore there is no creator God, then they are fine. But if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big trouble. In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right.”
Pascal’s wager, eh? You can’t deceive God so easily, my friend. I don’t think God would be glad that people believe in Him just because it’s the safer bet…
If God exists he doesn’t care if you’re an atheist, a jew, a catholic or anything else. Only the life you lead is that counts.
“Well, what is a doctrine?
1. It’s a basic position that you hold about the nature of reality that’s not provable – it’s a faith position.”
No scientific theory is “provable”. Not one. The theory of gravitation is not provable, nor are the law of thermodynamics or quantum physics. They are just a set of rules that fit the observation and allow the prediction of future events. If the observation do not fit the theory, we change the theory to fit the data. The theory of evolution is exactly the same. According to (1), all scientific theories are doctrines. That does not make them any less valid.
People (especially Realish), please take deep breath.
First to get it out of the way: I believe macroevolution happened (and that it is just microevolution over a long period).
What I wanted to point out is that Gerv did not say “macro-evolution did not happen”. He just said that macroevolution has not been proven AND on the other hand it is very hard to disprove. As we all know the possibility of falsification is a requirement for a scientific theory.
To Realish: Gerv didn’t say what we should “fill the gaps” with, he just pointed out that we can’t really tell (and that macroevolution might not be a scientific theory). I’m not sure I agree, but I do believe he’s got a point there. Let’s not start flinging mud when someone is trying to start a discussion. If he had brought up Intelligent Design or some other pseudo science, I’d agree with your attitude. he didn’t – so let’s keep it civil.
Gerv: I don’t think your three points are the important ones. What is really important is wether macroevolution can be falsified. If it can, then it is a valid theory (until we find evidence against it).
DISCLAIMER: If you find any of the below offensive, it is likely that you’re Christian. It is also likely that I will sincerely apologise if you want me to. :-)
“So, those who believe in macro-evolution as the basis for the origin of life are certainly no more “scientific” than those who believe life was created by God. Both positions are doctrines requiring faith.”
Your conclusion is mistaken. The Theory of Evolution (no theory can be proven conclusively, because then it would be what we call a fact) is something that has been based on evidence and factual analysis. Believing in that God created the Earth is IMO no less sophisticated, but less scientific.
This is because of the fact that it is a theory or belief that exists today not because it’s been proven, but because it cannot possibly be disproven. If I said that there was a man at the end of the Universe pecking on it with his long beak, you could not disprove it although I can not prove it to be true. This is quite similar to the old “Man on the Moon” stories (don’t know if anyone’s heard of them).
A scientific approach to a problem would be to take an existing theory and test it to see if it is right. Evolution has largely passed these tests in basic principles. And while the testing has made Christianity less believable than evolution, evolution has IMO become more believable. Christianity has constantly had to evolve in order to survive the test of time.
There is no proof to suggest that God exists apart from that which we do not understand. As we understand more and more, God has started to fade from the minds of many citizens. That’s why Christianity doesn’t have the “monopoly” it used to have in the Middle Ages.
“if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big trouble”
I cannot and will not believe in a God who would threaten those who do not believe with damnation.
A scientific theory is not a set of rules, it is an explanation. (A scientific *law* is a rule.) That is what gives science its power and robustness, and why generally accepted scientific theories aren’t in a state of continual revision in the light of new observations.
This is why evolution is a theory and creationism is not: creationism does not explain anything, nor does it seek to explain anything. Instead it takes as a given an explanation from an outside source, and seeks to twist every piece of evidence in that light. In its extreme form, creationism is unfalsifiable: the creationist argues that God merely created the earth intact with fossils and geological strata and whatnot made to *look* just like speciation had occured via evolution.
Similarly, one could argue that the universe was just created a second ago, and I was fully formed with all my memories physically imprinted in my brain and with this post already half written on the screen simultaneously created in front of me. Each version is logically consistent. But only evolution provides an explanation, which is why only evolution can be called a theory.
There is an underlying assumption in all of this, namely that the universe is comprehensible; but the track record of science so far shows that to be an extremely good bet.
Jussi, he clearly defines “doctrine,” gives some examples, and says macro-evolution is on par with those examples. Just in case there was any lingering ambiguity, he says, “So, those who believe in macro-evolution as the basis for the origin of life are certainly no more “scientific” than those who believe life was created by God.”
This is deeply, profoundly absurd, on a number of levels. Perhaps he meant something less absurd, and if so I’m all ears. But as it stands, this statement rightly solicits mockery.
“In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right.”
I have never understood those that promote their religion by fear.
If I were a betting man, should I go with Christianity or Islam? Christianity has the lead at the moment but Islam looks to be catching up… Should I go with Christianity for now and then convert if the percentages shift?
There are a lot of other religions out there, should I fear these less because they’re smaller?
Maybe I’ll just stick with science – it seems there’s less fear involved.
MadMoose: Religion born because of fear (of death, of life, of pain), it is not the only way to promote it, but seems natural to me to use fear.
On the other hand, betting and math don�t match.
sorry my english
I indeed /believe/ that evolution is the explanation for how we came to be. If you must call it a faith, then that is fine by me. There is a certain amount of scientifical backup, but as you correctly pointed out, there are more than enough uncertainties and assumptions.
But, if someone would come up with a better theory (uh, define better… nevermind :)) then I guess I would support it. It is only a theory, after all, and not a fact. A pretty good and sensible one, but that doesn’t make it any more factual. In that way, it is different from a faith.
“But if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big trouble. In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right.”
Perhaps, but then the other question arises: what god (or which gods) to believe in?
Anyways, I believe what I believe, period :).
~Grauw
It’s highly reassuring to this Christian reader that none of the comments so far have actually tried to interact with Gerv’s points, but instead just blow smoke. Why is that?
If someone’s discovered transitional forms, or laboratory proof of life can create itself out of dead matter, or the like, you ought to share it. If not…
dictionary.com defines doctrine as “a principle or body of principles presented for acceptance or belief.” In that (denotative) sense, macro-evolution is doctrine. It is not doctrine in the connotative sense in which you use the word.
A belief in macro-evolution is not a “faith position.” Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. Macro-evolution has a great deal of evidence to support it. While there are certainly gaps in the theory (and in the evidence) there has not yet been anything to disprove it.
<tangent>
There is evidence to refute “7 days” creationism. e.g. carbon-dating that shows the age of items to be far greater than the time elapsed since biblical creation. People who believe that the earth was created in 7 days do so not only in the absence of proof, but in spite of evidence to the contrary.
</tangent>
While there are probably exceptions, people who profess a belief in evolution are not basing their life on that belief — at least not consciously. Nor does a belief in evolution preclude a belief in a supreme being.
As for urging other to believe — almost everything qualifies as “doctrine” by that definition, which renders the word rather meaningless.
What continues to baffle me is why the average person can’t seem to accept that religion and science are not mutually exclusive. If one believes in God then science becomes the study of His creation. It’s an attempt to understand and explain the mechanics of the universe. It’s the struggle to understand how He did what He did, not to prove that He didn’t do it.
For example, some of the newer theories that attempt to reconcile general and special relativity imply that time itself does not exist in the way we think it does at all, but rather that time itself is a phenomenon caused by more fundamental components. From a scientific perspective, I find this fascinating (and more than a little mind-boggling). From a religious perspective, it opens a tiny little window of understanding into the concept of God being eternal.
Oh yea… the Dinosaurs were planted by Communists who want to derail western religion.
I forgot that one. Always been my favorite. I used to think that was just a joke. But apparantly a signifigant number of Americans actually believe they were all planted.
Great topic. I actually had a post ready to go on this topic that I was going to hold off til Christmas eve;however, I just put it up in the spirit of this post. Goto http://zarski.com and hear an audio series that is a must for the truly open-minded.
Sure, macro evolution is just a theory. As all scientific theories are. Strangely enough all the discoveries made since Darwin fit in this theory and nothing disproving came along the way even though it sometimes looked like, it alway fitted. Nowadays we can even follow the evolution via changing DNA patterns of which Darwin knew nothing. So please give me a better theory.
Sure you can say that some thousand years ago an omnipotent being just made earth with all it’s plants and animals and planted all those dinosaur skeletons to distract us and all such things. I’m agnostic to that. It could be but doesn’t bring you us further with anything. Creationism is ridiculous.
No proof yet, but scientists are trying to do exactly that. See the article titled What Came Before DNA? in the June 2004 issue of Discover magazine:
If successful, the experiment would only create a very simple form of life — simpler than anything that currently exists on Earth — but that doesn’t dilute the fact that it would, in fact, create life.
@Visitor
If God exists he doesn’t care if you’re an atheist, a jew, a catholic or anything else. Only the life you lead is that counts.
The Bible says that God does care how you live your life. The Bible states in many places that you will indeed receive a “performance review”; however, eternal life — Heaven — is a gift from God for accepting Jesus Christ as your savior. Your deeds on Earth having nothing to do with your entry to Heaven.
Note:
I didn’t realize that links were enabled in my first comment so I want to again invite everyone here to hear a enlightening mp3 series.
>absolutely no evidence has yet been discovered, such as the existence of transitional species.
> Therefore, those who hold it to be a fact certainly do so as a faith position.
>[…]
> But if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big
> trouble. In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right.
A few points:
1. Fear of being wrong should not be the reason you believe in something.
2. “Transitional species” is a red-herring that creationists throw out there. No matter what proof is shown, no matter how close two fossils look to each other, someone can always point between two fossils and say, “what about here?”
Having said that, plenty of transitional’s have been discovered in recent years. Homonid, horses, whales, and birds all have a good enough fossil records to show clear relationships between the current species and other branches of the tree of life.
As for the quote that was written, you need do your own reading and not trust the anti-evolution sites. Here is the actual quote:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html#quote58
Lastly, to the AC poster who wrote:
> laboratory proof of life can create itself out of dead matter, or the like, you ought to share it
Evolution is dependant on, or really even interested in, how the life-form began. Evolution describes what happens later. You’re looking for abiogenesis, which is something completely different.
Correction, that should have been “Evolution is NOT dependant on, or really even interested in, how the life-form began.”
Proofed it three times and still missed that.
The fun thing is, Ian was not only posting that piece towards the ‘believers’ (as-in Christians, e.d.), but also to guys like me, who accept the whole evolution thing, but with reserve (which I still think is a wise thing to do :), and I think is like most people).
By the way, I’m not exactly appealed to the Christian look at things either, at least not as described here…
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5001/5001_01.asp
:)
~Grauw
Bashing stupid comments by creationists who don’t understand science is too easy so I’ll comment that it’s perhaps because so many supporters of evolution don’t fully understand the workings of science that creationists can get away with posting such utter tripe.
Also anyone who tries to claim that the theory of evolution by natural selection necessarily implies any particular method of life being created (involving a God or not), or even requires atheism is simply lying to you because it makes their anti-evolutionary stance even more ridiculous when you consider how many devout Christians accept evolution as one of God’s wonders.
Don’t let fundamentalists twist your religion *or* your science.
(and don’t fight this battle from scratch each time either. All the Creationist talking points have been discredited a thousand times over: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html)
In the Anglican tradition we say that Faith, Tradition and Reason are all equally necessary for human beings. To me this means avoiding both the irationalism of literalist fundamentalism as well as the arid ground of a lone rationalism.
Christianity and science are compatible. And in fact modern Western science has its roots at least partly in the Christian understanding of God and Creation. There is no contradiction between either micro or macro evolution and God.
Reason is a tool. Reason alone cannot guide human behaviour and thought, and when it does the results are a disaster. Reason is the knowledge of the mind. Wisdom (Faith in its traditional Christian sense) is the knowledge of the heart. Both are necessary.
Humans by nature are religious. This is true even for those who say they are secular atheists or agnostics. It is the reason why, despite its claim to being an atheist and rational system, so much of Soviet Communist ideology and symbolism looked and sounded religious.
And this is what the point of the post was. That, regardless of the validity or otherwise of specific scientific theories, some people, including some scientists, do cling to certain ideas as though they were religious doctrines.
The claim made by two people above that Christianity is losing ground to secular atheism is false imo. In the last one hundred years alone, more people have converted to the Christian faith than in the preceeding 1900 years put together. That doesnt seem like retreat to me. Moreover, much of the supposedly secular space has in fact been filled by other creeds, such as Buhddism and the various New Age fads. If anything, I see evidence both in the US and in Europe that pure secular atheism-agnosticism is on the decline.
“I’m not exactly appealed to the Christian look at things either, at least not as described here…
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5001/5001_01.asp“
Thats not the Christian view of things. Mr Chick is a fringe figure well out of the mainstream of traditional Christian faith. Niether he nor his bizzarre ideas are held or even taken seriously by the vast majority of Christians, and in fact most Christians would not even know who he was. If you want a traditional mainstream Christian view of things try: http://anglicansonline.org/
Any God that is “compatible with science,” as people keep saying, is a God with no attributes, no presence, no actions — an utterly vaporous God.
Science assumes a seamless physical explanatory framework. The minute you introduce an act or actor that disobeys natural law — “miracles” — you’ve left science behind. If you acknowledge that the framework is seamless, then you’re left with a God that doesn’t affect or explain anything. You can believe in that God if you want to, but I must admit I’m baffled as to why anyone would want to. It’s like sticking a spoiler on your sedan — it may look cooler, but it doesn’t do anything.
I would be more interested to hear Gerv’s views on why macro-evolution and the existence of God are mutually exclusive (that’s not rhetorical, I’d genuinely like to know).
Using the Bible as a basis for agreeing or disagreeing with scientific theories is just a bad idea. The Bible is clearly not intended to be a scientific document. It contains books full of poetry and uses a lot of poetic imagery in other books to get its ideas across.
Genesis states that God created the universe, the earth and everything on it. It does not say how he did it. The use of seven days to tell the story may or may not be poetic (maybe someone who knows ancient Hebrew could enlighten me on this?), but reading Genesis from a scientific point of view totally misses what it’s trying to tell the reader.
When Copernicus and Galileo came up with theories about the earth not being the centre of the universe, top theologeons of the time said that the idea was in direct contradiction with the Bible. After all, Genesis clearly puts earth at the centre of the creation story..
Most Christians today are happy with the idea that the Sun is just one of billions of other stars. It clearly not in contradiction with anything the Bible says – its just a non-issue. And yet some of those people would happily argue all day that evolution can’t be true because the Bible says X, Y or Z. They would also say that Christians who do accept evolution are watering down their faith and Biblical truth.
To these anti-evolutionists, I would say this: Try looking at it from today’s average non-Christian point of view (that of many of those who have replied to this post). They see science as something that is chipping away at the legitimacy of the Bible and the Christian faith, even though the Bible has no opinions on science. Why do you think this is? Some Christians interpret the Bible to disprove scientific theory, and then defend this point of view as strongly as they defend their faith. When this theory is then generally accepted (again, think Galileo), people assume that some part of the Bible has been disproven.
Have today’s Christians watered down their faith because they accept that the Earth isn’t, in fact, the centre of the universe? Think ahead 100 or 200 years. Will there be any Christians left who still don’t believe in evolution? That the earth is billions of years old? Will they look back at creationists of today and laugh? Will people use this as proof that Christianity has yet again changed its beliefs?
By betting your faith (or at least some of it) on whether X scientific theory is correct or not, you’re not helping anyone, especially those you’re trying to convince of your faith.
“Science assumes a seamless physical explanatory framework.”
Emphasis on the word “physical”. At this point science can explain ONLY the physical universe itself, which is useful, but limited.
“The minute you introduce an act or actor that disobeys natural law — “miracles” –”
This assumes there IS a natural law that works as you say, which sounds very mechanistic to me, and I suspect many scientists working in the field of physics might agree. It also assumes that “miracles” are contradictory to the normal working of the universe. This assumes that we understand the universe well enough to know what is normal and what is a miracle. I would stand on the side of humility and caution on that one. I have long thought that “miracles” are just the action of God within the normal working of the universe, but which are at a level, or of a type, that we simply did not (and sometimes still do not) have the knowlege to understand at the time.
I dont see that Gods actions in any way contradict the normal working of the universe, and so I dont see the actionless god that Realish is describing. Also Realish seems to be saying that only a God who is an acion man would be of interest to anyone. I think this reveals a rather odd notion of the role God plays in peoples lives. Boiled down to its essence, the Bible says that God simply IS, and that God is Love. The simple presence and effect of that Love is the only reason I am alive today and not either dead or in prison. Thats enough “action” to keep me interested.
Sorry, the sentence in my last post should have read “and I suspect many scientists working in the field of physics might DISagree”
By the way, for anyone interested in the subject of physics, science and God, I would recommend Frank J. Tipler’s book ‘The Physics of Immortality’. Tipler is an interesting scientist becuase he is not a Christian or a member of any religion, but he does of a good job of showing that the Judeo-Christian teaching of a personal and loving creator God is compatible with a scientific explanation of the physical universe. The book is avaliable at Amazon and you can check out his web site: http://www.math.tulane.edu/~tipler/
Emphasis on the word “physical”. At this point science can explain ONLY the physical universe itself, which is useful, but limited.
Uh… what’s the other universe?
This assumes that we understand the universe well enough to know what is normal and what is a miracle.
Yes. We do. Maybe we’re a little hazy on the quantum level, but at the macro level — the level of normal human experience — we do understand the universe well enough. Water spontaneously becoming bread, for instance, we can safely say is a “miracle.” A piece of fruit that looks like the Virgin Mary, however, is perfectly explicable by science.
I have long thought that “miracles” are just the action of God within the normal working of the universe,
Look, if a miracle is “part of the normal working of the universe,” then it is subject to natural law and explicable by the method we have for understanding the natural world, namely, science. For instance, when a ball rolls off a table and falls to the floor, we cite gravity. To say, in addition, that “God made the ball fall” adds nothing to the explanation.
In other words, if science provides an explanation, what is added by pasting “God” on top of it? The only possible need we could have for God, as an explanatory tool, is something that science can’t explain.
As for a God who simply “is,” who does nothing, who does not affect the physical universe — who cares? If he doesn’t do anything, leaves no physical trace, no evidence… the concept is simply useless.
Look, I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m not really one of your militant atheists. I don’t think invisible purple dinosaurs exist either, but I don’t spend my time worrying about them. I just don’t care that much.
But it always puzzles me — by the time people define God in such a way as to not contradict or violate science, you’re left with a concept that’s virtually empty, inert. Why work so hard to preserve that concept? What explains the need for it?
I don’t get this idea that the world that science describes is somehow boring or “normal” or empty of meaning. Your family and friends and children are made of physical stuff. Are they “mechanistic”? Devoid of meaning? Look around you! The natural world is amazing! It’s endless, boundless, extraordinary. Can we not find meaning in this world we live in? Why look outside it?
Well, there are obviously a lot of people who preserve the concept of God apart from (even in spite of) science, and make no attempts to reconcile them. As for those of us who believe that the two are not incompatible, I can only offer my own opinion.
I believe in God because it is comforting to do so. I like to believe that there will be something more after I die. I like to believe that there’s the universe has a plan. I like to believe that life has a purpose. I like to believe in free will. I don’t like to believe that my existence is nothing more than a ridiculously intricate interaction of subatomic particles. If that’s the case free will (and life itself) is an illusion.
So I believe, as a matter of faith, in the existence of a Creator. It’s not rational. It’s no better than believing out of fear of going to hell. It might not be sufficient (to avoid going to hell). It’s selfish. It’s convenient. I’m probably deluding myself, but so be it.
I feel that it’s important to note that all I’ve said here is that I believe in God. My feelings about organized religion are another matter entirely. Furthermore, I’m fully aware that my belief is based on faith, so I’m not asking anyone else to believe as I do (or at all) but am happy to share my reasons for believing as I do.
Creationism isn’t a theory like evolution. With the evolutionary theory you can make predictions. “Here we have species A with properties a, b and c and over there species B with similar properties. DNA sequencing shows us that those properties come from a very similar set of genes. Hence there ought to exist or have exist some intermediate form.” And more often than not you will find that intermediate form. Or the other way around: “We have species A and B and several intermediarate forms. We can assume that properties a, b and come from the same set of genes.” Or you will be able to predict that some type of disease is possible in another animal as well because they share certain properties. If you’ve found a cure in one and you know about the similarities or dissimilarities (often via evolutionary studies) you can make useful predictions. Creationism doesn’t give you anything like this. It’s worthless. It’s a possibility and you can believe in it but it doesn’t make a difference on earth. Unlike the theory of evolution.
Gerv: You don’t take your God very serious. Do you? If there is this God, why did this God put all those fossils into the earth? Why did this God organize all life forms in a way that we can draw family trees just from observing them? Why can we sequence the DNA and finally put all those life forms where we weren’t sure where exactly to put them into that big family tree in their right place? Why? Because this God obviously wants us to believe in this theory. You Sir, are a heretic.
Wow :-) I didn’t expect quite such a number of comments. There’s a lot to think about. First, perhaps, a few clarifications:
So, to answer stonedyak‘s question, Christianity and evolutionary abiogenesis are mutually exclusive – unless you want to dismiss the entirety of the start of Genesis as little more than fiction, and also Jesus’s words when he refers back to this time and talks about Adam as a real person. It is true that the Bible has very little to say about science as such – we are expected to find out about the creation by studying it for ourselves. But it is very clear as to who or what was responsible for the creation of life from nothing.
I should note in passing that “Visitor”‘s counter-assertion:
is a perfect example of someone making the bet I describe. He definitely can’t be certain that it’s “only the life you lead that counts”.
Your choice of a God is as much a bet as everyones else. God could be entertainment addicted. God probably likes wars and catastrophes. By living a live as a good christian you’re probably boring this God to death and are very unfaithful. You’ll probably go to hell when you die. And no, I certainly don’t believe this. But it’s a bet as every choice of a God is. I’d rather bet my live on things I can get a grasp on.
You say that all the arguments made above are arguments pro micro-evolution. Sorry, but some of those arguments were regarded as arguments pro macro-evolution by the creationists. Only with more and more evidence they were shifted towards micro-evolution just to fit your own theory.
Next, a few comments on the particular points individual people have raised.
Does your refusal to believe make it any more or less likely that God exists? Assume he does for a moment, and think back on your life. Do you feel that you do not deserve damnation? Have you never done anything wrong?
Your underlying assumption is that God is not to be feared. If in fact he is, should people not be told so? It would be a strange weatherman who did not tell people of an impending flood because it was “promoting his point of view by fear”.
People who make this assertion are often contrasting the supposed Christian virtue of belief in the teeth of increasing evidence with the supposed scientific virtue of as much belief as the evidence allows. Both ideas are misunderstandings. I’ve just finished reading a great essay by C.S. Lewis called “On Obstinacy In Belief” which deals well with this subject. I’d like to point you at a book which contains it but the one I have is out of print, and some searching of Amazon doesn’t reveal another :-(.
There has been a cottage industry of primaeval-soup concocters for many years. None has got further than a few simple protein molecules, much less a self-replicating molecule or the incredible complexity of a single cell. I can stand here and try and jump to the moon – the fact that I’m trying to do so doesn’t make it any more possible.
Even if we make the giant assumption that one day they achieve their goal, they then have to further prove that the precise and careful conditions and combination of events and stimuli they will undoubtedly have had to use could exist on earth millions of years ago. How do you go about demonstrating something like that?
You are absolutely right. This is the powerless God of liberal Christianity. I’m quite happy to stand up for a God who is perfectly capable of doing such things (“miracles”, if you like to call them that).
Those wonderful big family trees you see are usually just beautifully drawn works of conjecture. The evidence we have is all at the leaves; the connections are assumed.
Those who make such diagrams usually make connections on the basis of DNA similarities. But as hackers, we can’t help but see the obvious other explanation. What some suggest is evidence of macro-evolution, I suggest is “Divine code sharing”. After all, a good programmer knows what code to use; a great programmer knows what code to reuse. :-)
“Those who make such diagrams usually make connections on the basis of DNA similarities.” Nowadays yes. But those diagrams were drawn by examining carefully all the animals and plants as well as all the fossils available. And the beautiful thing is that when DNA sequencing became available it verified those diagrams as correct. How big is the chance for that? In a few cases where people quarreled over whether this or that plant belongs to this or that family and not the other DNA sequencing gave a final answer. It’s a beautiful theory.
What’s your definition of macro-evolution anyway? When you cross species boundaries? Well we have that. Breeding is just accelerated evolution. There are plants bred by humans that are new species because the end product of a whole line of forced evolution can’t be paired with the plants you started from because it became to different.
I can’t really understand why some people seem to think that believing in God seems to contradict evolution. I mean, if God created the universe, why couldn’t he create evolution in itself ? Ok, it’s not like Adam and Eve and stuff, but why can’t we accept that evolution might have created all the diversity of life that we currently see ? That maybe God made up the plan for all this.
Personally, I’m an agnostic and a beliver in the ‘watchmaker’ model at the same time. I know I can’t speak out about wether God exists or not. Why can’t he be identical to mother nature, the grand unified theory or the universe itself ?
I live in Europe, and I’m raised as a Catholic. But I never saw any problem between the scientific point of view and the church. It seem to be only in the U.S.A. that you see these lively debates between evolutionists and creationists. Why can’t the 2 camps accept that both are theories (or doctrines) that are living next to eachother, but that should accept that the other exists. Unless someone can prove the real truth (which will never happen), I’m assuming that BOTH are wrong. All the arguing just proves to me that I’m right.
(I know that I used the word ‘he’. But since I was raised as a Catholic, it’s pretty difficult to use ‘she’, he/she’, ‘it’ or whatever …)
“I can’t really understand why some people seem to think that believing in God seems to contradict evolution. I mean, if God created the universe, why couldn’t he create evolution in itself ? Ok, it’s not like Adam and Eve and stuff, but why can’t we accept that evolution might have created all the diversity of life that we currently see ? That maybe God made up the plan for all this.”
For my part I’m absolutely agnostic towards the idea of a God who created earth with all the things we know. Be that at one moment of time (why not yesterday, God could have created our memories just as easily) or be that over seven days or whatever. I don’t mind.
But when it comes to something you want to work with, if you want to make predictions, if you want to understand something. That’s when I say creationism is crap. It doesn’t give us anything at all. Creationism is for people who like to be told a solution once and not to be bothered with new knowledge ever. There are and have been supporters of the evolutionary theory who don’t want to see any change made to their understanding of how things work. You always have that. But science fortunately (sometimes after years of fierce fighting) finally accepts changes to theories if they helps to understand the world better.
“The evidence we have is all at the leaves; the connections are assumed.”
Sorry, but that is plain wrong. Just look at sharks:
Transition from primitive jawless fish to sharks, skates, and rays
* Late Silurian — first little simple shark-like denticles.
* Early Devonian — first recognizable shark teeth, clearly derived from scales.
GAP: Note that these first, very very old traces of shark-like animals are so fragmentary that we can’t get much detailed information. So, we don’t know which jawless fish was the actual ancestor of early sharks.
* Cladoselache (late Devonian) — Magnificent early shark fossils, found in Cleveland roadcuts during the construction of the U.S. interstate highways. Probably not directly ancestral to sharks, but gives a remarkable picture of general early shark anatomy, down to the muscle fibers!
* Tristychius & similar hybodonts (early Mississippian) — Primitive proto-sharks with broad-based but otherwise shark-like fins.
* Ctenacanthus & similar ctenacanthids (late Devonian) — Primitive, slow sharks with broad-based shark-like fins & fin spines. Probably ancestral to all modern sharks, skates, and rays. Fragmentary fin spines (Triassic) — from more advanced sharks.
* Paleospinax (early Jurassic) — More advanced features such as detached upper jaw, but retains primitive ctenacanthid features such as two dorsal spines, primitive teeth, etc.
* Spathobatis (late Jurassic) — First proto-ray.
* Protospinax (late Jurassic) — A very early shark/skate. After this, first heterodonts, hexanchids, & nurse sharks appear (late Jurassic). Other shark groups date from the Cretaceous or Eocene. First true skates known from Upper Cretaceous.
A separate lineage leads from the ctenacanthids through Echinochimaera (late Mississippian) and Similihari (late Pennsylvanian) to the modern ratfish.
Source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#fish
You certainly can point out that there are still steps missing. Some steps always will be missing. With every additional intermediary you get a new line where you can point at and say that something ist missing.
“But if they are wrong, and God does exist and does care what people believe, then they are in big trouble. In other words, they are betting their eternal destiny on being right”
It is a fact little appreciated that God wants everyone in the world to give me money. Send me a dime, and eternal, heavenly bliss is yours. Refuse me that dime, and God will damn you to the fiery pits of hell for all eternity.
You’re not sure? You think it’s possible I’m wrong? If I’m wrong, you’re only out a dime. If I’m right, pass along my greetings to Dan Johnson, who was a cheapskate deadbeat loser in fifth grade, and is now enjoying the monstrous torment that is the inevitable righteous outcome for his sinful malfeasance: his abject, sinful failure to give me a dime as God demands.
I understand that once Jesus finishes weeping over the holy martyrdom of Bill O’Reilly, defender of Christmas, Jesus will start weeping over me, and over those who have not fulfilled their holy obligation to give me money.
I make a point of reading Gerv’s page every now and then, and much of what he says reminds me of the days when I attended an evangelical church. The distortions, half-truths and downright lies are both familiar and scary. To me, the “Good News” comes not from belief in a god who would damn people (“his creations” — but I didn’t ask to be created!) to an eternity of torment, but from finally gaining intellectual freedom and the right to believe what I feel is true.
To my mind, the Christians who are worth the name are those who get on with helping others, who give what they have regardless of their own needs. I have met only a handful of such people, although they’re hard to find — they tend to keep quiet and get on with it, rather than shouting about it and telling themselves “I’ll do it tomorrow”.
Here are some informative links about the issues Gerv raises in his article:
http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/index.html
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/index.shtml
http://www.skepticreport.com/general/index.htm
On the point of the “bet to nothing” theory of belief, you should remember that it’s not your view or nothing; there are other faiths out there and they’re not compatible with yours. As Dawkins put it so eloquently, “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
It’s not an assertion, it’s the definition. I was taking issue with your classification of macro-evolution as a faith-based doctrine. I wasn’t attempting to make any sort of qualitative judgement of faith itself. I apologize if anyone interpreted my words that way.
A little googling reveals that “On Obstinacy in Belief” is included in “The World’s Last Night: And Other Essays” which is still available. It sounds like an interesting read.
I don’t know, but I think you’re jumping ahead. Proving that life can be created from a lifeless organic soup would be a monumental achievement. I think both sides of the creation argument would use this as evidence. The anti-creationism group would hold it up as evidence that God is unnecessary, while the creationists would point out that it required an intelligent being to make it happen.
I’m not going to quibble with your assertion that evolution is a doctrine – but then so are Newton’s rules of motion and all the rest.
I don’t see what the difference is between macro- and micro-evolution. Species (and the other clades) are arbitrarily defined. It would seem entirely plausible that micro-evolution can occur in such a way as to engender speciation – where a population divides such that the two groups are no longer co-fertile. This has happened within human timescales – various cultivated species are now recognized as different from the wild species with which they share a common ancestor. If speciation can occur, then at what scale do you say that evolution is macroevolution?
Would you say “I can accept that Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas aeruginosa have a common ancestor, but not that they share a common ancestor with E. coli”?
So, those who believe in macro-evolution as the basis for the origin of life are certainly no more “scientific” than those who believe life was created by God. Both positions are doctrines requiring faith.
I’d take issue with this. For instance, compare the doctrines of “continental plates got where they are through drift”, and “continental plates got where they are because of being chiselled and moulded into shape by billions of very subtle pixies who were careful not to leave traces”. A supporter of either of these can say that the evidence for the other is uncertain. It doesn’t mean that they’re both equally justified.
Arguments Creationists should NOT use
When you speak of “microevolution,” you seem to be talking about speciation. God created “kinds” of animals, which adapted to various factors in the world and fanned out into species.
We have yet to see even a �micro� increase in information
What about that caused by gene duplication events, followed by mutation (such as that giving rise to the differences between alpha- and beta- haemoglobin)? Or the aquisition of polyploidy in plants – more chromosomes means more coding DNA, and more variation possibility with respect to alleles? Or the copying of chromosomal DNA into bacterial plasmids?
Ah, for a minute I was heartened, Gerv. You seemed to be coming down on a firm position, claiming that only God could create life from inanimate matter.
That’s a firm, testable claim. But then you said this:
So not only do scientists have to demonstrate that life can be made from nothing, they have to prove that the conditions they used to achieve it were the exact conditions obtaining in the pre-historical era when it happened.
That is, as you note, impossible to show. So it looks like your belief is still sealed off behind a wall of unfalsifiability. More power to you.
OK, so it looks like my use of the term “macro-evolution” is continuing to cause confusion in some quarters. I apologise for that. Would “evolutionary abiogenesis” be a better one?
To restate my core point, then: belief in God-ordained biogenesis and belief in evolutionary abiogenesis are both doctrines requiring faith. Neither is more “scientific” than the other.
Yes indeed, because “the Christian God is the one true God” is a doctrine. And I’d be happy to tell you about the reasons and evidence I have for taking that bet.
Hmm. I look at some animals, and see they are similar. So I invent a line joining them on my tree. Later, I look at the DNA and see that it’s similar too. How does that prove the line? It’s what you might expect, given that they look similar!
I’d be more likely to believe that if a) you had evidence to back it up, and b) you were going to do something with it that’s consistent with God’s purposes. What do you plan to do with it?
Just out of interest, do you think that exercising that right will cause the universe to alter so that your beliefs become correct?
That’s a very interesting point that I’d never thought of. Thanks :-)
“Hmm. I look at some animals, and see they are similar. So I invent a line joining them on my tree. Later, I look at the DNA and see that it’s similar too. How does that prove the line? It’s what you might expect, given that they look similar!”
Hum, no, sorry. That is really surprisingly uninformed. You do have quite a few cases where things *do* look very similar and *do* have the same function but evolved seperately. They don’t use the same genes for those similarities either. That lead to some confusion among biologists until they discovered those *lines* which made clear which properties evolved separatly and which evolved from the same thing.
I wanted to add that I’m sorry for my clumsy English. You might have surmised by now that it is only a second language for me.
So these things would have been linked by lines on the earlier trees, which were based on appearance? And then DNA sequencing didn’t verify the earlier diagram in these cases, but contradicted it?
I genuinely hadn’t noticed. I don’t know whether that says something about the high quality of your English, or the poor quality of everyone else’s ;-)
“Yes indeed, because “the Christian God is the one true God” is a doctrine. And I’d be happy to tell you about the reasons and evidence I have for taking that bet.”
Actually if you don’t terribly mind, I would love to hear why you believe what you believe. It is always better to know where people are coming from in a discussion like this.
“You do have quite a few cases where things *do* look very similar and *do* have the same function but evolved seperately.
So these things would have been linked by lines on the earlier trees, which were based on appearance? And then DNA sequencing didn’t verify the earlier diagram in these cases, but contradicted it?”
Yes and no. Drawing those lines is a very tedious work. You have to gain an overview over a lot of species in a lot of different places and even through the ages. Most of those lines had been drawn before the advent of DNA sequencing. And in the beginning a lot of wrong or oversimplified lines have been drawn. Like from the apes directly to humans. Later those lines got corrected and adjusted, intermediaries were found, scientists quarreled over details. Most corrections happened before DNA sequencing. With DNA sequencing there’s just less to quarrel over. I think they’ve found some rather surprising lines among the insects where people didn’t see them before, but I can’t recall the exact example. But overall a surprisingly high proportion of the family tree was confirmed.
“Just out of interest, do you think that exercising that right will cause the universe to alter so that your beliefs become correct?”
Such an arrogant question! I’m not trying to “alter” anything: I merely disagree with you. To suppose (as your question implies) that your “truth” is known to everyone and non-believers are knowingly apostate shows just how dogmatic you are. I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything different from someone who believes in eternal damnation for disbelievers…
“they are betting their eternal destiny on being right”
“Does your refusal to believe make it any more or less likely that God exists? Assume he does for a moment, and think back on your life. Do you feel that you do not deserve damnation? Have you never done anything wrong?”
These two quotes are very different, and I was responding to the first. I will not worship (or believe in or whatever) a god that would damn all those I could not convert to my faith. I would resent that god and damn him, but that’s maybe just me.
My refusal changes nothing. It is a result of my own logical deduction, from which I have concluded that I don’t believe in God. Whether or not that will impact others, I don’t know, though it probably will in some way or another, and probably already has.
Thinking back on my life … no, I don’t think I deserve damnation. This is largely because I don’t believe in my ability to save my soul by praying to some guy who might not even exist. I have done many wrong things, but I can also say with utmost confidence that so have you. Still, it does depend on what you count as wrong. If “wrong” is breaking the ten commandments, then some juvenile mistakes would send you to purgatory, while if “wrong” is if you’ve accidentally eaten flies … well …
It’s interesting to read what you write. I used to be an evangelical Christian (I was a member of CICCU when I was at Cambridge), although I stopped considering myself a Christian a couple of years ago. But even when I was an evangelical Christian, I was happy to believe that evolution was a mechanism by which God worked, that Genesis was poetry (or possibly liturgy in the case of Gen 1) which revealed truths about the human condition, and that Jesus’ mention of Adam was because he spoke to people of his time (and possibly as a man of his time, depending on how far we take all that kenosis business). You may think that I wasn’t a proper evangelical Christian in that case, but I was strong enough for CICCU and StAG at that point. Anyhow…
I think your terminology is confused, though: macro-evolution is the term Creationists use to refer to speciation, usually (or to a particular sort of speciation which they object to, I’m not quite sure). Your later comment says you’re thinking of abiogenesis, although your remarks about the Cambrian explosion and transitional forms seem to be addressing speciation. So, which is it?
I do not agree that the idea that abiogenesis which occurred without the intervention of the Christian god constitutes a doctrine by your definition. I’ll address each point individually (3 point definitions are a fine evangelical tradition :-)
Firstly, no scientific theory is proveable in the sense that you seem to mean it, and while it is true that we don’t know how it happened, it seems likely that our knowledge will improve. It is not impossible in principle that we should come to some understanding how how abiogenesis occurred. You’re getting dangerously close to the God of the Gaps argument when you point to mysteries in science and advocate God in the same breath (although to be fair, you don’t quite get so far as saying God dunnit).
Secondly, most people do not live their lives on the basis of evolution, speciation or abiogenesis (with the possible exception of Richard Dawkins ;-) People mostly don’t care about religion in the UK, one way or the other, and neither do they care about science. Even those people who are professional biologists are not looking to evolution to inform their moral choices in the way which a religion would.
I’ve seen the “what about your eternal destiny” argument from the inside. I know you’re trained by your church to move conversations on to that point as quick as you can, rather than philosophising too much, but to my mind that sort of argument isn’t very impressive. Evangelical Christians may like to draw analogies between their evangelism and someone warning of an impartial natural distaster like fire or flood, but in fact God is not an impersonal force, and what you’re saying is not “get under cover, there’s a storm coming” but “believe in my God or he will hurt you more than you can imagine”. A couple of URLs for that: Hank is funny and rather telling, and a discussion I had with a Christian on Hell explores this in more detail.
Thirdly, it’s vacuously true that by asserting something, you’re denying its opposite. I’m not sure why that makes that something a doctrine, since you’ve already allowed that most evolutionists do not evangelise in the way which, say, Christians do.
Somebody mentioned Information Theory, which seems to be the new version of the old 2nd Law of Thermodynamics argument which used to be popular among Creationists. I had a pretty long discussion on Creationism with an ex-Christian who wasn’t sure of evolution. We talked about information in some detail: you can read it here. In there, I even say that I think Richard Dawkin’s has something wrong. :-)
“Ken C.: It is a fact little appreciated that God wants everyone in the world to give me money.
I’d be more likely to believe that if a) you had evidence to back it up, and b) you were going to do something with it that’s consistent with God’s purposes. What do you plan to do with it?”
(a) I have just as much empirical evidence to back up the existence of my God, as you do of yours.
(b) Indeed, I wouldn’t presume to know God’s purposes, or even God’s purposes regarding the known universe, or even God’s purposes regarding the vast range of living organisms, here on earth and presumably elsewhere. How presumptuous and self-centered that would be, to think I had any clue about such things. I just know one tiny, insignificant fact about one thing that people should do to please God: they should give me money.
Given the eternal-searing-pain downside of betting against the existence of (my) God, and the tiny associated cost of making Him happy (by giving me a dime), how could you fail to do as God wishes?
“I know you’re trained by your church to move conversations on to that point as quick as you can”
You actually get *trained* on such things? Fascinating and a bit disconcerting. I know that about certain missionary groups. But is this true for a broader range of churches?
In response to Realish:
“Uh… what’s the other universe?”
Some scientists working in quantum mechanics think that creation is in fact a multiverse, that there are almost countless other parallel universes to our own.
“Yes. We do. Maybe we’re a little hazy on the quantum level, but at the macro level — the level of normal human experience — we do understand the universe well enough.”
No. We dont. We can make assumptions about what we think we know, but they are assumptions only. There is a huge variety of opinion in the scientific community about the notion of natural law. Some scientists dispute that there is any, some think that there may be, but that the laws governing the universe have radically changed several times since the big bang. In fact the idea that there are immutable iron clad laws governing the universe is rapidly dying out. I dont claim to be anything other than an armchair enthusiast with regards to science, but I read widely enough to know that there is far more diversity of opinion and far more doubt and debate about what we know than your suggesting.
“As for a God who simply “is,” who does nothing, who does not affect the physical universe — who cares?”
Thats not what I said.
Do you think the presence of love in a persons life alone “does nothing”? I dont. When you see someone inspired by love, does that love not effect there lives? Have you never seen a person radically change out of love for someone else? Or the effect that the mere presence of love in a childs life who has never experienced it can have?
The mere presence of love in a persons heart can change and transform not only individuals but entire communities. It can alter the direction of history, and turn evil men into saviours. So it is not that God “does nothing”, its just that you have a cartoon view of God who, unless he alters the universes “laws” before your eyes, does not have any use for you. That displays a poverty of heart and imagination that I find very sad. But more importantly, it shows a shallow understanding of God.
“by the time people define God in such a way as to not contradict or violate science, you’re left with a concept that’s virtually empty”.
As I showed above, not at all. But we dont need to define God so that he does not contradict science because science is not a set of laws. Scientific theories change on a daily basis. As I said above, there is simply not anywhere near the level of certainty about the universe and how it functions amongst scientists that you claim.
“I don’t get this idea that the world that science describes is somehow boring or “normal” or empty of meaning”
Its not. I did not say that the world science attempts to describe (note the word ATTEMPTS)is mechanistic. I said that YOUR view of science was. The world YOU are describing however strikes me as limited, lacking in imagination, especially the imagination of the heart, and based on outdated Newtonian mechanistic theories about the world.
My question wasn’t meant to imply that; the point I was getting at is this. Assuming that you are also standing up for everyone else’s right to believe what they feel is true, surely what you are really standing up for is the right to believe error without being challenged about it? Everyone’s not going to exercise their right to believe exactly the same things, after all, and (as we’ve established) the universe won’t change to accommodate them all…
For a calmer discussion, perhaps anyone interested in this would like to email me?
I’m not afraid to admit that you are right – I’ve done many wrong things, perhaps more than you. Christians are not the super-special, extra-holy good guys that God has chosen because they are so great. Christians are rotten sinners, saved by the undeserved favour of a merciful God – because he chooses to, not because of anything we have done.
It’s a fair cop. Once some terms had been defined for me, I was more sure about what I was saying. Although I would hope that everyone taking part in this discussion is willing to let it change what they think, or clarify what their personal position is.
But isn’t that somewhat inconsistent of them, then? If humans are jumped-up protozoa, emotions are chemical imbalances in the brain and this life is all there is (all of which, I argue, are logical conclusions from the combination of abiogenesis and evolution) then that has to have some impact on moral choices. For example, what reason is there for doing anything which is not entirely selfish?
As it happens, I can’t really remember any training I’ve attended on this sort of thing. I tend to just pray that the Holy Spirit would tell me what to write.
By the way, http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/gaybishops.htm, which was a link from one of your links, is a fantastic read. I don’t agree with everything he says (will that make you more or less likely to read it? ;-) but it’s very well written.
Apart from the purpose that he intends to cause eternal searing pain to anyone who doesn’t give you money? ;-)
Gerv:
Wait! I do know one other thing about God’s purposes; I also know there’s a special place in Heck for people who respond to postings in a way that shows they didn’t read them, or who quote them in a misleading way.
But that’s the only thing I know, besides of course that God wants people to give me money.
-Ken
Gerv, I have to strongly disagree with you. The tremendous difference between macro-evolution and life created by God is that the first one may is potentially provable in the future, that scientific theories – new or old – are gathered to explain it and so on. Life created by God is just a joke made for people who cannot accept the fact they’ll die before the Human Kind gets the answer. As of today, we cannot explain exactly why elemental components form amino-acids easily. Because we’re still VERY ignorant. Modern science is less than a century old. Let’s give time to time.
Year 1000 was the middle age of human knowledge about his direct environment; year 2000 us the middle age of human knowledge about the universe. That’s all.
Again, macro-evolution may be proven true, eventually. Life created by God may not.
Gerv: It’s a fair cop. Once some terms had been defined for me, I was more sure about what I was saying.
So, which one is it? speciation or abiogenesis?
Daniel: “Life created by God is just a joke made for people who cannot accept the fact they’ll die before the Human Kind gets the answer.”
Damn, that is one pathetic and f*cked up way to look at life. If you really think everything in life will and can be proved scientifically then you have yet to live.
There is no frick’n way you can say that there does not exist some “greater” power on earth.
Now, weather that “greater power” is God, Budah, ‘Funky power nodes’, Energy, etc. is up to you.
Personally I do believe it evolution, however I don’t think evolution it’s self could have started without some kind of divine intervention.
Anyhow, be carefull, when you think MAN is the 100% answer to life, you begin to become nearsited and miss out on some amazing things in life.
(don’t be closed minded).
-Jed
Well, it seems to me that abiogenesis has to be a doctrine. After all, those who believe in it can’t exclude the possibility of a wind-up-the-watch god who just pointed his finger, set things going and then sat back with his pipe and slippers to watch the show.
In regard to speciation, maybe I’ve misunderstood but it seems from the discussion that the word has a wide variety of scopes. The word Genesis uses for the different parts of creation is translated as “kind”, which doesn’t map onto any of our carefully-defined biological classifications. It also seems from this discussion and my recent reading on talkorigins.org that the greater the level of speciation you are postulating, the weaker the fossil evidence is.
So I’d suggest that the greater the level of speciation one proposes, the more belief in it becomes doctrine and the less it is a theory. And the level of speciation which says that every bit of life on earth came from a single incidence (or a handful of instances) of abiogenesis seems to be firmly in the doctrine camp.
It sounds like you believe that morality is derived from religion and cannot exist independently of it. I disagree. Even without God, morality would have developed in order to allow people to live together with some semblance of peace and cooperation. There’s nothing inherently religious about the “golden rule.” From an atheistic (and psychological) perspective, I think that there is ample evidence to believe that religion derived from morality (in addition to other things, most notably the desire for control).
“In its extreme form, creationism is unfalsifiable: the creationist argues that God merely created the earth intact with fossils and geological strata and whatnot made to *look* just like speciation had occured via evolution.”
Just a little nitpick here. You do not fully understand the view of creationists and are speaking ignorantly about this.
Creationists do not believe that God created the earth with fossils and sediment layers intact to fool us. It’s common theory in the view of creationists that this happend due to a world wide flood. A massive, wide-scale flood would create layers of mud and sediment and quickly bury flora and fauna fast enough to leave them in the fossilized states they are found. It also explains the massive amount of trapped plant material needed to make the huge oil deposits found on the planet.
What other explanation would you have for polystrate fossils found in multiple layers of sediment? Right near me in Birmingham, Alabama, polystrate fossils of trees have been found in coal fields that could not have formed but over millions of years according to popular evolutionary doctrine.
It’s unfair and ignorant to make up strawman arguments about creationists when you don’t even understand the things they believe.
Re: Creationist use of the argument “God created fossils”
I have not been able to find any examples of current creationists claiming that God created fossils, however, the claim was made in Victorian times by one Philip Gosse, so creationists (assuming you consider Gosse a creationist) *have* made the claim that God created fossils – it’s just that they don’t do so *now*.
For more info on Gosse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Henry_Gosse
Is the idea that God created the universe “with the appearance of age” still part of creationist theory? The “fossils created in the ground” notion was done away with in favor of the great flood explanation, but I was wondering if there are any related theories, ie alternate explanations of how the light from faraway stars (more than ~6000 light years away) is reaching us if the universe isn’t as old as scientists think it is?
> It’s common theory in the view of creationists that this happend due to a world wide flood.
Remove the first three words, and you have it right. It is a view (aka, and opinion), but it is not a theory in the way that most people think of… it is not backed up by any significant physical evidence, and in fact, would violate the laws of physics. Read the following website for more detail:
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gflood.htm
> A massive, wide-scale flood would create layers of mud and sediment and quickly bury flora and
> fauna fast enough to leave them in the fossilized states they are found. It also explains
> the massive amount of trapped plant material needed to make the huge oil deposits found on the
> planet.
Floods and the imprint that they leave on the Earth are well understood and do not like a near-global flood.
Oh, and you know the “the massive amount of” biomass that you refer to? In fact, it is so massive it can’t be explained by a wide-scale flood – there isn’t enough room on the earth for it to have all been alive at the same time. Not to mention it is distributed across many layers – and *in order* across those layers (with the more simple life forms at the bottom), including ones that are millions of years old.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#georecord
> What other explanation would you have for polystrate fossils found in multiple layers of
> sediment? Right near me in Birmingham, Alabama, polystrate fossils of trees have been found in
> coal fields that could not have formed but over millions of years according to popular
> evolutionary doctrine.
Have you even looked? How about an explanation that is consistant with science!
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate.html
My point was not that morality cannot exist outside of religion, but that there is no other motivation for doing anything not entirely selfish. Any rules developed in a God-less society for “allowing people to live together in… peace and co-operation” are selfish ones – the selfish motivation being that everyone agrees it would be nice for them not to wake up with a dagger in their back and their possessions missing.
I can’t see how that would work for Christianity, the entire point of which is that living a good, moral life is not the way to get, but merely a side-effect of, a relationship with God. All other religions (which I would hold as false and constructed by man) may well be derived from morality, control, or anything else you like.
A line of logic which starts by lumping all religions together and then goes on to make conclusions about their validity is making a rather large initial assumption!
Jesse: I’m sure there are also diverging views among evolutionists about exactly how things work. It may be better if you discourse with Daniel based upon views he does hold rather than ones he doesn’t. :-)
It seems to me to be reasonable that creationist theories change over time. What the Bible says on the subject (which isn’t all that much) is held constant, but what one observes about the universe is not constant, so theories which unite the two are going to change because one side of the data is changing.
I’ve been lurking here with interest I have to admit, and it seems that there are several threads running through the arguments.
I don’t want to get too involved in the creationism/evolution debate, as it’s pretty obvious who’s winning. Gerv, can I suggest that you read a philosophy book – not a religious book, not a science book, but a philosophy book that presents the various philosophies *objectively* – and try to be as objective as you can whilst reading it. Put your personal views on one side. Then try and resolve the differences between what your scientific mind says, and what your religious beliefs say. I think you need more clarity in your own opinions.
Secondly, a large problem (IMHO) is that your phrasing and arguments are too distorted by your religion. It’s perfectly possible to argue about the philosophical plus/minus points using well-defined terms and positions without mentioning Christianity, sins, etc.; a large part of the knee-jerk reactionism to your arguments could be avoided by not referring to the God in your arguments as a Christian/Loving God (whether explicitly or implicitly).
Thirdly, it’s debatable whether or not the Bible itself can be included in the creation discussion – it is arguable that it cannot be included as evidence of a model of creation due to its historical origins (probably compiled from multiple sources under the orders of the King of Judah, Josiah,circa 7000 B.C. with the aim of replacing the existing belief system of many Gods with one; copied inaccurately between drafts due to scholar’s difference of viewpoints etc.). Of course, it can be used as a starting point – if you set out to prove that the creationism model is consistent using the model in the Bible that’s OK, but you can’t then point to the Bible and say “That’s why my model is right”.
The discussion about the FORM of the creator is also a separate argument – although the creation discussion will bound the possibilities, e.g. a God that puts fossil’s in the Earth to fool mankind is at odds with many definitions of a loving God. Other complex issues include the resolution of differences between the jealous, angry JVH of the OT, and the loving, forgiving father model of the NT; the lack of evidence of the existence of a watchmaker non-interventionist type God vs. the traditional model; and psychology based ‘God is Mankind’s crutch’ counter arguments.
Finally, the morality/religion race – which came first – is yet another. This I will comment on with an opinion. Your idea is extremely simplistic in an evolution setting, and difficult to resolve within a creationist setting.
Evolution: the two grew together out of a common need for group rules; with the poor communication skills of primitive Man the rules would remain largely uncommunicated and based on evolutionary and environment-conditioned behaviours; as communication improved, these unspoken rules would become spoken and form a concrete set; at this point, the difference between moral rules and religion emerge. The moral rules continue to develop (avoiding the word evolve due to the preponderance of environment in the moral definition) whilst the religious dogma remains set. These divergences are clearly visible today – most obvious example: moral RIGHT for mother to kill to defend her child; religious WRONG (thou shalt not kill).
Creationist: God created the Earth, and put Man on it, with rules implanted. These rules are indistinguishable from the religion. There is no concept of morality as anything other than religious obediance. This starting point provides us with a nasty trap – evolution of morality to provide today’s variation can only be as a result of willfull alteration of the laws etc.; combined with the range of religions today, and the obvious preponderance to modify the rules as we wish, the question is how can we ascertain which is the original, if any? When God created Man, and gave him rules – what were they? Which religion is correct, and how do we know? These questions are difficult for the religious to answer in a logical fashion (e.g. those saying “it’s the Koran, because that’s my book!” need not apply). I don’t know how to tie this up.
There ARE holes in my arguments – exercise left for the reader.
Chris: in suggesting that I read a philosophy text to “objectively” evaluate the arguments in the creationism/evolutionary abiogenesis debate, are you saying that the way life came to be is not a matter of science or religion, but one of philosophy?
I’d argue that your viewpoint is skewed by an assumption that religion is primarily about rules. In the case of Christianity, this isn’t true. My suggested reading list for you would include a Christian work on the origins of the Bible, and any basic Christianity text which explains the vast difference between religions built on rules and having a relationship with God (and hopefully also why the “OT God is angry, NT God is loving” thing is complete rubbish).
You are obviously both a man who believes in moral absolutes (“moral RIGHT for…”). Where would you say the source of your absolute morality is?
Apologies for not being clear; that sentence is missing its most important word. I should have written “emotions are only chemical imbalances in the brain”.
Not really, actually. I’m merely pointing out that if you are an atheist, all there are are “natural causes”. In other words, to try and re-make my point about emotions (and probably mess it up again), if love is only a chemical change in the brain, why do we allow it to make us do things that would otherwise be irrational?
�Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.�
– Lee Spetner, Not by Chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, The Judaica Press, Inc., Brooklyn, NY, p. 160, 1997.
Utopian Fallacy: The book you might be looking for is Starlight and Time by D.R. Humphreys, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 1994.
I haven’t read it so I’m not going to comment on it However, it has generated some debate which you can read about online
Quoted by Mark:
Mr. Spetner either doesn’t understand the theory or is deliberately distorting it. If these are the kind of arguments he makes the book isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Mutations don’t lose information, they change it. As we all should know, the theory is that if those changes are beneficial they are more likely to be passed on to future generations.