Best Evidence for Evolution.

noguru

Well-known member
Are you blind?

Evolutionists typically believe YECs are stupid. One could make a lot of money placing bets on this for any random selection of evolutionists.

Why do you think an atheist would come to a forum like this if not for "kicks" and/or ego self-stroking?

What makes you say this, Bob? Have atheists told you that is the most common reason they come here?

You seemed to use evolutionist and atheist interchangeably in this response. You do realize that a person can be an evolutionist and not an atheist?

Bob, your response seems to be spotlighting your paranoid side.
 

macguy

New member
It isn't faith, I am simply allowing for the possibility that the study of abiogenesis will determine if/how life arose from non-life. You are writing the entire field off from the get-go because of religious objections. How very intellectually honest of you! :)

Christians don't have faith, but rather a justification for believing that a God exists. Abiogenesis, anthropic principle and the meaning of life all gives a reasonable justification for invoking God. Then there IC and SC which is another method of detecting design. If these fail then either a designer never created or there is another way to detect design. Religious objections? How ridiculous of you because I never ONCE brought religion to this discussion now did I? Nice way to twist the conversation and paint the picture of me being the bad guy. I am proposing a theory which makes the prediction that abiogenesis will never be figured out. However, this is not to say that it can't be figured out because Paley's theory merely does what all science must do and that is make predictions against an observation. Here is one evidence against a naturalistic explanation:


One of the major obstacles to the naturalistic explanations is our atmosphere. The ozone (O3) forms when molecular oxygen (O2) is struck by cosmic radiation. Without oxygen in our atmosphere, there can be no ozone and without it the ultraviolet radiation would destroy any life that is exposed to the sun. Not to mention that ultraviolet radiation can penetrate tens of meters beneath the ocean’s surface which would cause ocean currents to circulate (deep water included) and expose the organic contents to destruction. According to Cairns-Smith, this ultraviolet rays would convert surface materials into materials that destroys organic molecules even more effectively than oxygen gas. Scientists realize that oxygen is a hinderance to the origin of life so they had to come up with the myth of a primitive atmosphere. Reductionism doesn’t work there and it goes only so far until you end up with a pause even with the so-called “simple life”. Without the existence of life, there can’t be any production of oxygen and no ozone so there simply cannot be life! There has been no successful naturalistic explanation for this as of yet. Furthermore, oxygen would be produced by photo-dissociation of water vapour and oxidized minerals have been found in rocks as early as 3.8 billions years old which is in itself 300 million years older than the earliest life.


So, faith is good when you have it, but bad when others have it?

What is your definition of faith? Is it the biblical definition or blind faith? What justification do you have for believing in naturalism anyways? How does your world-view account for logic when our cognitive faculties in the naturalistic world-view would merely be adaptive beliefs and not true beliefs? There are arguments against a naturalistic epistemology and simply no arguments for it. To assume that nature is all there is, is bogus reasoning.

‘If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.’
 

Neverfox

New member
You obviously have not read many threads here, because I quite frequently criticize evolutionists for their "straw man" characterization of creationist belief like your second point. Why would anyone who ever visited the animal barns at a county fair ever think that animals or other creatures do not change over time?

You think creationists are quite stupid don't you?

Makes you feel good about yourself I'll bet.

Wow, I not sure what I did to bring about the attitude. I was trying to seriously understand if that was what you believed before I made any assumptions. You are right, I haven't read many posts here because I'm new but thank you for being a great ambassador in helping me understand what kind of responses I can expect.

I don't think I'm so crazy to assume that's what you might think given that I'd not expect someone to believe in evolutionary change but while arguing that we did not come from some other species at some point. Seems like that would create some personal and logical struggles for you to deal with.

So if you do not hold the second point as a belief, that's fine by me. You believe that genetic change occurs over time then? You just don't like the idea that it might occur for more geological time than your religious history can account for? Or that humans might be a part of that change? What is your reason to think that change occurs except when it violates the religious history? Seems like an arbitrary isolation of the idea of change.
 

noguru

Well-known member
Wow, I not sure what I did to bring about the attitude. I was trying to seriously understand if that was what you believed before I made any assumptions. You are right, I haven't read many posts here because I'm new but thank you for being a great ambassador in helping me understand what kind of responses I can expect.

I don't think I'm so crazy to assume that's what you might think given that I'd not expect someone to believe in evolutionary change but while arguing that we did not come from some other species at some point. Seems like that would create some personal and logical struggles for you to deal with.

So if you do not hold the second point as a belief, that's fine by me. You believe that genetic change occurs over time then? You just don't like the idea that it might occur for more geological time than your religious history can account for? Or that humans might be a part of that change? What is your reason to think that change occurs except when it violates the religious history? Seems like an arbitrary isolation of the idea of change.

I think Bob's answer will be protein folding.
 

PlastikBuddha

New member
If you don't mind me asking, what changed your mind? BTW, what type of agnostic are you?

I believe that it is impossible for us to have true knowledge of the Divine (including its existance). If the the Divine exists, it is completely transcendent and not subject to empirical observation. I don't believe in second-hand revelation as a source of knowledge, and I would accept personal revelation only provisionally- because I could be delusional or fulfilling my own wishes. If the Divine exists I believe it to be completely beyond the scope of our understanding, and to attempt to describe it or attribute motivations to it is shows us more about ourselves than about the Divine. Not that this is useless, mind you. I guess I'm a notheistic neo-gnostic agnostic. I left atheism after repeated ponderings on the Origin of Everything question. There are some pretty strange ideas coming from the world of physics about that and it struck me that the idea of the universe being created isn't really any weirder than the idea of multiple universes, branes, or string theory. If there is a God, however, I believe it will prove to be far different than anything we've imagined, thus I choose to refer to the Divine instead of God. Because this differs quite a bit from what most people would recognize as God I refer to myself as a nontheist. I consider knowledge of the Divine impossible given the limitations of imperfect flesh and a limited perspective, but I am willing to accept imperfect personal revelations as a matter of faith.
 

Neverfox

New member
Are you blind?

Evolutionists typically believe YECs are stupid. One could make a lot of money placing bets on this for any random selection of evolutionists.

Why do you think an atheist would come to a forum like this if not for "kicks" and/or ego self-stroking?

bob, come back on topic with us. You are getting personal and that doesn't really seem appropriate. You are making judgements that because someone disagrees, their intentions should be questioned. If you believe what you believe and our mortal souls are in the balance, then almost by definition you think we are stupid, or at least misguided, for believing otherwise, right? What's more stupid than denying a god that will save our soul from the fires of hell. If not, then I question the strength of your belief. Flip it around though and it doesn't hold because we don't think our souls are on the line for exploring different ideas.
 

bob b

Science Lover
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Wow, I not sure what I did to bring about the attitude. I was trying to seriously understand if that was what you believed before I made any assumptions. You are right, I haven't read many posts here because I'm new but thank you for being a great ambassador in helping me understand what kind of responses I can expect.

I don't think I'm so crazy to assume that's what you might think given that I'd not expect someone to believe in evolutionary change but while arguing that we did not come from some other species at some point. Seems like that would create some personal and logical struggles for you to deal with.

So if you do not hold the second point as a belief, that's fine by me. You believe that genetic change occurs over time then? You just don't like the idea that it might occur for more geological time than your religious history can account for?

Or that humans might be a part of that change? What is your reason to think that change occurs except when it violates the religious history? Seems like an arbitrary isolation of the idea of change.

Evolutionists only assume that changes that occur over time are due to random mutations plus natural selection. I believe they are dead wrong about that.
 

noguru

Well-known member
Evolutionists only assume that changes that occur over time are due to random mutations plus natural selection. I believe they are dead wrong about that.

And the evidence you use to support this belief is?

drum roll please.
 

Neverfox

New member
I believe that it is impossible for us to have true knowledge of the Divine (including its existance). If the the Divine exists, it is completely transcendent and not subject to empirical observation. I don't believe in second-hand revelation as a source of knowledge, and I would accept personal revelation only provisionally- because I could be delusional or fulfilling my own wishes. If the Divine exists I believe it to be completely beyond the scope of our understanding, and to attempt to describe it or attribute motivations to it is shows us more about ourselves than about the Divine. Not that this is useless, mind you. I guess I'm a notheistic neo-gnostic agnostic. I left atheism after repeated ponderings on the Origin of Everything question. There are some pretty strange ideas coming from the world of physics about that and it struck me that the idea of the universe being created isn't really any weirder than the idea of multiple universes, branes, or string theory. If there is a God, however, I believe it will prove to be far different than anything we've imagined, thus I choose to refer to the Divine instead of God. Because this differs quite a bit from what most people would recognize as God I refer to myself as a nontheist. I consider knowledge of the Divine impossible given the limitations of imperfect flesh and a limited perspective, but I am willing to accept imperfect personal revelations as a matter of faith.

I'm pretty much in the same boat to a degree. I don't like the labels either and I always ponder over which one to use. Technically, though nontheist and atheist mean the same thing. But I understand that "atheist" carries with it certain baggage. When I say I'm an atheist, I'm thinking more in terms of current human religions. In general though, I like your comment about agnoticism and the fact that "god" is the broadest meaning is no stranger than physics. But the problem with agnostic is people always think it means "undecided" or "wishy-washy". So you can't win with either term. But I like your approach.
 

Neverfox

New member
Evolutionists only assume that changes that occur over time are due to random mutations plus natural selection. I believe they are dead wrong about that.

Oh, now I understand the problem. You don't understand the difference between a theory of evolution and a theory about evolution. Darwin's natural selection is one of many ideas about how evolution might occur but is by no means the only one nor is it intended to be exclusively correct. Evolution and the process by which is might take place are separate ideas.

The general case in support of evolution derives none of its strength from Darwin's work and would remain exactly as it is if we had never heard of Darwin or if we decisively refuted his theories. Such objections are easy to make, of course, because scientists themselves are always calling attention to certain problems with parts of Darwin's theory, but they do not affect in the slightest the argument for evolution. The theory of evolution was well known long before Darwin. His grandfather wrote a poem about it, and, some forty years before Darwin's book first appeared, Lamarck published a comprehensive theory of evolutionary change. What's significant about Darwin's writing is not the general account of evolution but his description of how evolution might proceed.

To repeat the point: Darwin's theory is an account of how evolution works. If there are problems with that theory or even if it is discredited, that does not disprove the existence of evolution. Just because we have problems agreeing how something works, that does not entitle us to claim that the phenomenon does not exist. If we're not exactly sure how salmon find their way back to their spawning grounds, does that mean they don't go there?

Hence, any appeal to problems with, say, the mutation rate or to the probabilities of random changes producing complex structures or to what is going on at the microscopic level, however pertinent they may be to a discussion of natural selection, are irrelevant to the argument presented for evolution.

So natural selectionists only assume...
 

noguru

Well-known member
And the evidence that evolutionists use to support the random mutations belief is?

Documented and/or recorded instances of observed genetic variation. We are not certain that the forces behind such genetic variation are "random" as you put it. They just appear to be random from some perspectives.

Now give us your evidence for "supernatural" intervention?

Did you not claim in another post that protien folding is evidence that micro-evolution cannot become macro-evolution?
 

bob b

Science Lover
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Oh, now I understand the problem. You don't understand the difference between a theory of evolution and a theory about evolution. Darwin's natural selection is one of many ideas about how evolution might occur but is by no means the only one nor is it intended to be exclusively correct. Evolution and the process by which is might take place are separate ideas.

The general case in support of evolution derives none of its strength from Darwin's work and would remain exactly as it is if we had never heard of Darwin or if we decisively refuted his theories. Such objections are easy to make, of course, because scientists themselves are always calling attention to certain problems with parts of Darwin's theory, but they do not affect in the slightest the argument for evolution. The theory of evolution was well known long before Darwin. His grandfather wrote a poem about it, and, some forty years before Darwin's book first appeared, Lamarck published a comprehensive theory of evolutionary change. What's significant about Darwin's writing is not the general account of evolution but his description of how evolution might proceed.

To repeat the point: Darwin's theory is an account of how evolution works. If there are problems with that theory or even if it is discredited, that does not disprove the existence of evolution. Just because we have problems agreeing how something works, that does not entitle us to claim that the phenomenon does not exist. If we're not exactly sure how salmon find their way back to their spawning grounds, does that mean they don't go there?

Hence, any appeal to problems with, say, the mutation rate or to the probabilities of random changes producing complex structures or to what is going on at the microscopic level, however pertinent they may be to a discussion of natural selection, are irrelevant to the argument presented for evolution.
So natural selectionists only assume...[/QUOTE]

False distinction.

I said that "evolutionists only assume that changes are due to random mutations plus natural selection", which they do.

Are you trying to tell us that evolutionists don't make this assumption?

If they do make this assumption then my statement is true, and your argument is not relevent to the statement I made.
 
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