Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
This five part series should show anyone who is open to the truth, the very obvious reason that the Myth of Evolution is being imposed on the evidence, lacks falsifiability, and has become a part of the contemporary worldview.
Posts
19 comments:
VERA,
You said over at Comfort's that I wasn't mocking you, I was mocking your god and that your god would not be mocked.
Guess what?
I'll give you a 2 for 1 deal and mock both of you for your bigotry and stupidity.
You also said that if you just asked the holy spirit to touch you that it would, then when I said nothing happened you said that your god would never come to someone as prideful as me.
So you were lying. I'm not surprised!
Then you asked me if I was sure I wasn't touched by your god, that maybe my mind was just playing tricks on me.
LOL ! Yeah lady, I'm sure.
What inanity are you going to come up with next?
tory,
Let us not twist words. I said that you are mocking God, not me, which you are.
I said that the Holy Spirit answered your prayer, but it is probably something you are dismissing as inconsequential. I wanted you not to ask the Holy Spirit necessarily to touch you but to show you that He's real. Can you redo the prayer in that way?
I said God would not set someone free from sin that was full of pride. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Did you read this article I sent? Don't you want to give me your 2 cents on that?
Vera
What article? And did you read the God Delusion? Why should I read your article if you won't read the book I asked you to read? Tit for Tat.
Ok, so I'll redo the prayer right now this very minute and give it 24 hours for a result, then report back, how's that? Or are there going to be some other hoops to jump through or some other excuse if it doesn't work? How about this. How about we both pray that the prayer works. 2 prayers better than 1, right?
You posted excerpts from these articles on Ray Comfort's blog; I'll post my reply to those excerpts here.
Here are some highlights of what is discussed
The fundamental problem with evolution as a scientific theory is that it is neither predictive nor falsifiable. Embryologist and geneticist C. H. Waddington says, “The theory of evolution is unfalsifiable… If an animal evolves one way, biologists have a perfectly good explanation; but if it evolves some other way, they have an equally good explanation… . The theory is not … a predictive theory as to what must happen.”1
Is this offered as a critique of common descent or of the modern evolutionary synthesis as an explanation of common descent? You disagree with both, of course, but they are different questions. Common descent is rather easily testable, and the tests are different from those used to test natural selection as an explanation for adaptions.
Waddington's point, by the way, is a bit too strongly stated. Microevolutionary changes are often predictable: e.g. lizards left stranded on an island are predicted to evolve longer legs to cope with the many narrow branches available for climbing, and they do. Or, conversely, the black coloration of peppered moths in sooty environments is a lot easier to explain than the converse (the grey moths becoming commoner) would be.
Large scale adaptive changes are harder to predict in large part because the relevant environmental factors are too numerous and too poorly understood. But if natural selection is falsifiable on a small scale, I would think that it is in principle falsifiable even on a large scale.
Information theorist Mark Ludwig elaborates, “Darwin’s hypothesis … has the character of unfalsifiable philosophy: it can explain anything and predicts practically nothing… . Darwinism … requires belief… . It has become the scientist’s paradigm, and he is rarely able to admit that it is fragile and charged with philosophy.”2
There are a lot of ellipses in that quote; one wonders what it said originally. As quoted, it is false: natural selection makes a number of falsifiable statements. It would be falsified if mutations never occurred. It would be falsified if which mutations an organism received made no difference in its odds of survival. It would be falsified if differences among individual organisms had no hereditary component.
The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is unfalsifiable because it relies on random, unpredictable mutations. Only predictable randomness, like radioactive decay, is a valid scientific phenomenon. Murray Eden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology illustrates the difference using physical chemistry: “It is accepted that the law of mass action is derivable from the assumption of random collisions between reactive molecules, but the explanation of a chemical reaction in which molecules A and B become C is to be sought … and not in a random rearrangement of the atoms of A and B.”3
Mutations occur, and have been studied. Several studies have shown that the ratio of beneficial mutations (for a given environment: e.g. antibiotic resistance in bacteria exposed to that antibiotic) to non-beneficial mutations neither increases nor decreases when the bacteria are, in fact, exposed to penicillin. Beneficial mutations have been observed. There's something wrong with a philosophical argument that asserts that an observed outcome is impossible.
Yet this is the argument of neo-Darwinianism—an argument no different from the “god of the gaps” argument. As evolutionary zoologist Pierre-P. Grassé says, “Chance becomes a sort of providence, which … is secretly worshipped.”4
This is, again, not quite true: the god-of-the-gaps cannot be observed doing anything outside of his gaps, but is assumed to have whatever powers and attributes are necessary to explain some phenomenon. Mutations are themselves an observed phenomenon, with particular abilities and limits.
Not only does the theory of evolution meet the criteria of a creation myth, but also it fails to meet a critical criterion of a scientific theory: it cannot be falsified. For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be possible to devise a controlled test such that a negative result proves the theory false. But no such test exists for evolution because it is based on unrepeatable, once-in-a-lifetime random occurrences that can therefore “explain” anything.
Read strictly, that standard means that nothing is a scientific theory: consider the Quine-Duhem thesis that no single experiment can falsify any single hypothesis, because hypotheses cannot be tested singly (e.g. one is also testing the hypotheses that one is aware of all the relevant variables, that one's equipment is working properly, etc.). When the planet Uranus was found not to be exactly where Newton's equations said it should be, this did not automatically falsify Newtonianism: astronomers also considered, and ultimately accepted, the existence of a previously unknown planet, Neptune, which was later observed.
As has often been noted, the idea of common descent implies all sorts of falsifiable predictions: that, e.g. shared pseudogenes found in humans and rhesus macacques should also turn up in chimpanzees and gibbons. Note that given the limited (if large) size of the genome, and the size and duration of populations, mutations are in fact repeatable: the same one can occur many different times in the lifetime of a species. Note also that natural selection is not random.
Note, furthermore, that thus far, very little of the material you quote is a scientific argument: it is an attempt to refute a scientific argument with philosophical word games.
The “consensus” is that harmful gene mutations in humans occur once in 105-106 sperm or egg cells in a generation;7 the beneficial mutation rate is probably much less than 1% of this. Even if mutations occurred significantly more frequently eons ago, neo-Darwinism predicts a slow macroevolution, which ought to leave transitional forms in the fossil record. But instead, the fossil record illustrates “punctuated equilibrium:” life goes on stably for long periods of time, interrupted by periodic bursts of great activity for no known naturalistic reason, followed by a return to stability.
Surely that figure means that harmful mutations occur approximately once per hundred new individuals (after all, the size of a generation, in the normal sense of the term, would vary greatly with the size of the population). Out of billions of individuals, that would be tens of millions of harmful mutations. If there were one beneficial mutation per million harmful mutations, that would be a few dozen beneficial mutations per every generation in a population of H. sapiens's current size (or more for single-celled organisms, or fewer for most large mammals, but a fair number in any case).
Punctuated equilibria follows from theoretical work done by Ernst Mayr back in the mid-20th century, based on classic "neo-Darwinian" assumptions. It has precursors in Darwin's own suggestion that lineages spent more time not evolving than they did evolving. It is not some sort of weird contradiction to evolutionary theory, nor something tacked on, but a possibility (about the "tempo and mode," not the fact or mechanism, of evolution) that was seen from the earliest days of the theory.
The most dramatic example of this is the Cambrian explosion about 500 million years ago. Prior to the Cambrian period, there was no evidence of any organisms with hard parts,8 but during a mere ~50 million years, “all of the main phyla and divisions of organisms that exist today—except for the land plants”—appeared.9 “Once all the basic niches were taken, however, this frenzy of new forms not only came to a stop, it was pruned back,” as some Cambrian phyla became extinct.10
Technically, the above is not quite true: there are several phyla whose fossil record does not begin until long after the Cambrian explosion. This is thought, by most paleontologists and evolutionists, to be an artifact of the fossil record (i.e. these phyla were present but not preserved in the Cambrian), which shows, of course, the incompleteness of the fossil record and the danger of relying on what you don't find there.
Note that at the start of the Cambrian, there is the "small shelly fauna," bits and pieces of hard exoskeletons that show up before full exoskeletons do. The Cambrian appearance of hard parts and eyes is indeed, by evolutionary standards, pretty swift -- but it also occurs in stages, not in one fell and miraculous swoop.
The sources cited include Jonathan Sarfati, a metallurgist and young-earth creationist (he writes propaganda for Answers in Genesis). Many of the quote-mined statements are not from the original sources, but drawn from secondary sources, even if not all these sources are as disreputable as Sarfati. This does not speak well of the authors' discernment of good sources from bad.
Hi Vera,
I am working my way through the "Theory of Evolution is a Myth" posts and I was wondering if you would be willing to do the same with a series of posts I have written on the subject of evolution?
I will say straight off that I am not an expert of the subject but I do try to back up everything I say with evidence, as best I can. I would be very interested to get a creationist thoughts on what I have written as to be honest everyone who reads my blog pretty much either thinks like I do or really doesn't care one way or that other.
Anyway my posts may be a little colourful in places for which I appologise and are more of a response to a specific creationists claims than an indepth study but if you are willing to do so then they are there for you to read. At the very least it covers the basics and may even give you ideas on how better to argue your own side of things. Here's the link.
http://www.adart.myzen.co.uk/?p=268
Since this didn't make it through over at Comfort's blog, I'll just post it here.
VERA,
Have you ever written or produced a persuasive essay? I am curious if you know the parameters for that?
Do all the papers and thesis I had to write for grad school count?
No. What I did do was to join RDNet and entered a post under The God Delusion. I lasted four days before I was canned for "preaching." This was after I was asked a question to contrast the God of Islam with the God of the Bible. I answered the question and was told I was preaching. At that time, behind the scenes, I demonstrated to the moderator what preaching would look like.
I have read a lot of books by Reasons to Believe of late just to catch up on the scientific evidence of the day. My heart is to reach people like you. To be honest, that was the last thing on my mind some 2 years ago.
Along the way, I have perused some of Mr. Dawkins' assertions.
So you go around criticizing things you have never read. How utterly intellectually bankrupt you are to accept someone, ANYONE'S, judgment for your own. If you haven't read it, you have NO right to criticize it.
Why are you always so antagonistic? Can we settle down and just talk?
I am not like one of the simpletons that RD so easily catches in his little web. I have been around for a few years and I know I'm right that there is a God and that He is real and that He judges and that He hates not only the sin but all workers of iniquity. Psalm 5:5.
Because you spread lies and hate about gays and science, that's why. You wanna settle down and talk? Stop lying and spreading hate.
You do not 'know' any such thing. You believe it to be true.
Peer reviewed scientific research is science. The conclusions that come about by that research is science.
If you consider stuff that only other Christians review and consider valid to be science. Put their nonsense out for secular review and it fails so hard it shakes the ground when it hits. You know why? Because it isn't science.
Is belief real?
Nice try. Believing something doesn't make it real, unfortunately for you.
My husband and I spend more time with homosexuals trying to help them to come to repentance than you can imagine.. at our own expense. I am not afraid of them. But I do take seriously the sin they are trying to force on our society because I know that ultimately, it will lead to our demise. I care for their eternal state as well knowing they will inherit hell's fire with no reprieve. I have more of a love for them than you do. I am willing to take the backlash from people such as yourself.
You are a lying bigot. You care nothing, NOTHING for the state that they are in right this minute, and this world is the only one we are sure we ever have.
You and your homophobe husband go out and screw up people's head with your garbage, myself and my fellow counselors have to undo every bit of trash you do and save them from committing suicide and turning to drugs and alcohol because of people like you that promote hate, the shredding of families and ostracization of people because you do not like who they have relationships with.
I hold their hand when they are dying in a hospice after their so called 'godly' family has turned their back on them because they are gay. Do you? So don't tell me about who loves gay people more.
I have argued this point before. When slavery was expelled, we had another paradigm shift. In this case, new inventions were proposed to take the place of servants or slaves. We call these the dishwasher, the washing machine, the dryer, hot and cold running water, the fridgidaire etc. These modern conveniences have come to replace slavery in our society. These are your modern day slaves. If those things were taken away, would you have the resolve like some, such as John Adams, who refused to have slaves? Would you be willing to walk down to the ditch to wash your clothes or do everything by hand? Rich people typically do not like to do menial labor. In addition, the Chinese work for us for a pittance. So before you get all high and mighty about your detest of slavery, just know that there are people out there that live more frugally than you can imagine so that you can have your modern conveniences. Two of my children have been to China and seen those things first hand. And trust me, when we don't have money, they don't have money. So they are grateful to do the work.
It was Christians that worked diligently to abolish slavery and to uphold African Americans.
Are you so ignorant as to think that biblical slavery was a cake walk??? Do you justify the Holocaust, too??
It is just the facts, tory. That is how you are set free.
It is not a 'fact'. It is your personal, homophobic, bigoted belief.
OK. That's your opinion and thanks to our freedom of speech, you have a right to express your opinion. I have an opinion too that coincides with God's opinion and heart on the matter. He says that sodomy is an abomination. Do you think it might be because it is a perversion of the beautiful act of sex that He created?
Have you ever had gay sex within the confounds of an intimate, caring relationship? If not, then how do you even have the NERVE to portray your sexual experience as the only 'beautiful' way to have sex? There is nothing perverted about ANY sex that takes place within a loving, monogamous relationship.
Nobody is "tearing down people." If it was pedophilia that was being promoted, I would say the same thing and no doubt, the pedophile would claim that I was "tearing him down." What would you say to the pedophile that says, "I was born feeling this way. I have always loved having sex with children." And before you surmise that this could never happen, just know that this is exactly what 54 yo Mohammed did with a 9 yo and nobody seemed to bat an eye.
Nice red herring, Vera. Just admit you are a bigot, pure and simple.
I hate sexual perversion. I think it takes something so wonderful and so intimate and beautiful and distorts it like putting a little bird dropping in a batch of brownies.
I hate religious bigotry. I think it takes something so wonderful and so intimate and distorts it like putting a large pile of buffalo dung on a batch of brownies.
I simply know RD is wrong. That is all. I have perused some of his web site and read excerpts from his writings. I genuinely feel sorry for the man. I think he knows he hasn't hit on the absolute truth and has had to admit it more than once. I don't write what comes into my head. I do a great deal of research to post on this list.
Oh so you've read excerpts. What if I just read excerpts of the Bible and then tell you I just know it is simply wrong? would that be good enough? No, it wouldn't and yes I have read the whole thing.
Well, Vera, I see how this works. You don't answer people when they ask you to pray for or with them, you don't answer much of anything anybody asks, you just throw out some junk you read somewhere and refuse to read anything anybody asks you to read.
No, nothing happened when I did the prayer, it was a total waste of time, just like people trying to have conversations with you.
I would be very interested to get a creationist thoughts on what I have written as to be honest everyone who reads my blog pretty much either thinks like I do or really doesn't care one way or that other.
I would do that. It may be a few days before I get back to this.
Vera
tory
So you go around criticizing things you have never read. How utterly intellectually bankrupt you are to accept someone, ANYONE'S, judgment for your own. If you haven't read it, you have NO right to criticize it.
Can you just give me something short to read that RD has written that you would like me to read? I am not interested in reading his entire book. Although, if I sent you to read Creation as Science, would you read it? If you agree to read Creation as Science, I will read The God Delusion if the library carries it.
Vera
No, nothing happened when I did the prayer, it was a total waste of time, just like people trying to have conversations with you.
I took the day off yesterday from bloggin because my daughter is visiting and I didn't want to be on the computer all day long. I had spent a good bit of time doing the very complicated taxes for our home business yesterday.
Vera
Steven
Since we aren't on Ray's blog, I'm not going to quote everything here. My blog is simple enough, that I don't think that is necessary.
The entire point of this 5-part series was to demonstrate how the ToE is a philosophy as opposed to a piece of science. They made a very strong point about an observation of how creation stories frame our society in terms of our world view. To me, that point is obvious.
You claim in this post that mutations can be observed in individual species but this in no way accounts for the kinds of changes in respiration, mobility, reproduction, digestion, sexuality, exoskeleton, endoskeleton, and many other system changes necessarily to begin a new family, order, genus or species. This is your only "proof" of observed evolution. But it is not adequate to explain the phenomenon we see. Not to mention that it would require many generations of gradual changes that are not observed in the fossil record. Punctuated equilibrium, in my opinion, became a theory when it was obvious that this is what was being observed. It wasn't some off-the-cuff posit. That is one thing I appreciate about certain scientists that are more interested in knowing the truth than in being right.
Your arguments concerning the Cambrian explosion are not substantial. The assertion stated clearly ~50 million years. That is an approximate number. The point was that within that timeframe, all known phyla came to be and then began the extinction process. I suppose we could argue that placental mammals were somehow different but then you would disagree with that on a another occasion. This is how the ToE works. It simply inserts the suggestion into the explanation in this circular fashion.
We cannot go back to the time of the Cambrian to make an observation of what happened. We certainly have not been able to reproduce this in the laboratory especially abiogenesis. And we do not observe this in nature today with the exception of these microevolutionary changes. As the paper stated, everyone sees that even YEC.
There is no way to really test this theory to falsify it. It is therefore, no different than the God of the gaps. However, I see that God is clearly seen in the things that are made. There is order, fine tuning, logic, perfect timing, symmetry, creativity, beauty, complexity, symbiosis, design and too many objective observations to consider which point to a Creator God.
In your paradigm and philosophy, anything goes. All sexual perversion is acceptable. Tolerance is paramount and equivalent to love because we are simply animals that happened to evolve. The philosophy of evolution would perhaps draw the line at hurting another individual but that line is sketchy at best because the happiness of the individual is what is important. Therefore, for example, divorce to procure one's happiness in a given situation is good and acceptable.
In my paradigm, there is a Holy God that will judge each individual at the end of the age. Each man and woman will give an account. We will be compared to His perfection and fall short. We need that blood atonement to live on with Him for eternity. We must repent of our sins, be filled with His Spirit and be set free of sin. Then genuine love is poured out into our hearts.
Do you see how one creation story leads to a society?
Vera
I would do that. It may be a few days before I get back to this.
Thank you Vera, I would very much appreciate that. I also think you may find it eye opening as, again I am no expert, but I do cover the subject of mutation and selection and the Cambrian explosion in some detail. I am sure you will be surprised for example to learn that we have examples where mutation and natural selection have produce completely new organs within just 70 years as well as many examples of speciation.
I look forward to your comments and apologise in advance for the amount of reading you will have to do as I do tend to go on and bit...and then a bit more.
Vera,
Granted that the point of the series is to show that the ToE is a philosophy, does it strike you as perhaps a teensy-weensy defect in the series that so many of their arguments are wrong?
It is possible to confirm or falsify, by testing, the hypothesis that a particular gene is under selection. It is possible to test the hypothesis that natural selection exists in the first place (yet the authors of these articles apparently dismiss the entire concept as untestable). If you want to talk about "observed" evolution, the role of natural selection is quite testable. If you want to talk about evolution in the past, it is, of course, harder to tell what particular forces caused it. But common descent, by itself, has testable implications, which I have discussed with you on many occasions. If one wishes (as the authors of these articles wish, and as you wish) to dismiss the idea of common ancestry of humans and oak trees, then even showing that natural selection did not produce common descent would fail to show that common descent did not happen.
Side note: known sorts of mutations, in sequence, can alter any DNA sequence, or any genome, to any other. This is a consequence of the nature of DNA (a series of repetions of four bases or "letters"), and the nature of mutations. Note that there are a vast number of possible sequences of mutations that can traverse a path from one genome to another. Assumign that these genes actually determine the shape of organs and anatomical structures, then mutations must be able to reshape one structure into another. The only thing that could stop this is if every possible pathway passes through a body plan that is unviable in every plausible environment. You've implicitly asserted this, but you've never made even a half-plausible case for it.
As for the fossil record, Vera, are you under the impression that every generation is recorded in the fossil record? Does the fact that hundreds of extinct species are known from a single partial fossil, or the fact that many living species have no fossil record, suggest anything to you?
As I've pointed out, punctuated equilibria is based on theoretical models of evolution that were worked out before Eldredge and Gould decided to apply it to the actual fossil record. And Gould's point was that species-to-species transitionals (transitions equivalent to the difference between, e.g. a donkey and a zebra, transitions that have been observed in the lab) occur relatively quickly (over hundreds or thousands, not millions, of years) in isolated populations (not over the whole range of a species). Gould was not proposing that gradualism be abandoned, just that the gradual changes happened in a more limited space and time than had traditionally been thought.
Indeed, Gould described, as a confirmation of his views, a very gradual transition between two species of the snail genus Cerion that is recorded in fossils deposited over thousands of years.
You don't understand the fossil record. You don't understand punctuated equilibrium, or adaptive radiation, or the Cambrian explosion.
You don't even seem to understand that placental mammals are a subclass, not a phylum, or that many classes and subclasses arose long after the Cambrian. Note, by the way, that speaking of "phyla" in the Cambrian is somewhat artificial: there are species there that possess the minimal diagnostic markers of modern phyla, but they don't seem to be as different in their basic body plans as modern members of different phyla. It's somewhat analogous to the early ancestors of horses and rhinoceroses: Hyracotherium and Hyrarcus are not different enough from one another to justify being put in different families, judged purely on their own anatomy, but they are often regarded as belonging in the separate Equidae and Rhinoceridae.
As for your concluding comments, are they intended as a scientific critique? They seem to me an argument from irrelevance: you do not want something to be true, so you assume it cannot be true.
However, I find it vaguely amusing that you insist, disapprovingly, that the evolutionary "paradigm" makes the happiness of the individual of preeminent importance. At other times, creationists have insisted to me that evolutionary theory implies either racism, or a devotion to eugenics, or both (which would imply that the good of the race or the species was much more important than the happiness of any particular individual). Of course, at various times, it has been pointed out to me that evolutionary theory is responsible for feminism, sexism, laissez-faire capitalism, socialism, racism, race-mixing, homosexuality, anti-gay prejudice (!), and reality TV programming. All these are arguments from irrelevance, of course, but many of them tend to contradict the others. I've pretty much concluded that the most striking "missing link" is the one between actual evolutionary theory and creationists' claims about the social effects of evolutionary theory.
Rabbitpirate
I had an opportunity, finally, to read your article. You asked for my honest opinion, so I will tell you what I thought. I hope that is sincerely what you were looking for.
I appreciate the audience you are trying to reach, but for me personally, there was way too much fluff and introduction. I suppose you were attempting to be a peacemaker and I appreciate that but I would have appreciated your just getting to the points you wanted to make. :-) I do agree with you that there is no need to be antagonistic.
I am coming to this thing from an entirely different perspective than Paul. Firstly, Paul is a YEC. I am not. To believe this world was created in 6 literal 24 hour days, one must assume a great deal of supernatural activity involved to the point that God is deceiving us by making things appear to be many millions of light years away, when in fact they are only a few thousand years old. I know God and He flat out wouldn't do that. That one argument showed me the error of the YEC teaching. An OEC scenario is completely consistent with Scripture. I listened to a number of debates by Hugh Ross and Ken Ham and was shocked at what I heard and saw. I have always held that the Bible would stand with the record of nature and was very excited to see that.
I believe that science is a means of testing the natural world. It is a Biblically sound practice. 1 Thess. 5:21 says to prove or test all things; hold fast to that which is good. I like many things in science and can see why, for the young people, there has been a mass exodus from Christianity in favor of science. After all, science is studying God just from the things that are made and science has one thing that Christianity lacks in abundance. It is self correcting, which means that it moves closer and closer to the truth. When the record of nature shows something to be different than assumed, science adjusts even if it means admitting the error. That is just a fancy way of saying that they humbly admit they are wrong. Scripture is also from God. But for some people, they refuse to self correct in favor of the truth.
As to the supernatural, God works supernaturally naturally. The whole of nature IS a supernatural event. Even if something supernatural were imposed in this Hubble volume, for us to detect it with our natural senses would inherently make it natural. So that argument is absolutely circular. God says that His invisible attributes are clearly seen in the things that are made. He isn't going to introduce something beyond that because it is unlikely that we would see it. Jesus multiplied some fish and bread but it was still fish and bread. That is a transcendent miracle. But it isn't the same as producing something other worldly. How God did it, at this point, cannot be explained but that doesn't mean that God didn't use a natural mechanism to accomplish the miracle. That is what I mean by supernaturally natural.
2) Evolutionists interpret evidence on the basis of their preconceptions.
This is probably the only statement that I agree with. I further will admit that there is truth within the evolutionary theory that, as I've said many times, everyone agrees with. The tea cup poodle and the Great Dane, for example, can no longer mate even though they are cut from the same piece of cloth.
There are a number of podcasts from Reasons to Believe that demonstrate this such as the bird claw being related to human hair. Fuz Rana wrote a book showing how the hominid connection to man can be falsified through the evidence. It is called Who was Adam?. What is common amongst evolutionists is to assume that there is a connection per the taxonomy that is similar. The truth, however, when mtDNA was studied was that it pointed back to one woman out of East Africa. This hypothesis has further been shown through other studies.
I guess that is it. I like Reasons to Believe. I agree with them. The Bible and science should agree. They are both looking at the same Source.
Vera
Steven
Once again, you have totally missed the point. Nobody has argued against microevolutionary changes. Everyone, including YEC agrees with this. If you had actually read the article, you would have seen that this was the argument:
The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution assumes that life-forms proceeded along a tree of life from a common ancestor via random genetic mutations. It assumes that life-forms microevolved into similar variations of themselves (such as different species of finch) via a succession of simple changes, and, ultimately, dissimilar creatures macroevolved (such as a fish into an amphibian and a land-mammal into a whale) over geological ages.
This latter point is the one imposed on the evidence for which you a) have no proof and b) have no mechanism.
However, I find it vaguely amusing that you insist, disapprovingly, that the evolutionary "paradigm" makes the happiness of the individual of preeminent importance.
Happiness is irrelevant. This society loves sexual pleasure in abundance. The ToE is their creation story to assume that sex outside of marriage is a biological norm as per our animal nature. Those who hold the view that God created the heavens and the earth and that we are created in His image will not do so. They will see there is a design and order to sexual enjoyment and pleasure and keep it where God intended it to be - in marriage.
Vera
Hey Vera,
Sorry I haven't been back to your site in a while to reply to your comment. Thanks for taking the time to read through the article I sent you, though I think I can address your first issue with it right away.
I appreciate the audience you are trying to reach, but for me personally, there was way too much fluff and introduction.
Indeed there was and there is a very good reason for that. The link I sent you was to the introduction pages of an eight page series and judging from your comments you didn't make it further than the first one. I could have linked you straight to the page on similarities, the first subject I deal with in detail, but then you would have missed out on some of the points I wanted to make in the introduction. I completely accept that I go on a bit so you are completely forgiven for missing the link at the bottom of the page that would have taken you on to the main part of the article. You were probably just grateful for it all to be over by that point.
As for the rest I admit that I thought you to be a YEC and as you are not then much, if not all, of what was in my article doesn't really apply to you.
Anyway thanks again for reading the bits you did. If you do ever get a chance to read the rest of it I will again appreciate your comments.
Would it be ok if I copied your comments here onto my site. As I said I like people to see both sides of the picture.
Would it be ok if I copied your comments here onto my site. As I said I like people to see both sides of the picture.
Sure. Can I see what they say?
I will have to look for that link. You are right, I probably thought the article was over because I don't recall seeing a link. I did read the whole thing.
Vera
Vera, this is one of the ways we atheists know there's something wrong with your religion.
The Christian church has a problem with science. Somebody said that clerics fear science like witches fear sunlight. Your blog--and Ray's--is evidence of this.
The experts of evolution are not preachers or televangelists. The experts are biologists, and they are nearly unanimous in their support of TOE. Why do you suppose it is that whenever you see or hear somebody bashing evolutionary theory, there's always an evangelical behind it? I mean, if TOE is really as flawed as you say it is, then why is it that Christians can see the flaws but biologists can't?
I wrote a new blog entry to answer your question.
Vera
Post a Comment