Human evolution vs Creationism

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
I agree, as you stated in your post above, that these two options are mutually exclusive (1) God exists or (2) God doesn't exist. However, Dawkins doesn't frame it that way now does he. He frames it this way; (1) Designer created the complexity we observe or (2) No Designer, complexity arises from simple origins and principles. I'm going to stop here to allow you to comment if this gross simplification is inaccurate in any way. I want you on record before going forward so that we have a clear starting point and don't misunderstand or misrepresent what each other is saying.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't see a difference in those two statements.

Designer created the complexity we observe = God exists.
No designer, complexity arises from simple origins and principles = God doesn't exist.

They're saying the exact same thing, just with a few more words to be a tad more specific.

It appears that Eskimospy is our resident Dawkins "expert"...hopefully he can clarify Dawkin's argument. I just paraphrased what I read on Wikipedia and don't want to offend our good friend by potentially misinterpreting or misrepresenting Mr. Dawkins.

If by 'expert' you mean 'has the slightest clue about the subject' then yes. I've read two of his books. This is apparently two more than anyone else around here, which explains the difficulties we're having in discussing his views.

I read both of them..

 

[Moonbeam]

Dawkins is kind of irrelevant anyway because the God he says doesn't exist isn't God. Religious people are as ignorant about God as atheists are and the subject of their debates has nothing to do with anything.

The lover disappears in the Beloved and there is no trace of him.

 

[Vic]

The greatest challenge for modern scientists is how to present to the general public that the universe is even more fantastic than we ever imagined. This is because the century-old debate that is the topic of this thread is silly in light of recent understanding. Closed-minded bickering from both sides.

Let me repeat what I posted earlier in this thread. In a universe where anything can happen, everything does. Every conceivable (and inconceivable) possibility can and does exist, the only issue is that of probability.

 

[Moonbeam]

We can't get our minds around 12 billion years and how much can happen in that time.

 

[ruu]

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Look...I thought you wanted to discuss Dawkins as you appear to know a lot about his views. I'm admittedly ignorant on the details of his beliefs and the intricacies of his reasoning regarding the improbability of the existence of a Designer. I've made every attempt to be honest and straight forward with you and the insults and condescension are getting old. I had hoped otherwise. Really, there's no point in us going further. I'm done. Peace.

Dawkins is actually a very interesting read---he's flippant and incendiary in order to get people's attentions about what he thinks is a very serious and profound topic. Such a tone might make some of his writings hard to get through, but whether or not you agree with his tactics, the biology, science, and logical reasoning in what he says is absolutely sound.

It's really quite difficult to paraphrase Dawkins' ideas---many of which are simple genetic observations. The ideas are complex and interlinked and make no sense quoted out of context and out of order. I mean, the man wrote books for a reason. Most of the sub-arguments and criticisms of his theories that you have brought up have already been addressed in his books. Whether you think he's addressed them sufficiently is up to you to decide, but I don't think it's fair to demand others to explain Dawkins to you by proxy when you're just too lazy to read them.

In other words, you can't say Dawkins sucks because we're not doing a sufficient job of explaining him to you.

...well, you didn't explicitly say that, but that's definitely the vibe you were giving off.

 

[ruu]

Also---

eskimospy---

You should read Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. I think you'd like it.

That is all.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Dawkins is kind of irrelevant anyway because the God he says doesn't exist isn't God. Religious people are as ignorant about God as atheists are and the subject of their debates has nothing to do with anything.

The lover disappears in the Beloved and there is no trace of him.

And do you profess to have the answers, perchance, and know the God that everyone should know?

 

[manowar821]

Saying there was an intelligent guiding force is a cop-out, it's the lazy way out. It's OKAY to say "I don't know", because science WILL figure it out someday.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: manowar821
Saying there was an intelligent guiding force is a cop-out, it's the lazy way out. It's OKAY to say "I don't know", because science WILL figure it out someday.

No, science won't. Some things are beyond the scope of science, and determining the possible existence of a Creator is one of them.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: manowar821
Saying there was an intelligent guiding force is a cop-out, it's the lazy way out. It's OKAY to say "I don't know", because science WILL figure it out someday.

No, science won't. Some things are beyond the scope of science, and determining the possible existence of a Creator is one of them.

Heh, at least it's fairly obvious the Creator isn't one of the Jokers the major Religions follow.

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: manowar821
Saying there was an intelligent guiding force is a cop-out, it's the lazy way out. It's OKAY to say "I don't know", because science WILL figure it out someday.

No, science won't. Some things are beyond the scope of science, and determining the possible existence of a Creator is one of them.

That's an assumption, though. If something exists, we may be able to, given enough time, figure out a way to measure/study it. See how different our view of the cosmos is today, compared to 100 years ago? How about 1000 years ago, or 10000 years ago? What about a million years into the future? My point isn't that I'm ASSUMING we're going to figure out everything that exists, it's that we shouldn't stop trying. We shouldn't just give up. "God" is a cop-out, religion is a result of fear and giving up.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Dawkins is kind of irrelevant anyway because the God he says doesn't exist isn't God. Religious people are as ignorant about God as atheists are and the subject of their debates has nothing to do with anything.

The lover disappears in the Beloved and there is no trace of him.

And do you profess to have the answers, perchance, and know the God that everyone should know?

Moony knows he knows no answers and is made wise by that knowledge.

 

[Jeff7]

And hell, "intelligent" design. I was just reading about PieIsAwesome's sister, who had a heart attack while running track.
We've got redundancy in our kidneys and lungs, but only one heart, a heart which feeds itself blood.

Kidneys, you can go awhile without them. Lungs - yeah, they're important, and we've got two of them. But the heart? Very very critical, and if it goes, other stuff starts having trouble in a damn big hurry, including the possibility of irreparable brain damage. No redundancy there. No separate heart to feed blood to the primary heart. No auxiliary heart to ensure a constant flow of blood to the brain.
Redundancy aside, how about some kind of "rapid hibernation" capability? Stuff starts going wrong, so your body drastically lowers its metabolic rate, significantly reducing its oxygen and resource requirements.

"Intelligent" design. Right. Our engineers strive for six-sigma or better rates of production models that meet spec. That's a failure rate of 0.0003%. One failure in 3333 parts. Even that can cut into profitability. What are the rates for birth defects? Far worse than 1 in 1000 I bet.
Ok, a Google search says it's more like 3 in 100.

That alone be cause for a major recall and repair operation.


Now, to say that we're the product of design by some non-omnipotent alien life form, alright, maybe Earth is a petri dish for their experimentation. Some defects in an experiment would be understandable. Evidence for this is pretty much nonexistent.
To say we're the product of an all-knowing all-powerful deity, wow. If this is the best he can manage, that's really pathetic and embarrassing. Hell, we have some virus DNA within our own. Yes, somehow a virus in our distant past managed to get some of its genetic coding permanently embedded within our own. Did God accidentally copy and paste the wrong C++ code as he was putting everything together?

 

[Babbles]

Somewhat slightly related, I have been reading Monkey Girl which is a reporter's account of the Dover Pennsylvania school board trial that attempted to introduce Intelligent Design into the classroom. The trial tied ID to creationism and 'proved' (for lack of a better word) the scientific basis of evolution and the lack thereof in ID.

It is a great read and really what is so interesting is how people divided themselves between the creationism and evolutionary camps.

 

[ZzZGuy]

One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

 

[Jeff7]

Early Creation tales said that the plants and animals in the world were made the way they are - perfect, by God. End of story.

Then evolutionary theory stepped onto the scene, and said that life forms are always changing. That flew in the face of the Creation stories. Suddenly God had no longer created perfect life forms; there was the implication that life needed to adapt to a harsh environment.

So the Creation story needed to evolve: God made early lifeforms, and everything evolved from there, with God guiding the process. Again, a god of the unseen. The "guiding force" is simply that life forms more suitable to survive their environments are going to be the ones passing on those genes.

I can play god to a petri dish of bacteria: Give them slowly-increasing doses of a toxin. Those which happen to be able to survive the low doses pass their immunity on to the next generation. And the process continues until those which remain are entirely immune to the toxin. No divine guiding force was needed, only random chemical or genetic anomalies which benefited the life form in question. We see it on a regular basis; if we didn't, a lot of biologists and biochemists would be out of a job, since infectious organisms would never be capable of developing resistances to drugs.

 

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

Get out of here with your logic!

That is part of the stance that the Catholic Church - and just about every other religion out there - holds. It is just the crazy evangelicals that created the whole debate.

It is interesting to note that for the most part the Catholic Church is very open minded to science. And, when the Catholic Church takes an open minded position on something then you know that the other end of the spectrum (e.g. evangelicals) really gotta be messed up.

 

[retrospooty]

Originally posted by: Duwelon

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
I thought we had a decent thread going until it got side tracked by the religious nut.

Yeah, because who would want a creationist in a creationism vs evolution thread anyway?

Creationists have no place in ANY intelligent discussion. Its quite simple. If you are a creationist you are ignorant, period.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

Get out of here with your logic!

It's true that proving either creationism (ID) or evolution wrong does not prove the other right, however, if you accept evolution as correct, it certainly does rule out a main tenet of creationism, which is that species do not evolve. The two cannot co-exist. Even the Pope says that one would have to be purposefully and willfully blind to modern science to deny evolution. He also understands that evolution makes no claims as to the origin of life or the universe, and as such is not incompatible with faith or religion.

 

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

Get out of here with your logic!

It's true that proving either creationism (ID) or evolution wrong does not prove the other right, however, if you accept evolution as correct, it certainly does rule out a main tenet of creationism, which is that species do not evolve. The two cannot co-exist. Even the Pope says that one would have to be purposefully and willfully blind to modern science to deny evolution. He also understands that evolution makes no claims as to the origin of life or the universe, and as such is not incompatible with faith or religion.

I agree with most of what you are saying - or arguably all of it. Understanding evolution would indeed "rule out a main tenet of creationism" and therein lies the problem with many pro-creationism arguments. I think if most creationist argued that some Creator instigated the abiogenesis, origin of life, and evolution happened after that initial abiogenesis, than most reasonable people would agree with that, or at least be tolerant of that view.

 

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

Get out of here with your logic!

It's true that proving either creationism (ID) or evolution wrong does not prove the other right, however, if you accept evolution as correct, it certainly does rule out a main tenet of creationism, which is that species do not evolve. The two cannot co-exist. Even the Pope says that one would have to be purposefully and willfully blind to modern science to deny evolution. He also understands that evolution makes no claims as to the origin of life or the universe, and as such is not incompatible with faith or religion.

Quite so.

I don't understand the threat some christians see in evolution.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Babbles

I agree with most of what you are saying - or arguably all of it. Understanding evolution would indeed "rule out a main tenet of creationism" and therein lies the problem with many pro-creationism arguments. I think if most creationist argued that some Creator instigated the abiogenesis, origin of life, and evolution happened after that initial abiogenesis, than most reasonable people would agree with that, or at least be tolerant of that view.

But it sure would put a dent in their self image of the moral certainty and superiority of their fairy tale beliefs. :laugh:

 

[ruu]

Originally posted by: Atreus21

Originally posted by: jonks

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
One quick question.

Why is it Evolution Vs Creationism?

Proving evolution is wrong does not make creationism right, and proving creationism wrong does not make evolution right. Science does not work like this, proving X wrong and stopping there does not make Y right, step outside this rule and you step outside science.

Get out of here with your logic!

It's true that proving either creationism (ID) or evolution wrong does not prove the other right, however, if you accept evolution as correct, it certainly does rule out a main tenet of creationism, which is that species do not evolve. The two cannot co-exist. Even the Pope says that one would have to be purposefully and willfully blind to modern science to deny evolution. He also understands that evolution makes no claims as to the origin of life or the universe, and as such is not incompatible with faith or religion.

Quite so.

I don't understand the threat some christians see in evolution.

I think the threat is that if one acquiesces to a god that only formed the universe and didn't explicitly form the life therein, then one comes uncomfortably close to admitting that this said god doesn't actively "interfere" in one's life. That is, prayer does nothing, being devout does nothing, spreading the Word does nothing, because this god doesn't take a detailed interest in human life.

And I think that such a line of thought gets way too close to admitting that there is no personal god at all.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: ruu

Originally posted by: Atreus21
Quite so.

I don't understand the threat some christians see in evolution.

I think the threat is that if one acquiesces to a god that only formed the universe and didn't explicitly form the life therein, then one comes uncomfortably close to admitting that this said god doesn't actively "interfere" in one's life. That is, prayer does nothing, being devout does nothing, spreading the Word does nothing, because this god doesn't take a detailed interest in human life.

And I think that such a line of thought gets way too close to admitting that there is no personal god at all.

I think that's part of it. I think another part is that evolution directly contradicts the Biblical story of creation in Genesis, the garden of Eden, etc. Evangelicals believe that the Bible is the direct word of God handed down to the men who penned it. Why would God lie about creating the world in 6 days, or about creating woman from a rib? If you take the Bible as the direct testimony of an infallible God, you have to view everything in it as literal, and that precludes any assertions that the Earth is billions of years old, regardless of the evidence in support of it. The problem here is that no one takes the entirety of the Bible literally; you don't see people calling for the public stoning of people who eat meat on the sabbath. So, at best, it's kind of subjective which parts of the Bible are meant to be taken literally and which are open to interpretation. Logically, evolution could fit within that framework. But for some reason, the idea that we may have come from monkies and not been molded from dirt is highly offensive. I don't understand it personally.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy

Originally posted by: ruu

Originally posted by: Atreus21
Quite so.

I don't understand the threat some christians see in evolution.

I think the threat is that if one acquiesces to a god that only formed the universe and didn't explicitly form the life therein, then one comes uncomfortably close to admitting that this said god doesn't actively "interfere" in one's life. That is, prayer does nothing, being devout does nothing, spreading the Word does nothing, because this god doesn't take a detailed interest in human life.

And I think that such a line of thought gets way too close to admitting that there is no personal god at all.

I think that's part of it. I think another part is that evolution directly contradicts the Biblical story of creation in Genesis, the garden of Eden, etc. Evangelicals believe that the Bible is the direct word of God handed down to the men who penned it. Why would God lie about creating the world in 6 days, or about creating woman from a rib? If you take the Bible as the direct testimony of an infallible God, you have to view everything in it as literal, and that precludes any assertions that the Earth is billions of years old, regardless of the evidence in support of it. The problem here is that no one takes the entirety of the Bible literally; you don't see people calling for the public stoning of people who eat meat on the sabbath. So, at best, it's kind of subjective which parts of the Bible are meant to be taken literally and which are open to interpretation. Logically, evolution could fit within that framework. But for some reason, the idea that we may have come from monkies and not been molded from dirt is highly offensive. I don't understand it personally.

Good points here. However, if a God did create the universe, then he necessarily created all the life therein, active involvement or not. Like if one lays out a pattern of dominoes on their sides, and then tips the first one which knocks down all the others in turn.

Because this argument tends to revolve around timescale (6000 years vs. 13 billion or whatever), I think it all comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of time and space. Time is a space. Spacetime. Time does not pass. We pass.