Evolution and christanity.

[ViaCrucis]

Do you believe that evolution is accurate and true yes or no and why? I for one see evolution as true because of scientific evidence.

Yes, evolution happens. The overwhelming scientific consensus, from the overwhelming amount of evidence, consistently points to the theory of evolution as being true. Evolution, including speciation, happens and has been happening on this planet for around 3 billion years which is about how far back ago we have found evidence of simple single-cell life having existed.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

I don't accept evolution for a few reasons, but a big one is that it doesn't make sense from a continual, ongoing process. If, as evolutionists claim, fruit flies always come from fruit flies, then what was the predecessor to the first fruit fly? They weren't around forever.

(This is the point where select evolutionists will tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, impugn my education, and otherwise ignore the question.)

We name organisms, they don't name themselves. Yes a fruit fly will produce a fruit fly, but the new fruit fly is not a genetic copy of its parents (just as you aren't a genetic copy of your parents) there is a combination of dna from both parents and mutation, thus a new instantiation of the thing in question. If we take two populations of identical fruit flies and separate them and give them very different environments--different food, different pressures, etc--we will get after many generations different populations of fruit flies. It may even result in one of those populations over enough time becoming a new species (that is, generally unable to produce viable offspring with the parent or sister population(s)). We can still call them all "fruit flies" and they never did anything but "reproduce after their own kind", but their "kind" through natural selection has changed over time.

Polar bears are, in some sense, just brown bears who adapted to the arctic environment. They are a distinct species to the brown bear now, but both polar bears and brown bears evolved from a common ancestor. And yes, both are "bears" so you could describe this merely as "micro-evolution" the problem is that there is nothing in nature to stop "micro-evolution" from being "macro-evolution". If we were to get into a time machine and go back far enough we'd find the ancestor to both canines and bears, and it is precisely the same sort of divergence that produced the difference between polar bears and brown bears--there is no different mechanisms in place, just time and genetic mutation, natural selection. The exact same mechanisms at work, though at an artificial level rather than natural level, which have produced the many different dog breeds which all descend from the common wolf. We can say that, yes, they are all still dogs, or all still canines, but then we bring in the bears and we still can talk about that dogs and bears are still both caniforms. And that's how it works.

Kind after its own kind results, with natural selection, in the vast diversity of life on earth. So, yes, all known living things on this planet are ultimately descended from the earliest forms of life which evolved on this planet--how the earliest life arose is still a mystery to science, and it is important to understand that evolution is not abiogenesis; abiogenesis is a proposed idea that life arose from non-life but the theory of evolution very specifically deals with living things not with how living things came to be in the first place.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[aiki]

The ToE has enormous cultural inertia behind it and it will be some time, I think, before the accumulation of scientific data and the gathering dissent among secular scientists is sufficient to overcome it. But there are quite a number of secular scientists in a variety of disciplines who have rejected the ToE (several decades ago now, for some) as a viable scientific theory. It is very sad to see people who profess to be believers capitulate to the demand of the secular world to kowtow to its favorite but highly flawed scientific theory.

Selah.

 

[golgotha61]

Do you believe that evolution is accurate and true yes or no and why? I for one see evolution as true because of scientific evidence.

I believe that God used evolution in His creation process. I don’t think that it was the type of evolutionary process that a naturalist would agree with but rather a supernatural process that would contain the witness to a master designer.

I have not always believed that evolution was possibly God’s method of material creation but recent scholarship has been responsible for changing my opinion on the traditional interpretations of the first three chapters of Genesis. Specifically, the scholarship of John H. Walton and four of his books: Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible, The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, and The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate.

In the aforementioned books, Walton builds the case for a reevaluation of what we traditionally call the “creation account” in Genesis. Instead of an account of material creation, Walton suggests that the actual account is the creation of purpose, order, and function. The material world was indeed created by God out of nothing “ex nihilo,” but this is not the focus of Genesis’ creation narratives. When one replaces material creation with order, function, and purpose creation, the argument between the scientist and the believer dissolves.

One of the methods that Walton employs in his studies is the use of “comparative studies” in which one of the considerations is the cognitive environment of the ANE. He also uses recent findings in archeology, linguistics, and etymology. I am still working through some of the implications of this scholarship but I believe that Walton has begun a very interesting and important discussion. However, when I presented this scholarship on other CF boards and threads, I heard the crickets chirp. It seems that a lot of us enjoy the argument more than a possible answer to the argument.

 

[dcalling]

Yes, evolution happens. The overwhelming scientific consensus, from the overwhelming amount of evidence, consistently points to the theory of evolution as being true.

A couple hundred years ago the overwhelming scientific consensus is that the earth is flat. less than a hundred year ago the overwhelming scientific consensus is that we got all the physics stuff figured out. Scientific consensus is not a sure thing, it is a evolving thing.

Evolution, including speciation, happens and has been happening on this planet for around 3 billion years which is about how far back ago we have found evidence of simple single-cell life having existed.
-CryptoLutheran

We can't even create a RNA that can self replicating under lab conditions, and we can surely know that things evolve to each other...... If you look at all the computer languages, from assembly to Java/C#, they looks like they are evolving, and yet they are created by us

 

[seashale76]

Do you believe that evolution is accurate and true yes or no and why? I for one see evolution as true because of scientific evidence.

The topic is irrelevant to my faith and has no impact on my life or salvation. I accept evolution. Our scriptures do not touch on the how of creation, because that wasn't the point of them. It's silly to read science into something that was never meant to convey such things. The purpose of the scriptures is to reveal God's purpose for man via the person of Christ. Evolution- or a vehement denial of the lack thereof- simply isn't found in the scriptures AT ALL. The only thing the scriptures tell us is that God is responsible for creation. The details are actually so unimportant in the bigger picture as to not even warrant a mention. The Old Testament points to Christ with types and anti-types of Christ. The scriptures aren't scientific documents, and I honestly don't see how science can be applied to them. Genesis is based on oral tradition and has a completely different focus than what science would even be looking at. Not everything is meant to be taken literally (especially in the way many seem to) and Genesis is meant to be a spiritual description of events that took place before time even existed. I'll stick with the church fathers and what they have to say over the evolution vs. YEC debate that attempts to read things into the scriptures that aren't there.

Evolution is observable in nature. Natural selection is part of evolution, as is mutation, and genetic drift- these things exist. One example that proves evolution to you and even fits within a 24-hour timeline: Bacterial evolution, in every sense of the word, occurs very rapidly. Some people try to claim that this doesn't qualify as evolution somehow, but it is.

 

[Dr.J0sh]

Macro-evolution, the "goo to you by way of the zoo" kind of evolution is fraught with serious problems. Genetic entropy, the problem of the genesis of DNA information, the near-utter absence of transitional fossils - these and other problems make the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution quite impossible. Now, micro-evolution does happen: adaptation, natural selection, mutation are all at work in biological systems, but they are demonstrably incapable of accomplishing the miraculous feat of taking inorganic and unorganized molecules and evolving them into present-day biological life.

Selah.

Well if you think about a million adaptions or little changes later and you should have a new species. I don't understand how can believe in micron it not macro evolution.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Well if you think about a million adaptions or little changes later and you should have a new species. I don't understand how can believe in micron it not macro evolution.

Just a friendly reminder that debate on this board usually leads to the mods doing a thread cleanup or shut it down down. There's a place where both Christians and non-Christians can debate evolution here. Just be forewarned that it can get a little hectic over there.

I promise I'm not trying to spoil the thread or discussion. Just thought it might be nice to raise this point up now before a potential debate on evolution breaks out and your thread gets a shut down.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[dcalling]

Well if you think about a million adaptions or little changes later and you should have a new species. I don't understand how can believe in micron it not macro evolution.

I like to compare evolution with programs. Many programs are designed to be able to take configuration changes to change their functionality and look, the bacteria 'evolution' simply looks like that, simple configuration changes that are within its design parameters.

Man maybe able to do creative work on those to future change their parameters (i.e. swap compatible modules of DNA), but not the fundamentals, nature won't do it either. Check out the ecoli long term evolution project, after 20k iterations, it slowed down (shouldn't it start to kick off if they are indeed evolving?). They say it keeps "improving", but where is the new bacteria that symbols evolution?

The biggest evolution evidences are usually fraud too, remember the picture below?

 

[aiki]

Well if you think about a million adaptions or little changes later and you should have a new species. I don't understand how can believe in micron it not macro evolution.

Are you aware that the vast majority of times a mutation occurs it is deleterious in its effect? More often than not, a mutation involves a loss of information rather than an increase in it as the ToE requires. So, those "millions of little changes" would on the whole result in biological devolution rather the improvement of the species Darwin theorized. Also, have you thought of how adaptations work? If they do not immediately confer a survival advantage but instead create a disadvantage - as the incremental changes you suggest would often do - again, the effect would be toward the destruction of the creature exhibiting the "little changes," not its improvement. Imagine a creature with only a partial eye developed, or only a partial wing, leg or foot developed. Would these partial adaptations serve any survival purpose at all? No, it seems to me that they would have quite the opposite effect. A partial foot on a fish would create drag and limit its agility in water, which would make it easier prey and less efficient in it own natural environment. A partial wing on a lizard would not confer flight but simply be a useless, extraneous appendage that, because of its uselessness, Nature would select against. And this would be more or less the case for any gradual development of new physical features in a species. If they were not immediately advantageous to the creature, why would the "little changes" proceed?

Selah.

 

[lesliedellow]

Are you aware that the vast majority of times a mutation occurs it is deleterious in its effect? More often than not, a mutation involves a loss of information rather than an increase in it as the ToE requires. So, those "millions of little changes" would on the whole result in biological devolution rather the improvement of the species Darwin theorized.

Not that it makes any difference, but tha majority of mutations are neutral in their effect. There is no concept of "improvement" in Darwin's theory; only of change occasioned by the need for a species to adapt to its environment
if it is to survive.

If an individual has a mutation which is advantageous - perhaps making him less susceptible to hypothermia, say - then that individual is more likely to survive long enough to reproduce, and pass on the advantageous mutation to the next generation. On the other hand, if an individual has a disadvantageous mutation - perhaps rendering him more likely to hypothermia, then he is less likely to survive long enough to pass on his disadvantageous gene to the next generation.

In that fashion natural selection will favour the advantageous mutation, and if the group lives in a cold climate, it will eventually spread throughout the population. That in itself wouldn't produce a new species different from another group, belonging to the same species, left behind at the equator. Over many generations, however, and with no interbreeding, the two groups will begin to diverge under different environmental pressures, until they reach the point where they no longer can interbreed. There will then be two new species, which are descended from the one ancestor species.

Doubtless this is going to go in one ear and out the other, because no matter how often creationists have the basic mechanism of evolution explained to them, they don't want to hear it, and so they won't hear it.

 

[aiki]

Not that it makes any difference, but tha majority of mutations are neutral in their effect. There is no concept of "improvement" in Darwin's theory; only of change occasioned by the need for a species to adapt to its environment
if it is to survive.

I'm sorry, but this is just semantics, the slippery wordplay evolutionists use to escape the issues with their theory. How does a "change occasioned by the need for a species to adapt to its environment" differ in any significant way from the idea of improvement? It seems very evident to me that an advantageous adaptation to one's environment is an improvement.

In any event, it might do you some good to consider the remarks in the following link:

http://creation.com/genetic-entropy

Doubtless this is going to go in one ear and out the other, because no matter how often creationists have the basic mechanism of evolution explained to them, they don't want to hear it, and so they won't hear it.

This sort of myopia I find quite commonly among evolutionists, too. Pot and kettle, I think.

Selah.

 

[lesliedellow]

I'm sorry, but this is just semantics, the slippery wordplay evolutionists use to escape the issues with their theory. How does a "change occasioned by the need for a species to adapt to its environment" differ in any significant way from the idea of improvement? It seems very evident to me that an advantageous adaptation to one's environment is an improvement.

Because what might be an "improvement" in one context might be completely otherwise in a different environmental situation. Evolution does not postulate "improvement" in any absolute sense; it only postulates adaptation to the environment. If creationists understood that, they wouldn't come up with words like "devolution".

 

[food4thought]

I do not believe in evolution because the evidence for macro-evolution is very limited and mostly inferred from similarities between species that could have other reasonable explanations (like common Designer). For me, the deal breakers were the Cambrian explosion and the literally miraculous complexity of even the simplest living cells.

 

[dcalling]

Because what might be an "improvement" in one context might be completely otherwise in a different environmental situation. Evolution does not postulate "improvement" in any absolute sense; it only postulates adaptation to the environment.

That is true, however what she really argued about is there is no evidence of actual evolution, i.e. a jump that is out of the bounds of the original designed variation parameters. Look at the evolution test of germs, after decades of "evolution", the changes actually flattened.

If creationists understood that, they wouldn't come up with words like "devolution".

The reason I think it is devolution is, I believe the original design is prefect, and as we progress, our genes slowly degrade. How do you explain the early human can survive population bottlenecks?

 

[annafullofgrace]

No, I do not believe in the theory of evolution. I read the bible literally.

 

[aiki]

The reason I think it is devolution is, I believe the original design is prefect, and as we progress, our genes slowly degrade.

If you'll check out the link, you'll see that this genetic degradation is exactly what is evident in human genetics.

Selah. (and if by "she" you mean me, Aiki, I should tell you that I am in fact a he.)

 

[Dr.J0sh]

I do not believe in evolution because the evidence for macro-evolution is very limited and mostly inferred from similarities between species that could have other reasonable explanations (like common Designer). For me, the deal breakers were the Cambrian explosion and the literally miraculous complexity of even the simplest living cells.

You believe in micro but not macro which makes no sense to me. Think about it a thousand smaller details later add up to something very different from the original. Plus I don't see how a designer is more reasonable than something such as evolution something that has been studied and studied to death. The amount of evidence is unreal. Not only that but evolution does NOT talk about where first cells came from. It only explains how cells managed to evovle and differentiate. If you wanna know how cells even managed to come alive I suggest abio genesis...

 

[lesliedellow]

You believe in micro but not macro which makes no sense to me. Think about it a thousand smaller details later add up to something very different from the original. Plus I don't see how a designer is more reasonable than something such as evolution something that has been studied and studied to death. The amount of evidence is unreal. Not only that but evolution does NOT talk about where first cells came from. It only explains how cells managed to evovle and differentiate. If you wanna know how cells even managed to come alive I suggest abio genesis...

Abiogenesis is a word waiting to have a theory attached to it.

 

[Job8]

Do you believe that evolution is accurate and true yes or no and why? I for one see evolution as true because of scientific evidence.

When was the last time you met a chimpanzee and had a nice conversation with him in at least basic English? After all these millions (or should it be billions?) of years they should have the conversational skills of at least a 2-year old. That would prove some evolution.

Evolution is a joke, a hoax, and complete deception without a shred of genuine proof. The so-called "scientific evidence" is false because it begins with a hypothesis and then tries to find evidence, rather than let the evidence lead to the hypothesis (as true science does).

People believe in this nonsense because they will simply not believe what God has already revealed. Darwin deliberately excluded God from His own creation, but if you could talk to the monkeys, they would laugh at Darwin. Even most secular Americans don't generally believe this foolishness, in spite of the fact that it has been rammed down everyone's throats for over 150 years.

Any true Bible-believing regenerated Christian cannot possibly believe in evolution, since the Lord Jesus Christ taught that Adam and Eve were real, historical people. And "theistic evolution" is contradicted by the Ten Commandments. Read, study, and meditate upon Exodus 20:9-11.

We need to ask ourselves "Who is behind all the deceptions in the world"? The Bible tells us that it is Satan. If Satan can set up the religion of evolution (since it is purely faith-based) then he has succeeded in deflecting worship from the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.