Christianity... and the fact of evolution

[pat34lee]

Yes, I am aware of these things, pat. (Just so you know, I've had a small stint in the realm of education, so I'm somewhat familiar with the things of which you speak.)

I try not to guess what people know or don't know. I just
present the facts as the opportunity arises.

 

[pat34lee]

Because walking across town is fine, but walking across the country is impossible

Bad analogy. There are boundaries on DNA.
It's like being on an island bounded by active
volcanoes and acid water. You can go anywhere
on the island, but leaving it only leads to death.

 

[Armoured]

Bad analogy. There are boundaries on DNA.
It's like being on an island bounded by active
volcanoes and acid water. You can go anywhere
on the island, but leaving it only leads to death.

What "boundaries"?

 

[AV1611VET]

Evolution does not claim that humans descended from apes.

Actually it does.

And for the record, Solomon had apes imported, probably for study ...

1 Kings 10:22 For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

... and concluded we did not descend from them.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Notice he refers to evolution as an "invention," not a "discovery"?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Actually it does.

And for the record, Solomon had apes imported, probably for study ...

1 Kings 10:22 For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

... and concluded we did not descend from them.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Notice he refers to evolution as an "invention," not a "discovery"?

And how do we know that Ecclesiastes 7:29 is referring specifically to "evolution" and not some other aspect of man, like moral capacity, for instance?

 

[Archivist]

Actually it does.

And for the record, Solomon had apes imported, probably for study ...

1 Kings 10:22 For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

... and concluded we did not descend from them.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Notice he refers to evolution as an "invention," not a "discovery"?

No, it does not. Evolution claims that humans and apes share a common ancestor.

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

If empirical evidence can't be wrong, how did we get our moon?

And why did Thalidomide do nothing to newborn mice, but disfigured humans?

Didn't Haeckel show empirical evidence that we start out in the womb with gills?

1. God Created it.
2. I am not chemist or biologist so you're barking up the wrong tree.
3. I don't even know who that is.

 

[klutedavid]

Hello Indent.

Thank for the reply.

You realize that Gould was an established and respected scientist?

Of course I am aware of that.

He spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University, and unlike the
questionable names mentioned in this thread associated with the Discover Institute,
Gould had an impressive academic career. To suggest that “Gould needs to read dictionary
definitions” is not just ignorant and pretentious, but it’s an affirmation that the Christian
enterprise has suffered a tremendous blow.

I do not hold any strict viewpoint regarding either creationism or evolution.

Both Hawking and Gould, need someone to buy them a dictionary.

The attitudes of many evangelical Christians (many, but not all) today is a disgrace to Christianity, and continues to disenfranchise us from the world by smearing its reputation and credibility. It impoverishes our churches, and taints our youth with callousness, pride and conceit.

Agree with you on that point.

This post demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the scientific enterprise, the foundations of which lends itself to credibility, and its failure to understand the post. Yes—evolution is a scientific fact, and most scientists are more than comfortable calling it just that. The vast majority of scientists with an intimate understanding of evolution call it that.

You identified the problem, in scientific circles they have their own vocabulary. In the scientific
community, the theory of evolution may be a fact. Outside of the scientific community the
theory of evolution cannot be a fact.

Who is kidding themselves?

Everyone Indent, everyone has at least some degree of self deception at work.

The scientific consensus does not change because some chump on a Christian forum
disagrees. That's not how it works. You have no control on consensus or definitions. Get over
yourself.

I have a dictionary and that is all I need Indent. A fact is always a fact.

I keep hearing Christians babble on about how easily “dispute” evolution is, and it’s
not “science” (back by scientific-sounding words, and evangelical rhetoric), so we’re told, but
I don’t see these people or these Christian institutions attempting to persuade the consensus.
There are, however, unethical and scandalous people appealing to politicians and school boards
(being thrown out of the courts, rightly so).

Indent, you still do not understand the fundamental problem in science, do you. The natural
sciences have inbuilt premises and assumptions. If these premises and assumptions are
incorrect, then of course, natural science will not arrive at the destination. The destination
is a robust explanation of the events and forces, within the domain of space time.

If evolution is so vulnerable, how has it remained so dominant?

It is the only empirical explanation available to mankind, an explanation based purely
on empirical criteria. The weakness of the natural sciences, is in the deep premises, that
underlie science as a whole.

One scientific premise, by observing and understanding present events, science holds a valid
key to unlock the past. A valid snapshot that enables science, to view the deeper history
of space and time. This is a premise, something that is believed to be true without any proof.

This premise is standing on another premise, that all events and forces are uniform through
space and time. Constants (e.g., speed of light) are tightly held by science, without holding
onto these constants, science cannot understand any event in space time.

Not only do they believe in this uniformity of space and time, past and present. They also
believe that they possess sufficient mental capacity to evaluate all phenomenon in space
time.

There are so many fundamental belief systems, inbuilt into the scientific structure. That
I do not expect anyone to fully understand, the limitations of human intellectual endeavor.

It continues to thrive in the academic arena, which is far more unforgiving and ruthless
than Bible thumping Christians. It stands up in the peer-review process, where the best minds
from around the world engage in a competition of ideas... criticism and scrutiny are the hallmark
of academia.

Yet any objective consensus will be solely subject, to the numerous premises being valid.

There's not a single argument in this thread that proves injurious, let alone a deathblow,
to the fact of evolution itself. There's no question that science does not have all the answers,
and it's entirely possible that some of the processes will be subject to revisions. But the fact
that we did evolve, that's inescapable.

Still failing to use the word, 'fact', according to the dictionary definition.

Should we use the same wildly unrealistic criteria for fundamentalist Christians and their
beliefs?

Ultimately both science and Christianity are belief systems at their core.

Empiricism is a belief system, this belief system is converted into a methodology used in scientific
endeavor. One must believe in the ideology of science, including all the premises, to believe the
in claims of science.

It is highly unlikely that all the premises that science accepts, are all valid premises.

 

[Anguspure]

I'm not commenting on the scriptures at all. I'm commenting on people claiming evolution "is not science".

What I find frustrating is that people use the term "evolution" without bothering to define what they mean.
Evolution can mean anything from "change over time" to "chemical biogenesis" and everything in between.
There are aspects of evolution that have been shown to be "fact", such as natural selection acting on species for the preservation of fitness in a given environment, or the idea that genetic coding contains traces of earlier changes. But there are also a great many things that are just plain blithering foolishness such as the idea that a functionally coherent thing can be invented by chance, or that finding different types of fossils in layers of strata necessarily proves descent by modification.
So if the field of science is a rational endeavor, not predicated on apriori ideaology, why is it that everyone is expected to swallow a whole raft of stupidity along with the "fact" when somebody claims evolution as a "fact"?

 

[Anguspure]

Didn't Haeckel show empirical evidence that we start out in the womb with gills?

Haeckels drawings are fraudulant and have been debunked for many years. Next you'll be harping on about Peppered moths or Lucy the missing link.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hello Indent.

Thank for the reply.

Of course I am aware of that.

I do not hold any strict viewpoint regarding either creationism or evolution.

Both Hawking and Gould, need someone to buy them a dictionary.

Agree with you on that point.

You identified the problem, in scientific circles they have their own vocabulary. In the scientific
community, the theory of evolution may be a fact. Outside of the scientific community the
theory of evolution cannot be a fact.

Everyone Indent, everyone has at least some degree of self deception at work.

I have a dictionary and that is all I need Indent. A fact is always a fact.

Indent, you still do not understand the fundamental problem in science, do you. The natural
sciences have inbuilt premises and assumptions. If these premises and assumptions are
incorrect, then of course, natural science will not arrive at the destination. The destination
is a robust explanation of the events and forces, within the domain of space time.

It is the only empirical explanation available to mankind, an explanation based purely
on empirical criteria. The weakness of the natural sciences, is in the deep premises, that
underlie science as a whole.

One scientific premise, by observing and understanding present events, science holds a valid
key to unlock the past. A valid snapshot that enables science, to view the deeper history
of space and time. This is a premise, something that is believed to be true without any proof.

This premise is standing on another premise, that all events and forces are uniform through
space and time. Constants (e.g., speed of light) are tightly held by science, without holding
onto these constants, science cannot understand any event in space time.

Not only do they believe in this uniformity of space and time, past and present. They also
believe that they possess sufficient mental capacity to evaluate all phenomenon in space
time.

There are so many fundamental belief systems, inbuilt into the scientific structure. That
I do not expect anyone to fully understand, the limitations of human intellectual endeavor.

Yet any objective consensus will be solely subject, to the numerous premises being valid.

Still failing to use the word, 'fact', according to the dictionary definition.

Ultimately both science and Christianity are belief systems at their core.

Empiricism is a belief system, this belief system is converted into a methodology used in scientific
endeavor. One must believe in the ideology of science, including all the premises, to believe the
in claims of science.

It is highly unlikely that all the premises that science accepts, are all valid premises.

It is a known 'fact' that science uses words in other ways, with other denotations, than that which is reported by the dictionary.

 

[klutedavid]

What I find frustrating is that people use the term "evolution" without bothering to define what they mean.
Definitions can be very tricky at times. Sometimes definitions are impossible to agree on. This has
always been a primary problem in philosophy, everyone uses different definitions.

Evolution can mean anything from "change over time" to "chemical biogenesis" and everything
in between.

Yet Anguspere, not everyone will agree with you.

There are aspects of evolution that have been shown to be "fact",

An invalid word usage, a fact is something that is proven, evolution cannot be proven.

natural selection acting on species for the preservation of fitness in a given environment

Extinction is the observable criteria that you need to address, the failure to adapt is the
history that the fossil record displays.

But there are also a great many things that are just plain blithering foolishness such as the idea that a functionally coherent thing can be invented by chance, or that finding different types of fossils in layers of strata necessarily proves descent by modification.

The phenomenon of chance, i.e., a random event, impossible to prove that a random event can occur.
The fossil record contains numerous extinct species. Descent through a process of speciation is unlikely.

So if the field of science is a rational endeavor, not predicated on apriori ideaology, why is it that
everyone is expected to swallow a whole raft of stupidity along with the "fact" when somebody claims
evolution as a "fact"?

Science stands on premises, science is forced to accept premises and assumptions. No need to
accept any claim that science makes, I do not accept the premises, why would I accept any
scientific explanation.

I firmly believe that science places very powerful tools, into the hands of very untrustworthy
creatures.

 

[klutedavid]

It is a known 'fact' that science uses words in other ways, with other denotations, than that which is reported by the dictionary.

Very good, wish we had one common set of precise definitions.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Who said God needed help with creation? I didn't say He needed a hand from evolution.

If anything, God created us through evolution.

If so, where is the scriptural truth for this?
For that is where we learn of our creation and what God did to create us and everything else.

As you have noted there is no scriptural truth in it.

I've always been of the opinion that on the surface it appears a Godly thing to connect God with evolution, but in the end it only discredits the bible, and once that goal is reached, it's easier to *then* ease God out of the equation as well.

We believe in God, then we in turn believe his word.

 

[JacksBratt]

Haeckels drawings are fraudulant and have been debunked for many years. Next you'll be harping on about Peppered moths or Lucy the missing link.

Just as a note, these drawings still appear in modern text books. A list is shown below from the website:

http://www.discovery.org/a/3935 more information on this at the site listed.

Below are listed a number of such modern textbooks which have used Haeckel's embryo drawings in the fashion stated above. The list includes an analysis of each textbook, with documenting graphics:

I. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (5th ed, McGraw Hill, 1999)*

II. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (6th ed, McGraw Hill, 2002)*

III. Textbook III. Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (3rd ed, Sinauer, 1998)

IV. Cecie Starr and Ralph Taggart, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th ed, Wadsworth, 1998)

V. Joseph Raver, Biology: Patterns and Processes of Life (J.M.Lebel, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education for approval in 2003)

VI. Cecie Starr and Ralph Taggart, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (Wadsworth, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education in 2003)

VII. William D. Schraer and Herbert J. Stoltze, Biology: The Study of Life (7th ed, Prentice Hall, 1999)

VIII. Michael Padilla et al., Focus on Life Science: California Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001)

IX. Kenneth R Miller & Joseph Levine, Biology: The Living Science (Prentice Hall, 1998)

X. Kenneth R Miller & Joseph Levine, Biology (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998)

*Note: some paragraphs are the same because some textbooks re-use the same material in different editions.

Textbook I. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (5th ed, McGraw Hill, 1999), pp. 416, 1181:

 

[Kenny'sID]

You do realize that I'm not trying to convince anyone that they need to accept the Theory of Evolution. No, what I'm trying to discuss here is that someone like me should still be considered a Christian if I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Yes... you are still saved if you believe or disagree with the TOE....

Just as you are still saved if you still sin, as we all do.

In the end, we all, who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, will all have a good laugh at the things we got wrong. Some, however, who don't believe the saving power of Christ, will not be laughing at all.

Yes, if we ask for forgiveness and repent of our sin, even if we continue to fail and do that all over again, we are saved, but that's not what I really want to touch on.

Since this has been brought up several times, I think it's at least fair to bring up the possibility, if one believes in evolution for instance, they don't believe in the bible that clearly says the animals were created in their entirety and didn't get there via evolution. So with that in mind, how much faith do we actually have in God, if we question his word, or flat out don't believe it? Right off hand that sounds dangerous to me, and seems to go against the first and foremost commandment even of the NT:

Exodus 20:3-5

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.


4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.


5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

I have to wonder if god is thinking:

"They say they believe in me but at the same time, they aren't believing my word in it's entirety, but someone else' (on this or any subject) I am jealous and warned them that I would be."

Just thought that bared mentioning before we get to comfortable in out believe we can believe/serve what the world teaches over God and still get to heaven. Christ and forgiveness is a very integral part in reaching the Kingdom of God, but let's not forget, so to is God.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Very good, wish we had one common set of precise definitions.

Well, klute...believe it or not, each set of definitions is precise (or useful) for the purposes to which each set is linguistically employed. One thing to keep in mind---dictionaries do not so much determine the meanings of words as much as they report the common and accepted (and varied) usages of words. This is the case because, as I'm sure you know, languages change and their cultural usage morphs through time; words get re-appropriated for different uses, and they sometimes get replaced by other words as new concepts develop.

Contemplate this quote, klute:

"Perhaps the first thing that we need to remind ourselves of is that when we speak of the meaning of a word we are employing an artificial, if highly useful, convention. Meaning does not truly reside within the word but in the minds of those who hear or read it. This fact alone guarantees that meaning will be to a great degree amorphous: no two people have had exactly the same experience with what a word refers to and so the meaning of the word will be slightly or greatly different for each of us."
​

Guess where I took the above quote from? [Answer: Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 28, 1988]

So, if I want to know what "evolution" or "scientific theory" means as they are used in science, I'd probably go to a Dictionary of Science for these definitions, just as I'd go to a Dictionary of the Bible for current understandings of words in the (English) Bible [or a Hebrew or Koine Greek one if I want to get really picky over the meaning of past, dead languages that no longer undergo change].

And if I just want a common, ordinary, run of the mill definition of "evolution" or the term "theory," I'd probably just pull old Webster's and call it a day.​

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Just as a note, these drawings still appear in modern text books. A list is shown below from the website:

http://www.discovery.org/a/3935 more information on this at the site listed.

Below are listed a number of such modern textbooks which have used Haeckel's embryo drawings in the fashion stated above. The list includes an analysis of each textbook, with documenting graphics:

I. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (5th ed, McGraw Hill, 1999)*

II. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (6th ed, McGraw Hill, 2002)*

III. Textbook III. Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (3rd ed, Sinauer, 1998)

IV. Cecie Starr and Ralph Taggart, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th ed, Wadsworth, 1998)

V. Joseph Raver, Biology: Patterns and Processes of Life (J.M.Lebel, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education for approval in 2003)

VI. Cecie Starr and Ralph Taggart, Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (Wadsworth, 2004, draft version presented to the Texas State Board of Education in 2003)

VII. William D. Schraer and Herbert J. Stoltze, Biology: The Study of Life (7th ed, Prentice Hall, 1999)

VIII. Michael Padilla et al., Focus on Life Science: California Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001)

IX. Kenneth R Miller & Joseph Levine, Biology: The Living Science (Prentice Hall, 1998)

X. Kenneth R Miller & Joseph Levine, Biology (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998)

*Note: some paragraphs are the same because some textbooks re-use the same material in different editions.

Textbook I. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (5th ed, McGraw Hill, 1999), pp. 416, 1181:

Wow!!!......a long list of OOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLDDDDDD textbooks. What would really be good would be to give a list of textbooks from the last 1 to 4 years, and see the extent to which they still have the erroneous (and outdated) Haeckel material.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yes, if we ask for forgiveness and repent of our sin, even if we continue to fail and do that all over again, we are saved, but that's not what I really want to touch on.

Since this has been brought up several times, I think it's at least fair to bring up the possibility, if one believes in evolution for instance, they don't believe in the bible that clearly says the animals were created in their entirety and didn't get there via evolution. So with that in mind, how much faith do we actually have in God, if we question his word, or flat out don't believe it? Right off hand that sounds dangerous to me, and seems to go against the first and foremost commandment even of the NT:

Exodus 20:3-5

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.


4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.


5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

I have to wonder if god is thinking:

"They say they believe in me but at the same time, they aren't believing my word in it's entirety, but someone else' (on this or any subject) I am jealous and warned them that I would be."

Just thought that bared mentioning before we get to comfortable in out believe we can believe/serve what the world teaches over God and still get to heaven. Christ and forgiveness is a very integral part in reaching the Kingdom of God, but let's not forget, so to is God.

This is almost not too different from saying something like: If you don't have the correct interpretation of the book of Revelation, or of the various end-times portions of the Bible, then you might not be included in the Rapture (if there is one). [I use eschatology here because....well...trying to come to an agreement among ourselves about the END of the Bible is just about as bad as our finding common ground on the beginning of the Bible; and we Christians haggle on these first and last parts a whole lot! ]

2PhiloVoid

 

[Kenny'sID]

This is almost not too different from saying something like: If you don't have the correct interpretation of the book of Revelation, or of the various end-times portions of the Bible, then you might not be included in the Rapture (if there is one). [I use eschatology here because....well...trying to come to an agreement among ourselves about the END of the Bible is just about as bad as our finding common ground on the beginning of the Bible; and we Christians haggle on these first and last parts a whole lot! ]

2PhiloVoid

"Almost" but not quite.

This is not a matter of interpretation, or at the very least, unlike Revelation, I think the bible is very clear on how he made man/the animals, and I would guess most can agree, at least on what the bible teaches/God says, whether they believe it or not.