Yes that's what you have to do. We're not trying to lie to you, trick you or put something over on you. Science, on the whole, is an ethical profession, with many checks and verification of the work being done.
I'm not "convinced" I take the theory of evolution in the same way as any other scientific theory--as the best scientific explanation of a phenomenon currently available, but provisional, like any other scientific theory. Evolution, as such, is a "fact." There is no doubt that species have changed and diversified over time. They still do. The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain how that happens. Being a scientific theory it is still provisional, but no more satisfactory explanation has yet been advanced.
Me personally? Probably the math, being as I have a math background--don't know all that much about the life sciences. Evolution is said to proceed by randomly distributed variation and natural selection. This is known in mathematics as a Stochastic Process. Stochastic process - Wikipedia Stochastic processes can be demonstrated to have sufficient information processing capacity to account for the novel and complex structures produced by evolution. Mathematically, it's rock solid.
Evolution just is a Stochastic process, which makes me a little confused as to your version of Theistic Evolution. Maybe you could give us a little summary of what you believe God did? Because it seems from this version of Theistic Evolution that Humans could have failed to exist, which is very surprising to hear from a Christian.
Of course humans could have failed to have come into existence. So what? All that is required is a creature with sufficient self-aware intelligence to contemplate the consequences of his actions and contemplate his own mortality for "sin and death to enter the world." It doesn't have to have been an erect bipedal mammal--imagine a race of intelligent crustaceans who decorate their churches with pots of boiling water.
There is no direct evidence of intelligent design. Intelligent design is an inference drawn from evidence of intelligent manufacture.
Could you maybe explain what God did do in regards to the creation of the world and the life on it. Could creatures with sufficient self-aware intelligence to contemplate the consequences of his actions and contemplate his own mortality for "sin and death to enter the world" fail to exist? It all kind of sounds like you believe we are Theistic accidents or byproducts so if you could kind of lay out God's involvement it might clear things up.
I would really like to answer your question, but I am struggling with an answer, as the question seems to put divine causality in the same category as the material causality of evolutionary mechanisms studied by science. How familiar are you with the philosophical concept of causality? Have you read Aristotle's Metaphysics, for example?
from your own thread:
....doesn't really look like a flipper to me. Looks more like winky little limbs, neither legs nor flippers... exactly what you'd expect for a vestigial limb. That said, It certainly isn't inconceivable by a longshot that the rear legs would themselves have undergone selection pressures to streamline/reduce at least somewhat while everything else evolved to its environment.from your own thread:
"Based on the fact that we've observed atavistic legs on whales"
but this isnt a leg. its actually a vestigial flipper:
(image from MARES Y OCEANOS: ¿Delfines terrestres?)
Yeah I think thats a good place to put it. The traditional idea of Random Mutation + Natural selection is dying out in favor of a host of mechanisms acting to narrow the improbability of acquiring something new. I haven't had a chance to look into these new mechanisms, but I remember two are gravity? and chemistry. Whatever the mechanisms are if they narrow improbability they increase teleology, and that's where I think Theistic Evolution can hold a strong place. There was a conference in England last year (iirc) that really put to rest the old way of thinking, and I remember a post discussion bringing up the idea that cells may form some sort of small mind that can play a part in evolution. I thought that was a fascinating conclusion because it indicates that Naturalism is becoming a lot more flexible. The internet will always be behind but I think there are some big changes happening in the ridgedness of Naturalism that may open some standable territory for TE.
That belief could readily include the belief that God expressed this power through the brilliantly conceived process of evolution, in which natural selection played an important role. Having such a belief would not represent a questioning of God's power. Indeed, I would argue that extending the creation process over billions of years, rather than accomplishing it in an instant, would be a much more majestic and Godly alternative.
Perhaps you should look in the mirror when you say something like that. Personally, I don't think God intended the creation stories in Genesis to be taken as 100% accurate literal history. I certainly wouldn't teach it to others.
That is where the metaphysics (if you can call it that) of creationism breaks down. The notion that either the randomizing element contained in the evolutionary process or the contingency of the process as a whole constitute a barrier to telos I find to be inadequate and uninformed.
No, I have no "biblical" reason for thinking that evolution is accurate. The theory of evolution stands or falls on it's own merits. The Bible is about something else altogether.
