Need help from Theistic Evolutionists

I’m sorry I didn’t quote which of your sentences I referred to under the understandably admitted phrase “your question”. By “your question”, I meant the following phrase:

Why isn't God as creator a possibility for science? According to Newton the 1st philosophy of science was cause and effect relationships for phenomenon. If God does act in time and space then God is by definition a cause.

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I took the entire three sentences as one question, as it seemed #2 and #3 modified the ? in number 1.

God is an inference predicated on the revelation of God in nature (sometimes refereed to as the lessor light of revelation). Bear in mind that we are talking about a primary 1st cause of creation and because of that it's transcendent. To paraphrase Aristotle its the substantive principle that transcends all reality, or in this case, the entire heavens and earth.

What I am describing to you is metaphysics. Newton, like many scientists, believed that while God as designer is warranted it had little, if any, bearing on natural phenomenon. God as the cause of creation is not the same thing as determining whether or not Ivory soap floats.

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But if you’re saying that God can be not just a first cause but a direct cause for things, like biodiversity, doesn’t God need to be considered in more than just a metaphysical manner? Or am I misunderstanding you?

That would depend on the phenomenon in question.

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Do you suppose you could give me some examples of phenomena on each side of the line, as it were? And what the criteria of the line is, for any hypothetical future discoveries that might fall on one side or the other?

Ok, you got a lot going on here, lets see if we can take this one at a time. You predicated the list with 'we don't need', without telling me what we do or do not need them for. Don't get me wrong, I know what you mean but it's important to focus on something in particular.

I'm really not trying to be asinine but let me answer your question to my question with a question. 

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It’s fine. I did it to you, you do it to me, s’all good.

What do we need these for?
• Mutations- Single-base substitutions, Insertions and Deletions, Duplications, Translocations
• Natural Selection- adaptation, speciation and mortality selection (aka survival)
• Common Descent- The common ancestor a population has in common.

In other words, what specific effect are we wanting to assign these causes to?

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So, “what do we need them for” is “what effect are we wanting to assign these causes to” which is the same as “what are these explanations for.” I want to make sure that this is an okay restating that does not equivocate, because I prefer working with my wording rather than yours. It’s closer to how my brain makes connections.


So, what effects are assigned to the cause of mutations?

Variations in the genetic code which may express themselves as neutral, beneficial, or detrimental phenotypes, or may not be expressed if they are not in a coding section of DNA.

What effects are explained by the cause natural selection?

Natural selections explains the proliferation of certain phenotypes (and thus genotypes) and the decreased abundance of other phenotypes (and thus genotypes) based on that/those particular phenotypes’/phenotype’s ability to survive and spread itself among the population based on such things as ability to survive disease, predation, acquire/process food, attract mates, have survivable offspring, and so on.

What effects does the cause of common descent explain?

The phylogenetic tree of life. The twin nested hierarchy. The way that life can be classified by commonality of DNA, common features, etc, and come out with the same “tree” results.

So, in a nutshell, mutations are way that genotypes and thus phenotypes change. Natural selection is ‘which changes stick around’, and common descent is the family tree.


I trust that answers your question in a satisfactory manner?

God can and does direct natural forces, determining whether or not God acted in time and space requires specific criteria. The New Testament has a long list of miracles evidenced by internal, external and bibliographical proofs. God confirms the Word that is going out by signs, miracles and mighty deeds. In order to determine whether God directed the lightning directly would require special revelation to that effect.

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So it would be more along the line “sometimes charged ions in the atmosphere and the properties that generally govern electricity cause lightning, sometimes God directly causes it, and there is no way to tell which is which without some sign from God directly confirming which is which.” Would you consider that a fair and accurate statement?

Same issue with these two statements. While God is the transcendent 1st cause the warrant for determining that every disease and chemical reaction does not exist rationally.

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I’m sorry, but I am slightly confused by what you mean when you say
“the warrant for determining...”. Are you saying that while God is the first cause, it is not rational to directly follow that statement with “Therefore... God is the cause of every disease and chemical reaction.”? Or am I misunderstanding?

Newton assigned specific causes to specific effects, you have to sort out what kind of a cause you are looking for. He had a specific cause and effect relationship when he performed this experiment for the Royal Society in London.
...

Four causes

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So what I get that you are trying to say here is that we need to look for a specific cause to a specific effect, as the previous Aristotelean school of thought dictated many types of causes. Am I understanding this correctly?

The ten plagues during the Exodus are not.

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Are not what? Are not naturalistic? But even if they did not have a natural cause, they surely took effect through natural means? The eating of crops by locusts, the undrinkability of blood, et cetera are all natural, even if they were summoned/changed/et cetera by non-natural causes, correct? In the case of the death of the first-born, then while the cause might not have been natural either, as it was an angel of death, the effect was natural (death), was it not?

The creation of life in general and the creation of man in particular does not fall under induction from phenomena.

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Why not, though? I believe that will wind up being the question. After all, what you have made here is an assertion, but nothing more.

For example, for the origin of life, why would it not fall under induction from phenomena? All life is biochemistry and organic chemistry, after all. So why would phenomena about biochemistry and organic chemistry never be able to fall under that umbrella?

The underlying question has to be what cause and effect relationship you are trying to determine and by what means.

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So, which cause and effect relationships do you object to, why do you object to them, and what are the means that you are objecting to? And what cause and effect relationship would the replacement answers you propose have, and by what means would they be arrived at?

Metherion

Dr. Dog said:

Excellent thought! This is where I see TE's and/or evolutionists, stopping short of asking themselves this very question.

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That's strange. I got this idea originally (and independently) from two theistic evolutionists, and that is my own position as well. I have usually seen it disputed by atheists (what else would you expect) and by creationists/IDists---who reject the theory of evolution precisely because they distinguish between what is natural and what is God-activated. To most of them, as to atheists, a "natural" event or process is one that God has no part in. But most theistic evolutionists see it the other way around--that natural events/processes are exactly where you will see the normal activity of God.

gluadys, read this again. To me, it seems contradictory to what you said above, because we don't know this at all. It's taken merely by assumption. Who knows that maybe it takes millisecond-by-millisecond miraculous intervention from God to keep it all going. Right? Of course. When does He ever stop watching over everything He's created? I would suggest, never.

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The problem is that "miracle" tends to be defined in many different ways. Scripture you know, doesn't even have the word "miracle" in it. It speaks rather of signs---signs of God's power and presence and purpose--and while some of those signs appear to be extra-ordinary and outside the capacities of ordinary nature, others seem to be consistent with natural order.

The distinction I was intending was between the routine processes and events of nature (from which many people exclude God) and those that transcend natural routine.

I am not sure it is helpful to redefine "miracle" to include both. The main point is that God is just as active in the routine events and processes we call "natural" as in those we tend to designate as "miraculous" or "super-natural".

As long as we keep that in mind, there is no need to envision the ordinary processes of evolution as excluding God.

Very true indeed! There is no way to prove scientifically that nature works apart from there being a creator who watches over His creation. Basically stated: God holds it all together for us. Why? Because he loves us enough to do so.

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Amen!

And I don't think it took Him billions of years to make it all happen. He's way smarter than that. We have a big God. Amen!

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What does time mean to God? What does it have to do with intelligence?

I don't think we should use our preferences or our theology to decide how God made it all happen. I think we should use what God gave us: the created world itself. It tells us how old it is and how things happened in nature.

After all, none of us is questioning that God has the power and the freedom to create in any way he wishes. So the only question is "what does the evidence say as to what he did do?"

gluadys said:

I have usually seen it disputed by atheists (what else would you expect) and by creationists/IDists---who reject the theory of evolution precisely because they distinguish between what is natural and what is God-activated.

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Indeed. You only need to look at the atheist argument in the OP, and at mark's agreement with it, to see this is true.

mark kennedy said:

Because Metherion, we are talking about epistemology here as applied to rules of science. What you would have to do is to discern between the different causes for specific effects? Of course we need not invoke God as the cause of chemical reactions, lightning bolts and certainly not always blame God for a disease we might be diagnosed with.

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I see your epistemology and raise you the Bible:
This is why I keep saying the appeal of creationism rests on the poverty of most modern Christians' theology of providence.

The Bible says God causes lightning, and Maxwell's Laws of electrodynamics competently describe the physical regularities with which He causes lightning.
The Bible says God created man, and evolution competently describes the biological regularities with which He created man.

Of course, whether evolution is a good empirical description of the creation of man is a question that is open to scientific debate - but it cannot be ruled out a priori, any more than your epistemology can rule out a priori that Maxwell's Laws describe lightning (or indeed that God does not cause it).

metherion said:

I’m sorry I didn’t quote which of your sentences I referred to under the understandably admitted phrase “your question”. By “your question”, I meant the following phrase:

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Why isn't God as creator a possibility for science? According to Newton the 1st philosophy of science was cause and effect relationships for phenomenon. If God does act in time and space then God is by definition a cause.

I took the entire three sentences as one question, as it seemed #2 and #3 modified the ? in number 1.

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Ok

But if you’re saying that God can be not just a first cause but a direct cause for things, like biodiversity, doesn’t God need to be considered in more than just a metaphysical manner? Or am I misunderstanding you?

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The original creation would have included the molecular mechanisms that are essentially the material (DNA) and formal cause (arrangement of sequence) producing particular traits. God being the source of the molecular mechanisms produced fully functional makes God the primary first cause in the causal chain:

When Aristotle explains in general terms what he tries to do in his philosophical works, he says he is looking for ‘first principles’ (or ‘origins’; archai):


Again, there is a problem of determining what effect you are trying to assign a cause to. With regards to adaptation and speciation often the molecular mechanisms and mutations (if defined as a genetic change) are clearly sufficient. When you are getting into origins as science or theology you primary first cause (propositional truth) determines the genesis of those systems. God as the metaphysical substantive element that transcends all reality or in our context, all of life. The New Testament does not define this, the writers appeal to your understanding of God from the things that are made:

Do you suppose you could give me some examples of phenomena on each side of the line, as it were? And what the criteria of the line is, for any hypothetical future discoveries that might fall on one side or the other?

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I already spoke to chemical reactions and germ theory as sufficient to explain naturally occurring phenomena. A couple of examples of miracles would include, but not be limited to the resurrection, ascension and the incarnation. The resurrection as a primary doctrine of the Church is not possible by human or natural means, God must act in time and space. No naturalistic law or process can explain this event in redemptive history. Determining the historicity of an event in Scripture generally follows three lines of evidence. Internal, external and bibliographical testing.

The evidence examined will be determined by the nature of the phenomena, the cause and effect relationship following. If I want to determine that a prokaryote can be evolved over time into animalia and plantea cells I must build a causal chain. Evolution doesn't do this since the primary first cause must be exclusively naturalistic in spite of the fact that God remains a self evident and sufficient cause.

It’s fine. I did it to you, you do it to me, s’all good.

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We are just having a backup problem, that's all it really amounts to.

So, “what do we need them for” is “what effect are we wanting to assign these causes to” which is the same as “what are these explanations for.” I want to make sure that this is an okay restating that does not equivocate, because I prefer working with my wording rather than yours. It’s closer to how my brain makes connections.

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Fair enough

So, what effects are assigned to the cause of mutations? Variations in the genetic code which may express themselves as neutral, beneficial, or detrimental phenotypes, or may not be expressed if they are not in a coding section of DNA.

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I strongly suspect that not all adaptive evolution proceeds from a change in the actual coding sequence. We can get back to that one later.

What effects are explained by the cause natural selection? Natural selections explains the proliferation of certain phenotypes (and thus genotypes) and the decreased abundance of other phenotypes (and thus genotypes) based on that/those particular phenotypes’/phenotype’s ability to survive and spread itself among the population based on such things as ability to survive disease, predation, acquire/process food, attract mates, have survivable offspring, and so on.

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Natural selection is an effect, the cause of the better trait becomes the most important issue. Natural selection explains the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest. That's were Newton's rules of science comes in and matches the logic of Aristotle, cause and effect relationships are crucial.

What effects does the cause of common descent explain?

The phylogenetic tree of life. The twin nested hierarchy. The way that life can be classified by commonality of DNA, common features, etc, and come out with the same “tree” results.

So, in a nutshell, mutations are way that genotypes and thus phenotypes change. Natural selection is ‘which changes stick around’, and common descent is the family tree.

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Common descent is a viable conclusion and a sufficient cause generally up until you get to the level of genus. We have a common ancestor, his name was Adam. Now whether or not we share a common ancestor with apes requires a causal change that includes the naturalistic means to that end. Assuming that God had the means or even the will to produce the first man is meaningless unless we have evidence of this event. The Scriptures are bound up in a confirming evidential chain. The Word as it was revealed to Moses was confirmed by signs, miracles and mighty deeds. The same holds true for the prophets and apostles, we are left to determine whether the causal chain is sufficient to explain these events.

Should we do this we can determine a criteria for assigning either naturalistic or divine causation.

I trust that answers your question in a satisfactory manner?

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They were fine.

So it would be more along the line “sometimes charged ions in the atmosphere and the properties that generally govern electricity cause lightning, sometimes God directly causes it, and there is no way to tell which is which without some sign from God directly confirming which is which.” Would you consider that a fair and accurate statement?

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If God is the cause of lightning, an earthquake or a hundred frogs in Pharaohs bedchamber it will be confirmed by prophetic proclamation. I would have to have good reason to conclude that a lightning strike was directly caused by God. Otherwise, a naturalistic explanation is sufficient and I'm left only with a a future exception.

Sure, I agree with the statement not withstanding certain conditionals.


I’m sorry, but I am slightly confused by what you mean when you say
“the warrant for determining...”. Are you saying that while God is the first cause, it is not rational to directly follow that statement with “Therefore... God is the cause of every disease and chemical reaction.”? Or am I misunderstanding?

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Unlike pagan mythology where the elementals produced the gods, God is the first cause of nature. Ultimately the natural order by God and therefor God as a first cause is transcendent to every lightning bolt. God is the origin of lightning in that he produced all the elements necessary. If the cause and effect relationship is limited to a thunderstorm last night naturalistic causes are sufficient.

If on the other hand your Mom gets cancer it's highly presumptive to say it's God's judgment on her. The Apostles even did this:


God was not punishing this man, the true light that give light to everyone who comes into the world was being revealed.

So what I get that you are trying to say here is that we need to look for a specific cause to a specific effect, as the previous Aristotelean school of thought dictated many types of causes. Am I understanding this correctly?

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Well, it gets back to the phenomena that needs to be explained. It was not Aristotle's causes that were to blame, his reasoning is very close to that of Newton. What happened was that Aristotle's physics regarding the principles of motion not only had to be rethought but discarded. A wooden bridge might be sufficient if the heaviest thing crossing it is a fat man in an ox cart. If he goes out and buys a truck to cross the bridge you are probably going to need something with a steel infrastructure.

The old forms worked fine, Euclidean math worked fine for Newton and for us. What happens is that a need for something more sufficient is needed and calculus is added to the scientists tool box. When it comes to the working of God naturalistic causes are neither sufficient nor warranted. The difference is in the phenomena being explained, examined and accounted for.

Are not what? Are not naturalistic? But even if they did not have a natural cause, they surely took effect through natural means? The eating of crops by locusts, the undrinkability of blood, et cetera are all natural, even if they were summoned/changed/et cetera by non-natural causes, correct? In the case of the death of the first-born, then while the cause might not have been natural either, as it was an angel of death, the effect was natural (death), was it not?

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Sure the effect can be natural and even, with some qualifications, the instrumental cause can be natural. Frogs are naturally occurring until the prophet tells you, as confirmed by God's revealed power, that they are in such abundance as a judgment.

The creation of life in general and the creation of man in particular does not fall under induction from phenomena.

Why not, though? I believe that will wind up being the question. After all, what you have made here is an assertion, but nothing more.

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By inductive I mean that you are not going to follow a pattern set in naturally occurring phenomena. The means by which a prokaryote becomes an animalia cell does not exist in any known process, nor does the three fold expansion of the human brain from that of apes. Saying God did it does not seem sufficient to me otherwise I wouldn't have gotten into evidential apologetics to determine what caused these things.

The genomes of living creatures has far more repair mechanisms then they do means for change. This tells me that the preservation of functional genomics is there by design as a part of the originally created living system. To explain the evolution of the human brain from apes by mutations and natural selection makes no sense empirically since mutations have devastating negative consequences when strong enough to have an effect.

You right, that's the question alright and I don't make by assertion based on a prejudicial opinion. What I have long sought is a sufficient cause to the origin of man and naturalistic means to that end fail miserably.

For example, for the origin of life, why would it not fall under induction from phenomena? All life is biochemistry and organic chemistry, after all. So why would phenomena about biochemistry and organic chemistry never be able to fall under that umbrella?

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Because it's never been demonstrated or directly observed. Yes, there can be dramatic adaptive evolution with even giant leaps included, nothing objectionable about that. When we are talking about the origin of life we are talking about fully functional systems that would include a very long causal chain. That's why I'm not interested in the age of the earth, time does not translate into means and we know what had to happen then because we know what happens now.

So, which cause and effect relationships do you object to, why do you object to them, and what are the means that you are objecting to? And what cause and effect relationship would the replacement answers you propose have, and by what means would they be arrived at?

Metherion

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The a priori assumption of universal common descent by elusively naturalistic means is what I object to. This is an assumption of a cause that excludes God as a cause with extreme prejudice. It is not rational to jump to that conclusion anymore then it was right or reasonable to jump to the conclusion that a man was born blind because of his or his parents sin.

As humans we do make propositional judgments in our causal chain. When it comes to God or naturalistic laws of nature as primary causes we often assume too much. I object to God being eliminated as a cause before the evidence is even examined.

shernren said:

I see your epistemology and raise you the Bible:

(Job 38:25-27, ESV)
This is why I keep saying the appeal of creationism rests on the poverty of most modern Christians' theology of providence.

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The modern Christians view of providence is neither impoverished nor does creationism rest on that assumed deficiency. The New Testament makes it clear not only that God provides but when and how they ultimately came into being. Natural causes while often warranted and sufficient they sometimes are not. Finding the true and suffienient cause requires knowledge of God and nature before determining either as a cause.

Grace and peace,
Mark

mark kennedy said:

I object to God being eliminated as a cause before the evidence is even examined.

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That's right, mark, so do I. Which makes it all the more amusing that you actually deleted the Scripture reference in my quote. I repeat:
Was it Maxwell? Or was it God? Or was it both? I object to God being eliminated as a cause before the evidence is even examined, what more when the Bible itself explicitly claims His power and design in the doings of weather.

shernren said:

That's right, mark, so do I. Which makes it all the more amusing that you actually deleted the Scripture reference in my quote. I repeat:

​​​​​​​​“Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt?"
(Job 38:25, ESV)
​

Was it Maxwell? Or was it God? Or was it both? I object to God being eliminated as a cause before the evidence is even examined, what more when the Bible itself explicitly claims His power and design in the doings of weather.

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If you ever paid attention to what I'm actually saying I have said that God is transcendent. God made a 'channel' for the rain, a 'way' for the thunderbolt. That is God as primary first cause in a quote from God himself.

Tell me something since we are on the subject, is God speaking to Job out of a whirlwind in this passage?

Have a nice day
Mark

mark kennedy said:

God made a 'channel' for the rain, a 'way' for the thunderbolt. That is God as primary first cause in a quote from God himself.

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And God 'created' life. Hey, if you can put words from the Bible in quote marks, so can I.

If God is satisfied to be a primary first cause with the weather, why can't He also be satisfied to be a primary first cause with common descent?

mark kennedy said:

Tell me something since we are on the subject, is God speaking to Job out of a whirlwind in this passage?

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Sure. I mean, that's what it says.

And I also believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Now quit with the witch-hunting and tell me how God letting Maxwell understand lightning is any different from God letting Darwin understand evolution. (Or are you going to give an evil, nasty TE a first-class lesson in how to derail a thread?)

GitRDunn said:

The problem I have with your statement is that you are limiting God's power. You are saying that He created the Earth in six days because He is smart/powerful enough that He didn't have to take billions of years to do it. The problem with this is that you are implying that He would have done it in the shortest time possible, which would imply He could not do it in less than the six days you believe He did it in.

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I can't for the life of me imagine why I haven't had a look at this forum before now - this is seriously interesting stuff. I used to be an evolutionist but then I became a Christian and, to coin a phrase, my eyes were opened. The question I have for evolutionists and TEs is possibly incredibly naive and I'm sure you'll all put me right straight away.

I'm now a linguist but for years I was an electronics engineer. I designed many electronics based products and wrote thousands of lines of computer code. I found that the key factor in the design process is feedback. Does it do what I want it to do?

Yes - Fine.

No - Modify it until it does.

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection. Alright then so let's take a really easy example. The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

We have Laburnum trees growing outside our house. I noticed yesterday that new branches always sprout from exactly between two thorns - thus the new branches are protected. Where is the feedback mechanism that taught the tree to place those thorns so optimally? The idea that this came about simply by an accident that has taken a gazziolion years to mature seems incredibly improbable to me.

Or have I misunderstood everything?

MonteViste said:

I can't for the life of me imagine why I haven't had a look at this forum before now - this is seriously interesting stuff. I used to be an evolutionist but then I became a Christian and, to coin a phrase, my eyes were opened. The question I have for evolutionists and TEs is possibly incredibly naive and I'm sure you'll all put me right straight away.

I'm now a linguist but for years I was an electronics engineer. I designed many electronics based products and wrote thousands of lines of computer code. I found that the key factor in the design process is feedback. Does it do what I want it to do?

Yes - Fine.

No - Modify it until it does.

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection. Alright then so let's take a really easy example. The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

We have Laburnum trees growing outside our house. I noticed yesterday that new branches always sprout from exactly between two thorns - thus the new branches are protected. Where is the feedback mechanism that taught the tree to place those thorns so optimally? The idea that this came about simply by an accident that has taken a gazziolion years to mature seems incredibly improbable to me.

Or have I misunderstood everything?

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It may not be an accident. Calling it an "accident", I think, wouldn't be properly scientific but would instead fall under the realm of philosophy. All science can say is that this is what happened, and here is how it happened. Science cannot answer why it happened; the same way science cannot address why there's something instead of nothing.

Science can address how gravity works as we learn more about it, but as for why it works that way isn't a question that it can ask or answer.

So as for the examples of the arctic hare or the tree, science can say that yes those adaptations evolved, and that those genetic adaptations involved the interplay between organisms and environment (a white coat suits an animal trying to hide in snow better than, say, a black one). That it was an accident, however, is more philosophical. If God is more than simply the absent clockmaker, but is as Christianity says of Him, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, then that adaptation is not necessarily an accident.

But whether or not that adaptation was an accident of nature or the result of the Divine fine tuning of the Holy Trinity isn't something science can address.

-CryptoLutheran

MonteViste wrote:

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection. ......

Or have I misunderstood everything?

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Great question! Let me try to sufficiently honor it with a decent answer.

The feedback mechanism is natural selection, constantly fed by new mutational variation. In all the cases, new mutations introduce variation (the question), and the environment selects those that work (feedback).

Then, with that improved situation, new mutations introduce variations on the creatures that worked best - and some of those are undoubtedly going to be improvements. (those mutations that are harmful are removed by natural selection, so it doesn't matter that there are more of them). Then, the next round of feedback - natural selection picks the best, and we go on to the next step in that iterative process. In that way, it is a lot like the iterative process of programming.

As an engineer, did you multivariate designed experiments? I found them to make evolution much easier to understand. In them, as you may know, dozens of variables are tested in hundreds of experiments. Due to the math, you don't need the full number of experiments (you don't need 2^(the number of variables), which is a huge number). You need only 1/4, 1/8, 1/16th of them due to double counting. So by doing a linear regression, the useful variables show up, the the others are shown to be useless. The key is realizing that in a population with thousands or millions of animals, over hundreds of generations or more, it actually is a huge, ongoing, multivariate experiment, and the linear regression is done automatically by the fact that better fitting animals leave more offspring to the next generation.

So of course those who haven't done multivariate experiments will be incredulous of their power. It's easy to simply "not get it", and say "I can't believe evolution can do that!", but over millions of years, with billions of mulitvariate experiments, each with millions of trials and dozens of variables, working on genomes with millions or billlions of base pairs (ours has 3 billion), it's no surprise at all.

Now, for your specific examples. First, the tree:

We have Laburnum trees growing outside our house. I noticed yesterday that new branches always sprout from exactly between two thorns - thus the new branches are protected. Where is the feedback mechanism that taught the tree to place those thorns so optimally? The idea that this came about simply by an accident that has taken a gazziolion years to mature seems incredibly improbable to me.

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Ok, first, we need to decide how far back to go. If we start with a description of how plants got onto land, or evolved from single cells, it'll take a long time. So I'll start with a tree.

A tree has branches, on which sprouts happen. Now and then, animals come and eat the sprouts. As always, there are random mutations with every generation of tree. One such mutation causes extra cells to grow on the branches, makeing bumps. This takes extra resources,and so it is selected against, and so the "no bumps" allele wins out, and so that harmful "bump" mutation is gone. Another random mutation causes a cell structure on on the structure that will produce a sprout to make extra cells, another hard bump. Because that was on the structure that will make a sprout, the bump is next to where the sprout will come out. That provides a little protection to the sprout, so that sprout is less likely to be eaten, and so that tree survives better, has more kids, and over time (multivariate), all the trees make a little bump next to where the sprout will come. Next, another mutation causes the bumps to form on either side of the sprout location, again selected for, and again soon all trees are like that. Through all this, all non-usuful variations (like making a soft, edible bump) are removed by natural selection ( = eaten by animals), so I won't mention them for brevity. Further mutations one by one harden the bumps, and make their shape pointed, and soon you have your two spines. No step was large, and no step was something that requires any huge leap of luck.

Make sense?

Alright then so let's take a really easy example. The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

Click to expand...

Now, for the rabbits. That is similar enough something I found a long time ago describing a hypothetical evolution situation, that I'll just cut and paste it. It seems that this hamster thing probably had pictures with it originally.

*********************************************
Evolution - Simplified Example

Hey, what happened to the hamsters between generations 2 and 19?

Imagine a group of hamsters living in a valley. In the forested valley, it is good to be dark (but not black) so you can hide in the leaves on the ground. Thin fur is plenty warm, and predators make lots of noise rustling in the leaves, so small ears work fine. The forest is only so big however, with a limited amount of space and food, so the hamster population is limited to a certain size.
One day, a small group of hamsters moves up into the mountains - to a colder, snowier area. This small group of 16 hamsters is shown in Generation #1. The population will be limited by space and food, so these hamsters must compete with each other to survive and reproduce, just like in the valley. However, now the conditions have changed, so some features that were beneficial in the valley are now disadvantages.
In these drawings, the slash marks (/) show which hamsters die without being parents (there is only food and space for 16 hamsters). Arrows point to the four baby hamsters from each set of parents. You can see that these follow the rules of genetics (for instance, parents who are both gray will have all gray kids, etc.) The thick arrows show mutations, where a kid now has a change to a gene that is different from either parent.
In generation 1, all the hamsters are the same, so the ones that produce offspring are just lucky. However, in the 2nd generation, there are two mutations, both changes to color. One hamster becomes darker (black) and another becomes lighter colored (gray). The dark hamster is easily seen against the snow, and is quickly eaten by a hawk. The light gray hamster hides better than the other hamsters (who are dark gray), and lives to be a parent. In the third generation, one hamster is born with a shorter tail. This helps her survive because the end of her tail doesn’t freeze like the other hamsters’ tails do. There is also another mutation. Another hamster is born black. He is eaten by a fox, who can see him more easily on the snow. In generation #4 no new mutations occur, but the children of the light gray hamsters and the short tailed hamsters are able to produce offspring for the reasons mentioned above. Except for one gray hamster who decides to be a bachelor his entire life. In generation #5, another mutation occurs – another black hamster. Again, this makes it easy to see this hamster against the white snow, and he is seen and eaten by an eagle, just when he was making passes at a pretty short-tailed hamster. There are no mutations in generation #6, but a short tailed hamster mates with a light gray hamster, and two of the babies now have both a short tail and lighter fur. Also, there are starting to be a lot of hamsters with either lighter fur or a shorter tail, so they don’t have as much of an advantage anymore, and so more are failing to become parents.

Only one mutation occurs in generation 7, where two short tailed parents had a long tailed kid. Long tails are hard to keep warm, and like the long tailed hamsters before him, this hamster has to spend more time keeping his tail warm, so he has less time and energy to look for food and ends up failing to get enough food. This was another unlucky mutation. By now (generation #8) there are starting to be a lot of hamsters with either lighter fur or a shorter tail, so they don’t have as much of an advantage anymore, and so more are failing to become parents. Another “lighter fur” mutation occurs, this time in a hamster that already has light furred parents, so the hamster is white. There is also a mutation that makes a hamster have thicker fur. As can be expected, the hamsters with long tails or dark fur are less likely to survive to be parents, so the percentage of short tailed hamsters continues to increase. Hey, that thicker fur turns out be a nice thing in the snow, as does white fur, so the hamsters with either of these traits do well (except for one of the white furred hamsters – it was unlucky and was run over by a snowmobile). There are no mutations in generation #10, but the proportion of animals with short tails, white fur, or thicker fur continues to increase.
Two mutations happen to the animals in generation #11. One mutation results in an animal being born without a tail. Her parents had short tails. The lack of a tail is useful in the cold. The other mutation is an animal with dark gray fur. Both his parents had light gray fur. With all the other animals having either light gray or white fur, he sticks out like a sore thumb, and is eaten by a fox. Generation 12 has two mutations. The first one is another dark gray animal born to light gray parents, while the second mutation is a long tailed animal born to two parents with short tails. As discussed above, both of these changes are harmful for an animal in a snowy environment, and both of these animals don’t get a chance to produce a litter. There was only one mutation in generation 13, where one of the animals was born with an oddly shaped ear. It turned out that this ear was better at hearing the faint sounds of foxes in the snow because it was a larger ear. As a result, the offspring of this animal (in generation 14) were better able to avoid the foxes and live to produce children. There was a mutation in generation 14, where an animal was a little larger due to a small genetic difference. Being a little larger helps a lot in cold weather because it is easier to keep warm, so this animal also does well.
Now (generation #15) there are no gray furred animals left. It has taken a while for these two genetic changes to get all the way through the population, but now every animal has the first thick furred animal (generation #8) and the first white animal (also generation #8) as a great-great-great-great-great grandparent. Generation #16 had no mutations, but the useful traits such as the new ears and the larger size continue to be selected for by the snowy environment. In generation #17, one mutation occurs where an animal has thin fur instead of thick fur. Thin fur on a snowy mountain? That’s not good! This animal freezes to death.

Two mutations occur in generation 18, both of which cause one of the babies of white furred parents to have gray fur. Our friend the fox sees one and eats it, while the bigger one is eaten by a wolf who can’t believe her luck. By generation #19, all of the animals can now be called rabbits. All of them have anscestors who were the first to have white fur, thicker fur, no tails and a larger size. Many of them are also descended from the animal in generation 13 who was the first to have the large ear mutation. Of the animals in generation #19, which do you suppose is most likely to successfully have a litter? Hint – look at their ears.
Some of these rabbits go back to the valley. There they find that they are different animals as compared to the descendants of the original valley hamsters, who still just look like hamsters. This is because in the valley, then mutations that brought about a change were selected against (killed), while in the mountains these mutations (such as white fur) were selected for. In this story there were 11 mutations that pushed the animals toward being hamsters, and only 6 that pushed the animals toward being rabbits. The 6 were more important than the 11 because the snowy environment selected for these 6, allowing them to spread through the entire gene pool, while the other 11 were selected against, and not passed on to the next generation. The rabbits can no longer mate with the hamsters, they are too genetically different. When people look into the valley, they will see both hamsters and rabbits – which are now two different species.


Changes made so that this would be a shorter story:

· Evolution occurs in populations much larger than 16. Hundreds, thousands or millions of individuals is more typical. This used a smaller population to save space.
· Evolution occurs with smaller (less significant) mutations, over thousands or millions of generations. This has larger mutations so a significant change could be seen in only 19 generations.
· Many animals have larger litters, often in the hundreds for insects. This makes evolution happen faster. Only 4 per litter were used to save space.

*********************************

Does that help in seeing that nothing improble is happening?

-Papias

MonteViste said:

I'm now a linguist but for years I was an electronics engineer. I designed many electronics based products and wrote thousands of lines of computer code. I found that the key factor in the design process is feedback. Does it do what I want it to do?

Yes - Fine.

No - Modify it until it does.

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection.

Click to expand...

Hi MonteViste

Tada! That's it. Natural selection is the feedback mechanism.

It goes like this -- You've got millions of copies of your product, with loads of variations amongst the copies. They all work, but each in a slightly unique way.

In the current environment, take the top 10% that do what you want them to do best. Destroy the rest. (This is the selection stage.)

Now make millions more copies of the top 10%, each with their own variations.

In the current environment, take the top 10% of the new copies that do what you want them to do best. Destroy the rest ...

Keep repeating.

Note that it takes time to make each new batch of copies, and the environment can change in the meantime. Accordingly, the characteristics of your population of products can slowly change over time too.

This is evolution by means of artificial selection. Its artificial because you are choosing which ones do what you want best.

With natural selection, its the same process, only nobody is doing any choosing. Instead, the 90% of "products" (i.e. organisms) that are destroyed each generation are determined by the environment i.e. they are eaten, die of disease, or for some reason have no children. The environment does the "choosing", by means of natural selection.

So as you can see, natural selection is the mechanism that provides feedback from the environment into the design of the organism.

Or have I misunderstood everything?

Click to expand...

I suspect you might have.


Peace

MonteViste wrote:

I designed many electronics based products ... I found that the key factor in the design process is feedback. Does it do what I want it to do?

Yes - Fine.

No - Modify it until it does.

Click to expand...

Hey, speaking of understanding how evolution works, and electronic circuits, are you aware of the use of mutation and selection in making electric circuit designs? It seems some scientists realized the power of an interative mutation/natural selection process acting over many generations, and set up the following: They had a simulation start with a bunch of copies of an electric circuit, and a criteria to judge how well the circuits did a certian goal (such as, say, being a low pass filter or whatever). The top few were preserved, the rest deleted. Then they took those top two, copied them to bring the population up to the starting point, threw in some random mutations, and again tested them all and toss out most of them, only keeping the top few. The whole process was repeated over and over, and sure enough, the process designed whole electric circuits.

The process is used today to design new circuits to do things that haven't been invented yet. In fact, several new patents have been issued for circuits "designed" this way, without a human designer. See an article on this below. More recently, the millitary has seen the power of this approach, and uses it to "design" all kinds of things, from radar-jamming circuits to tank cloaking.

Evolving Inventions: Scientific American

What a neat way to do it, huh?

To me, this gives a much grander view of God, who made this process that not only can serve as his way to make the natural world, but which we lowly humans have now seen for the powerful process which it is. That's a much greater God than seeing God as a tinkerer, who has to be constantly fiddling with slip-shod inventions.


-Papias

MonteViste said:

I can't for the life of me imagine why I haven't had a look at this forum before now - this is seriously interesting stuff. I used to be an evolutionist but then I became a Christian and, to coin a phrase, my eyes were opened. The question I have for evolutionists and TEs is possibly incredibly naive and I'm sure you'll all put me right straight away.

I'm now a linguist but for years I was an electronics engineer. I designed many electronics based products and wrote thousands of lines of computer code. I found that the key factor in the design process is feedback. Does it do what I want it to do?

Yes - Fine.

No - Modify it until it does.

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection. Alright then so let's take a really easy example. The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

We have Laburnum trees growing outside our house. I noticed yesterday that new branches always sprout from exactly between two thorns - thus the new branches are protected. Where is the feedback mechanism that taught the tree to place those thorns so optimally? The idea that this came about simply by an accident that has taken a gazziolion years to mature seems incredibly improbable to me.

Or have I misunderstood everything?

Click to expand...

I think you have the right idea with some kind of a feedback mechanism. What I have come to realize is that everything is on a cellular level, if the feedback has a mechanism that's where it will be received.

I liked your concept of a feedback mechanism so did some fishing around:


Those two were interesting but here's the one I really liked:



The feedback from bud to mother cell that adjusts the levels of myosin 2 (Myo2) receptor in each organelle could be triggered by the arrival of components of the organelle membrane or the Myo2 receptors themselves in the bud.

I don't know that I can help you in your search but I really like your concept. I think what you are looking for is a regulatory system responding to stimulus and involved in protein synthesis. The T cells and the immune system would be one of your best bets for finding an obvious molecular mechanism as far as I can tell.

Now if you are looking for a feedback loop that produces an inheritable adaptive change I don't you will find it swimming on the surface. I can save you some time though, forget about Darwinian Natural Selection, it's an effect not a cause and it's certainly not a molecular mechanism

Grace and peace,
Mark

mark kennedy said:

(To MonteViste) I think you have the right idea with some kind of a feedback mechanism. What I have come to realize is that everything is on a cellular level, if the feedback has a mechanism that's where it will be received ...

Now if you are looking for a feedback loop that produces an inheritable adaptive change I don't you will find it swimming on the surface. I can save you some time though, forget about Darwinian Natural Selection, it's an effect not a cause and it's certainly not a molecular mechanism.

Click to expand...

Hi MonteViste and Mark

I'm not quite sure that Mark's response above really answered MonteViste's question.

MonteViste asked "what's the feedback mechanism in nature". Natural selection is certainly a hugely important and well-tested feedback mechanism that biologists use to explain adaptive changes. It operates at the level of populations of organisms, not at the cellular or molecular level. So it's not so much "on the surface" but a very broad and deep mechanism that affects many organisms over long spans of time.

And because its a "looping feedback" mechanism, it operates as both a cause and an effect.

I'm sure Mark is correct that there are also processes at the molecular level that provide feedback from the environment. But I believe these are much less well understood than natural selection at present. So natural selection is currently the major feedback mechanism proposed by biologists.


Peace

JVPITER said:

Hi MonteViste and Mark

I'm not quite sure that Mark's response above really answered MonteViste's question.

MonteViste asked "what's the feedback mechanism in nature". Natural selection is certainly a hugely important and well-tested feedback mechanism that biologists use to explain adaptive changes. It operates at the level of populations of organisms, not at the cellular or molecular level. So it's not so much "on the surface" but a very broad and deep mechanism that affects many organisms over long spans of time.

And because its a "looping feedback" mechanism, it operates as both a cause and an effect.

I'm sure Mark is correct that there are also processes at the molecular level that provide feedback from the environment. But I believe these are much less well understood than natural selection at present. So natural selection is currently the major feedback mechanism proposed by biologists.

Click to expand...

Natural selection is an effect rather then a cause, it's really nothing more then the death of the less fit. What is more there are an abundance of mechanisms that act on a molecular mechanisms involved in the process of adaptation. The challenge is to find out what they are and how they work, if you are satisfied with 'natural selection did it' you will never find out what it is.

Natural selection at the same time is an a priori assumption of universal common descent by exclusively naturalistic means. Examples of this are all too easy to find, Darwin mentions it in his preface to On the Origin of Species:


Darwinian evolution is not a mechanism, it's metaphysics. Here's another example:


MIT Biology 101

How could Darwinian evolution logic apply to all living systems in the universe unless it was an a priori assumption? Saying natural selection did it does not answer his question, as a matter of fact he is asking questions that I have long wondered about

The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

Click to expand...

A special gene for camouflage

The furthest I have managed to get in this search is a specific gene associated with rabbit fur coat color

(MC1R) gene


I think he has the right idea looking for a feedback mechanism I just don't think natural selection did it is an answer. You would be better off looking into Mendelian dominant and recessive traits and how environmental challenges can trigger adaptations. What the feedback loop is will remain an interest of mine but one thing is for sure, Darwinism has exhausted it's usefulness as an explanation.

Masquerading Darwinian natural selection as an actual mechanism is a complete waste of time. It's an effect rather then a cause, it explains the survival of the fittest not the arrival of the fittest. For the actual molecular mechanism you will have to look at things like gene expression and protein synthesis. Darwinian clutch phrases will just run you in circles.

MonteViste said:

So then the question that always occurs to me. Where is the feedback mechanism in nature? There isn't one you say - it's simply all about natural selection. Alright then so let's take a really easy example. The Arctic Hare is white. That's a pretty good colour for hare that lives in the Arctic to be. Does that means that if we could go back in time with a camera we would be able to take photos of Arctic Hares of every other colour in the rainbow but as we move forward through time, for obvious reasons, only the white ones survived?

We have Laburnum trees growing outside our house. I noticed yesterday that new branches always sprout from exactly between two thorns - thus the new branches are protected. Where is the feedback mechanism that taught the tree to place those thorns so optimally? The idea that this came about simply by an accident that has taken a gazziolion years to mature seems incredibly improbable to me.

Or have I misunderstood everything?

Click to expand...

Well, my first thought was to say natural selection IS the feedback mechanism, but everyone else has said it already. So I want to look at the last paragraph.

Time line: why does God working through long time lines bother you? Of course, God could change things instantaneously--no one here disputes that. By why not take gazzilions of years? God can do that too, right?

Isn't this valuation of speed something scripture itself warns us against, counselling patience because our times are not God's times?

An accident: does science say evolution is an accident or is this just an atheistic way of characterizing evolution philosophically? Let's remember that science is limited to describing the physical event. It doesn't philosophize about what lies behind the event. Is it not true that even in human history--in testimonies you have heard perhaps--that God's guiding hand often appears in the form of coincidences, "chance" meetings, delays, detours, even misfortunes, that are only seen as part of God's plan in hindsight?

I think we need to be careful about borrowing the assumptions about evolution (and nature generally) that originate in an unbeliever's worldview.

Thank you Mark, Gluadys, Papias and JVPITER for taking the time to respond to my question.
So Mark your profile list use as a YEC. Gluadys your profile lists you as a TE. JVPITER, are you a TE? And Papias it is safe to assume that you are definitely a TE?

I don't know whether I'm YEC or OEC - I can't for the life of me see where the problem is in believing that God made the earth (solar system) with built in age? Why? Because the Bible says that when God made Adam he took some dust from the earth, formed Adam and breathed life in to him. Thus Adam took his first breath as a fully formed, fully functioning adult with built-in age.

Anyway, Papias your argument seems incredibly convincing to me but at the same time sooooo improbable. It just seems at odds with logic (my own logic clearly) that such an inconceivable amount of energy should have been expended by the process of evolution for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Why do I say for no reason? Because if what you say is correct then it's all for nothing. There is no driving force behind the selection mechanism, no ultimate objective - it just is.

I'm brought to mind a DVD that I have stupidly misplaced. It was about a group of biologists who came together, some time ago now, to discuss the theory of evolution. I can't remember the details exactly - perhaps one of you has the details to hand - anyway I seem to remember that the program ended with a look at a form of bacteria and it's method of propulsion called a Flagellar (splg) Motor. They concluded that the motor itself consists of 30 (I think it was 30) distinct parts all of which are needed for it to function. And that whilst the process of evolution could preserve it (once in existence) it couldn't have done diddly to have produced it in the first place.

I remember when I watched that DVD being thoroughly convinced by the arguments therein but I have a feeling that you're now going to convince me otherwise!

MonteViste said:

I remember when I watched that DVD being thoroughly convinced by the arguments therein but I have a feeling that you're now going to convince me otherwise!

Click to expand...

I think what you say was an intelligent design argument based on the work of Michael Behe. Here is a pretty good graphical presentation of the bacteria flagellum irreducible complexity argument

cross.tv - Michael Behe Unrefuted on the Flagellum

I think this is pretty close to what you were exposed to there.

The Bacteria Flagellum

This is the group I think you are referring to:

Unlocking the Mystery of Life

You can find the entire documentary on UTube in 12 parts.

Grace and peace,
Mark

MonteViste said:

I don't know whether I'm YEC or OEC - I can't for the life of me see where the problem is in believing that God made the earth (solar system) with built in age? Why? Because the Bible says that when God made Adam he took some dust from the earth, formed Adam and breathed life in to him. Thus Adam took his first breath as a fully formed, fully functioning adult with built-in age.

Click to expand...

There's a difference between the appearance of age and the appearance of history. Did Adam have scars from falling out of a tree when he was a kid? Or memories of being on his grandpa's farm? No, because although he would have appeared aged he wouldn't have signs of having a history. The earth has signs of having a history of over 4 billion years.

Anyway, Papias your argument seems incredibly convincing to me but at the same time sooooo improbable. It just seems at odds with logic (my own logic clearly) that such an inconceivable amount of energy should have been expended by the process of evolution for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Why do I say for no reason? Because if what you say is correct then it's all for nothing. There is no driving force behind behind the selection mechanism, no ultimate objective - it just is.

Click to expand...

I think you are confusing our scientific understanding of the universe with atheism.