Scientific definitions of "evolution"....

Stephen3141 · Mar 15, 2023

As the core intelligent Design authors point out, "evolution" as used by the hard sciences is based on random mutation.

In original Darwinism, mutation was taken to be happening in the whole biological organism.
In Neo-Darwinism, mutation was taken to happen in the DNA of biological organisms.

Both versions of "evolution" also include natural selection, of the most survivable organisms. (This is in one sense, an unfalsifiable concept. Whatever organisms survive, are said to be the most fit to survive.)

The arguments of the core Intelligent Design authors, is that randomness is not strong enough to produce the complex information that we see in biological organisms. and especially in DNA patterns, and molecular machines. This is a probabilistic argument, based on available resources.

I point out this dependency on randomness, because probability theory (and Computer science) uses the analysis of the power of randomness, to delineate what is probable, and what is not probable, and what is computable (in algorithms), and what is not computable.

Other definitions of "evolution" are not what the hard sciences are formally using.

There are all sorts of people discussing "evolution" as if it is an undefined process of how something, somehow, changes. But the scientific definition of evolution is based on randomness.

As an after-comment, required Christian doctrine (such as the Nicene Creed) requires only that we believe in God, maker of the heavens and the earth. There are no core Christian doctrines that require us to believe that a specific hard scientific model of "evolution" is true (that is, HOW God created the heavens and the earth). Before about 1900 (and Darwin's theory), we do not find Western Christians worried about HOW God created the heavens and the earth. It was not a core topic in Christian discussion. I suggest that modern Christians should return to that position.

As an after-comment, all the core Intelligent Design authors hold to an old earth model.

d taylor · Mar 15, 2023

-

They should go back further than that, back to God's literal described creation in Genesis 1 and other parts of The Bible.

trophy33 · Mar 15, 2023

Young Earth Creationism was a Seventh Day Adventist thing, they managed to spread it into various evangelical circles in the USA during the 19th and 20th century. The majority of YEC websites and other materials are theirs, people do not know that.

They were not too successful outside of the USA, though. Therefore the YEC clash with scientific theories is quite a specific USA cultural issue/problem, virtually non-existent in Europe, Canada, South America or Russia.

eleos1954 · Mar 16, 2023

Stephen3141 said:
As the core intelligent Design authors point out, "evolution" as used by the hard sciences is based on random mutation.

In original Darwinism, mutation was taken to be happening in the whole biological organism.
In Neo-Darwinism, mutation was taken to happen in the DNA of biological organisms.

Both versions of "evolution" also include natural selection, of the most survivable organisms. (This is in one sense, an unfalsifiable concept. Whatever organisms survive, are said to be the most fit to survive.)

The arguments of the core Intelligent Design authors, is that randomness is not strong enough to produce the complex information that we see in biological organisms. and especially in DNA patterns, and molecular machines. This is a probabilistic argument, based on available resources.

I point out this dependency on randomness, because probability theory (and Computer science) uses the analysis of the power of randomness, to delineate what is probable, and what is not probable, and what is computable (in algorithms), and what is not computable.

Other definitions of "evolution" are not what the hard sciences are formally using.

There are all sorts of people discussing "evolution" as if it is an undefined process of how something, somehow, changes. But the scientific definition of evolution is based on randomness.

As an after-comment, required Christian doctrine (such as the Nicene Creed) requires only that we believe in God, maker of the heavens and the earth. There are no core Christian doctrines that require us to believe that a specific hard scientific model of "evolution" is true (that is, HOW God created the heavens and the earth). Before about 1900 (and Darwin's theory), we do not find Western Christians worried about HOW God created the heavens and the earth. It was not a core topic in Christian discussion. I suggest that modern Christians should return to that position.

As an after-comment, all the core Intelligent Design authors hold to an old earth model.

If one dismisses creation as described in Genesis then they are denying the creator and the power there of. We were created in the image
of God ..... not animals.

Evolution is based on happen chance.

Halbhh · Mar 16, 2023

eleos1954 said:
Evolution is based on happen chance.

Interesting though to consider: a believer that believes God created all that is then believes that God Himself made this very Universe and all the physics it has...

See what that means? --> God as Creator means that any 'chance' that happens is also for a believer God's design operating as He intended, to accomplish what He set it out to do.

So, when a butterfly darts left instead of right, and the tiny whiff of wind pushes some rising air or such and that veers into a turbulence and causes a tiny rotation, but that rotation then naturally grows due to an updraft or whatever. and that helps cause rain on this spot instead of some other place....quenching the thirst of thirsty plants and animals at that spot......... -- that's 'chance' operating as God designed it to operate.....

So, we should reconsider what it is we are calling "chance", right?....

Sometimes I try to point out to people that the idea that any evolution (whatever it might have been) and creation aren't even unalike... -- Evolution and Creation are the same thing -- unless we literally expect to see God to have to bodily appear and push on things to move them around (as we might have to do, being limited beings) instead of using His more subtle and wonderful ability....

The whole debate on evolution vs creation is entirely manufactured out of nothing, but disbelief. It's an anti-faith idea that evolution must not be God at work....It's an anti-faith idea invented by someone wishing to make up a way to try to get some Christian to doubt God by pointing at facts in nature of whatever kind, as if God didn't make that very Nature and all that it does...

Don't accept that premise!!!!

See? Don't even fall for that debate at all. There's no debate, just rhetoric someone make up to add onto one of the natural sciences in order to spin it and add in a non science idea that what is natural cannot be of God....to make people doubt God. We don't have to help people doubt God, and should not fall for this false debate of Nature vs God.
So, never argue about evolution as if evolution or any other thing in Nature could disprove God -- because if you do, you'd be accidentally helping propagate that false idea.

Any evolution that happened is God's, and fits perfectly well Genesis 1.

It's not even a debate, if we believe in God.

Halbhh · Mar 17, 2023

Stephen3141 said:
As the core intelligent Design authors point out, "evolution" as used by the hard sciences is based on random mutation.

In original Darwinism, mutation was taken to be happening in the whole biological organism.
In Neo-Darwinism, mutation was taken to happen in the DNA of biological organisms.

Both versions of "evolution" also include natural selection, of the most survivable organisms. (This is in one sense, an unfalsifiable concept. Whatever organisms survive, are said to be the most fit to survive.)

The arguments of the core Intelligent Design authors, is that randomness is not strong enough to produce the complex information that we see in biological organisms. and especially in DNA patterns, and molecular machines. This is a probabilistic argument, based on available resources.

I point out this dependency on randomness, because probability theory (and Computer science) uses the analysis of the power of randomness, to delineate what is probable, and what is not probable, and what is computable (in algorithms), and what is not computable.

Other definitions of "evolution" are not what the hard sciences are formally using.

There are all sorts of people discussing "evolution" as if it is an undefined process of how something, somehow, changes. But the scientific definition of evolution is based on randomness.

As an after-comment, required Christian doctrine (such as the Nicene Creed) requires only that we believe in God, maker of the heavens and the earth. There are no core Christian doctrines that require us to believe that a specific hard scientific model of "evolution" is true (that is, HOW God created the heavens and the earth). Before about 1900 (and Darwin's theory), we do not find Western Christians worried about HOW God created the heavens and the earth. It was not a core topic in Christian discussion. I suggest that modern Christians should return to that position.

As an after-comment, all the core Intelligent Design authors hold to an old earth model.

God having literally created this Universe, means of course He created the laws of nature that operate, what is called "physics".

And, since any operation/process/event in Nature, including of course all aspects, what might seem 'random chance' etc., is of course just physics in action...

Just nature operating.

To a believer that believes God created this Universe (raises hand), then it follows whatever happens in nature is already by belief (you can see) of course God's design at work doing what He set it out to do.

Nature is literally doing what He made it to do.

Does that make sense? please ask questions if you like, I'm not ideological on it, and very happy to discuss it at any length (also I don't need help on understanding physics stuff like Quantum Mechanics, etc., as I have a background in physics, and have long followed research news, etc., but what I'm pointing out doesn't rely on understanding Quantum Mechanics or Bell Test Experiments, etc.)

On a related topic, the way we measure the distance to nearby stars distance is by parallax, which in recent decades has been also refined to be more far reaching using the Hubble space telescope.

It's now accurate out to about 10,000 light years distance.

Can you see the implication?

Having personally done the classic rotating mirror measuring of the speed of light in air myself, personally having measured the speed to be about 300,000 km/second, literally with my own hands and eyes and a laser, rotating mirror, beam splitting prism, light interrupter, tape measure and a calculator.... And doing all the measurement and calculation myself.

And also we have confirmations that the speed of light is also the same far out in space from our probes like the Voyager probes that have now gone vastly far past Pluto's orbit (and also additional confirmations of the constant speed of light far away in other methods)....

So, the unambiguous implication is of course that background stars that do not have detectable parallax motion during Earth's annual orbit about the sun must be more distant than 10,000 light years (else they'd have parallax motion also like nearby stars do....) and therefore the light from those stars that have no parallax motion that is arriving to our telescopes is older than 10,000 years.

And that relies basically on just trigonometry alone.

No theory needed.

It's just pure and simple trigonometry, like you learned in high school.

Ergo, of course our galaxy and the Universe are far older than 10,000 years old, etc.

So, it's just observational, like seeing that the moon orbits the Earth is observationally true -- we can see that all young Earth theories are false, simply by looking visually at stars with telescopes and using trigonometry.

God created all that exists, but it's far older than 10,000 years.

sfs · Mar 17, 2023

Stephen3141 said:
As the core intelligent Design authors point out, "evolution" as used by the hard sciences is based on random mutation.

'Evolution' as currently used in biology includes any process that changes the genetic composition of a population over time. The description of naturally occurring mutation includes random mutations (in a rather peculiar sense of 'random') but randomness is not, strictly speaking, required for evolution to occur.

Stephen3141 said:
(This is in one sense, an unfalsifiable concept. Whatever organisms survive, are said to be the most fit to survive.)

That's not correct. The most fit frequently don't survive. In fact, a new, fitter mutation fails to survive the great majority of the time. And there are definitely tests to distinguish between success because of selection and success by chance.

Mark Quayle · Mar 29, 2023

Stephen3141 said:
As the core intelligent Design authors point out, "evolution" as used by the hard sciences is based on random mutation.

eleos1954 said:
If one dismisses creation as described in Genesis then they are denying the creator and the power there of. We were created in the image
of God ..... not animals.

Evolution is based on happen chance.

As several evolutionists I have dealt with are quick to point out, they don't actually believe anything is actually random or by chance. But they have only said so because they know I will tell them that there is no such thing as random or chance. "Random" and "chance" are only terminology humans use to mean, they don't know the reasons a thing comes to pass, or they don't care to take the enormous effort to delineate the number of causes that produce a result.

eleos1954 · Mar 30, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
As several evolutionists I have dealt with are quick to point out, they don't actually believe anything is actually random or by chance. But they have only said so because they know I will tell them that there is no such thing as random or chance. "Random" and "chance" are only terminology humans use to mean, they don't know the reasons a thing comes to pass, or they don't care to take the enormous effort to delineate the number of causes that produce a result.

There's information collected and then there are various interpretations of the data collected ... and one chooses to believe whatever interpretation.

Mark Quayle · Mar 30, 2023

eleos1954 said:
There's information collected and then there are various interpretations of the data collected ... and one chooses to believe whatever interpretation.

Of course! But how does that deal with what I said? Those I am referring to have chosen an "out" after saying things happen by chance or happen randomly. Those who stand by the terminology, "randomly", or "by chance", may even believe in the notion that chance can determine an outcome, but all they really mean are what the others realize they mean —that they simply do not know the cause.

sfs · Mar 30, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
"Random" and "chance" are only terminology humans use to mean, they don't know the reasons a thing comes to pass, or they don't care to take the enormous effort to delineate the number of causes that produce a result.

In the context of evolution and 'random mutations', 'random' means a little more. It means that mutations happen without regard to their effect on the fitness of an organism; there is no mechanism that let's an organism know which mutations would be useful under current conditions.

Mark Quayle · Mar 30, 2023

sfs said:
In the context of evolution and 'random mutations', 'random' means a little more. It means that mutations happen without regard to their effect on the fitness of an organism; there is no mechanism that let's an organism know which mutations would be useful under current conditions.

Ok. Good point. 'Random' is still misleading there, but, ok. Don't know if they just lack a more suitable word, or what. But the readers of such writers might gather that the mutations occur randomly, which they do not. They just are, as you said, merely occurring without regard to their effect.

Halbhh · Mar 30, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
Ok. Good point. 'Random' is still misleading there, but, ok. Don't know if they just lack a more suitable word,

It's an amazingly wonderful 'random' ( ;-) ) process in its.. outcomes

Something you both might love like me:

sfs said:
In the context of evolution and 'random mutations', 'random' means a little more. It means that mutations happen without regard to their effect on the fitness of an organism; there is no mechanism that let's an organism know which mutations would be useful under current conditions.

Diamond7 · Mar 31, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
they don't actually believe anything is actually random or by chance.

Some things are beyond their ability to do the math. Usually become of complexity. It is amazing how much is done with fifth and eighth-grade math. There are limitless opportunities for people who can actually function at an 11th-grade level. The Amish quit school in the eighth grade. So as carpenters, they are pretty primitive.

Mark Quayle · Mar 31, 2023

Diamond7 said:
Some things are beyond their ability to do the math. Usually become of complexity. It is amazing how much is done with fifth and eighth-grade math. There are limitless opportunities for people who can actually function at an 11th-grade level. The Amish quit school in the eighth grade. So as carpenters, they are pretty primitive.

I live in Amish country. They are not as primitive as some people suppose. They certainly aren't stupid. From what I have seen, their 8th grade is better than many people's 12fth. They mostly just hold to certain rules, culturally, as to what they allow themselves to do and not do. For example, one welding/ machine shop I know has all the electrical equipment one would expect, but no electric service. Instead, it has a huge diesel generator, but it is only for work and doesn't serve their beautiful residence. On construction sites, they have to hire someone to bring them to work and take them home every day, but they can operate all the equipment anyone else does. And, btw, their carpentry skills are as good or better than anyone else's.

Diamond7 · Mar 31, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
I live in Amish country.

I sold out of an Amish flea market for over 20 years. So I know the Amish and Mennonites quite well. Both of my brothers work at the local Children's hospital so they are well aware of the time of diseases that are associated with the Amish people.

Stephen3141 · Dec 17, 2023

d taylor said:
-

They should go back further than that, back to God's literal described creation in Genesis 1 and other parts of The Bible.

The goal of the Intelligent Design researchers, is to critique the current
SCIENTIFIC theory of evolution. The creation account in Genesis, is NOT the
current scientific theory of evolution.

Secondly, the goal of the Intelligent Design researchers is to use the
formal logic, and the discussions of philosophy (also using formal
logic), to demonstrate the credibility of an intelligent designer of
this universe. (Quoting the creation account from Genesis, is VERY
DIFFERENT from scientifically demonstrating the reasonableness
of an intelligent designer, creating the physical universe.)

Those who argue that the Intelligent Design authors should go back to the
Genesis account of creation, are missing the point of the ID authors.

Stephen3141 · Dec 17, 2023

eleos1954 said:
If one dismisses creation as described in Genesis then they are denying the creator and the power there of. We were created in the image
of God ..... not animals.

Evolution is based on happen chance.

I'm not denying that God created the universe.

What we are discussing, is HOW God created the universe.

Stephen3141 · Dec 17, 2023

Halbhh said:
God having literally created this Universe, means of course He created the laws of nature that operate, what is called "physics".

And, since any operation/process/event in Nature, including of course all aspects, what might seem 'random chance' etc., is of course just physics in action...

Just nature operating.

To a believer that believes God created this Universe (raises hand), then it follows whatever happens in nature is already by belief (you can see) of course God's design at work doing what He set it out to do.

Nature is literally doing what He made it to do.

Does that make sense? please ask questions if you like, I'm not ideological on it, and very happy to discuss it at any length (also I don't need help on understanding physics stuff like Quantum Mechanics, etc., as I have a background in physics, and have long followed research news, etc., but what I'm pointing out doesn't rely on understanding Quantum Mechanics or Bell Test Experiments, etc.)

On a related topic, the way we measure the distance to nearby stars distance is by parallax, which in recent decades has been also refined to be more far reaching using the Hubble space telescope.

It's now accurate out to about 10,000 light years distance.

Can you see the implication?

Having personally done the classic rotating mirror measuring of the speed of light in air myself, personally having measured the speed to be about 300,000 km/second, literally with my own hands and eyes and a laser, rotating mirror, beam splitting prism, light interrupter, tape measure and a calculator.... And doing all the measurement and calculation myself.

And also we have confirmations that the speed of light is also the same far out in space from our probes like the Voyager probes that have now gone vastly far past Pluto's orbit (and also additional confirmations of the constant speed of light far away in other methods)....

So, the unambiguous implication is of course that background stars that do not have detectable parallax motion during Earth's annual orbit about the sun must be more distant than 10,000 light years (else they'd have parallax motion also like nearby stars do....) and therefore the light from those stars that have no parallax motion that is arriving to our telescopes is older than 10,000 years.

And that relies basically on just trigonometry alone.

No theory needed.

It's just pure and simple trigonometry, like you learned in high school.

Ergo, of course our galaxy and the Universe are far older than 10,000 years old, etc.

So, it's just observational, like seeing that the moon orbits the Earth is observationally true -- we can see that all young Earth theories are false, simply by looking visually at stars with telescopes and using trigonometry.

God created all that exists, but it's far older than 10,000 years.

When I refer to "evolution", I am referring to modern scientific theories of evolution.
One can discuss them, without addressing many of the topics that you bring up.

Apparently, you think that I am defending Neo-Darwinism?
I am not.

Stephen3141 · Dec 17, 2023

Mark Quayle said:
As several evolutionists I have dealt with are quick to point out, they don't actually believe anything is actually random or by chance. But they have only said so because they know I will tell them that there is no such thing as random or chance. "Random" and "chance" are only terminology humans use to mean, they don't know the reasons a thing comes to pass, or they don't care to take the enormous effort to delineate the number of causes that produce a result.

I would disagree with your use of "randomness".

In picking a winner for the Mega lottery, a random number generator
(in software) would be used. Each lotto number, has an equal probability
to be chosen. So we can compute the "odds" of any one being chosen.

As a biological chemist (in the ID movement) such as Michael Behe would
point out, "randomness" in chemistry involves probabilities of a chemical
entity coming about, given the probabilities of the chemical subcomponents
of the entity, happening together. "Randomness", does not mean that all
chemical reactions have the same probability.

This is a scientific definition of "randomness", which follows what we would
call "the laws of nature".

I have no idea what definition of randomness, you are using.
I think that you are confusing "randomness", with "without design".
As the ID writers use the term, randomness is a mathematical
concept that is based on prior probabilities. And prior probabilities
of an outcome, depend on what sort of event you are talking about,
and what the components of that event are.

Scientific definitions of "evolution"....

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

God is Love

Everything You say is Life to me

Everything You say is Life to me

Senior Member

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist

God is Love

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist

Senior Member

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist

Everything You say is Life to me

YEC, OEC, GAP, TE - Dispensationalist.

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist

YEC, OEC, GAP, TE - Dispensationalist.

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads