A Challenge for Anti-evolutionists

[lucaspa]

Have you ever represented anyone's position accurately? Surely you make mistakes.

You claimed we didn't have to believe the Resurrection. That's equivocatoin and dismissal. What did you think you were doing?

 

[lucaspa]

That's the real killer right there with OEC's. When all else fails, just say that Spinoza's metaphorical god is the Abrahamic God

Please give us quotes where OECers have done this. I have never seen an OEC retreat to Spinoza's idea of deity.

Instead, I have seen 3 basic scriptural arguments from OEC:
1. The "yom" in Genesis 1 represent eons of time instead of a 24 hour day.
2. There is a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 3. During that gap long periods of time passed and then God created the present plants and animals within 5 days.
3. There was a "first earth" and then God destroyed it and made a new earth in the 6 days. They use some verses from 1 or 2 Peter to rationalize this.

I mean seriously, just how much has Christianity fell into Deism?

Well, all the creationists. In the 18th and 19th century deism was very popular. Evolution ended that because it made deism untenable. Christians recognized this:

"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

Well, allow me to show how OEC's have Spinoza's god in their belief:

Spinoza philosophized that nature itself is god. Metaphorical, of course, but the junction of all things far and wide. A very atheistic concept, do not be confused by it.

OEC positions the God of Abraham into it. It is an exact symmetry behind all OEC belief, whether one realizes it or not, because you are mixing science with God, as if this is even remotely plausible or even intelligent, to be blunt. You have not only the Pentateuch, but half the Bible itself working against you. It is common ground for many who focus more on science then the Bible.

It's really not even about fitting science into the religion, but rather many are trying to fit religion into science. That was the error that lead to this ridiculous new age Christian Deism.

By all this, I am not trying to insult anyone. If anything, I am trying to dive into the real depths of the subject

 

[The Outlier]

I think there are several issues that must be cleared up in my posts, seeing as I am being misunderstood. I never doubted the faith of any Christian who believes in theistic evolution. I disagree with them. Nowhere in my posts do I accuse anyone of not being a believer.

I also would say that there are different kinds of evidence. The design in nature is more like courtroom evidence then scientific evidence. You can't find a signature on nature with specifically God's name on it, nor can you go back in time and see Him create it. You can't test it to see if it has God's DNA in it.

But as for the "there is no "not" design" argument made earlier, I would say that there are plenty of examples of "not design"- randomness and haphazardness such as the debris left after a tornado. There is no design in that. There is usually no design in the messy room of a child, nor is there design in the pattern of vomit that a sick person expells. There is as I said before very little design in the roads in Pittsburgh, nor is there design in a research paper done by a college senior who just copies his notes from someone else and puts it in a binder. Those things aren't planned. Yet in the form of nature there is order. But yes, its more like courtroom evidence then scientific evidence.

Also, when I say that evolution is the "skyhook" argument because it does not explain the origins of the universe, thats also not an accusation against anyone's faith. Its a problem with loads of "evidence" being based on a question mark. If I built a house and designed everything to hang from the roof trusses but had nothing holding up the roof trusses, then my entire design would be worthless. If evolution can't say how the original matter and energy got there, then it is just like the house suspended from a floating roof truss. I understand the sun's energy could have provided living organisms with life-giving energy but how did the sun get there in the first place? If thats not part of the evolutionary argument then why is it taught as a fact?

Thats still faith. You can't possibly check every experiment from everyone else, just like they couldn't check every experiment that they built upon.
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Now you are talking practicality. If I wanted to, had enough time, the equipment, and the training, I could. This is contrasted to Christian faith. You and I can't go to the shores of the Red Sea, lift up our arms, call upon God, and see the waters part, can we? We can't put our hands in the wounds of the risen Christ, can we? In principle, everything in science can be checked. In principle, we cannot check the things we have faith that God did, can we?

And the fact that you haven't means you trust that all is accurate that was done before you. If you did check on other people's' work you could probably find mistakes too. Plus obseving what is before you and speculating about the past are two different things. I admit that science has an explanation for many things, but it still speculates about what heppened in the past. Do you really think ALL the research evolution is based on is checked and valid?

In every experiment there are assumptions. A biological researcher at Duquesne University told me that. Without assumptions, there is no progress at all. Assumptions are faith.
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The "assumptions" in this case are that the underlying hypotheses are true. But then we end up testing those underlying hypotheses as part of the bundle we are testing. So the "assumptions" turn out not to be faith after all, but something we confirm in the process of doing the experiment.

Let's look at another example: heliocentrism. Lots of observations of the position of planets in the night sky went into heliocentrism, observations of Tycho Brahe (who had tens of thousands of such observations) and others. It's also based on the theories of planetary motion by Kepler and Newtonian mechanics. NASA has been launching planetary probes for the last 50 years or more. Every one of them has the course plotted using the theory of heliocentrism. Now, if any of the background work I describe above is wrong, any part of it, then the probes would not arrive where and when NASA calculated they should arrive. So, when the probes do follow the courses and arrive at the planets where they are supposed to arrive at, all that work was tested again.

I'm saying that sooner or later there are assumptions made and those assumptions are faith.
Yes. I'm saying that the faith is not where you say it is.

In any search for truth, we start with 2 basic assumptions:
1. I exist.
2. I am sane.

To do science we also have 5 assumptions about the universe:
1. It is rational
2. It is objective
3. It is contingent
4. It is accessible
5. It is unified.

Thats testing the present; not the past. And you likely have never been in space, so you cant' really see it for yourself. I do believe the solar system is there just like everyone else does but I have never been out in it.
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As you said before, you likely COULD test experiments done many years ago. But you haven't tested all of them- therefore there is faith there. Anything that is not observed with your own eyes is based on faith. You can't assume that if you tested everything that you would not find mistakes in research. Also, you don't just assume you exist and are sane, you assume your memory is correct, you assume that you can see the whole picture, and you assume that because something happens a few times that it will happen all the time. That may be a very reasonable assumption, but its still an assumption. Testing one piece of the big puzzle in the present is totally different than testing the whole puzzle in the past. The chain between one experiment and an entire scientific theory regarding the past is too long for me to put my faith in it.

However, what I am saying is that Christians and scientists share the assumptions. Science itself is not making any assumptions different than those Christians do. In fact, science got those 5 assumptions from Christianity as conclusions about the universe. The conclusions come from the faith that God exists, God created, and God has the characteristics we have faith that He does.

Remember, I am not the only scientist working. When we consider all the scientists working and all the fields in which they are doing research, yes, all the facts not only can be checked, but they are being checked.

So in other words they ARE based on the same faith? I addressed the "they are being checked" argument up above.

I'm not anti-science, anti-research, anti-theory, or anti-speculation. But I am saying that if scientists do not study design and assume that science is perfect without questioning it, then they can't really say that design is not evidence. It doesn't have to be scientifically testable to be legitimate evidence.
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[The Outlier]

Originally Posted by The Outlier

There is as I said before very little design in the roads in Pittsburgh, nor is there design in a research paper done by a college senior who just copies his notes from someone else and puts it in a binder.
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Waaaaaiiittttt. There is very little design in messy road systems and plagiarizing college students?

How are the roads of Pittsburgh not designed? As far as I know, whenever a road is built, it is because somebody somewhere believes that this road will make transportation easier in a city. In other words every single road in Pittsburgh was placed exactly where it is by a conscious decision of someone. You will not find a single road for which there isn't someone who can say "Yes, this was built in such-and-such a year, because I realized that people over yae needed a way to get over thae."

And how is a plagiarized college paper not designed? Do you know how we detect plagiarism? We do so by detecting low-probability events. For example, suppose I write in an essay that "the hyperventilated buffoonery of evilutionists inevitably cascades into the conclusion that they are either unmitigated geniuses or incredible dullards". What is the probability of such a sentence being arrived at independently by another writer? About zero. Therefore, it is precisely because of the sentence's low probability that plagiarism is detected.

And you think road systems and plagiarism are examples of non-design? Well, that just means:

• A process completely controlled by deliberated, rational human behavior can result in a non-designed system
• and non-designed systems can be diagnosed by the presence of low-probability events.

This is basically opposite to everything any Intelligent Design proponent has ever said about design. Do you see how scientifically useless your concept of "design" is?

The roads in Pittsburgh were put there in despiration in an environment covered in smoke from the factories. People around in the steel culture typically didn't have any idea how to get to the other parts of town and didn't care. Everything was done without planning. That doesn't mean that roads were put places unintentionally. It means they weren't really planned. It was a "just get it done today, don't worry about tomorrow" attitude. Then in the 1970s and 80's when the factories went out of the area, people realized how sucky the roads really were. Were they put there intentionally- yes. Were they planned?- not really. Some of them probably were.

As for plagiarism, a person copying someone else's work is not designing their own work.

As for me understanding the uselessness of the design argument, evidently I don't see any uselessness in it. People don't fully know how much their creator loves them until they see how much care He put into the design ofo the world. The uselessness i see is in trying to prove evolution. I have heard over and over again that the design argument doesn't work, but as of yet no one has ever proven to me why.

 

[Anthony022071]

A misconception of science that it must be done by repeating an experiment. Science works by making a hypothesis and then deducing consequences of that hypothesis. Those consequences are observations that we should see today.

Science is experimental and inductive,not just speculative and deductive. It verifies hypotheses with experimentation. it is philosophy that intellectually deduces consequences from hypotheses.

As it happens, there are several hypotheses that tested common ancestry:
1. If common ancestry is true, then living beings can be classified in a nested hierarchy. Nested hierarchies are a consequence of common ancestry or "descent with modification". As it happens, evolution passed that test. Not only that, but every measurement to put living beings in a nested hierarchy worked: morphological (Linneaus), physiological, sequences of amino acids in proteins, genetic analysis.

Species can be classified in that unnatural,arbitrary manner even without supposing common descent to be true. The shared characteristics between different species do not say there was common ancestor. Descent is a matter of reproductive lines. The same shared characteristics could have come about if there were separate ancestries,and without nearly as much modification through descent.

2. If creationism is true and God created separate basic kinds, then we should find that sequences of bases in DNA in comparable genes are independent observations.

What does this mean? It is the observer's own judgement if he says that different genetic samples have independent ancestries or if they have a common ancestry.

OTOH, if evolution is true, then those sequences should not be independent. Result: phylogenetic analyses have been done in the last 20 years when cheap and fast DNA sequencing became available. Time after time, it has been found that DNA sequences are not independent observations, but related by historical connections. And this involves DNA sequences from creatures as varied as corn, ferns, worms, insects, rats, and humans.

Scientists assume there are connections,but they have not proven them.
They are reading things into natural history that are not justifiable or necessary.

 

[spiritual warrior]

Dark lite......are you out there? Post 109.....???

 

[shernren]

Everything was done without planning. That doesn't mean that roads were put places unintentionally. It means they weren't really planned. It was a "just get it done today, don't worry about tomorrow" attitude.

Bait and switch. We're talking about design, and that was the term you used, not "planned" which neither you nor any ID proponent has ever defined in the context of evolution.

Let's look at Dembski's explanatory filter, a standard ID argument:

The key step in formulating Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is to delineate a method for detecting design. Such a method exists, and in fact, we use it implicitly all the time. The method takes the form of a three-stage Explanatory Filter. Given something we think might be designed, we refer it to the filter. If it successfully passes all three stages of the filter, then we are warranted asserting it is designed. Roughly speaking the filter asks three questions and in the following order: (1) Does a law explain it? (2) Does chance explain it? (3) Does design explain it?
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The Explanatory Filter: Dembski, William A.

Let's apply this filter to the roads of Pittsburgh.

Does a natural law explain them? Clearly not.
Does chance explain them? You yourself have admitted that every single road was the result of intentional actions of a team of volitionally free human beings. So, not either.
The only possible recourse, according to Dembski, is that they are the result of design. And yet they don't "look designed" to you.

As for plagiarism, a person copying someone else's work is not designing their own work.

Again:
Does a natural law explain the presence of plagiarized portions in an essay? No.
Does chance explain them? Again, no.
Therefore, they are the result of design. And yet they don't "look designed" to you.

As for me understanding the uselessness of the design argument, evidently I don't see any uselessness in it. People don't fully know how much their creator loves them until they see how much care He put into the design ofo the world. The uselessness i see is in trying to prove evolution. I have heard over and over again that the design argument doesn't work, but as of yet no one has ever proven to me why.

I think I just have.

Here are two exquisitely human artifacts, the roads of Pittsburgh and the plagiarized essay, that are intelligently designed according to one of the oldest ID arguments, Dembski's explanatory filter. Not only so, you yourself agree that they are the intentional result of human volitional agency.

And yet they don't "look designed" to you.

If design is something so arbitrary that two proponents of Intelligent Design can't even agree over whether something is designed or not, how can it possibly be useful in a scientific context?

 

[The Outlier]

Originally Posted by The Outlier

Everything was done without planning. That doesn't mean that roads were put places unintentionally. It means they weren't really planned. It was a "just get it done today, don't worry about tomorrow" attitude.
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Bait and switch. We're talking about design, and that was the term you used, not "planned" which neither you nor any ID proponent has ever defined in the context of evolution.

I can define design as planning. Its planning the layout and function of an idea. You're confusing a mere thought with a planned brainchild.

Let's look at Dembski's explanatory filter, a standard ID argument:

The key step in formulating Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is to delineate a method for detecting design. Such a method exists, and in fact, we use it implicitly all the time. The method takes the form of a three-stage Explanatory Filter. Given something we think might be designed, we refer it to the filter. If it successfully passes all three stages of the filter, then we are warranted asserting it is designed. Roughly speaking the filter asks three questions and in the following order: (1) Does a law explain it? (2) Does chance explain it? (3) Does design explain it?
​

The Explanatory Filter: Dembski, William A.

Let's apply this filter to the roads of Pittsburgh.

Does a natural law explain them? Clearly not.
Does chance explain them? You yourself have admitted that every single road was the result of intentional actions of a team of volitionally free human beings. So, not either.
The only possible recourse, according to Dembski, is that they are the result of design. And yet they don't "look designed" to you.

Whether natural law explains them depends on your point of view. Its natural law for species to try to survive. The pragmatic throwing together of roads so that mining could commence was based on a natural fear. They didn't put much thought into it, but just started paving roads. Thats not true design. True design is planning based on what you already know in an effort to solve a problem. The culture in western PA was like that, manily because of the coal/steel industry- it was make it up as you go. That is not really design. The design in nature has order to it. Was there any thought put into it?- sure. But designing is more than just a mere thought.

Originally Posted by The Outlier

As for me understanding the uselessness of the design argument, evidently I don't see any uselessness in it. People don't fully know how much their creator loves them until they see how much care He put into the design ofo the world. The uselessness i see is in trying to prove evolution. I have heard over and over again that the design argument doesn't work, but as of yet no one has ever proven to me why.
​

I think I just have.

Here are two exquisitely human artifacts, the roads of Pittsburgh and the plagiarized essay, that are intelligently designed according to one of the oldest ID arguments, Dembski's explanatory filter. Not only so, you yourself agree that they are the intentional result of human volitional agency.

And yet they don't "look designed" to you.

If design is something so arbitrary that two proponents of Intelligent Design can't even agree over whether something is designed or not, how can it possibly be useful in a scientific context?

They aren't designed because they aren't really planned. They are thrown together at the last minute. Remember my original point was in response to the idea that there is no "not design." I am replying by saying that there is- haphazard design. Just to eliminate some confusion-I'm not saying that just any appearance of design is evidence of a creator. I'm saying that good design (order, function) does not happen by chance. The universe (aside from how we screw it up) is very well designed, as opposed to our lazy haphazardness. Its order, not just a minimal thought process that is the basis for the design argument. Also remember that I said design is not scientific evidence for a creator. Its more like the evidence presented in court.

 

[shernren]

I have no idea where this thread was going. XD Do you mind if I reset the discussion? It'll still be something along the lines you're exploring, but I want to ask a question.

Suppose I showed you an electronic circuit that performs a particular function (specifically distinguishing between a low pitch, 1kHz signal, and a high pitch, 10kHz signal). A team of electrical engineers have examined the circuit and determined that:

• Removing any component would affect if not destroy the circuit's functioning;
• while the circuit uses conventional components, they are connected in unusual ways, so that the engineers are unable to describe how exactly the circuit works;
• nevertheless, the circuit performs the function admirably well over long time scales without becoming unstable.

Would you consider that circuit to likely be a product of deliberate design, however you may want to define that term?

 

[The Outlier]

I have no idea where this thread was going. XD Do you mind if I reset the discussion? It'll still be something along the lines you're exploring, but I want to ask a question.

Suppose I showed you an electronic circuit that performs a particular function (specifically distinguishing between a low pitch, 1kHz signal, and a high pitch, 10kHz signal). A team of electrical engineers have examined the circuit and determined that:

• Removing any component would affect if not destroy the circuit's functioning;
• while the circuit uses conventional components, they are connected in unusual ways, so that the engineers are unable to describe how exactly the circuit works;
• nevertheless, the circuit performs the function admirably well over long time scales without becoming unstable.

Would you consider that circuit to likely be a product of deliberate design, however you may want to define that term?

If it was a team of engineers that werw working together to intentionally design this circuit then yes the parts of it they intentionally designed are deliberate designs, even if they don't fully understand every aspect of it, although the "accidental" parts were not deliberate design. I remember when getting my Industrial design degree there were a few accidental good ideas, although none of them were typeforms. Obviously I have stricter and higher definitions of design than most people. But any way you look at it, you can never call an accident a design even if it has positive aspects.

The company I work for started out as a welding company that fixed mining equipment and evolved into a company that does some design of machinery. We in the engineering department are trying to move the company from being an unplanned project-based business into a company that has planned designs (products). Projects and products differer in that projects are just for one client (and often have no documentation, no real design work but just copying existing designs) and products are designs intended to be used by multiple people. And that is where I get much of my viewpoint from. Copying an existing design without changing it and without documenting anything is not design. While what you copy is a design, your copying it is you not being a designer- thats where my plagiarism example came from.

As I clarified in my last post- the roads in Pittsburgh were intentional, but thats not the same thing as planned. They didn't look at the whole picture. While it took thought to plan each road, the SYSTEM of roads was not designed because although individual streets were designed around factories or housing, the system of roads across the city was unplanned. Tourists going through there even today are advised in travel books to take public transportation. However if you visit it today you will see a very beautiful city that was largely the product of rennovations and restorations done in the 70's and 80's such as the newer bridges and tunnels.

The design in nature is perfect, minus the things we screwed up when Adam and Eve sinned. Our human designs are not perfect and many of them were just thrown together to meet a deadline.

Thats why I say the design in nature is an argument for a God. While its not a scientific argument, it is the type of argument that would be used in court.

I could discuss examples one by one if you like.

 

[shernren]

If it was a team of engineers that werw working together to intentionally design this circuit then yes the parts of it they intentionally designed are deliberate designs, even if they don't fully understand every aspect of it, although the "accidental" parts were not deliberate design.

What if the "accidental parts" work very, very well? Are you trying to say that there is some detectable difference between a designed circuit that works very well and an "accidental" circuit that works very well? (If so, I would be curious to know what it is.)

Or are you simply saying that the latter (an "accidental" circuit that works very well) simply doesn't exist? In that case, I hope you can familiarize yourself with the field of evolutionary electronics and the work of Adrian Thompson in particular.

 

[tyronem]

There are three challenges here. The second one is is exponentially more difficult than the first and the third even more so.

1.) Provide a testable hypothesis that calls into question descent with
modification from common ancestors. (The theory of evolution)

How about evolutionists provide a testable hypothesis that shows an increase of information in the Genome (not just a modification or mutation) that is most certainly required for evolution to be even close to being a worthy theory.

You are in fact mistaken in your question, Creationists believe in common descent from a common ancestor, there is just a limit. Right now Biologists who are creationists are putting together the biological pieces that make up the kinds (that are the limit).

2.) Provide a replacement hypothesis for the theory of evolution that explains current observations and makes predictions or even a single prediction for future discoveries or tests with positive results.(or even some part of current bservations, especially the observed age of the earth. Note the age of the earth is not itself a part of the theory of evolution, but an old earth is predicted by the theory of evolution.)

Again you are mistaken in your view of creationists and your question reflects this.

You assert a fallacious option that says the present is the key to a past that goes beyond what we see capable today. That is not science.

By observing the present variations in the kinds creation biologists are able to make predictions in future changes, effect genes in such a way to get a different result ( ie different breed of corn). This is a perfectly valid study for any creationist.

Please note you have made a fallacious statement in saying the "Observed age of the earth" The age of the earth has never been observed, it is held up by both highly doubtful assumptions and assumptions that can never be proven one way or the other. In fact with the amount of helium found in granite rocks alongside it's appropriate isotope decaying it gives rise that the rocks are much younger than expected because the data that is not radiometric directly contradicts radiometric dating. And we can measure non radiometric happenings much more readily in the lab (And therefore make much more accurate predictions without sitting them upon unproven hypothesis like radiometric.

3.) Do #2, while providing a hypothesis that honors the Christian God as well as or better than the theory of evolution or alternatively satisfies todays religious anti-evolutionists.

The theory of evolution as far back as the original kinds is the Creation Hypothesis, We work with what is testable, observable and repeatable (Science) today. We do not give rise to assumptions such as what evolutionists do in that the variations have been happening for millions of years right back to molecules, that in our view is entirely fallacious, can never be proven, is not observable, is not testable and certainly is not repeatable so therefore evolution when pinned to origins is not science, it is either religion or philosophy, take your pick.

The difference between a creationist and an evolutionist. The creationist will admit his position is religious, the evolutionist won't even though they both stand on the same ground of untestable, unobservable origins

 

[The Outlier]

What if the "accidental parts" work very, very well? Are you trying to say that there is some detectable difference between a designed circuit that works very well and an "accidental" circuit that works very well? (If so, I would be curious to know what it is.)

Or are you simply saying that the latter (an "accidental" circuit that works very well) simply doesn't exist? In that case, I hope you can familiarize yourself with the field of evolutionary electronics and the work of Adrian Thompson in particular.

Thanks for replying to my post. I didn't know anyone was still listening.

If something is accidentally done right in a design, of course it exists, but it still cannot be qualified as a design itself because it was not intentional. I don't rule out the involvement of chance in the origin of the universe. I rule out chance as the main origin of the universe. There are some good things that happen by chance. But in nature we see not one, two or three good designs- we see a seemingly infinate number of good designs- "good" as compared to our own capacity to create.

Understand that "good design" is a relative term, but when something is infinately complex and still works, one has to ask questions. We boast and brag about how smart we are when it comes to reproducing life by stem cell research, yet we start with existing stem cells that were not designed by us in the first place. We haven't in all our scientific research come up with a robot that can do everything a human being can do and reproduce its own design that develops and grows in size. As a designer, I can't believe that chance and trial and error are the chief origins of the universe. All we really do is copy whats already out there. The only thing we do that is original from an eternal perspective is sin, and even that was Satan's idea in the first place.

 

[Mr.Waffles]

There are three challenges here. The second one is is exponentially more difficult than the first and the third even more so. The rewards start big and also increase exponentially. To the best of my knowledge, no anti-evolutionists have really given these a serious college try, though scientists are constantly trying. You've got competition. If you accomplish any fraction of any of these your anti-evolutionary peers will reward you richly and you will make many converts. If you can supply positive results you will be amply rewarded by sicentists of all faiths.

1.) Provide a testable hypothesis that calls into question descent with
modification from common ancestors. (The theory of evolution)

The reward for meeting this challenge is scientific fame and job offers. If you carry out the test, even without positive results, your fame and fortune will grow. If you have positive results you will likely receive publication in Nature or Science, the flagship science journals. It's a bit like a musician appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. You are also going to receive job offers, acclaim and essentially rock stardom. Scientists, such as Stephen Jay Gould, have made entire careers out of attempting this with no positive results or subtly (but without luck) trying to nudge the picture of evolutionary
gradualism.

2.) Provide a replacement hypothesis for the theory of evolution that explains current observations and makes predictions or even a single prediction for future discoveries or tests with positive results.(or even some part of current bservations, especially the observed age of the earth. Note the age of the earth is not itself a part of the theory of evolution, but an old earth is predicted by the theory of evolution.)

This one is a big order and your competition is stiff. Darwins' hypothesis and the subsequent modifications (such as the modern synthesis) have currectly explained and predicted so many observations, discoveries and positive tests that this is your biggest competitor. The field is filled with competitors. Although he failed to make any correct predictions or explain many phenomena and has been thouroughly debunked on geological and other levels(as well as having been shown to be unbiblical) Morris's revival of a long dead timeline from the 7th Day Adventists in "The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Implications" gained him acclaim and
sold very well. Biologists of all types are seeking this prize. The reward for
providing even a partial replacement or modification for the theory of evolution the yeilds positive results is undying fame. Slight modifications will causeyour name and hypothesis to be learned by every freshman biology student. Areplacement would eclipse Darwin and launch you into the type of undying fame of Einstein.

3.) Do #2, while providing a hypothesis that honors the Christian God as well as or better than the theory of evolution or alternatively satisfies todays religious anti-evolutionists.

In either of these cases, you would attain not only the top peir of scientific stardom and rewards, but would also eclipse Origen, Augustine, Luther andpossibly even Paul as the preeminent theologian and church leader. I would most probably become your follower as would essentially all Christians working in science and a host of thers.

Go forth! And, good luck.

Right off the bat, you have it wrong. We are not required a replacement theory in order to analyze/critique the one in place.

 

[JCFantasy23]

MOD HAT ON

Thread has gone a clean-up. Please remember not to flame other members, question their Christianity, use profanity or bypass the profanity filter, or go off topic. Thank you

MOD HAT OFF
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[Zeena]

A Challenge for Anti-evolutionists

I'm not ANTI-evolutionist. but I do not believe that mankind is decending from anything other than mankind, so I hope this will suffice.

There are three challenges here. The second one is is exponentially more difficult than the first and the third even more so. The rewards start big and also increase exponentially. To the best of my knowledge, no anti-evolutionists have really given these a serious college try, though scientists are constantly trying. You've got competition. If you accomplish any fraction of any of these your anti-evolutionary peers will reward you richly and you will make many converts. If you can supply positive results you will be amply rewarded by sicentists of all faiths.

REally, I could care less about any rewards that man can offer me, I'm just after my Father Heart!

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

1.) Provide a testable hypothesis that calls into question descent with
modification from common ancestors. (The theory of evolution)

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

While I can concurr we all share common ancenstry, where is there any proof of modification? We have no ground to stand on less we include the theories of men. Not to say that rationalization is wrong, but rather, we have solid archaelogical proof that mankind has not evolved, namely NONE! Nor do we hold any empirical evidence to say, with certainty, that any 'speciation' has occured.

The reward for meeting this challenge is scientific fame and job offers. If you carry out the test, even without positive results, your fame and fortune will grow. If you have positive results you will likely receive publication in Nature or Science, the flagship science journals. It's a bit like a musician appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. You are also going to receive job offers, acclaim and essentially rock stardom. Scientists, such as Stephen Jay Gould, have made entire careers out of attempting this with no positive results or subtly (but without luck) trying to nudge the picture of evolutionary
gradualism.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

2.) Provide a replacement hypothesis for the theory of evolution that explains current observations and makes predictions or even a single prediction for future discoveries or tests with positive results.(or even some part of current bservations, especially the observed age of the earth. Note the age of the earth is not itself a part of the theory of evolution, but an old earth is predicted by the theory of evolution.)

God never says how old the earth is, nor man, for that matter, specifically, throughout the body of Scripture. Though, through a process of elimination, we can assertain, with some degree of certainty, that mankind if aproxamately 6 or 7 thousand years old through the genologies afforded us in the Scripture. This leaves very little room for any 'evolution', which is hypothosized to take X (to the infinity) amount of years to ocurr.

Not only so, but man has always been referred to as man, thoughout his 'generations'. Man was never anything BUT.

Therefore I predict, with certainty, that human DNA will not change over the course of it's generations. Human beings will always be human beings.

This one is a big order and your competition is stiff. Darwins' hypothesis and the subsequent modifications (such as the modern synthesis) have currectly explained and predicted so many observations, discoveries and positive tests that this is your biggest competitor. The field is filled with competitors. Although he failed to make any correct predictions or explain many phenomena and has been thouroughly debunked on geological and other levels (as well as having been shown to be unbiblical) Morris's revival of a long dead timeline from the 7th Day Adventists in "The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Implications" gained him acclaim and
sold very well. Biologists of all types are seeking this prize. The reward for
providing even a partial replacement or modification for the theory of evolution the yeilds positive results is undying fame. Slight modifications will causeyour name and hypothesis to be learned by every freshman biology student. Areplacement would eclipse Darwin and launch you into the type of undying fame of Einstein.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

3.) Do #2, while providing a hypothesis that honors the Christian God as well as or better than the theory of evolution or alternatively satisfies todays religious anti-evolutionists.

I am that I am.

In either of these cases, you would attain not only the top peir of scientific stardom and rewards, but would also eclipse Origen, Augustine, Luther andpossibly even Paul as the preeminent theologian and church leader. I would most probably become your follower as would essentially all Christians working in science and a host of thers.

Go forth! And, good luck.

John 6:27
Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

 

[Zeena]

Proof that common decent is false has been around since the beginning of humanity. Information cannot be created through random processes because language is an arbitrary convention and laws of physics are incapable of making arbitrary decision. If I were to make up my own language but not tell anyone about it, then it would be impossible to for anyone other than me to know it's meaning because it's completely arbitrary. Studying the laws of physics would not help you decipher my language one bit, because laws of physics have nothing to do with arbitrary decisions.

And here I reasoned that 'common decent' was a literal term

Can't scientists name things as they really ARE nowadays? :o

 

[tyronem]

I'm not ANTI-evolutionist. but I do not believe that mankind is decending from anything other than mankind, so I hope this will suffice.

REally, I could care less about any rewards that man can offer me, I'm just after my Father Heart!

Loved the post

 

[shernren]

Thanks for replying to my post. I didn't know anyone was still listening.

If something is accidentally done right in a design, of course it exists, but it still cannot be qualified as a design itself because it was not intentional. I don't rule out the involvement of chance in the origin of the universe. I rule out chance as the main origin of the universe. There are some good things that happen by chance. But in nature we see not one, two or three good designs- we see a seemingly infinate number of good designs- "good" as compared to our own capacity to create.

Understand that "good design" is a relative term, but when something is infinately complex and still works, one has to ask questions. We boast and brag about how smart we are when it comes to reproducing life by stem cell research, yet we start with existing stem cells that were not designed by us in the first place. We haven't in all our scientific research come up with a robot that can do everything a human being can do and reproduce its own design that develops and grows in size. As a designer, I can't believe that chance and trial and error are the chief origins of the universe. All we really do is copy whats already out there. The only thing we do that is original from an eternal perspective is sin, and even that was Satan's idea in the first place.

Whoa! Hold your horses! Are we talking about the origins of the universe, or about life, or about biodiversity (the many different kinds of life)?

Firstly, I believe that all three were designed by God. By "design" I mean that before any of these things had come to be, they were first conceptualized and constructed in the mind of God, and they have no feature or function that was not first foreseen by Him.

But, you know, I design many things by the power of my mind, but that doesn't mean I build them by the power of my mind. I may build a table (which I myself have designed!) with a hammer and nails, instead of with telekinesis. Is the table still designed? Yes. Did I build it with proximate tools? Yes.

So the things God has designed, He may have designed to be built using proximate tools, i.e. scientifically-understandable physical or biological processes.

Now I have no idea what physical process could be used to build a universe. So if you say that it was built directly by the command of God, without any mechanism, then I'll happily say amen to that. And we still don't have a very good idea what physical processes could be used to build life. So if you were to say that that, too, was built directly without any intervening physical process, I wouldn't try to prove you wrong, though I would prefer to say that the jury is out for now.

But the many different forms of life! Now there we have a physical and biological process that is easily understood, namely evolution. So why should I not say that God designed the diversity of life to be built by evolutionary means? That does not make the diversity of life un-designed, any more than a table becomes un-designed simply because I built it with hammer and nails rather than poofing a blueprint into existence.

The question, then, is merely this: whether evolution can in fact do what it is claimed to do. And here again I would say that evolutionary electronics are a very important example of the kind of thing that evolution can accomplish. Again, I would recommend that you familiarize yourself with the work of Adrian Thompson.