An Eastern Orthodox perspective on evolution

[Chalnoth]

Evolution across the species barrier does not provide strong support for Darwin's general theory of evolution, that all species share a common ancestor. One would need to take the small change we observe in the present and extrapolate it into the future.

No. The fact that all of life fits into a nested hierarchy provides strong evidence of universal common descent. The genetic evidence of this is particularly strong.

 

[Edx]

Evolution across the species barrier does not provide strong support for Darwin's general theory of evolution, that all species share a common ancestor.

What barrier? You also implied there was 2 types of speciation, but there is only 1. Linnaean classifications of ranks and genera are arbitary.

 

[Punchy]

What barrier? You also implied there was 2 types of speciation, but there is only 1.

Have we observed one genus evolving into another? No, of course not. This is why the scientific method does not apply to universal common descent, it cannot be directly observed, and neither can it be replicated by experiment. Based on what we actually observe, one might as well conclude that there are limits to evolutionary change.

Even if UCD were true, that would not leave Darwinian evolution as the only likely possibility. Why not saltation instead of gradualism? Looking at the pace of the fossil record, why not?

 

[Edx]

Have we observed one genus evolving into another? No, of course not.

I just told you linnaean ranks are arbitary. There is only 1 kind of specation, and evolution theory never said anything different. One genus doesnt evolve into another. This is why the linnaean system is outdated and cladistics a better means of classification, because the linnaean system doesnt take into account how evolution actually works and leads to misunderstandings like you show here.

 

[Chalnoth]

This is why the scientific method does not apply to universal common descent, it cannot be directly observed, and neither can it be replicated by experiment.

Apparently you misunderstand the scientific method. The important aspect is not whether one can observe every step in a process, but whether or not it is falsifiable. Common descent can, in principle, be falsified, therefore the scientific method can be used.

 

[Punchy]

The important aspect is not whether one can observe every step in a process, but whether or not it is falsifiable.

What you seem to be saying is that it doesn't matter whether a scientific theory is demonstrable, as long as it isn't disproved. That sounds like a religious argument.

How does the scientific method apply to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis? How is evolution a more reasonable, well-evidenced position than saltation?

I don't claim to understand all the mysteries involved in God's creative work. Therefore, I will not make an argument against evolution, other than pointing out that our available evidence for evolution may be insufficient or flawed, and that our reasoning may be fallacious and limited. As I've stated before, scientific objectivity is a myth.

 

[truth above all else]

Apparently you misunderstand the scientific method. The important aspect is not whether one can observe every step in a process, but whether or not it is falsifiable. Common descent can, in principle, be falsified, therefore the scientific method can be used.

common descent never exposes itself to falsification by predicting the outcome of a daring experiment, on the contrary common descenters have made their theory so flexible that everything counts as confirmation when searching only for confirming examples.
Scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it.. "the wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right" , the pride of a discoverer or of a practitioner must defend a theory with every weapon at his disposal because professional reputations are at stake; fear leads such people to embrace any device that preserves their theories from falsification.

 

[Baggins]

common descent never exposes itself to falsification by predicting the outcome of a daring experiment, on the contrary common descenters have made their theory so flexible that everything counts as confirmation when searching only for confirming examples.
Scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it.. "the wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right" , the pride of a discoverer or of a practitioner must defend a theory with every weapon at his disposal because professional reputations are at stake; fear leads such people to embrace any device that preserves their theories from falsification.

Every time an animal genome is sequenced common descent could be flasified.

If they sequenced a bat genome and found it was more like a bird genome than a mouse genome that would falsify common descent.

That good enough for you, .looks fairly robust, scientific and repeatable to me.

 

[Punchy]

If they sequenced a bat genome and found it was more like a bird genome than a mouse genome that would falsify common descent.

Isn't it expected that animals with similar bodies would have similar genes? That does not, in and of itself, verify common descent.

 

[Chalnoth]

common descent never exposes itself to falsification by predicting the outcome of a daring experiment, on the contrary common descenters have made their theory so flexible that everything counts as confirmation when searching only for confirming examples.

Yeah, if only that were true. Here's just one type of experiment that could have falsified evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses

If the ERV's hadn't formed a nested hierarchy, particularly in the Lebedev et al. (2000) paper, common descent would have been falsified.

Scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it..

This portrays an amazing ignorance of science. Tell me, if this were true, how did special relativity come about as a theory? Special relativity did, after all, contest traditional scientific thought on the nature of our universe.

The simple fact that science changes over time demonstrates that you are entirely wrong in your assertion that scientists protect theories.

"the wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right" , the pride of a discoverer or of a practitioner must defend a theory with every weapon at his disposal because professional reputations are at stake; fear leads such people to embrace any device that preserves their theories from falsification.

Falsification is the driver which moves science forward. Scientists crave to falsify theories.

Now, are you going to try to back up these unfounded accusations or apologize?

 

[Baggins]

Isn't it expected that animals with similar bodies would have similar genes? That does not, in and of itself, verify common descent.

Yes so you would expect bats and birds to be more closely related than bats and whales.

But they aren't and common descent predicts that whereas common sense doesn't.

Good science; isn't it

 

[truth above all else]

Every time an animal genome is sequenced common descent could be flasified.

If they sequenced a bat genome and found it was more like a bird genome than a mouse genome that would falsify common descent.

That good enough for you, .looks fairly robust, scientific and repeatable to me.

i'm not overly excited by your experimental method,in any case the pattern of relationship, including the genetic code does imply an element of commonality. We can only conclude that it is unlikely that life evolved by chance on many different occasions; common descent is a hypothesis, not a fact, no matter how appealing it appears to a materialist. As a hypothesis it deserves attention, or in other words , we should test it rigorously. "confirmations should count, only if they are the result of risky predictions"

 

[Punchy]

Yes so you would expect bats and birds to be more closely related than bats and whales.

They could be related by common design rather than common descent.

 

[Punchy]

The book provides an Eastern Orthodox exlanation of creation and evolution from the perspective of an actual scientist:

Beauty and Unity in Creation: The Evolution of Life
by Gayle E Woloschak

Format: Soft Bound

Description:
With insight into science and scientific approaches, Beauty and Unity in Creation brings the beauty of nature in focus, putting an Orthodox perspective on scientific exploration. As the author relates scientific facts into meaning, she cultivates a correct attitude toward scientific knowledge: we are reminded that any real truth abides in the Truth. While exploring the subject of evolution from an Orthodox perspective, this book actually locates the place of man in the universe and defines man's relationship with the rest of the living world.
http://www.light-n-life.com/shopping/order_product.asp?ProductNum=BEAU367

Peace.

 

[Chalnoth]

They could be related by common design rather than common descent.

But common descent forbids many conceivable forms of life. Common design does not. For example, common descent forbids unicorns (properties of birds and mammals together in one animal, and six limbs on a species with tetrapod characteristics). With design there is no reason to forbid any conceivable creature. Therefore common descent, being potentially falsifiable and yet not falsified, is the vastly better theory.

 

[truth above all else]

Now, are you going to try to back up these unfounded accusations or apologize?

apologize ? , surely you cant be serious , special relativity does not belong in the same realm as common descent, one is fantastically insightful and requires tremendous intelligence to appreciate, the other appears as an ideology requiring constant protection from rational criticism.

 

[Punchy]

Therefore common descent, being potentially falsifiable and yet not falsified, is the vastly better theory.

Without positive evidence for either, they would be equally valid. Furthermore, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Even if UCD were true, that would not prove naturalism.

 

[Chalnoth]

What you seem to be saying is that it doesn't matter whether a scientific theory is demonstrable, as long as it isn't disproved. That sounds like a religious argument.

No. The important aspects are both that it isn't disproved, and that it can, in principle, be disproved.

How does the scientific method apply to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis? How is evolution a more reasonable, well-evidenced position than saltation?

Saltation requires a mechanism (sudden change) which has never been observed. The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis could be disproved quite easily, in principle, making it a good scientific theory.

 

[Punchy]

This is a much different Orthodox Christian perspective on evolution:

Does "creation" imply that "evolution" did not occur?

The fact of evolution is one thing, theories explaining how evolution took place are quite another. Often people confuse the two and speak of both as if
they were one. Life on earth climbed by steps from inferior creatures to superior ones. This is evolution, and this is fact. This Moses presents in Chapter 1 of Genesis. Now, the mechanism of this development in time is, for the most part, still a speculation of theories, and here many discussions and controversies may exist. While many have pointed to "survival of the
fittest" as the way in which minor mutations are selected for, no one can explain the mechanism required for the multiple and concerted (often required
in one generation - lest they be fatal) changes which must take place for *speciation* to occur. Genes are changing. New genes are created. God does
not work like a potter: He has His own ways.
Genesis does not attempt to explain the mechanism of evolution. Genesis is neither a manual on Astronomy nor a textbook on Zoology. Modern science uses
different words to describe the same events which were described in Holy Scripture more than three thousand years ago: Life began in the ocean from
the first "day" of creation. It developed in the oceans during the entirety of the long period which in scientific terms is called the Paleozoic era.
Plants covered the land as soon as land appeared, in the third "day" of creation. Land remained for a long time covered with plants and woods, (with
[invertebrate] insects which are not mentioned in Genesis, but) without reptiles, birds or mammals. In the fifth "day", lung fishes crept onto the
shore and their descendants were the amphibious reptiles. Reptiles developed into great dimensions, the so-called dinosaurs, and also the flying reptiles
which like fish had teeth. All these animals of the fifth "day" were inferior animals in many aspects, but especially from the point of view of intelligence and by the fact that they were unable to develop their offspring in their body. Animals which had this capacity were born on land only in the sixth "day" of creation, in the Cenozoic era. In the same era, reptiles and
birds were developed further and became as we know them today.

Genesis teaches us that God gave to creation a development, in time, from the simple to the complex, from the inferior to the superior, that He did not
create the world instantaneously but in six consecutive eras of perfecting, the most perfect being those he created the last day.
The six "days" were not needed by God but were needed by creation itself. Time was a part of
creation - its fourth dimension. Creation cannot be conceived without time
and time needs movement and development. This, however, should not be taken
as a limit on God's power. We have examples of God instantaneous creation
(eyes for the born blind [John 9:1-41]) and instantaneous destruction
(withered fig tree [Matthew 21:18-22]).

In [Genesis 1:31] we read: "Then God saw everything that He had made, and
indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day."
The above verse should not be taken to mean that "At the end of the sixth
day, God saw everything to be very good", rather it should be taken as to
mean that "When God saw everything to be very good, the sixth day (or epoch)
was over." In other words, God allowed His creation to perfect, hence evolve!
Moreover, in God's perfection, He gave all the creatures the ability to
perfect themselves according to their environments. Isn't this perfection in
its fullest?

One very important fact which we usually do not consider sufficiently is the
absolute kinship of all material creation - the intimate relation that exists
throughout all living and inanimate creatures. This is a universal reality,
as important as evolution itself, belonging to inanimate matter as well as
to living creatures.

Therefore, we should be open to the possibility that evolution is the process
God, the Creator, may have used to bring life and mind into being. St. Basil
writes: Our astonishment over supremely great phenomenon is not diminished
when we have discovered the mechanism by which any of these marvelous things
is brought to pass." It is written in Holy Scripture that God "hath given
men science that He might be glorified in His marvelous works" Wisdom of
[Sirach 38:6]. If one were asked to make an abridgement of all contemporary
scientific knowledge concerning the history of creation, so that one page
could contain it, could anything better the first page of Holy Scripture?
http://www.coptic.net/lessons/ReligionAndScience.txt

 

[Tiberius]

Before we proceed any further, let us define exactly what is meant by evolution. I am not referring to the natural process whereby the characteristics of species are changed and adapted to the environments (micro evolution). I am, rather, referring to the theory according to which all life on earth evolved in a completely random process from the chance self-creation of living cells from a "pre-biotic soup" of elements at the dawn of the earth's history (macro evolution).

So the only way they can make their point is to redefine evolution. I can prove faeries exist, if I redefine faeries to include televisions.

Fallacy: Argumentum ad populum
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/popular.html

Fallacy: Appeal to Authority
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html

No. It is not Argumentum ad populum unless the commonness of the argument is the only reason for it. By this logic, the belief that the Earth is roughly spherical is Argumentum ad populum as well.

it is not an appeal to authority either, because the argument is valid due to evidence. It is the evidence which leads to the conclusion, not the people who tell us what the conclusion is.

it is not appeal to tradition either. The belief that evolution is correct is not held just because it's always been believed. Scientific theories like this are constantly being tested.