Creation/Evolution Fundamental Assumptions

[FrenchyBearpaw]

A scientific theory is something that can be tested, experimented, observed and so forth. The scientific method is: make a hypothesis and then test it through experiment or observation. The theory of evolution however is not observable or testable since it concerns past events. None of it was caught on camera or ever observed, just like creationism.



As interpretated by scholars who study the ancient near eastern context. Most are now dead as this interpretation was only popular in the late 19th and early 20th century (Sayce, Waddell etc) but a contemporary scholar who interprets Genesis and the 'creation' through its ANE historic context is David Rohl (Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation).

A few basic points on the 'creation account' in the ANE context -

*Adam was not the first man, but the first king (the Sumerian kingship was the oldest in the world).
*The creation of Gen. 1 is describing the Mesopotamian creation of civilization. Note for example that Gen 1. 24 translates most animals as 'livestock' or 'cattle', this is because Genesis is detailing when they were first domesticated. The creation is therefore their domestication.
*The Garden of Eden was the first Mesopotamian city.
* The serpent was a pre-Adamic snake cult (aniministic cults were prevelant during Paleolithic, Neolithic and survived into classical times).

Is it your opinion that paternity tests should not be allowed in determing who the legal father is?

 

[Research6]

As for your version of Biblical creationism, I will honestly admit I'm not familiar with it. Do you know where I can go to learn more?

I should clarify, none of this interpretation is supernatural, only historical. I view the Bible as history, not religion. Closest website to this is www historicalgenesis. com/ - the website hosts even a photo of Adam's altar or the ''tree of life'' (the Hebrew actually comes closer to 'shrine') as described in the Garden of Eden.

 

[Resha Caner]

To be honest, philosophy is not my field of expertise. I would venture an answer that we're convinced of love and other emotions because they're universal and everyone feels them. We all feel love in one form or other, even though the fact remains that it's difficult to put physical evidence for love on the table. If we were to communicate with, say, an A.I. construct, computer program, or alien intelligence with no concept of love, then we might need to start looking for physical evidence if we intend to convince them and/or teach them how to identify it, but we as humans agree among ourselves that evidence for love is largely unnecessary.

Yes, exactly. The experiences differ between us and your hypothetical alien, and so we cannot convince them of the existence of something that, to a human, is self-evident. The same is true between believer and non-believer. The difference is in our experience. I simply cannot give you a scientific accounting of all my experiences. That doesn't make them any less real.

And so I put "experiential" evidence in a different category than scientific evidence. Sometimes I will also talk about testimonial, legal, and historical evidence. IMO much of the qualitative evidence you will want to admit in support of evolution is actually what I would call historical evidence. That is why, beginning back in post #36, Research6 started talking aobut evolution as "an interpretation of prehistory." I don't know if he shares my views on evidence, but that is why I agreed with him.

I'm not really a good philosopher, so I think my ability to come up with rock-solid definitions is poor at best, but if you want to throw any examples my way I think I'd be able to do a pretty good job of telling you whether they're evidence or not.

I appeciate your honesty, but "I'll know it when I see it" is not an acceptable scientific device. One of the ways scientists try to eliminate bias is by predicting. Then, if something goes wrong, they can't amend their position to force fit a theory to the data (as often happens in Internet flame wars). So, we'll need to agree on things before they are admitted as evidence, not after. That is what makes quantification so useful.

I guess we're at odds as to what constitutes of evidence, but with that said, I was and am still keen to listen to your evidence for creationism, even if I can't guarantee I'll agree with it.

Well, my interest is the reason why we're at odds, not the evidence itself. But I think it will help advance the discussion about assumptions if I give a few examples. So, here it goes:

Based on the preceding (though incomplete) discussion about evidence, I'll tell you that I am aware of 3 basic approaches to presenting creationist "evidence." 1) Show the flaws in evolutionary conclusions drawn from the data, 2) Use the scientific method on a creationist prediction, 3) Use experiential evidence.

I'm a little rusty on some of this, so I didn't spend a lot of time on #1. Mainly because I'm afraid it would just devolve into an argument over whether my cited example is a true flaw or not (Yes it is, No it's not). But IMO some of the best arguments against evolution focus on abiogenesis. Whether you consider abiogenesis part of evolution or not, the question of how we got here is important to the overall discussion. I know one of the debates in abiogenesis is whether conditions on earth were ever suitable for some of the claimed mechanisms for jump-starting life.

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I'll give more detail on #2 - specifically species stasis. I did some digging on this because my knowledge is mainly historical and regards some of the studies done in the 19th century, which are out of date. Here is what I found (granted that it was a whirlwind tour of the subject):

Farmers and breeders have long known that attempts to improve crop yields or milk production from cows can only go so far. That seems to support the creationist claim of species stasis. So, some studies were done on the subject, and the results are part of a book published in 1960, "Introduction to Quantitative Genetics" by Falconer. Since I'm a novice, I may be misunderstanding what Falconer was saying, but it appears that he says an allele may reach either fixation or loss in any population even if mutation is present (and he uses some mathematics to back that up). The key to whether that point is reached is the size of the population. He uses some standard assumptions (note the word folks) about mutation rates and so forth, and concludes that the dividing line between populations that would evolve and those that wouldn't is about 50,000 organisms.

These results were codified in what is known as the Hardy–Weinberg principle, and they have been verified experimentally. For example, there is the fruit fly experiment of Mather & Harrison ("The Manifold Effect of Selection", Heredity, 1949) which showed that mutation caused a change in the number of chaetae that the flies possessed, but that the number never changed above or below certain limits.

So, the scientific literature supports the possibility of species stasis. However, here is what stumps me at the moment. The evolutionist will likely claim that population sizes greater than 50,000 are readily available. That may be true now, but what about in the past? If life supposedly arose from non-life, then the population obviously began below 50,000. Therefore, if evolution occurred, it needed a different mechanism than the one currently claimed to push populations above that limit. Like I said, just my own speculation that I haven't found an answer to yet. But, at the very least I think I've demonstrated that their is on-going work on species stasis. In fact, a further and more recent reference would be "Optima for Animals" by R.M. Alexander. In that book, Alexander proposes a mathematical model for evolution. At the end of the book, he talks about the difficulties with his method. He states, "The next problem, after deciding what is likely to be optimized, is to decide what structures or strategies are possible, and what constraints apply. If no such limitations were recognized it would have to be concluded that optimum structure would make bones unbreakable and without mass, and an optimum life-history would involve immortality and infinite fecundity."

It sounds to me like Alexander is saying that if evolution is to be viewed as an optimization problem, then it must have limits. He says, "Problems usually have to be posed in ways that allow only a limited range of answers." The rub, then, is determining what those limits are. With respect to that, he further states that, "Constraints are often not explicit in optimization models, but implicit in assumptions."

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So, then, we come to #3. Suppose aliens find one of our Voyager probes floating in space (hmm, wasn't that a Star Trek movie?). Alien A claims that it was intelligently designed while alien B claims it arose by natural processes. It would bolster the case of alien A if a human were to appear on the scene and say, "Yes, we designed that." But it might remain difficult for alien A to convince alien B if only he had the encounter.

Such is the nature of experiential evidence. My spiritual experiences leave me without doubt that God exists. Whether I tell them to you or not, those experiences will not be convincing. You would need to have your own experience. Yet the evidence is there.

 

[Insane_Duck]

Yes, exactly. The experiences differ between us and your hypothetical alien, and so we cannot convince them of the existence of something that, to a human, is self-evident. The same is true between believer and non-believer. The difference is in our experience. I simply cannot give you a scientific accounting of all my experiences. That doesn't make them any less real.

But you also can't expect the alien to make another decision. Making the rational choice with the evidence you have is better than guessing and guessing right. (from an intellectually honest standpoint)

So it's silly for anyone to be evangellizing on personal experience. You can just wait and hope the rest of humanity is effected in the same way you were. (odd that 77 percent of the human population disagrees with you on such a self-evident fact though)

I can posit the opposite situation. What if I had an experience that disproved God (in this scenario there is no God and my experience actually happened) and I couldn't prove it to anyone? Are you right for disbelieving me?

 

[sabercroft]

I appeciate your honesty, but "I'll know it when I see it" is not an acceptable scientific device. One of the ways scientists try to eliminate bias is by predicting. Then, if something goes wrong, they can't amend their position to force fit a theory to the data (as often happens in Internet flame wars). So, we'll need to agree on things before they are admitted as evidence, not after. That is what makes quantification so useful.

Ugh, okay. I was trying to come up with a definition, not state a theory that could be used to make predictions. I'll admit I got a little lost seeing how widely you were trying to define evidence, but I'll just say that I'm discussing in good faith here instead of trying to win a flame war, and I didn't want to have to accept a faulty, illogical conclusion at the end of it that I know is wrong just because I failed to come up with an accurate definition of evidence at the beginning.

Yes, exactly. The experiences differ between us and your hypothetical alien, and so we cannot convince them of the existence of something that, to a human, is self-evident. The same is true between believer and non-believer. The difference is in our experience. I simply cannot give you a scientific accounting of all my experiences. That doesn't make them any less real.

There are some problems with your analogy.

Humans and hypothetical aliens do not share the same morphologies, anatomies, and psychologies. On the other hand, all humans belonging to the same species (H. Sapiens) do. If Christianity is as self-evident to us as love is, then it's strange that only about 25% of the world population accepts Christianity. This lack of self-evidence among a common species that share the same anatomical, physiological, and psychological traits is anomalous, and indicates that evidence is required.

Secondly, love is extremely difficult to define, and hence prove. Christianity, on the other hand, fits squarely within a far less complex definition. Unlike love, Christianity falls neatly within a set of constant and observable parameters (i.e. if the Christian God exists and did the things described in the Bible, then we would be able to observe A, B, C, D, etc), and hence the scientific method tells us that evidence both for and against is possible. However, it's only evidence against that we've found so far, and no evidence for.

Thirdly, feelings and experience are not valid evidence for the existence of God because there's nothing to stop anyone from claiming faith and experiences to the opposite. Since these two are mutually-exclusive positions and both cannot be true at the same time, the fallibility of faith-based evidence is exposed. As an engineer I'm surprised that you can accept personal faith as evidence. I certainly hope it doesn't play a large part when you design something mission-critical.

Last, and perhaps most important, your example revolved around the existence and nature of love. It needs to be pointed out that, like love, nobody is questioning the existence and nature of religious faith, because religious faith is easily demonstrated. This forum, for example, is full of people armed with truckloads of religious faith. What people are questioning is the alleged existence of the basis for religious faith. Say you love a girl (or a guy, if you're female). Nobody is going to be inane enough to question the existence of that girl (or guy) because they can see that she or he really exists. You, on the other hand, are claiming that a completely undetectable spiritual being for whom there is a mountain of evidence against is the cause for your faith. Do you get the picture yet?

As for your arguments regarding species stasis, there are a few things to be aware of. Firstly, organisms evolve so as to improve their chances of survival. If the evolution of a specific characteristic becomes extreme enough to affect the proper functioning of other parts of the organism's anatomy and physiology, then that path of evolution becomes untenable. To provide an engineering analogy, you can only improve passenger comfort by tweaking the suspension system of a car to a certain extent. Any more than that, and you affect the ability of the tyres to properly come into contact with and grip the ground.

Secondly, the more complex and well-developed an organism is, the more difficult it is for the organism to encounter beneficial mutations that affect sweeping changes across the board. For another engineering analogy, it's inherently easier to construct the type of building you want when all you've laid are the foundations, than to modify a completely different building into the type you want without tearing down the existing building completely, although you might be able to make minor renovations to it. Keep in mind that while evolution improves chances of survival, it does not guarantee survival. That's why we see species that encounter evolutionary dead ends or go extinct completely.

Thirdly, you also need to know that there's no theoretical limit on what mutations can do. We've seen laboratory experiments that completely change an organism's metabolic pathways so that it became able to ingest and metabolize substances previously toxic to it, or, more recently, the evolution of unicellular organisms to multicellular ones. Mutation simply changes the underlying genetic code of an organism, and there's as much limit on what that can do to the organism as changing the code can do to a computer program or changing letters can do to a word. When someone tells you that this and that change cannot possibly be brought about by mutation, you need to be very careful and read closely. The issue is whether the mutation is beneficial and viable (because non-viable mutations tend to stunt or kill off the organism), and whether the sample set and observation time are sufficient.

So, then, we come to #3. Suppose aliens find one of our Voyager probes floating in space ... hmm, wasn't that a Star Trek movie. Alien A claims that it was intelligently designed while alien B claims it arose by natural processes. It would bolster the case of alien A if a human were to appear on the scene and say, "Yes, we designed that." But it might remain difficult for alien A to convince alien B of this if only he had the encounter.

Such is the nature of experiential evidence. My spiritual experiences leave me without doubt that God exists. Whether I tell them to you or not, those experiences will not be convincing. You would need to have your own experience. Yet the evidence is there.

Intelligent design is not impossible. We do it every day. The problem is that the Christian version of intelligent design comes with numerous claims that can be and have been scientifically falsified. Therein lies the crux of the issue. Science cannot prove that God doesn't exist, but what it can do is prove the Christian account of creation wrong. Very, very wrong.

 

[chris4243]

A scientific theory is something that can be tested, experimented, observed and so forth. The scientific method is: make a hypothesis and then test it through experiment or observation. The theory of evolution however is not observable or testable since it concerns past events. None of it was caught on camera or ever observed, just like creationism.

Please give even a single example of a theory that is observable without relying on past events?

 

[Nathan Poe]

Does that really matter?

As soon as someone says the G-word, the educated are trained to go to Deafcon 1.*

* I think they are, anyway. I'm not educated.

Are the uneducated good at anything but raving paranoia?

 

[AV1611VET]

Are the uneducated good at anything but raving paranoia?

Putting up with venting.

 

[VehementisDominus]

I should clarify, none of this interpretation is supernatural, only historical. I view the Bible as history, not religion. Closest website to this is www historicalgenesis. com/ - the website hosts even a photo of Adam's altar or the ''tree of life'' (the Hebrew actually comes closer to 'shrine') as described in the Garden of Eden.

So, just to check, you believe the Bible is the story of a primitive nation as viewed by the eyes of the primitive peoples of that nation, and the "supernatural" events and elements were just those primitive people's way of dealing with things they didn't understand?

Because I can get behind that as an explanation as to what the Bible is.

Primitive people using the supernatural to explain things they don't understand, where completely natural explanations were as of that time unknown to them.

 

[Insane_Duck]

Putting up with venting.

I don't even think that's true.

 

[Research6]

So, just to check, you believe the Bible is the story of a primitive nation as viewed by the eyes of the primitive peoples of that nation, and the "supernatural" events and elements were just those primitive people's way of dealing with things they didn't understand?

Because I can get behind that as an explanation as to what the Bible is.

Primitive people using the supernatural to explain things they don't understand, where completely natural explanations were as of that time unknown to them.

I don't think there is anything supernatural in the Bible. The Bible translations i use are the Ferrar Fenton and the Jefferson Bible. Most 'supernatural' elements in these translations have been removed - restoring their texts to their originals.

If you check the Hebrew or Semitic words for God, you will find elsewhere throughout scripture they are applied to mortal kings, nobles, warriors, prophets and so forth. King Saul of Israel for example is called adoni, the same word for God of Genesis, as is Joab, the commander of David's army. Furthermore in 1 Chronicles 12: 5, a hero and man of high status (again of David's army) is called baal-yah or baal-yahweh meaning ''Yah is lord''. Yet this again is the same term applied to God of Genesis. You will find the same thing with every other name or title for God - all are applied to mortals (of high status e.g. kings) not supernatural entities.

 

[sabercroft]

I don't think there is anything supernatural in the Bible.

If only the Christians could agree with you...

 

[Nathan Poe]

I don't even think that's true.

Nah, they just wait their turn.

 

[Resha Caner]

saber,

Maybe my reply was too long because you didn't address what I was trying to say. You say you are not good at philosophy, but I think some philosophy of science would help you.

 

[Resha Caner]

So it's silly for anyone to be evangellizing on personal experience. You can just wait and hope the rest of humanity is effected in the same way you were. (odd that 77 percent of the human population disagrees with you on such a self-evident fact though)

If you think I am claiming some type of exclusivity, you are wrong.

I can posit the opposite situation. What if I had an experience that disproved God (in this scenario there is no God and my experience actually happened) and I couldn't prove it to anyone? Are you right for disbelieving me?

We can posit all kinds of hypotheticals, can't we? If you've actually had such an experience and it's not too personal, I'm willing to discuss it with you. Otherwise, I think the point is irrelevant.

 

[sabercroft]

If you think I am claiming some type of exclusivity, you are wrong.

Unless you're claiming that your stance about the existence of God is merely a personal opinion, I don't see how you're not claiming exclusivity. Either God exists, or He doesn't.

 

[KCfromNC]

I'll give more detail on #2 - specifically species stasis. I did some digging on this because my knowledge is mainly historical and regards some of the studies done in the 19th century, which are out of date. Here is what I found (granted that it was a whirlwind tour of the subject):

Farmers and breeders have long known that attempts to improve crop yields or milk production from cows can only go so far.

So because people haven't been able to create dogs from cats in a few hundred years, species are fixed over the 3.5 billion year history of life? Seems a bit of a stretch.

Anyway, what's a quantifiable measure for this "only go so far" prediction? Please be specific.

These results were codified in what is known as the Hardy–Weinberg principle

What? Hardy–Weinberg principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :

The Hardy–Weinberg principle (also known by a variety of names: HWP, Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, Hardy–Weinberg Theorem, HWE, or Hardy–Weinberg law) states that both allele and genotype frequencies in a population remain constant—that is, they are in equilibrium—from generation to generation unless specific disturbing influences are introduced. Those disturbing influences include non-random mating, mutations, selection, limited population size, "overlapping generations", random genetic drift, gene flow and meiotic drive. It is important to understand that outside the lab, one or more of these "disturbing influences" are always in effect.

Re-read the last sentence. I think you're misunderstanding what population stability means.

The evolutionist will likely claim that population sizes greater than 50,000 are readily available. That may be true now, but what about in the past? If life supposedly arose from non-life, then the population obviously began below 50,000. Therefore, if evolution occurred, it needed a different mechanism than the one currently claimed to push populations above that limit.

Organisms reproduce - that's what life does. Are you objecting to the idea that populations can grow?

Such is the nature of experiential evidence. My spiritual experiences leave me without doubt that God exists. Whether I tell them to you or not, those experiences will not be convincing. You would need to have your own experience. Yet the evidence is there.

If you can't share it, it's not evidence. Otherwise you're admitting that there's equally reliable evidence that god exists, god doesn't exist, Jesus is god, Jesus was created, and Jesus was just a man. When your definition of evidence tells you that mutually exclusive facts all have solid evidence in their favor, you may need to take a look at that definition.

 

[Research6]

If only the Christians could agree with you...

The problem with Biblical creationists is that they believe in a supernatural God (which is non-observable) but at the same time claim evolution isn't factual because it can't be observed. It's always this contradiction.

The atheists/evolutionists have the same problem. Atheists don't believe in God because God is outside of science and not observable or testable, however they believe in macro-evolution which is not observable. Again, its always this contradiction. Large scale phenotypic evolution has never been observed or tested, its not science. Evolutionists only assume it occurred by extrapolating on microevolution.

 

[AV1611VET]

The problem with Biblical creationists is that they believe in a supernatural God (which is non-observable) but at the same time claim evolution isn't factual because it can't be observed.

Not this creationist -- I have a better reason than that to say evolution isn't factual.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Not this creationist -- I have a better reason than that to say evolution isn't factual.

Yes, your worship of your own ideas of the Bible.

Nobody asked, AV; nobody cares.