Debate on the theory of evolution and theistic evolution

[Anthony Puccetti]

This is a continuation of the debate on the thread entitled "Is theistic evolution an oxymoron?"

Originally Posted by Anthony Puccetti
How do you know it is factual? Do you just believe whatever the scientific community says,as if it always gives logical explanations?

Lucaspa:
Facts and logical explanations are 2 different things. Facts are repeated observations. The scientific community works only with observations that are the same for everyone under approximately the same circumstances. That means you and I. If we were to look at the lithographic fossils of Archeopteryx, we would see impressions of feathers. That is a fact.

The theory of evolution is a narrative of the history of organisms,not just a collection of facts. The narrative is certainly not a repeatable observation,so by your definition of facts,it is not factual. If we are to believe in a narrative of natural history that cannot be demonstrated to have happened,it should at least be logical.

Lucaspa:
This type of observation is called "intersubjective". Science deliberately restricts itself to these types of observations. My personal experience of God is not part of science because everyone does not have it.

Science does not restrict itself to anything but naturalistic expanations.

Lucaspa:
In fact, every scientist has observations that he/she has never published because he/she did not see them again under the same circumstances. I can tell you about one of mine if you want.

Science does not limit itself to observable and repeatable phenomena. Hence quantum mechanics,quarks,string theory,Higgs field,chaos theory,the undiscovered "mechanisms" of abiogenesis theory,macro-evolution.

Lucaspa:
Now, explanations in science do not have to be logical. They only have to fit the data. Some explanations defy parts of logic. For instance, in logic there is the Law of the Excluded Middle. An entity can be either A or B, but cannot be both A and B. Well, the explanation for observations of the behavior of photons is that photons are both particle and wave, violating the Law of the Excluded Middle. Too bad for the "law" of logic. In science, observations trump everything else.

Scientific explanations had better be logical,if they are to be worthy of belief.
I don't mean academic logic,I mean explanations that make sense,where
effects are fitted to proper causes. I don't believe in the law of the excluded middle,but the observation that photons are both particle and wave,if true,would not violate the law if the wave is not a different entity than the particle.

Anthony:
The theory of evolution is not theistic evolution,and it does not become compatible with the doctrine of creation and providence just because people say "that's how God works".

Lucaspa:
The theory of evolution is agnostic. We add the "theistic" from evidence outside of science that God exists and God created.

Agnosticism is a form of atheism. If the power of God in natural history is not acknowledged where it should be acknowledged,and nature is portrayed as self-sufficiently creating organisms,this is not an acceptable view of how nature works, And it does not become true by attributing the supposed processes to God,because the processes did not happen,they were proposed
to explain everything in a naturalistic manner.

Lucaspa:
The objection to evolution by anti-evolutionists is not that it is not compatible with the doctrine of creation and providence. The objection is that evolution contradicts a literal reading of Genesis 1-3! The doctrine of creation and providence is not a literal reading of Genesis 1-3.

Anti-evolutionists don't oppose the theory just because of a literal reading of Genesis,but because it is a naturalistic theory that makes claims that cannot be demonstrated and that don't logically follow from the evidence. Many of the verses of Genesis 1-3 are literal in character anyway. There's nothing figurative or allegorical about the verses which state that God created all kinds of creatures. And since the theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the idea that God did create species individually and sustains them,it does conflict with the doctrines of creation and divine providence.

 

[elopez]

This is a continuation of the debate on the thread entitled "Is theistic evolution an oxymoron?"

The theory of evolution is a narrative of the history of organisms,not just a collection of facts. The narrative is certainly not a repeatable observation,so by your definition of facts,it is not factual. If we are to believe in a narrative of natural history that cannot be demonstrated to have happened,it should at least be logical.

After coming across this I imagine it would be hard to continue. The theory that God created the universe, earth, and all life in six days is not a repeatable observation. So as creation was not observed you still believe it happened right? So you cannot therefore say evolution cannot be adhered to because it was not observed since that is just an excuse of special pleading.

Would you agree that things we believe of the past do not have to be witnessed for them to be true? Events in the past leaves traces that remain in the present and future which is what should be studied. No one saw God create but that knowledge of the event was given to man, and that is what we go on.

 

[gluadys]

This is a continuation of the debate on the thread entitled "Is theistic evolution an oxymoron?"


The theory of evolution is a narrative of the history of organisms,not just a collection of facts. The narrative is certainly not a repeatable observation,so by your definition of facts,it is not factual. If we are to believe in a narrative of natural history that cannot be demonstrated to have happened,it should at least be logical.

No, the theory is not a narrative of natural history; it is an explanation of how that history could happen. IOW, the theory of evolution is about the mechanisms that are needed for evolution to happen. It is not tied to a particular history; if the history of evolution had been different, it would still be evolution so long as it was consistent with the possibilities inherent in the theory.

The connection of theory and history is this:

once we understand the theory of evolution---how evolution takes place, we understand its possibilities and limitations. We understand the sort of history that would be necessary if natural history were governed by a process of evolution.

Then, we can examine the remnants of actual natural history and ask: does what we know of actual natural history show that it conforms to the possibilities and limitations of an evolutionary history--or is the natural history we know of impossible to reconcile with any theoretical evolutionary history?


So far, all known natural history is very like the sort of natural history one would expect within the possibilities and limitations of evolutionary history. To scientists, the strong conformity between theoretical possibilities and actual observation is convincing evidence that the theory is correct, as far as it goes. It would take an equally convincing theory as well supported by the evidence to change that valuation.

Science does not restrict itself to anything but naturalistic expanations.

Yes, it does. But that is not to be confused with restricting oneself to belief in nothing but natural explanations. Scientists may (and many do) acknowledge the reality of what goes beyond natural possibilities. But they do restrict themselves to natural explanations in science.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

After coming across this I imagine it would be hard to continue. The theory that God created the universe, earth, and all life in six days is not a repeatable observation. So as creation was not observed you still believe it happened right? So you cannot therefore say evolution cannot be adhered to because it was not observed since that is just an excuse of special pleading.

I believe God create the universe because the universe exists,and it logically would need an omnipotent being to make it come into existence.

Would you agree that things we believe of the past do not have to be witnessed for them to be true? Events in the past leaves traces that remain in the present and future which is what should be studied. No one saw God create but that knowledge of the event was given to man, and that is what we go on.

Claims about what happened in the past don't always have to be supported by witnesses,but they should be logical. The evidence that is used to support the narrative of evolution theory does not logically add up to the
narrative.

 

[elopez]

I believe God create the universe because the universe exists,and it logically would need an omnipotent being to make it come into existence.

I have no gruff with this then, but that's not what you were saying and not what I replied to.

Claims about what happened in the past don't always have to be supported by witnesses, but they should be logical. The evidence that is used to support the narrative of evolution theory does not logically add up to the
narrative.

So you do indeed contend that claims about the past do not require direct witness account, good. Then you should realize you cannot make an argument against evolution by saying no one witnessed it because the same could be said true of creation. The only 'evidence' there is to support yec (if that's that you believe) is Genesis, which is arguably not evidence at all being that a literal interpretation is contradicting. The same is not true of evolution because there is an ample amount of evidence to support it, all of which is more logical than any 'evidence' used to support yec.

 

[Papias]

Anthony wrote:

The evidence that is used to support the narrative of evolution theory does not logically add up to the narrative.

When a creationist makes a claim about the evidence, I always wonder how familiar they actually are with that evidence. A similar discussion happened recently, where the claim was made that:

The accumulated evidence for the theory of evolution do not logically or biologically add up to the primary claims of the theory

In response to that post, in post #301 in that thread: http://www.christianforums.com/t7562094-31/#post57956455, I asked:

Papias wrote:

So it will be easy for you to list just a tiny fraction of the types of evidence, right? I'm not asking you to agree with any of it, but just to show us that you have some clue as to the types of evidence that makes practically all scientists and the Pope see evolution as "virtually certian". Listing a dozen types of evidence should be easy.

I did not see any response to show an awareness of the different types of evidence (if I missed your reply Anthony, I apologize and ask that you show me where that post is).

Anthony, would you like to back up your claim that the evidence doesn't support evolution by simply telling us what evidence you are basing your statement on?

Thanks.

In Christs love-

Papias

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

After coming across this I imagine it would be hard to continue. The theory that God created the universe, earth, and all life in six days is not a repeatable observation. So as creation was not observed you still believe it happened right?

Yes,because the universe exists,and had to have an omnipotent Creator.

So you cannot therefore say evolution cannot be adhered to because it was not observed since that is just an excuse of special pleading.

I don't reject the theory of evolution just because its claims cannot be observed,but because it is not logical either. It is made up of non sequiturs and unjustifiable assumptions. The universe could only have been brought into existence by the God of Abraham,but the evidence for the theory of evolution does not compel reason to the belief that all existing species were evolved from a common ancestor.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

So you do indeed contend that claims about the past do not require direct witness account, good. Then you should realize you cannot make an argument against evolution by saying no one witnessed it because the same could be said true of creation. The only 'evidence' there is to support yec (if that's that you believe) is Genesis, which is arguably not evidence at all being that a literal interpretation is contradicting. The same is not true of evolution because there is an ample amount of evidence to support it, all of which is more logical than any 'evidence' used to support yec.

The existence of the universe is proof of an omnipotent Creator. There is no other logical alternative,because there is nothing else that has the power to create physical things in their first instance of existing. But there is a more logical alternative to the theory of evolution,namely,that there were many
separately created species which have led to the species which exist now.
The evidence that is used to support the theory of evolution is used on the assumption that genetic and structural commonalities between species point to common ancestry,when in fact that evidence says nothing about whether different species are related by ancestry. Ancestry has to do with reproductive lineage,not just with genetic and structural traits held in common. There is no law of logic or biology to prevent different species with many commonalities from coming into existence apart from each other.
The theory of evolution only seems logical if you go along with the error that
commonalities between species point to common descent.

 

[Papias]

... Hm... another string of unsupported statements.


......still waiting for Anthony to back up his claim that the evidence doesn't support evolution by simply telling us what evidence he is basing his statement on. ........................





Papias

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

When a creationist makes a claim about the evidence, I always wonder how familiar they actually are with that evidence. A similar discussion happened recently, where the claim was made that:

"The accumulated evidence for the theory of evolution do not logically or biologically add up to the primary claims of the theory."

In response to that post, in post #301 in that thread, I asked:

I did not see any response to show an awareness of the different types of evidence (if I missed your reply Anthony, I apologize and ask that you show me where that post is).

Anthony, would you like to back up your claim that the evidence doesn't support evolution by simply telling us what evidence you are basing your statement on?

That it is impossible to demonstrate that there were ever reproductive connections between dead species,or between living and dead species,or between living species that are incapable of interbreeding. So it is impossible to demonstrate common ancestry or descent in these cases.

That commonalities between the DNA and bone structures of different species do not show reproductive connections between their lineages,and therefore it does not show common ancestry or descent.

That branching and speciation leads to sub-species with less genetic variability than the original population,which is the opposite of what would have to happen for macro-evolution to happen.

That the millions of mutations that scientists claim to have led to macro-evolution cannot be shown to have happened. They are hypothetical.

 

[Papias]

Anthony, those aren't pieces of evidence or even areas of evidence. They are simply bare assertions of your opinion, from someone that we have no reason to think even understands those areas, and hasn't even said where their degrees in Genetics, anatomy, and so on are from.

Again, what evidence are you basing your opinions on?


Thanks-

Papias

 

[artybloke]

Yes,because the universe exists,and had to have an omnipotent Creator.

To which someone will have to ask the question, Why?

Even as someone who believes in God, and in a God who creates the universe, I can see that the one does not necessarily follow from the other.

 

[Incariol]

That the millions of mutations that scientists claim to have led to macro-evolution cannot be shown to have happened. They are hypothetical.

Because this goalpost is something you arbitrarily set up. Real scientists have better things to do than kowtow to your arbitrary conditions for scientific validity.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

Anthony, those aren't pieces of evidence or even areas of evidence. They are simply bare assertions of your opinion, from someone that we have no reason to think even understands those areas, and hasn't even said where their degrees in Genetics, anatomy, and so on are from.

Again, what evidence are you basing your opinions on?

I base my assertions on my analysis of evidence and arguments that are used to support the theory of evolution. Evidence does not always speak for itself in favor of the claims of those who first present it,whether in a court of law or in science. It needs to be interpreted logically. The evidence for evolution does not logically support the theory. It is interpreted naturalistically and mechanistically,not logically.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

Because this goalpost is something you arbitrarily set up. Real scientists have better things to do than kowtow to your arbitrary conditions for scientific validity.

What goal-post? Fitting effects to proper and necessary causes? Theories should only be considered valid if they are logical.

 

[KerrMetric]

and it logically would need an omnipotent being to make it come into existence.

That is not required logically. We have to resort to special appeal.

 

[KerrMetric]

The existence of the universe is proof of an omnipotent Creator. There is no other logical alternative,because there is nothing else that has the power to create physical things in their first instance of existing.

Oh dearie me. You spout words like logical in every post it seems yet fail to adhere to the concept. What we as Christian do is to make special appeal. You are doing this but calling it by another, very misleading, name.

 

[lucaspa]

The theory of evolution is a narrative of the history of organisms,not just a collection of facts. The narrative is certainly not a repeatable observation,so by your definition of facts,it is not factual. If we are to believe in a narrative of natural history that cannot be demonstrated to have happened,it should at least be logical.

You apparently didn't look too closely as to how I defined "facts". Did you notice this sentence? "If we were to look at the lithographic fossils of Archeopteryx, we would see impressions of feathers. That is a fact." The feathers on the lithographic fossils on Archie are "repeatable observations". I never said that you have to repeat history.

We can and do study one-time events as long as those events leave us evidence we can all look at in the present. The narrative can be demonstrated to have happened because it left evidence in the present.

Think of the various CSI series on TV. They make a narrative of what happened in the past from facts. The facts (observations in the present) are used to demonstrate that the narrative happened. Evolution uses the same type of science as forensics.

Science does not restrict itself to anything but naturalistic expanations.

I was talking about observations, not "explanations". If we are going to discuss, then you need to pay attention to what I am saying. Science restricts itself to intersubjective observations.

The statement you made doens't make any sense. What does happen is that science is restricted to the "natural" component of an explanation. Christian belief is that God sustains all that is "natural". Nothing "natural" happens except by the will of God. Science can't test this supernatural component.

Science does not limit itself to observable and repeatable phenomena. Hence quantum mechanics,quarks,string theory,Higgs field,chaos theory,the undiscovered "mechanisms" of abiogenesis theory,macro-evolution.

You do realize you just contradicted yourself above, don't you?

Again, that is not what I said. I am talking about intersubjective observations. Everything you have stated involves objective, intersubjective observations.

Scientific explanations had better be logical,if they are to be worthy of belief.

Actually, that is not the among the critieria of a successful theory. This is the heart of the scientific method:
"...what we learned in school about the scientific method can be reduced to two basic principles.
"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pg. 38.

My favorite example is the dual nature of light and matter: being both particle and wave at the same time. In logic, there is the Law of the Excluded Middle. According to that logical law, something cannot be 2 different things at the same time; it must be one or the other. Our experience of the universe says that, in this case, the logic is wrong.

Also, whether you are anyone "believes" a scientific theory is irrelevant. What matters is whether the theory matches data.

I mean explanations that make sense,where effects are fitted to proper causes.

I'm sorry, but events at the quantum level are not fitted to "proper causes". In fact, many of the individual events neither make sense or are caused. For instance, take 1000 atoms of C14. All identical. In 5,280 years 500 of these atoms will decay. A "proper cause" would then say that the other 500 should decay in the next 5,280 years. But that isn't what happens. Only 250 of them decay. How did they know that not 500 should decay? Does'nt make sense, but that is what happens.

I don't believe in the law of the excluded middle

What happened to your "had better be logical" It looks like it doesn't matter if something is logical, because you will throw out logic if you want to!

Agnosticism is a form of atheism. If the power of God in natural history is not acknowledged where it should be acknowledged,and nature is portrayed as self-sufficiently creating organisms,this is not an acceptable view of how nature works,

Those 2 sentences are not connected. Huxley coined the word "agnostic" specifically NOT to be atheism. Agnostic is actually a neutral position between theism and atheism.

Now, what do you mean by "as self-sufficiently creating organisms"? Your mother got pregnant in sex by your father and you were born. Is that not an example of "self-sufficiently creating organisms"? God did not have to perform a miracle in order for you to be conceived, develop, and then be born, did He? If you think God did perform a miracle, then point out where exactly that miracle happened.

Anti-evolutionists don't oppose the theory just because of a literal reading of Genesis,but because it is a naturalistic theory that makes claims that cannot be demonstrated and that don't logically follow from the evidence.

Gravity is a "naturalistic" theory. Why don't you object to that? Electrons are a "naturalistic" theory but you don't object to that when you are typing your posts into your computer. Why not?

For you and I, evolution is simply the way God created. Just as gravity is the way God holds you and I onto the surface of the earth.

Since when did "naturalistic" = without God?

All the claims of the scientific theory of evolution follow from the evidence.

Many of the verses of Genesis 1-3 are literal in character anyway. There's nothing figurative or allegorical about the verses which state that God created all kinds of creatures.

But that is a theological statement, isn't it? "God created all kinds of creatures". Fine. God created them using evolution.

Oops. That is not how you are reading "God created all kinds of creatures", is it? You are reading it as God directly manufactured all kinds of creatures in their present form. This is what you mean by "the idea that God did create species individually"

That literal idea is contradicted by scripture. How? Because Genesis 1 has a different and contradictory method of "create species individually" than does Genesis 2. That contradiction should tell you not to read either of them literally as to the method God used to create species.

does conflict with the doctrines of creation and divine providence.

the doctrine of creation is simply that God created. It is without mechanism of creation. Evlolution is the mechanism. Divine providence is God's activity in the world. Evolution has divine providence the same way we have divine providence for gravity: God sustains all the processes involved in evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

The existence of the universe is proof of an omnipotent Creator. There is no other logical alternative,because there is nothing else that has the power to create physical things in their first instance of existing.

I'm sorry, Anthony, but there are logical alternatives that would have the power to create the universe. So there goes this proof of God. God doesn't go, just the proof. Look at this thread -- ">First Cause - Christian Forums -- and then if you want to discuss it further we can do so here.

But there is a more logical alternative to the theory of evolution,namely,that there were many separately created species which have led to the species which exist now.

You just stated evolution in a different form. Basically, what you just stated was what Darwin stated in Origin of Species:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

The evidence that is used to support the theory of evolution is used on the assumption that genetic and structural commonalities between species point to common ancestry,when in fact that evidence says nothing about whether different species are related by ancestry.

It's not an "assumption", but a conclusion. And I'm afraid the evidence does point to a conclusion of common ancestry.

Ancestry has to do with reproductive lineage,not just with genetic and structural traits held in common. There is no law of logic or biology to prevent different species with many commonalities from coming into existence apart from each other.

A reproductive lineage has the genetic and structural traits be inherited. That is the laws of inheritance nad the logic of inheritance. One of my daughters looks a lot like her mother. Doesn't logic dictate that those looks were inherited from her mother? My other daughter looks a lot like me. Again, doesn't the logic dictate that she inherited the looks from me?

As you get to the level of DNA this becomes even more apparent. Now we are looking at the sequences of bases in DNA. What you are saying is that the sequences of bases in the DNA in horses, say, would be independent of the sequence of bases in zebras, because horses and zebras did not come from a common ancestor. We can, and have, tested for that since the 1980s when the technology allowed us to cheaply and rapidly sequence large amounts of DNA. When we look at the base sequences, we find they are not independent observations, but are related by historical connections. Sorry, but this falsifies the claim of "many commonalities from coming into existence apart from each other". They didn't.

DM Hillis, Biology recapitulates phylogeny, Science (11 April) 276: 276-277, 1997.

 

[lucaspa]

That it is impossible to demonstrate that there were ever reproductive connections between dead species,or between living and dead species,or between living species that are incapable of interbreeding.

The last part we can do. And it has been done. All that you need do, Anthony, is get a single population from the wild and split it in two. One half is placed in a difference environment for many generations. The other half is placed in the same or nearly the same environment as the wild population. After the mamy generations, you check to see whether the 2 populations can interbreed with each other and whether each population can interbreed with the population still in the wild.

This has been done many times. In the experiment in the paper referened below, there were 2500 generations. (A generation for Drosophila is 1 week and the experiment went for 5 years.) At the end of the experiment there was a new species of Drosophila that could live at temperatures 10 degrees C below the original populations. There were genetic changes. In fact, the new species differed by over 3% genetically. Humans and chimps differ by about 1%.
1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980.

We can discuss other experiments.

In paleontology, some fossil records are so fine that you can see the transitional individuals from one species to another. Often the gradation is so fine that there is no chance there were separate creations. I've attached a picture of just a few of the transitional individuals between 2 species of snails. There are even transitionals in-between the ones shown!

So what you say does not exist does, in fact, exist. I don't know who it was who mislead you, but they are very bad people. Please don't be as guilty as they are in violating the 9th Commandment.