Evolution is an elaborate fairy tale

[Jet Black]

All we can say about such beliefs is, firstly, that they are superfluous and, secondly, that they assume the existence of the main thing we want to explain, namely, organized complexity. ~ Richard Dawkins

I fail to see how he effectively uses evolution to explain away God.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. ~ Richard Lewontin

again, this does not detract at all from a creator. It simply says "there isn't a God of the gaps"

What theistic evolutionists have failed above all to comprehend is that the conflict is not over “facts” but over ways of thinking... The specific answers they derive may or may not be reconcilable with theism, but the manner of thinking is profoundly atheistic.

no, the manner of thinking is agnostic at the most. you are trying to separate God and nature, and say that "nature = without God"

Blood spatter experts invoke the scientific method by causing blood spatter and then observing the effects. These observations are then compared with blood spatters that the expert did not personally witness. Please explain how this is connected to evolution.

retroviral insertions would be a splendid example of this. mind you, I had a funny feeling you would do this with the analogy anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Please elaborate how 'the universe is closer to a literal, unblemished word of God' than the Bible aka The Word of God.

because God created it didn't he? notice how God "spoke" and the universe came into being... in a sense, the universe is the word of God. furthermore no-one has had the ability to get their sticky fingers on it and change bits.

Please explain why your interpretation is better than mine.

This is completely irrelevant to the point I made, so I'm not going to go off topic with it. Good interpretation of the bible will lead to God.. is this correct?

 

[bevets]

Where other boys wanted to be astronauts or firemen, the young Kurt touchingly dreamed of getting a Ph.D. from Harvard and teaching science at a major university. He achieved the first part of his goal, but became increasingly uneasy as his scientific learning conflicted with his religious faith. When he could bear the strain no longer, he clinched the matter with a Bible and a pair of scissors.

As I recall 'young Kurt' was eight years old when he engaged in this exercise. Since that time he has had time to refine his 'scientific learning':

B.A. Geophysical Sciences (Majored in Geology while close to a second major in Biology), University of Chicago - 1981
M.A. Geology, Harvard University - 1984
Ph.D. Geology (Paleontology), Harvard University - 1989

 

[Pete Harcoff]

I think the point needs to be made (again) that The Theory of Evolution is independent from atheist philosophies. While there are atheists who accept the Theory of Evolution, there are also people of many other faiths (including Christianity) who do as well.

So while you might have the occational atheist who trumpets that evolution somehow explains away God, you also have plenty of Christians who believe that evolution is the process by which God has shaped life on this planet.

In fact, borrowing from a post I read by Glenn Morton (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/genesis.htm), one might argue that Genesis speaks of evolution within its passages:

Gen 1:11 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."

Gen 1:20 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven"

Gen 1:24 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

Lots of "let the earth/waters bring forth". This speaks more towards a natural process of creation than a supernatural one, if you ask me.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

As I recall 'young Kurt' was eight years old when he engaged in this exercise. Since that time he has had time to refine his 'scientific learning':

Did you happen to see the post I linked where Kurt Wise was quoted as admitting the scientific evidence favored an old Earth and universe?

 

[bevets]

bevets, to repeat a question I already asked: Have you read any books on evolutionary theory, including ones by some of the people you quote?

Yes or no will suffice.

I have read several. If you google my quotes (e.g. Dawkins or Haeckel), you will discover that several quotes can not be found on the internet. Why is this relevant? Do you have a specific argument against my quotes?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

I have read several. If you google my quotes (e.g. Dawkins or Haeckel), you will discover that several quotes can not be found on the internet. Why is this relevant? Do you have a specific argument against my quotes?

I'm just wondering if you've read the quotes in context is all. Quoting things out of context is a popular thing in creationism/evolution debates, so until I read those quotes in context, I can't address them.

Besides, as I said a couple posts earlier, atheism is a philosophy which is independent of evolutionary theory. All the quotes in the world can't get around that simple fact.

 

[Cantuar]

I'm just wondering if you've read the quotes in context is all. Quoting things out of context is a popular thing in creationism/evolution debates, so until I read those quotes in context, I can't address them.

Some of them have been provided for him in context on the Beliefnet board. Whether he's read them is another matter, of course.

 

[bevets]

I have read several. If you google my quotes (e.g. Dawkins or Haeckel), you will discover that several quotes can not be found on the internet. Why is this relevant? Do you have a specific argument against my quotes?

I'm just wondering if you've read the quotes in context is all. Quoting things out of context is a popular thing in creationism/evolution debates, so until I read those quotes in context, I can't address them.

But you are pretty sure that I have not represented them accurately? Do you assume creationists are guilty until proven innocent?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Some of them have been provided for him in context on the Beliefnet board. Whether he's read them is another matter, of course.

Since that discussion is now well over 600 posts, I'm going to spend time hunting through it.

I looked up the Dawkin's quote, however. In context, it is clear that Dawkins is stating that invoking God as a solution to the problem of the origin of complexity of life is redundant, since it doesn't address the origin of the complexity of God. In this context, it is clear that it does not say exactly what bevets wants it to say:

At first sight there is an important distinction to be made between
what might be called 'instantaneous creation' and 'guided evolution'.
Modern theologians of any sophistication have given up believing in
instantaneous creation. The evidence for some sort of evolution has
become too overwhelming. But many theologians who call themselves
evolutionists, for example the Bishop of Birmingham quoted in Chapter 2,
smuggle God in by the back door: they allow him some
sort of supervisory role over the course that evolution has taken,
either influencing key moments in evolutionary history (especially, of
course, human evolutionary history), or even meddling more
comprehensively in the day-to-day events that add up to evolutionary
change.

We cannot disprove beliefs like these, especially if it is assumed
that God took care that his interventions always closely mimicked what
would be expected from evolution by natural selection. All that we
can say about such beliefs is, firstly, that they are superfluous and,
secondly, that they assume the existence of the main thing we want to
explain, namely organized complexity. The one thing that makes
evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how organized
complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity.

If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the
organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by
guiding evolution, that deity must already have been vastly complex in
the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an
educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of
prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow
ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without
offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply
postulate the existence of life as we know it!" - Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker"

 

[Jet Black]

As I recall 'young Kurt' was eight years old when he engaged in this exercise. Since that time he has had time to refine his 'scientific learning':

B.A. Geophysical Sciences (Majored in Geology while close to a second major in Biology), University of Chicago - 1981
M.A. Geology, Harvard University - 1984
Ph.D. Geology (Paleontology), Harvard University - 1989

it doesn't sound like he was eight when he did that:

Where other boys wanted to be astronauts or firemen, the young Kurt touchingly dreamed of getting a Ph.D. from Harvard and teaching science at a major university. He achieved the first part of his goal,

i.e. he got his PhD. I suspect he was older that eight when he got his PhD

but became increasingly uneasy as his scientific learning conflicted with his religious faith.

this sounds like it was after he got his PhD.

When he could bear the strain no longer, he clinched the matter with a Bible and a pair of scissors.

again, after he got his PhD....

I don't know many eight year olds with the biblical and scientific knowledge to engage in such an endeavour really.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

But you are pretty sure that I have not represented them accurately? Do you assume creationists are guilty until proven innocent?

Well, I checked your Dawkins quote and it's pretty obvious that it doesn't say what you wanted it to say (in the context in which you quoted it).

In fact, he even says that the idea of God directing evolution cannot be disproven. So much for evolution excluding God.

(edited to add: I'd also like to point out that I disagree with Dawkins notion that theistic evolution is superfluous with respect to guided evolution. If God had specifically guided changes throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth, then I think the issue is anything BUT superfluous. In fact, I think it becomes an extremely compelling avenue of research which could consequently lead to proof of God. Mind you, IDists are trying that right now, but unfortunately the issue surrounding ID has become so politically charged, it's hard to get at any real research and data they are doing.)

 

[Cantuar]

Since that discussion is now well over 600 posts, I'm going to spend time hunting through it.

Well, this thread, which is quite a lot smaller, has a bunch of the same stuff in it - although it's in that great long thread where he claims that the quotes in context and the explanations of the problems with the quote mining weren't asked for.

 

[ardwinna]

Ever seen a human with purple eyes? Green hair? Six fingers? There's a good reason for that.

When I was a little girl, I had a good friend who had a younger sister with six fingers on each hand. She had surgery to remove them shortly before she started Kindergarten.

The condition is called polydactyly, and other species experience it, too. In fact, one of my three cats has extra toes on his front and hind feet. His front feet look like oven mitts.

 

[ardwinna]

When I was a little girl, I had a good friend who had a younger sister with six fingers on each hand. She had surgery to remove them shortly before she started Kindergarten.

What I meant to say was that she had the extra digits removed.... not all of them.

 

[Jet Black]

When I was a little girl, I had a good friend who had a younger sister with six fingers on each hand. She had surgery to remove them shortly before she started Kindergarten.

The condition is called polydactyly, and other species experience it, too. In fact, one of my three cats has extra toes on his front and hind feet. His front feet look like oven mitts.

I hear it is actually quite common in cats...

 

[revolutio]

I hear it is actually quite common in cats...

Very, I have known three or four to have it and I am rarely around cats seeing as I am allergic to them.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

I hear it is actually quite common in cats...

I have a polydactyl cat, too. His front paws look like they have thumbs.

Here's a picture: http://www.animecritic.com/_temp/mykitty.jpg

 

[Bushido216]

Please note Cantuar's astute observation in post #71. Dr. Wise has expressed allegiance to scripture, and is confident that scienece will confirm Christian doctrine.

And yet, you claim that we believe in Evolution despite all the evidence against it, and that that is wrong.

 

[bevets]

Where other boys wanted to be astronauts or firemen, the young Kurt touchingly dreamed of getting a Ph.D. from Harvard and teaching science at a major university. He achieved the first part of his goal, but became increasingly uneasy as his scientific learning conflicted with his religious faith. When he could bear the strain no longer, he clinched the matter with a Bible and a pair of scissors.

As I recall 'young Kurt' was eight years old when he engaged in this exercise. Since that time he has had time to refine his 'scientific learning'

it doesn't sound like he was eight when he did that:

i.e. he got his PhD. I suspect he was older that eight when he got his PhD
this sounds like it was after he got his PhD.
again, after he got his PhD....

I agree that the article (specifically the phrase I have underlined) is poorly worded and misleading. It is apparent that the writer did not receive the account first hand. I am SHOCKED that an evolution web site would misrepresent a creationist.

I don't know many eight year olds with the biblical and scientific knowledge to engage in such an endeavour really.

Either do I. Meet Kurt Wise.

 

[bevets]

Did you happen to see the post I linked where Kurt Wise was quoted as admitting the scientific evidence favored an old Earth and universe?

I assume you were citing this reference to a private email:

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=819576&postcount=112
Ok, I just got a email from Dr. Wise. This is what he said:
"I am a young-age creationist because the Bible indicates the universe is young. Given what we currently think we understand about the world, the majority of the scientific evidence favors an old earth and universe, not a young one. I would therefore say that anyone who claims that the earth is young for scientific evidence alone is scientifically ignorant. Thus I would suggest that the challenge you are trying to meet is unmeetable."

I count 4 sentences that have been quoted without possibility of verifying context. If you could cite a published account where Dr Wise has confessed that scientific evidence dictates an old earth, please do so. Here is the only published account I was able to find that relates to this question:

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC4W0799.pdf
INCREASING ACCEPTANCE OF GLOBAL CATASTROPHE

The buried forests at Yellowstone National Park have long been considered to be powerful evidence of tens to hundreds of thousands of years of buried forests. The long list of similarities between the “buried forests” at Mt. Saint Helens and Yellowstone suggests that perhaps the latter forests were formed in decades not millennia...

What we have learned about geologic catastrophes combined with evidence in the rocks for those catastrophes have forced rather significant changes in geologic interpretation in this century. In the first half of the century a vast percentage of the rock record was interpreted to have been formed very slowly. Due in large part to valiant struggles by individual geologists–such as the half-century struggle of J Harlan Bretz from the 1920’s on–neocatastrophism has become popular. Neocatastrophists interpret individual rock layers as due to distinct local catastrophes. Beginning in 1980 with the dinosaur/asteroid controversy, it has more recently become popular for geologists to consider not just local, but global catastrophes to account for the geologic evidence they see. One can be assured that for a community to have made such an incredible shift–in spite of the strong association which exists between catastrophism and creationism–there must be profound evidence for catastrophe throughout the geologic column.

(emphasis added)