How an Evangelical Creationist Accepted Evolution

[AV1611VET]

However, Evolution has been observed in the lab......thousands of times.

Micro or macro?

 

[Astrophile]

I frankly could not give less of a crap about Leonard Susskind and Martin Reese; this is the first time I think I have even seen those names.

Martin Rees (note the name, no final 'e') (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the author of more than 500 research papers, was the Plumian Professor at Cambridge, was President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1992-94), President of the Royal Society (2005-10), and has been Astronomer Royal since 1995, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees . Asteroid 4587 is named after him.

Rather oddly for somebody that BobRyan describes as an atheist, he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2011; this prize is awarded to a person who 'has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize .

 

[PsychoSarah]

Micro or macro?

Both, why not look up examples in lizards and birds?

 

[PsychoSarah]

"probably didn't"??

That is pretty funny - because "evolution probably didn't happen at all"

As your own Isaac Asimov notes "the evolution from gas to human brain requires a massive DECREASE in entropy" over time.

And of course there are those who would argue that it is a massive decrease at the "local area" that is "ALL of Planet EARTH"!!l

However "imagining" that gas and dust contain inherent properties to eventually "self organize" into a human brain -- into Einstein -- is the mythology of blind faith evolutionism.


Colin Patterson (Senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and author of the Museum’s general text on evolution) in a talk given at the American Museum of Natural History 1981

--------------------- Patterson die-hard evolutionist and atheist said -

“Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural history and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said “I know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school”


"...I'm speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it's true to say that I know nothing whatever about either...One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let's call it non-evolutionary , was last year I had a sudden realization.

"For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff fortwenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. "That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long...

It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school, and perhaps that's all we know about it...

about eighteen months ago...I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way."
==================================

As frank as that particular atheist scientist is on the subject - apparently there is at least one evangelical willing to leap right off a cliff in service to blind-faith-evolutionism -- "no matter what".

But I find it "instructive" that most evangelicals don't rush off that cliff so easily.

Because as we all know, what goes for 30+ years ago still counts today. Also, claiming to know anything for absolute certain in science is to willingly lie; nothing is 100% certain in science by definition.

Hence why I don't make absolute statements. I have seen a decent amount of evidence that has lead me to conclude that eukaryotes evolving directly from prokaryotes is unlikely, but it is quite possible that I am incorrect. That possibility could be less than .00000001%, but for me to be honest, no matter how low the chances I have of being wrong, I still have to account for it. I wouldn't advise getting hung up on the semantics; they are more of a courtesy than an indication of significant uncertainty.

Most evangelicals do not leave their faith because they are firmly indoctrinated into it as children. It is not because their belief is justified by evidence. To be blunt, most people do not change religious beliefs throughout their lives, with atheists having a relatively high frequency of it, seeing as many atheists were once theists, and quite a few become theists later in life. I myself am a life-long atheist thus far.

 

[BobRyan]

Isaac Asimov characterized evolution as an increase in entropy. I have the book on my shelf where he says that.

Merely living causes entropy to increase. So a vast history of living things means a vast history of increased entropy,

True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases. This is true with ice melting and it is true with ice freezing.

Asimov writes:
You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has
Steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate , more orderly , over the billions of years of the planet’s
existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells,
worms, vertebrates , mammals , finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most
complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?
-- Isaac Asimov ,In the game of energy and thermodynamics, you can’t even break even, Smithsonian,August1970,p6.

Nothing in thermodynamics prohibits an increase in order and organization as long as there is a greater increase in disorder that is made to happen somewhere else.

That is pure fiction.

Not one single science experiment happens in the lab where the 'excuse' for claiming that "dirt self assembled into a rabbit" as part of the experiment, is that "a bomb exploded on the moon at the same time".

Those kinds of "happy fictions" are the realm of blind faith evolutionism but are not "science".

The "compensation" that is required to preserve entropy has to take place in the local environment as an exchange because it is science fact that EVERY reaction exhibits an INCREASE in entropy when the local environment is taken into account. No "Bombs on the moon" -- "Dog ate my homework" red herrings allowed in actual science and observations in nature.

Many Evangelicals are aware of such "basics" and therefore tend not to leap off the cliff of blind-faith-evolutionism.

 

[BobRyan]

Ancient quote-mine. Colin Patterson has since explained and repudiated the statements.

Not even once did he repudiate the quote of him. Rather he argues that it is "Verbatim"

To quote:

"I was too naive and foolish to guess what might happen: the talk was taped by a creationist who passed the tape to Luther Sunderland... Since, in my view, the tape was obtained unethically, I asked Sunderland to stop circulating the transcipt, but of course to no effect. There is not much point in my going through the article point by point. I was putting a case for discussion, as I thought off the record, and was speaking only about systematics, a specialized field. I do not support the creationist movement in any way, and in particular I am opposed to their efforts to modify school curricula. In short the article does not fairly represent my views.​

Details matter. Patterson is not "refuting that verbatim quote" right off the audio tape -- rather he is whining that it "got out" to non-evols.


So then -- y'wanna try again?

 

[The Barbarian]

True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

Evolution, however, is an observed phenomenon, and evolutionary theory best explains it. "Evolutionism", to be precise, is a creationist strawman.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases.

This morning, as I was going to work, I noted this decrease in entropy:

Not long ago, it was mostly carbon dioxide and minerals. So how did that happen? Well, it has to do with the Earth decreasing in entropy (with a corresponding increase in entropy on the Sun).

The "compensation" that is required to preserve entropy has to take place in the local environment as an exchange because it is science fact that EVERY reaction exhibits an INCREASE in entropy when the local environment is taken into account.

The solar system is gaining entropy, but because of the Sun's radiation, Earth is still losing entropy. I don't think you know what "entropy" actually means. What do you think it means?

That's not a rhetorical question. Boltzmann, who was perhaps the most influential scientist in establishing the science of thermodynamics, was a Darwinian. What do you suppose he knew about thermodynamics that you don't?

 

[AV1611VET]

However, Evolution has been observed in the lab......thousands of times.

Micro or macro?

Both, why not look up examples in lizards and birds?

Macroevolution has been observed in the lab thousands of times, has it?

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases. This is true with ice melting and it is true with ice freezing.

Asimov writes:
You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has
Steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate , more orderly , over the billions of years of the planet’s
existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells,
worms, vertebrates , mammals , finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most
complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?
-- Isaac Asimov ,In the game of energy and thermodynamics, you can’t even break even, Smithsonian,August1970,p6.

Typical creationist quote mining. Isaac asked the question, only to answer it in the very same document. Do you know what he answered? Probably not. It wouldn't do to reveal the answer . . .

That is pure fiction.

Not one single science experiment happens in the lab where the 'excuse' for claiming that "dirt self assembled into a rabbit" as part of the experiment, is that "a bomb exploded on the moon at the same time".

Typical creationist misunderstanding. Typical creationist straw manning.

In the meantime, you have a refrigerator in your kitchen that is cooling your food. That is a decrease in the entropy of your food. It does this consistently over long times. By exporting the heat from the food into the room along with an increase amount of heat added to the mix from the cooling apparatus. Decreased entropy where you want it at the sacrifice of increased entropy outside the refrigerator.

The "compensation" that is required to preserve entropy has to take place in the local environment as an exchange because it is science fact that EVERY reaction exhibits an INCREASE in entropy when the local environment is taken into account. No "Bombs on the moon" -- "Dog ate my homework" red herrings allowed in actual science and observations in nature.

Many Evangelicals are aware of such "basics" and therefore tend not to leap off the cliff of blind-faith-evolutionism.

Many Evangelicals post such nonsense, not knowing any better.

Please explain to me what is forbidden from happening by the laws of entropy in the standard evolution steps below.

a) Reproduction of generation after generation.
b) Random mutations that every once in a while happen to be beneficial in terms of reproduction
c) Following generations have individuals that die off with the bad ones, prosper with the good ones.
d) Over time the bad mutations die off due to (c) and the good mutations build up due to (c)
e) this happens over and over

 

[PsychoSarah]

Macroevolution has been observed in the lab thousands of times, has it?

Thousands? Depends on what you count. They used an isolated island for the birds. These people, such dedication, caught every bird on the island, and tagged them, and proceeded to tag every bird born on that island for more than a decade. The island is too far away from the mainland now for outside birds to reach it, but if such a bird did, they would immediately know, as it wouldn't be tagged.

Every trait of those birds was recorded, trends marked year by year.

 

[The Cadet]

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases.

Details matter.

So does context. The quote is accurate. But then again, I can quote The Bible as saying "There is no god", so clearly simply quoting someone accurately is not necessarily enough to suss out the meaning of the quote. The man explicitly and directly does not agree with you. He explicitly and directly rejects your interpretation of his words.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html

That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.​

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Evolution, however, is an observed phenomenon, and evolutionary theory best explains it. "Evolutionism", to be precise, is a creationist strawman.



This morning, as I was going to work, I noted this decrease in entropy:

Not long ago, it was mostly carbon dioxide and minerals. So how did that happen? Well, it has to do with the Earth decreasing in entropy (with a corresponding increase in entropy on the Sun).



The solar system is gaining entropy, but because of the Sun's radiation, Earth is still losing entropy. I don't think you know what "entropy" actually means. What do you think it means?

That's not a rhetorical question. Boltzmann, who was perhaps the most influential scientist in establishing the science of thermodynamics, was a Darwinian. What do you suppose he knew about thermodynamics that you don't?

Well, basically, the sun actually acts to increase the entropy on earth, and the entropy of the earth is decreased by the radiation of the heat that otherwise builds up on earth into space. So the outgoing entropy is greater than the incoming entropy from the sun, and sure enough, entropy in the universe increases that way. The amount of entropy on earth is roughly maintained about the same, with allowance for patterns such as life to come along.

An interesting situation way out there in outer space is that the entropy in an average square light year of space is getting less. Why? Because the universe is expanding. It expands faster than the building up of entropy from the radiation of the stars.

 

[Gene2memE]

True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases. This is true with ice melting and it is true with ice freezing.

Asimov writes:
You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has
Steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate , more orderly , over the billions of years of the planet’s
existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells,
worms, vertebrates , mammals , finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most
complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?
-- Isaac Asimov ,In the game of energy and thermodynamics, you can’t even break even, Smithsonian,August1970,p6.

I have a real problem with this citation, as I simply can't find the reference except in creationist sources. It also reminds me of the Darwin quotemine about the eye. I suspect that Mr Asimov was about to give an answer to the question he posed. A writer of his calibre simply doesn't leave a question like that hanging.

The citation seems to have originated with Henry Morris in the early 1990s. It's generally given as: Isaac Asimov, “In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can't Even Break Even,” Journal of Smithsonian Institute (June 1970), also given as the "Smithsonian Institute Journal" and the Smithsonian Institution Journal". Its also given as 'Smithsonian'.

There is no 'Journal of Smithsonian Institute' or any variation on that theme that I can find. There was a monthly Smithsonian Magazine that started publication in April 1970, but I can find no electronic copies of it. The Smithsonian has physical copies in its archives, but I'm in Australia and cant seem to make it to Washington right now.

Publication dates are also inconsistent. Primarily its given as June 1970, but it also pops up as August 1970.

Location cited is also inconsistent, with the same quote attributed to page 4, page 6, page 7, page 9 and page 11.

The fact that this quote floated up about 1993 or 1994, a couple of years after Asimov's death, seems double suspicious to me.

 

[Gene2memE]

Ok, after spending much too long on this, I've managed to find out that the article is in one of Asimov's essay collections: 'Today and Tomorrow And ...' which was printed in 1973 and reprinted in 1975.

I still can't find it online. There wouldn't be a chance that anyone here has a copy?

I have also found back issues of the Smithsonian Magazine, but the June and August copies are $45-50 each, and I'm not investing that sort of cash on a creationist quote-mining exercise.

 

[46AND2]

True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases. This is true with ice melting and it is true with ice freezing.

Asimov writes:
You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has
Steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate , more orderly , over the billions of years of the planet’s
existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells,
worms, vertebrates , mammals , finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most
complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?
-- Isaac Asimov ,In the game of energy and thermodynamics, you can’t even break even, Smithsonian,August1970,p6.



That is pure fiction.

Not one single science experiment happens in the lab where the 'excuse' for claiming that "dirt self assembled into a rabbit" as part of the experiment, is that "a bomb exploded on the moon at the same time".

Those kinds of "happy fictions" are the realm of blind faith evolutionism but are not "science".

The "compensation" that is required to preserve entropy has to take place in the local environment as an exchange because it is science fact that EVERY reaction exhibits an INCREASE in entropy when the local environment is taken into account. No "Bombs on the moon" -- "Dog ate my homework" red herrings allowed in actual science and observations in nature.

Many Evangelicals are aware of such "basics" and therefore tend not to leap off the cliff of blind-faith-evolutionism.

In addition to the refrigerator example already given, you do realize, don't you, that what you are arguing means that a human (or any species for that matter) couldn't go from zygote to adulthood? I think it's more likely that you really don't understand the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[BobRyan]

In addition to the refrigerator example already given, you do realize, don't you, that what you are arguing means that a human (or any species for that matter) couldn't go from zygote to adulthood?

Why not?

does anyone in the "real world" argue that from conception to adulthood we have such a "VAST descrease in entropy" (to quote Asimov on another story) that we need to "appeal to the SUN" to make the chemical equations balance with entropy taken into consideration??

Seriously - that is where evolutionism wants to fall on its sword??

I think it's more likely that you really don't understand the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[BobRyan]

BobRyan said: ↑
True. But that would be "science" and "observed fact" --

Evolutionism is fiction.

So we expect Asimov to claim the exact opposite when it comes to blind faith evolutionism EVEN though "actual science" tells us that in EVERY reaction if you take the immediate environment and all the reactants - entropy always increases. This is true with ice melting and it is true with ice freezing.

Asimov writes:
You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception [to the second law]. Life on earth has
Steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate , more orderly , over the billions of years of the planet’s
existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells,
worms, vertebrates , mammals , finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most
complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease in entropy) have taken place?
-- Isaac Asimov ,In the game of energy and thermodynamics, you can’t even break even, Smithsonian,August1970,p6.

In that article Asimov "appeals to the sun god" to bail blind faith evolutionism out by promoting a lame argument of the form "there is a lot of entropy over there on the sun" - so that indeed a pile of dust just may "turn into a rabbit" because a "bomb blows up on the moon" (or in this case fusion reaction took place on the sun)

I have a real problem with this citation, as I simply can't find the reference except in creationist sources.

How "odd" that atheists are not promoting it. Surely if atheists promoted it -we could all accept the citation.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Evolution, however, is an observed phenomenon, and evolutionary theory best explains it.

So then you are familiar with the concept of a "circular argument" -- thanks for pointing that one out for us.

Our atheist friend "Carl Popper" pointed that out to us already - blind faith evolutionism is a "tautology". Ok so that is the nice way to talk about a circular argument.


Karl Popper (philosopher of science) wrote that Darwinism is not really a scientific theory because natural selection is an all purpose explanation which can account for anything, and which therefore explains nothing. When attacked by evolutionism’s devotees for saying what he said, Popper wrote in his own defense:

“some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave the most offspring leave the most offspring” citing Fisher, Haldane, Simpson and others. (A Pocket Popper (1983) p242

Following this, journal of Nature came out with an article titled “How True is the Theory of Evolution?” in which the editors interpreted Karl Popper as having said that Darwinism is “both metaphysical and unfalsifiable” and then confessed that “This is technically correct ” (Nature: Vol 290. p 75)

And then later tried to recover by adding the lame observation “the theory of evolution is not entirely without empirical support”.

=================================

Many Evangelicals are aware of such "basics" and therefore tend not to leap off the cliff of blind-faith-evolutionism.

 

[BobRyan]

. The quote is accurate. But then again, I can quote The Bible as saying "There is no god", so clearly simply quoting someone accurately is not necessarily enough to suss out the meaning of the quote.

Patterson never said anything about the meaning of the quote being incorrect - in fact Sunderland never argues that Patterson is anything other than an atheist blind-faith-evolutionist. He merely points out that even among that group - a drop of honesty can be found on some details.

The man explicitly and directly does not agree with you.

Does not agree with me 'about what' - that I have claimed for Patterson??

As we all know - your point has no fact to go with it.

He explicitly and directly rejects your interpretation of his words.

What "exactly" did I "interpret" -- please quote my "interpretation" of Patterson that PATTERSON mentions as being wrong.

Here again.. crickets...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html

That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists. The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group. I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolutionism and creationism"; fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.​

That is not Patterson refuting his own verbatim quote - that is Patterson trying to back-pedal and isolate the damage it does to "just systematics" in the "house of cards" we know as blind-faith-evolutionism. And of course damage to systematics cannot help but damage the argument for other "cards" in that house of cards. Show me evolution without systematics and I will show you Aesop's fables.

If on the other hand you can find one shred of a quote from Patterson arguing that blind faith evolutionism does not actually need biological systematics to be shown as "science fact" -- feel free to re-imagine it for us.

 

[BobRyan]

The solar system is gaining entropy, but because of the Sun's radiation, Earth is still losing entropy.

Can you show even one reaction on earth that takes into account it's immediate local surrounding that does NOT exhibit an INCREASE in entropy??

Hint: there is not ONE for which science says you have to leave planet earth and factor in a fusion reaction on the sun - to see that entropy increases. As I said -- this is true for ice melting and it is true for ice freezing.

Many Evangelicals already know these basics -- and hence they do not tend to leap off the cliff into blind-faith-evolutionism.