Is human the end of evolution?

[shernren]

Good try. However, the analogy is wrong, and it should look like this:

The lottery pool is 10 million, but the winner actually won $10^30. It is nothing but a miracle. Your lottery example only apply to any particular species in the evolution of other animals, not to human.

Either I can show you the formal mathematics behind Bayesian analysis, or I can demonstrate this with a simple analogy.

Suppose I tell you that I won the lottery. I can show you the winning ticket. However, you know that there were a thousand people in the running for the lottery.

Suppose you tell me: "The chances of you winning were one in a thousand. That is such a small chance. Therefore you can't possibly have won."

That line of reasoning is absurd, isn't it?

Now jack it up. Suppose that instead of one thousand, the lottery actually had ten thousand participants. I have the winning ticket; but you protest that since my chances of winning are one in ten thousand, I couldn't possibly have won.

Isn't it still absurd? Push it up.

If my chances of winning were one in a million, and I held the winning ticket, would be absurd to argue that I hadn't won?
What if the chances were one in one billion?
One in one trillion? (There are only six billion people on the planet; to make the odds that high, suppose everybody else has bought thousands of tickets and I had bought only one.)
One in one quadrillion?
... One in 10^30?

Whatever my odds were prior to buying the ticket, once I can actually show you the winning ticket, is it not absurd to say that I haven't won?

(I know what you're trying to get at; but I want you to refine your own thinking processes instead of me telling you what's wrong with your phrasing, because that way you gain the most. Think for yourself!)

 

[Assyrian]

Yes, I am still quite excited in using this argument. It is incredible that we are looking at the same statistical fact, but have an entirely opposite understanding. Nobody convinced me yet (to the slightest degree) that my illustration missed the point. Unlike other arguments that each side may have some solid foothold to base on, or have some confused area in the middle, this one is nearly black and white. One has to be (very very most likely) wrong.

I suggest find a good book on statistics and give it a read.

Good try. However, the analogy is wrong, and it should look like this:

The lottery pool is 10 million, but the winner actually won $10^30. It is nothing but a miracle. Your lottery example only apply to any particular species in the evolution of other animals, not to human.

How big does a lottery have to be before it is impossible for anyone to win it. You think a lottery with 10 million entrants can have a random winner, but if there were 7 billion entrants would you tell the winner it was a supernatural work of God? How big does a lottery have to be before there are no winners?

The 10^30 is looking at the volume of the universe, yet there is no question we are clearly here out of that 10^30 cubic light years. Surely you don't argue the universe is much smaller so we can exist? Your now out of 10^10 years is much less, yet you think this disproves evolution.

Edit, cross post with shernren.
Snap.
(Only you said it so much better.)

 

[Mallon]

Micro-quibble: not all geocentrists were Ptolemaic. In fact, not even most of them were - and while many of the clergy were firmly Aristotelian, yet Cardinal Bellarmine (who as I understand spearheaded the inquiry into Galileo's hereticism) was firmly unAristotelian, even going so far to believe that the heavens were not perfect and unchanging but in fact that stars and planets floated through the heavens "like fish in water, or birds in air".

You may very well be right, shern. I've only just begun seriously reading into the history of science and the Church.
Regardless, the point remains that the Church fathers, Catholic and Reformist, still held strongly to geocentrism (Ptolemaic or otherwise), including Pope Paul V, Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon (all of whom issued statements against Copernicus). And all because they felt they had God figured out, that He would place us at the physical and temporal focus of the universe. How naive.

 

[juvenissun]

I suggest find a good book on statistics and give it a read.

Edit, cross post with shernren.

(Only you said it so much better.)

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I did not know that one missing symbol would create such a wrong impression:

I said:

The lottery pool is 10 million, but the winner actually won $10^30. It is nothing but a miracle.

To be precise, I should say:

"The lottery pool is $10 million, but the winner actually won $10^30. It is nothing but a miracle. "

That should clear my ignorance to statistics.

-------

Don't pick me on the minor points. Face the real challenge.

 

[Assyrian]

If we lived on a planet 10^30 cubic light years in volume in a universe of 10 million cubic light years, or if the human race existed for 10^30 years in a universe 10^10 year old that would be a miracle. But the human race has only been around a hundred thousand years or so in a 13.7 billion year old universe. We live on a small planet in that huge universe. You argument was that our win was such a small part of the whole that it was impossible, not that it was miraculously big.

And you still need to read that book. It wasn't just a missing symbol, you do not understand how statistics work. Or talk to shernren. He knows his stuff and is very good at explaining.

 

[shernren]

I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I did not know that one missing symbol would create such a wrong impression:

I said:

To be precise, I should say:

"The lottery pool is $10 million, but the winner actually won $10^30. It is nothing but a miracle. "

That should clear my ignorance to statistics.

-------

Don't pick me on the minor points. Face the real challenge.

Ahh, now that makes a lot more sense. You're trying to argue that it is physically impossible for us humans to be where we are now? Much like it is physically impossible for me to win more in a lottery than the original pool contains?

 

[gluadys]

What you said simply emphasized my question. Why should then God choose us, if His image was everywhere in the sequence of evolution. He could choose apes (not that much worse from us) and saved them. Then the salvation would be completed 10 million years ago (just 0.1% earlier in time, no big deal).

Been away for the weekend and I am just catching up.

Regarding the statement above, juvenissen, let me ask you a question. You say God could have chosen other apes instead of waiting for humanity and completed salvation earlier.

But from what would that earlier ape species need to be saved? Are you assuming it was capable of distinguishing right from wrong, that it was capable of sin?

Why bring salvation in before there was anything to be saved from?

 

[gluadys]

When did this separation occur? Which stage of evolution? Should we witness to our "ancestors"?

Looks like your question got lost in the shuffle.

The speciation that led to separate populations of humans and chimpanzees (our nearest living relatives) occurred about 5-7 million years ago. Humans were not a direct result of that speciation. (And probably, on the other branch, chimpanzees were not either. Evolution continued to occur in both lines.) The earliest species of ape known with some human characteristic is Australopithecus afarensis. It is very chimp-like in some respects (e.g. brain size, proportion of arm-length to leg-length) and somewhat human in other respects (bi-pedal, erect walking, not knuckle-walking, intermediate jaw shape, etc.) Over the next 3-5 million years various other species of Australopithecines appeared, flourished for a time and became extinct.

About 2 million years ago, the first species assigned to the genus Homo appeared. Homo habilis was similar to the Australopithecines in size and general appearance, but had a somewhat larger brain and was a tool-maker. As the first stage differentiated eventual chimps from eventual humans, this stage differentated australopithecines from homonines.

As with the australopothecines, various species of homonines appeared, flourished for a time and became extinct.

Our own species appeared about 170 - 200 thousand years ago. Physically we are still the creatures that first emerged as a distinct species of Homo about that time.

Interestingly though, for about another 50,000 years, we were not significantly different from other Homo species (such as the Neanderthals). But around 50,000 years ago there occurred what biogeographer Jared Diamond calls a "great leap forward" in understanding, rather than a change in anatomy. This was probably related to the development and perfection of syntactical speech as the dominant form of human communication. Something seemed to open up in human imagination around then, and we see the cultural transition that heralds the appearance of humans as creative artists. So while physically, Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years, fully modern human behaviour appeared about 50,000 years ago.

Interestingly the genetic ancestors of all living humans (Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam) also lived within the window of 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.


We have no living ancestors to witness to.

 

[gluadys]

One point of the YEC argument is that "speaking" God does has done so explicitly, to His credit.

There seems to be a glitch in the grammar here. As the sentence reads it makes no sense to me--particularly the bolded bit. Could you clarify?

 

[gluadys]

you can not separate T and E that clearly. In TE, the E "must be" related to T. That is the question in my OP, how does TE handle that?

That is an interesting point of view. Do you have some idea of how the E and T of TE must be related?

For example, some people think that TE means one must find references to evolution in the scriptures.

I reject that concept, because I don't think the scriptures are intended to reveal science. I have no difficulty accepting scriptures that say absolutely nothing about evolution (just as they say absolutely nothing about nuclear physics).

 

[gluadys]

Human beings only existed for a very very short period of time in the time scale of evolution. Yet, TE think God choose this very exact moment to give His salvation. Statistically, this is very very odd.

Why? What necessity was there for salvation before humankind fell into sin? What would be the purpose of giving salvation sooner? What would the world need to be saved from?

Put all of them together, TE should admit that human being IS VERY SPECIAL, and is "highly likely" NOT a result of evolution.

I am not following the logic. Yes, human being is very special. How do you get "NOT the result of evolution" from this? The premise does not lead to the conclusion.

This is the main argument in the OP. And I do not see any one effectively argue against it.

I don't see any argument that supports your conclusion that the specialness of human being shows that humankind did not evolve.

You seem to assume this without giving any logical reason to do so.

 

[Mallon]

I was born of the natural fusion of egg and sperm. God didn't magically poof me into existence or physically knit me together in my mother's womb, as per the psalm. Does that make me, or you, or our children somehow less special, juvenissun?

 

[juvenissun]

I was born of the natural fusion of egg and sperm. God didn't magically poof me into existence or physically knit me together in my mother's womb, as per the psalm. Does that make me, or you, or our children somehow less special, juvenissun?

Your question is of the same nature as that in the lottery example. Even the chance of winning a lottery is very small, the fact of having a winner is not special at all. (The random process of fertilization to bring up a descendant is NOT special). This example may also be used to describe the "normal" evolution process which TE suggested. The appearance of a new evolved species is not special. But the appearance of homosapiens from ape (name of species?) IS very special, in both the result and the involved time scale. It is so special, that it is in fact, nearly impossible.

So, your question is not good enough as a proper response to my question.

 

[juvenissun]

That is an interesting point of view. Do you have some idea of how the E and T of TE must be related?

I do not know. That's why I think TE does not make sense.

 

[shernren]

Your question is of the same nature as that in the lottery example. Even the chance of winning a lottery is very small, the fact of having a winner is not special at all. (The random process of fertilization to bring up a descendant is NOT special). This example may also be used to describe the "normal" evolution process which TE suggested. The appearance of a new evolved species is not special. But the appearance of homosapiens from ape (name of species?) IS very special, in both the result and the involved time scale. It is so special, that it is in fact, nearly impossible.

Define "special".

 

[Mallon]

Your question is of the same nature as that in the lottery example. Even the chance of winning a lottery is very small, the fact of having a winner is not special at all. (The random process of fertilization to bring up a descendant is NOT special). This example may also be used to describe the "normal" evolution process which TE suggested. The appearance of a new evolved species is not special. But the appearance of homosapiens from ape (name of species?) IS very special, in both the result and the involved time scale. It is so special, that it is in fact, nearly impossible.

So, your question is not good enough as a proper response to my question.

To be honest, I'm not particularly concerned that I'm not giving you the answer you want. I have nothing to prove to you; evolutionary science has nothing to prove to you. It is already on top.
Regardless, I still stand against your conviction that in order for something to be "special", it must have been brought about via a miracle. If that were true, then only Adam and Eve would have been "special" since, as far as I know, we all have descended from those first ancestors via natural processes (i.e., sexual reproduction).
It strikes me that your argument is one from incredulity. I would submit that how we were made is not what sets us apart from the animal world. Rather, bearing the image of God is what sets us apart, and that is no matter for the natural sciences.

 

[juvenissun]

Why should human be special in the process of evolution?

I really do not believe my question is so hard to understand. Let me try again:

The history of evolution is 10^10 years long. And human appeared at the very tip on this line of evolution.

All of a sudden, the salvation arrived now.

Why now? Why not a little bit earlier or later? Imagine the salvation were a knife dropped from the air onto a long long line, what is the chance for it to hit the very end of the line?

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If you try to say: God decides. Then you are not answering the question. You have to give a good reason to this statistical oddity if you emphasize evolution. Or, you like to raise the argument of sin (no sin, no salvation needed). In fact, that is a bad one, because it would be even harder to explain "the evolution of sin".

This question would be answered, IF, we have existed at least 10^8 years, or even 10^7 years long. The longer, the more reasonable.

A better alternative is: Human being is NOT evolved, and is a special creation. This would give the very very odd statistics a lot more sense.

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Notice that this question is particularly aimed at TE. If there is only E without the T, then this question would be invalid and not belong to this forum.

 

[Mallon]

Your question makes about as much sense as demanding an answer as to why Jesus was sent to redeem humanity some 2000 years after the Fall, rather than sooner or later. Do you have an answer to that, juvenissun?

And again, please don't judge Christianity in the light of statistics. The Bible is full of statistical improbabilities. You would be a hypocrite to reject abiogenesis because it is improbable, yet accept that a man could walk on water.

 

[staveoffzombies]

I really do not believe my question is so hard to understand. Let me try again:

The history of evolution is 10^10 years long. And human appeared at the very tip on this line of evolution.

All of a sudden, the salvation arrived now.

Why now? Why not a little bit earlier or later? Imagine the salvation were a knife dropped from the air onto a long long line, what is the chance for it to hit the very end of the line?

God set evolution in motion with a full knowledge of what would happen. He knew we would come along and so, when we DID come along He decided to make himself known to us.

It wasn't earlier or later because we weren't ready yet. God knew when we would be ready, and when that time came He began directly intervening.

Simple.

 

[Rion]

I have thought on this before.

Assuming you believe in evolution, one could say that the Christian is the final or next to final step in evolution.

Humanity, while physically peek'd, is horrible spirit wise.

Christians are humans, but God has redeemed them in Spirit, making them closer to what He desires.

Christians who have died, could be said to be the final step.

This leans towards Elitism, however, so I wouldn't dwell on it too much.