So, there's no question about the science of it.

Vance said:

Well, I am not sure I follow you here. Yes, the wind obeys the laws of thermodynamics, and other natural forces put in place by God, but the result of these forces and their interaction is VERY random.

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Or just unpredictable. The reason the wind and weather seems so random because we can't keep track of every single heat (energy) involved in the process. Yet the weather man uses the knowledge we have to determine the weather because of this laws.

God is not controlling them along the way.

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Is that so?

Whether the wind changes direction is purely a matter of these natural forces which may push one way or another. These random results then become part of the process itself, creating other reactions in an ongoing process which is created by God, but not "run" by God.

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really? The wind maybe seem random on a small scale but it's not so random on the larger scale because of the laws of themodyamics.

And the same is true for evolution. There are natural forces at work which create a certain degree of randomness, which is then itself part of the ongoing process, etc. The only random part of evolution is the variation within a given individual, but that randomness is then brought into the mix because when you look at the population as a whole, natural selection will choose among those random variations to move forward. And move forward it does.

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Again it seems to me that evolution is missing the engine. A car without an engine is just dead weight.
We know the natural laws that drives the wind but evolutionist still needs to find the natural laws that suppose to drive evolution. What natural laws can produce something as complex as an eye let along produce and program a brain? Instead of saying God did it, evolutionist can only say evolution did it. In fact I've actually heard scientists on PBS and Discovery say "Evolution did this and that.." many times.

Remus said:

Your entire argument is that it could happen. I argue that it isn't plausible.

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No, you state that it isn't plausible. I have not seen you provide any arguments for why it is not plausible.

If the number of coins that you put in is random, then the number of coins in each pile will be random. Thus, it is a random process regardless of what you qualify it with.

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Did I say anything about the number of coins? The number of coins is irrelevant. It can be different every time you sort coins with the contraption.

The point is that whatever the number of coins they end up being un-randomly sorted by denomination.

Without mutations, you have no evolution. At least not in a more complex direction.

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You can leave out the "at least". Without mutations you have no evolution--period. And without selection you have no evolution either. To expand on the engine analogy Smidlee introduced, think of natural selection as the engine and mutations as the fuel.

If your gas tank is empty, it doesn't matter how good your engine is. It won't move your car anywhere. On the other hand, if you remove the engine, it doesn't matter that you have a full tank of gas. Your car is still not going to move.

But if you do have both, it is the engine that powers the car from the energy of the gas. And the driver who decides which way the car goes.

In evolution, mutations provide the raw material (like the gas). Natural selection combines the characteristics of engine and driver, both using the raw material to generate evolution and determining the direction it will take.

Again, you are simply saying that it could have happened. That is not a strong argument.

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Its a first step. One will not look at whether something happened until one is convinced it is a possibility. If we are both agreed that evolution is a possibility, then we can look at whether it actually happens and has happened.

gluadys said:

There is a lot of evidence for evolution. Do you think you are familiar enough with all of it to assess whether or not there is truly something still lacking?

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Yes

No, you state that it isn't plausible. I have not seen you provide any arguments for why it is not plausible.

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See post #6.

You can leave out the "at least". Without mutations you have no evolution--period.

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Actually, evolution can occur without mutations. It just can't move anything to the more complex without mutations. That was the distinction that I was trying to maintain. Too many times in discussions like this, the meaning of the term gets changed and we end up with confusion.

Its a first step. One will not look at whether something happened until one is convinced it is a possibility.

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As I have done.

If we are both agreed that evolution is a possibility, then we can look at whether it actually happens and has happened.

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Okay. Please provide an explanation for the issues that I posted in post #6. We can start there.

Remus said:

I know you claim that the creation account isn't clear, but that has yet to be established. Also, one can't approach a presumption since it is something that one starts with. I have concluded that the creation account is clear and that it does not teach evolution.

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But you stated your conclusion as if it was an agreed point. That is the very definition of begging the question.

Remus said:

You're point has been duly noted.

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Very good, then.

Remus said:

I find that the evidence for evolution lacking.

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And that is fine, we can discuss that as well.

Remus said:

You were discussing this. The rest of us were on a different topic.

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I was responding to your statement: "Why make a natural process where it looks like His intervention is not needed?"

Remus said:

And I have agreed that He could do this. I just disagree that He actually did.

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As long as you have no theological or practical problem with God choosing to create this way, then fine, the only issue then is the scientific evidence whether he most likely did or not.

What do you mean there is no engine? The engine is the reproduction process itself, combined with the fact of imperfect copies each time that occurs. That is a MAJOR engine, with natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, etc, being the steering wheel. We can actually watch this engine work, and it does just fine.

It has been shown in detail how an eye can develop via evolutionary processes, so that is not a problem at all. You might say you don't think that is how it happened, but you can not say that there is no explanation of how the process could occur.

The bottom line is that absent your pre-existing belief that "it happened the way it says in the Bible" (meaning, of course, your interpretation of what it says happened), it is very unlikely you would have no problem with the state of the evidence for evolution.

Vance said:

But you stated your conclusion as if it was an agreed point. That is the very definition of begging the question.

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Well, it is hard to know what you believe. Do you believe that the Bible teaches evolution? If so, then I concede that I was begging the question.

As long as you have no theological or practical problem with God choosing to create this way, then fine, the only issue then is the scientific evidence whether he most likely did or not.

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Oh, but I do have theological problems with this, but that really is for a different thread. In fact, I think we've covered that in the past.

Remus said:

Well, it is hard to know what you believe. Do you believe that the Bible teaches evolution? If so, then I concede that I was begging the question.

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No, I believe that the Bible is entirely silent on the issue of whether God created via evolution or not. Your statement is based on the idea that the Bible actually DOES describe the specific process by which God created, and that this is different than evolution. Since the first part of that is the very question in dispute, you are begging it.

Vance said:

It has been shown in detail how an eye can develop via evolutionary processes, so that is not a problem at all. You might say you don't think that is how it happened, but you can not say that there is no explanation of how the process could occur.

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I'm willing to listen. Please provide this information.

The bottom line is that absent your pre-existing belief that "it happened the way it says in the Bible" (meaning, of course, your interpretation of what it says happened), it is very unlikely you would have no problem with the state of the evidence for evolution.

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You've got this backwards. It is based on my conclusions that evolution is incapable of producing diversity of species that I believe that "it happened the way it says in the Bible".

Usually the skepticism about the eye comes from Darwin's statement that it seems absurd that the eye could evolve, but that is a misstatement of what he actually said. He is using a rhetorical method by which he poses the problem as it is most likely to arise, and then provides the solution. Here is what TO says about it.

However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).

• photosensitive cell
• aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
• an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
• pigment cells forming a small depression
• pigment cells forming a deeper depression
• the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
• muscles allowing the lens to adjust

All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_time.html



Here is a more detailed treatment:


http://www.maayan.uk.com/evoeyes1.html

Vance said:

No, I believe that the Bible is entirely silent on the issue of whether God created via evolution or not. Your statement is based on the idea that the Bible actually DOES describe the specific process by which God created, and that this is different than evolution. Since the first part of that is the very question in dispute, you are begging it.

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LOL, okay. Fine. I'll rephrase what I said.

Official change in position aleart
I stated this:
"It is more plausible that He created everything just as is described in the Bible and not by evolution."

I would like to change it to this:
"It is more plausible that He created everything using the process that most people belive is described in the Bible and not by evolution."

Better?

Remus said:

LOL, okay. Fine. I'll rephrase what I said.

Official change in position aleart
I stated this:
"It is more plausible that He created everything just as is described in the Bible and not by evolution."

I would like to change it to this:
"It is more plausible that He created everything using the process that most people belive is described in the Bible and not by evolution."

Better?

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Begging the question of what "most people believe", but getting better. I don't even think most Christians believe what you believe on this issue, much less most people generally. Why not say, "what I believe is described in the Bible"?

Of course, we all use generalities, and even make conclusory statements, you could catch us all on that one. But "what Scripture really says" is such a core issue, that keeping it in mind is important.

Vance said:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_time.html



Here is a more detailed treatment:


http://www.maayan.uk.com/evoeyes1.html

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Before I read them, do either of these articles deal with the fact that parts of vertebrate eye develop from the brain?

Remus said:

Before I read them, do either of these articles deal with the fact that parts of vertebrate eye develop from the brain?

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Yes, the second discusses the connection with the brain. You asked for an explanation of how the eye could evolve and I have pointed you to two of them. There are plenty more, of course.

Here's another:

http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/lifesci/optometry/resources/modules/stage1/pvp1/Evolution.html


http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Vertebrate_eye

Vance said:

Yes, the second discusses the connection with the brain. You asked for an explanation of how the eye could evolve and I have pointed you to two of them. There are plenty more, of course.

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okay, I'll look into these. Are any of these peer-reviewd?

And do you have anything on the other issues that I brought up? I have some critters that need to be addressed also like the flying snake and such. I'm sure we can be at this a long time.

Remus said:

Yes

See post #6.

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Ok. Post #6 is not an argument. You haven't set out why you think an evolutionary origin of any of these things is implausible.

Actually, evolution can occur without mutations. It just can't move anything to the more complex without mutations. That was the distinction that I was trying to maintain. Too many times in discussions like this, the meaning of the term gets changed and we end up with confusion.

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If you mean a population can evolve without de novo mutations, you are right. But it cannot begin to evolve without extant variation in the gene pool, nor continue to evolve unless de novo mutations add variability to the gene pool. Both extant and new variation depend ultimately on mutations of past and future respectively.

Okay. Please provide an explanation for the issues that I posted in post #6. We can start there.

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Too many to tackle at once, so let's take one at a time. You began with complexity. Why have you concluded that it is implausible for complexity to evolve?

Here is what I already said on this issue in this thread:

Here's another interesting article from one of your links.
http://www.maayan.uk.com/retina.html
Gives a few diagrams of the eye that I thought were interesting.

i remember just a few years ago on PBS there was a scientist claim he build a computer model of how the eye evolved. Actually it more like how the eyeball evolved. Other scientists was excited to see this man's model yet he later admitted he didn't have a computer model but he working on it. In another words he plain out lied on TV to decieved people to think that the eye evolving was plausible. Behe made the statement while it easy to imagined with drawing how the eye evolved yet on the bio-chemistry level scientist can't even imagine how it's possible. It a lot easyer to believe in the eye evolving in Darwin's day since he knew nothing about genetics and saw cell as something very simple but today there is no excuse in continuing deceive the public with these lame stories and drawing of the eyeball to claim evolution is plausible. I no longer believe evolution can be falsified to the science community and will defend it at all cost.

gluadys said:

Here is what I already said on this issue in this thread:

Take complexity, for example. Evolution does not require that species become more complex over time. But since all early life is simple (relatively speaking) it is pretty understandable that one route evolution would take is toward complexity. There is no where to go but laterally into divergent, but equally simple, species or toward more complex species.

And we also have many examples of complex species shedding elements of complexity which are no longer useful to them.​

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Even if we were to accept that it would be simple for a "simple" life form to become more complex, this would still have to be maintained throughout its evolution to the point that it wouldn't be simple to continue. Even then, we must take into account that this "simple" isn't really simple, and that it's not just as easy for it to evolve into something more complex.

Remus, another problem here is that you are simply saying "OK, but how does evolutionary theory explain THIS?" There will always be things that we can't explain in every field of science. The fact that we don't know exactly how a particular thing happened according to evolutionary processes is not an argument against it, it is just an argument from incredulity ("I just don't see how that could happen!"). Now, if you could show that a particular problem FALSIFIED evolution, meaning that you could show that it is simply not possible for something which has developed to have gotten there by evolution, then you would not only have a point, you would have a Nobel Prize.

The theory of evolution is first and foremost the best explanation for the data we have. It is considered a fact (by all those without a specific religious reason to reject it), that species did develop from earlier species over billions of years. The evidence for that is so overwhelming that, as I said, is only rejected almost exclusively by those who have a religious objection to it. The question which remains is whether the current synthesis of the theory of evolution is the proper explanation for how that development occured. The reason almost every thinks it IS the best explanation is because it explains SO MUCH, even if there are still areas we are not sure about.

So, what we have is:

A fact that needs explaining (how species developed over billions of years from earlier species).

A theory which explains it extremely well.

And which has not been falsified.

The complete lack of any other theory (including any creationist theory) which fits the data. Every other theory has been falsfied by the data itself.

Only in Creationist circles is that not sufficient to be going on with. So, yes, we could spend an awful lot of time going through your "yeah, but what about THIS!?", and it could be fun and informative, but in the end is still not really a solid argument against evolution because not only does it not falsify it, it just doesn't weigh an ounce compared to all the things which are explained extremely well.