The Creationist Explanaton

[USincognito]

If evolution isn't about finding the perfect existence, then it's rather hard to believe in evolution, isn't it?

Only if one has absolutely zero understanding of the subject. Well, perhaps also if one has some cockamamie straw man understanding of it. For one thing, people don't "believe in evolution". It's a scientific field and is accepted based on the evidence, not beliefs.

 

[USincognito]

An extract from a recent article by Casey Luskin:{snip}

Nothing personal, but if you're actually impressed by lawyer Luskin's bloviating at the Disco Toot (from which is has since been terminated), that does not bode well.

 

[USincognito]

If evolution isn't seeking a perfect existence, then it is flawed, I believe. The Lord offers a perfect existence.

 

[USincognito]

The problem seems to be that Creationism explains everything, it has too much explanatory power, the framework is too large.

It does try to. It just fails miserably.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Evolution as an observation of change over time in species might provide explanation of some things, but it fals to provide explanation for many others (such as taxa defining traits that suddenly appear in the biological record with no anticedent).

Examples of such traits?

Nevertheless the current function of a given trait is revealed by the purpose that it serves at the current time and in the current environment.

What it may or may have not looked like in the past on another creature is different question, and what may have caused it to be there or change is another question again.

And both questions are addressed in evolution theory.

By the time we get to the unhelpful "Evolution did it" assertion

There's a wee bit more to it then that.
As in "evolution did it and here's how and why, and here's the evidence that supports that explanatory model and here's how you can test it and here's how you could falsify it in case it were wrong".

Not so much with the "god did it".

Also, the evolutionary explanation is NOT an assertion. It is a conclusion.

we are just spouting the obligatory mantra of those who choose to ignore the obvious inference from the appearance of design.

Emphasis on the word "appearance".

 

[DogmaHunter]

Why are some people open to a diversity of answers but others closed?

Because some people don't care about evidence.

Same thing. Diversity is good design. And not all biological questions
get answered the same. The answer may change from person to person
and day to day, even then.

It seems to me that the answers rather change based on the a priori assumptions among the religious creationists.

Those who simply follow the actual evidence, all converge on the same answer: evolution.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It was just a thought, or maybe the design is simply variation, with no real significance to the origins debate, which I suspect is the case.

In other words: "it just is the way it is".

 

[DogmaHunter]

That is the question for Science to explore

Science already did that from several independent angles: comparative genetics, comparative anatomy, both in extant species as well as in the fossil record. The studies converged on evolution as the explanation.

, and it is the very sort of question that recognition of the design inference is helpful towards providing an answer.

What answer? What inference? How do you justify such inference? Based on what evidence?

If we assume that things are only there because they provide some selective advantage after they appeared by accident in the gene pool, we are very likely to miss the greater design implications.

What design implications?

 

[DogmaHunter]

But the question "why" implies reason and reason implies intellect.

No.

Q: "why did the glass in the window break?"
A: "because the wind made a branch from a nearby tree smack into said window".

No "intellect" there.

On evolution there need be no reason at all, just an alphabet soup type of accident that happened to have selective advantage in a given environment.

Which is something that demonstrably and observably happens. Both in the wild as well as in controlled experiments.

The beginning of answering "why" is to recognise that form follows function for a purpose, which is a top down process, that necessarily involves a designer.

No.

Q: "why do Tibetans not suffer from altitude sickness?"
A: "because they have a mutation in their DNA which increases red blood cell production, which results in processing oxygen more efficiently"

 

[xianghua]

Why do cetaceans have the Sonic Hedgehog/Hand2 gene pathway for hind limb development if they never had hind limbs?

maybe because they have a vestigial flipper?

 

[sfs]

Well, I don't replace the Lord with any of them, no.

Well, good. What does that have to do with anything? In particular, what does it have to do with whether or not evolution is a good description of the history of biological diversity on Earth?

 

[sfs]

Theological/religious considerations are not generally part of the philosophical argument, at least not properly.

So what? Your argument fails whether viewed as a philosophical argument or a theological argument.

 

[sfs]

That they have similarites and perhaps developments is obvious, that design (that we are told to ignore) is present is a no brainer, that NS dunnit is an unsubstantiated extrapolation and does not fit the evidence.

But that design is present is not obvious to those of us who actually study biology for a living. That all organisms are related by common descent is simply a fact, mutation and natural selection are observed processes that are known to produce the appearance of design, and no other mechanism has been proposed. ("God wanted it that way" works even less well as a mechanism than it does as an explanation. It's also a statement that is completely consistent with common descent and adaptive evolution by random mutations and natural selection.)

 

[mark kennedy]

In other words: "it just is the way it is".

It is the way it is because of a coded series of instructions called DNA

 

[DogmaHunter]

It is the way it is because of a coded series of instructions called DNA

And the 4 billion year process that shaped that DNA into what it is today in all its diversity.

 

[mark kennedy]

And the 4 billion year process that shaped that DNA into what it is today in all its diversity.

No it didn't and I know that because DNA doesn't respond well to changes. Adding time doesn't negate the need for functionality. If you want to understand adaptive evolution you have to learn how the genome works which requires a fair amount of study. It generally a good idea not to start with all consuming assumptions.

 

[tas8831]

Excuse me. IT's real enough for me. That's what matters to me.

You must have a really low bar. And be very egotistical. What matters to you is nice and all, but it is folly to presume that that is enough.

 

[xianghua]

Hypothetically, yes. Can I do it? Probably not.

if so as i said: evoltion cant explain how a complex organ can evolve stepwise. but id can.

if we know it's a spaceship, then we know it's designed

right. so the best explanation in this case will be design and not evolution. so we can just explain it by claiming that we still dont know why the designer make some parts in a specific way that we still dont fully understand. this is why id is the best explanation.

 

[tas8831]

(such as taxa defining traits that suddenly appear in the biological record with no anticedent).

By "biological record" I assume you mean "fossil record"?

If so, you seem to have drawn a conclusion premised on at least these two assumptions:

1. Everything that ever lived becomes fossilized
2. We have discovered every fossil

Please provide evidence for these assumptions or stop making such silly claims about 'appearing abruptly' with no 'antecedent' ....

 

[tas8831]

No it didn't and I know that because DNA doesn't respond well to changes.

Interesting. When I was in graduate school, my lab had some whole genomic DNA stored only in plain water which had been frozen to -70 C and thawed to above freezing probably 1000 times over the course of 2 decades. Still used it for PCR when I was there. Which changes are you talking about?

If you want to understand adaptive evolution you have to learn how the genome works which requires a fair amount of study. It generally a good idea not to start with all consuming assumptions.

Like there is a 1 to 1 relationship between a mutation and some morphological/phenotypic outcome? You seem to sort of believe that.