Vox Day's demolition of Darwin's Theory of Evolution

[gordonhooker]

Today's winner.

Thanks brother

 

[RC Tent]

You attributed something to me that I didn't say. So there is that.

You are right, someone else said that and I thought you did. It was a mistake though, not me imagining that I know what you think. Sorry about my posts regarding your perspective on science as the marker for reality.

If they make scientific claims, then they have to be judged in that context, just as a scientist making religious claims must be judged in terms of theology.

I agree, except they are not making any claims without stating that they are coming from a Bible based faith perspective, so they are openly not attempting to use the standards that mainstream science uses.

Plus I would say "can be judged", not "must be", they can and will each be judged according to the philosophy of the one judging.

That's demonstrably true. There are many prominent creationists who regularly pronounce things about science that are false. Would you like some examples?

They are creationists - they thereby believe that a load of things that mainstream science claims are false, they openly say so. Mainstream science is therefore obviously going regard it as the other way around. It is disagreement.

Both sides are quite capable of making mistakes too, which is why science is subject to corrections, and creationists have to sometimes abandon an argument.

We are universally ignorant of complete truth - that is for God, not humans.

"Toleration" doesn't mean "freedom from criticism." I defend their right to do it; I'm just pointing out why it fails.

It is not failure at modern science, it is not science at all by the standards of mainstream science - as soon as they declare their position on the Bible as historical truth they are not attempting science by definition. In order to "fail" at something one has to be attempting to do it in the first place.

I agree that tolerance does not include freedom from criticism or disagreement - freedom is for all beliefs and opinions, not just some or one.

As I said, I feel sorry for those who are unable to see nature as it is, and rejoice in God's power and wisdom. This is the sad aspect of YE creationism.

You seem to assume here that it is not possible for people to get a sense of God's power and wisdom by believing in a younger earth, and direct creation. Anyone may get those things from their own position on the age of the earth or the origin of life may get that sense of God's greatness from it. Just as you get yours from your old earth and evolution convictions, they might get theirs from a more literal perspective on the Bible, or a less scientific awareness of reality.

 

[RC Tent]

If they try to answer why reptiles and mammals have jaws and ears of different complexities, by a statement of faith, they fail. Not a quiz, just a failure to answer.

Pretty much like trying to use science to define the Trinity. It just won't work.

They do not fail at anything except providing mainstream science's idea of the answer. If they regard it as a theological question - and in real life anybody might - then provide their theologically influenced opinion, they are not failing at anything. They are interpreting the question differently to the way that you do.

The Trinity can be explained with mathematics, pretty simple mathematics, you only need how three and one can both apply - as in three times one third equals one. Or a triangle. Three works in science, most maths works when science starts using it - I love that - I see and feel the existence of God every time I think about it - humans did not come up with that, and nor did nothing...something brilliant and perfect is behind that.

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
If they try to answer why reptiles and mammals have jaws and ears of different complexities, by a statement of faith, they fail. Not a quiz, just a failure to answer.

Pretty much like trying to use science to define the Trinity. It just won't work.

They do not fail at anything except providing mainstream science's idea of the answer.

The can't give any answer at all, except, "Godmustadunnit." On the other hand, science easily shows why it turned out this way; there is abundant evidence for it, genetic, anatomical, and fossil. It's not a failure for religion; it's a failure for people who thought they could use religion to answer questions like that.

If they regard it as a theological question - and in real life anybody might - then provide their theologically influenced opinion, they are not failing at anything.

They fail to find out why it is so. And that matters.

They are interpreting the question differently to the way that you do.

Reality is not a matter of opinion. There is a reality that we can learn about, if we try. A Christian should never be afraid of the truth.

The Trinity can be explained with mathematics, pretty simple mathematics, you only need how three and one can both apply - as in three times one third equals one.

If you suppose that explains the Trinity, I would say you were wrong. The mystery of the Trinity is inexplicable to us now. As Paul says:

1 Corinthians 13:12 We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.

Or a triangle. Three works in science

So does 2. And Pi. And the first Feignbaum constant, which demonstrates why there is order in chaotic systems.

most maths works when science starts using it - I love that - I see and feel the existence of God every time I think about it - humans did not come up with that, and nor did nothing...something brilliant and perfect is behind that.

There is quite a philosophic debated about whether math has an objective existence or is merely a way we came up with to deal with quantitative data. I think you're right about this.

 

[The Barbarian]

You are right, someone else said that and I thought you did. It was a mistake though, not me imagining that I know what you think. Sorry about my posts regarding your perspective on science as the marker for reality.

It's forgotten. No problem.

If they make scientific claims, then they have to be judged in that context, just as a scientist making religious claims must be judged in terms of theology.

I agree, except they are not making any claims without stating that they are coming from a Bible based faith perspective, so they are openly not attempting to use the standards that mainstream science uses.

Nevertheless, scientific claims have to be judged according in the context of science. When a creationist says, "it was a miracle", that's quite different from quote-mining the literature as a substitute for good science. If it's the former, one can only note that all doctrines are plausible if one can call in unscriptural miracles to justify them.

Plus I would say "can be judged", not "must be", they can and will each be judged according to the philosophy of the one judging.

Reality is a harsh judge. But it has the virtue of being true.

They are creationists - they thereby believe that a load of things that mainstream science claims are false, they openly say so. Mainstream science is therefore obviously going regard it as the other way around. It is disagreement.

Which is why we have science. If we can learn why, for example, reptile ears and jaws are different than mammalian ears and jaws, belief doesn't matter.

Both sides are quite capable of making mistakes too, which is why science is subject to corrections, and creationists have to sometimes abandon an argument.

I should tell you about Duane Gish's "Bullfrog Protein" scam sometimes. It still pops up every now and then. He made a tactical retreat when faced with the evidence, but later went on to spread his story anyway.

Barbarian observes:
As I said, I feel sorry for those who are unable to see nature as it is, and rejoice in God's power and wisdom. This is the sad aspect of YE creationism.

You seem to assume here that it is not possible for people to get a sense of God's power and wisdom by believing in a younger earth, and direct creation.

"Just so" stories give an explanation for things, and might be satisfying. To apprehend the scope of His creative power in making something that works as it does, is far more awe-inspiring. I've known both and reality is better.

Anyone may get those things from their own position on the age of the earth or the origin of life may get that sense of God's greatness from it. Just as you get yours from your old earth and evolution convictions, they might get theirs from a more literal perspective on the Bible, or a less scientific awareness of reality.

One is no less a Christian for not accepting the details of creation. It's not what God cares about. My concern is that often, a person is taught that creationism is an essential doctrine of Christianity. Sometimes, when they learn that creationism cannot be true, they lose their faith thereby.

This is the real damage done by YE creationism.

 

[The Barbarian]

May be worth defining "evolution" here. What kind of evolution are you referring?

Evolution is a change in allele frequency in a population over time.

If you're talking about evolution from a universal common ancestor over 3.8 billion years, then points 1 - 7 are definitely correct.

No, that's wrong. The data for common descent is overwhelming, and comes from a wide variety of sources.

Evolution on that scale requires new information

No. In fact, most speciation involves decreasing information in the population undergoing speciation. It's normally a small, isolated group with less information than the larger population.

and there are no naturalistic/materialistic processes that create the new information.

It's called "mutation." For example, if there are two alleles for a gene in a population, and a new mutation produces a third, the information increases. Perhaps you don't know what "information" means. How do you calculate information? I'm guessing that you're just repeating what someone told you, and you really have no idea how it works. If you like, I'll show you.

Neo-Darwinian evolution is a closed case for me

Doesn't matter.

- there has been no proof that has ever been observed or reproduced

For example, the Grants, observing finches on Daphne Minor, demonstrated that it works just as Darwin said.

and this hypothesis has been rejected not only by creationists, but also the folks with the ID movement (such as Meyer, Behe, et al.)

Behe, for example, says he's an evolutionist. He just thinks God has to intervene in it from time to time to keep it working. And he testified that ID is science in the same sense that astrology is science. You sure you want to endorse him?

as well as even some with no religious affiliation at all.

For example, Michael Denton, a fellow of the Discovery Institute and a foundational IDer. Here's what he says about it:

...it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science--that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world--that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview.
Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny

Are you sure you want to endorse that?

Given the massive amount of evidence for common descent, including genetics, fossil record, observed evolution, etc. Do you think simple denial is an effective argument?

 

[RC Tent]

The can't give any answer at all, except, "Godmustadunnit." On the other hand, science easily shows why it turned out this way; there is abundant evidence for it, genetic, anatomical, and fossil. It's not a failure for religion; it's a failure for people who thought they could use religion to answer questions like that.

It is a choice, not a failure.

Reality is not a matter of opinion.

You have no scientific proof of this point.

There is quite a philosophic debated about whether math has an objective existence or is merely a way we came up with to deal with quantitative data. I think you're right about this.

I am aware of the debate. My position is that there is no way we created maths. I have no proof of it, it is just this thing which is subjectively obvious to me.

 

[RC Tent]

One is no less a Christian for not accepting the details of creation. It's not what God cares about. My concern is that often, a person is taught that creationism is an essential doctrine of Christianity. Sometimes, when they learn that creationism cannot be true, they lose their faith thereby.

This is the real damage done by YE creationism.

Well now I agree with you that a lie can be why someone loses their faith, and no one should be saying that salvation depends on one's opinion as to the age of the earth or validity of evolution. However, you are blaming YEC not the lie that salvation depends on it. The lie is the problem, not the YEC perspective.

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
They can't give any answer at all, except, "Godmustadunnit." On the other hand, science easily shows why it turned out this way; there is abundant evidence for it, genetic, anatomical, and fossil. It's not a failure for religion; it's a failure for people who thought they could use religion to answer questions like that.

It is a choice, not a failure.

It's a failure, because they were unable to explain it, while science found out what happened. Because they tried to use religious doctrine to answer questions like this, they failed.

Barbarian observes:
Reality is not a matter of opinion.

You have no scientific proof of this point.

I merely point out that opinion has no effect on what is real. This is easily tested in all sorts of ways.

Barbarian observes:
There is quite a philosophic debated about whether math has an objective existence or is merely a way we came up with to deal with quantitative data. I think you're right about this.

I am aware of the debate. My position is that there is no way we created maths. I have no proof of it, it is just this thing which is subjectively obvious to me.

The discovery that some animals have rudimentary math skills is good evidence that math is not dependent on culture, as is the independent discovery of things like positional numeral systems and geometric proofs by widely separated cultures.

 

[The Barbarian]

Well now I agree with you that a lie can be why someone loses their faith, and no one should be saying that salvation depends on one's opinion as to the age of the earth or validity of evolution. However, you are blaming YEC not the lie that salvation depends on it. The lie is the problem, not the YEC perspective.

There are certainly YE creationists who do not argue that their particular take on creation is essential to salvation. But many of them, including most of the leaders of that group, do say so.

But you are correct, strictly speaking, that "believe young Earth or you are lost" is not an essential part of YE creationism.

 

[Job 33:6]

I agree that reality isn't opinion based and that science must be judged by science.

Someone could have a religious beliefs that the moon is made of cheese. That person denying the existance of basalt because of their faith, should not be considered on equal grounds with research and observation. Such denial of a moon made of basalt in favor of cheese would be a failure.

 

[The Barbarian]

'Would you like to learn more about it?'

Yes and no.
Yes, I'd be intrigued to see what contortions, fantasies and misleading half-truths your authorities would come up with

It's really not hard to figure out, if you think about it. Sharks have vertical tail fins because their muscles are arranged so that they move by lateral displacement, a side-to-side motion. So the fin must be vertical to take advantage of that. Initially, vertebrates were just flattened in the vertical axis, and the whole body provided force to move. Tail fins greatly improved that.

Not surprisingly, we see the first land animals moving in the same way:

Mammals, though, developed an upright stance, and the motion became an up-and-down movement:

So primitive whales, like Ambulocetus, moved like a swimming otter, using the same motions, as many aquatic mammals to today.

So the flukes had to be lateral, in order to work. And there it is. And that's what the fossil evidence shows.

No, I have not a scintilla of doubt that your authorities, compared to the likes of Behe and Meyer, would be fantasists

Behe is an evolutionist. I thought you knew.

Read this and weep for the company you keep :

\

From your link:
"The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything."

He might be in your company, but not mine. Maybe this is why you're having problems with it.

 

[RC Tent]

Barbarian observes:
Reality is not a matter of opinion.

I agree, but science is a disastrously inadequate way to establish reality, and an act of free will is required to know the source of truth.

Reality can change with an act of free will - we are not immortal without the right choice there.

It is not opinion, but it is choice.

 

[RC Tent]

Someone could have a religious beliefs that the moon is made of cheese.

But actually the evidence - that would be the claims of all long term established religious traditions - do not involve the moon being made of cheese. None of them say that. So it seems a bit facile to say "but they could".

Someone could justify extra ordinary acts of cruelty and demand that everyone agree to it in the name of science, and that has actually been done, no need to make it up.

The problem with science is it is in the hands of people - they are fallible.

 

[Job 33:6]

What are common or uncommon faith based claims, is irrelevant. In Islam, there are beliefs that a prophet spoke to ants. Hinduism involves shape shifting Demi Gods. Mormonism involves belief of Adam and Eve originating in the United States, scientism involves...aliens?

It's all irrelevant because faith based claims can not be and should not be taken on equal grounds to scientific research, with respect to scientific studies and observation of material studied in science.

 

[Job 33:6]

Also, what people choose to do in the name of science or in the name of hypotheses and theories in science, has nothing to do with truth or lack thereof of said hypotheses and theories.

The Manhattan project involved the development of a nuclear weapons that killed millions of innocent people. This doesn't make the nuclear physics research used, any more or less true.

 

[RC Tent]

Also, what people choose to do in the name of science or in the name of hypotheses and theories in science, has nothing to do with truth or lack thereof of said hypotheses and theories.

Oh I don't think it proves that anything in science is wrong.

Science is in the hands of people - it is that people factor that is an issue.

Granted religion is also at the mercy of correct response to it from people.

Neither are the way to check on reality - God is the arbiter of reality.

 

[The Barbarian]

I agree, but science is a disastrously inadequate way to establish reality,

Turns out, atoms and genes really exist, but only science could verify those realities.

and an act of free will is required to know the source of truth.

We can find out things that are true, without knowing the ultimate source of truth.

Reality can change with an act of free will - we are not immortal without the right choice there.

As you know, science can't address the supernatural. So for that, it won't work at all. But for things like atoms and genes, nothing else can replace it.

 

[The Barbarian]

But actually the evidence - that would be the claims of all long term established religious traditions - do not involve the moon being made of cheese. None of them say that.

But some people's religion said that the Sun goes around the Earth, that black people are inferior to white people, and that disease was caused by demons.

Someone could justify extra ordinary acts of cruelty and demand that everyone agree to it in the name of science, and that has actually been done, no need to make it up.

Someone could justify extraordinary acts of cruelty and demand that everyone agree to it in the name of religion, and that has actually been done much more often than it has been done in the name of science, no need to make it up.

The problem with science is it is in the hands of people - they are fallible.

The problem with religion, is it is in the hands of people - they are fallible.

Religion is not God. It's merely man's attempt to connect with God. And it goes wrong so many times.

 

[sfs]

Evolution on that scale requires new information and there are no naturalistic/materialistic processes that create the new information.

Unless you have a decidedly odd definition of "information", this is trivially false. We see new genetic information appear spontaneously all the time -- in the lab and in the wild. In your own body, you have information in your DNA coding for thousands of specific antibodies, each tuned to one of the microbial pathogens you've encountered in your life. You weren't born with that information, so where do you think it came from?