Why ... (2)

[Oncedeceived]

How did you know that certain things can not be discussed on this forum? do you know there are taboo subjects?

There is a line that is drawn when in the creation/evolution forum. It is a hard line to keep on both sides of the fence. Your comment would be one in which would be something that is not in line with the forum.

I thought you might at least ask why I can not show you why,
saying that I think you already know why I can not show you why,
you also know I did not make a false representations on your position and your statement should read
'knowing that I would not be 'allowed' to actually defend them'.

Sorry this doesn't make sense.

I have nothing to be dishonest about, you are the one doing the defending.
I don't pray to or worship evolution.

Actually, you are not excluded from defending any position that you take. It isn't only required of the Christian.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Did the separate creation of kinds happen?

Are there separate kingdoms? Are there separate phylum? Are there separate Sub Phylum? I would say yes, how about you?

Why would God create separate kinds so that they reflect an evolutionary history that never occurred?

What didn't occur?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Species should be hard to define if evolution is true since species are always changing, and speciation happens over several generations. For living species, we define speciation by gene flow in sexual organisms. Of course, there are a whole host of species in the act of speciation with different levels of gene flow between the populations.

So you can see how it is hard to define such a complicated series of events.

However, you are talking about kinds which are groups that did not evolve from a common ancestor, so kinds should not present the problems that speciation does.

You don't know if they evolved from a common ancestor. So how do you determine that defining species is more difficult than that of kind?

There may have been a common ancestor. I don't know and you don't know either.

So why not a single kind that all life evolved from?

I am not sure what you mean here?

Baloney. I always ask for evidence.

What evidence do you have for the common ancestor? What evidence have you asked for it?

I HAVE EVIDENCE FOR UNIVERSAL COMMON DESCENT. That's the whole point.

So? How does that provide evidence for the universal common ancestor?

None of my beliefs require a single line of descent. I would be just fine with several origins of life. I just follow the evidence, and if the evidence indicated multiple origins of life that is what I would accept.

Fair enough, but you see you don't have evidence of either. Yet you have no problem knowing that they are there, even with no evidence for one, or two or three.

You keep projecting your own close-mindedness onto me. That is a big mistake.

Where am I being closed minded? Please give me an example of my close mindedness.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Forces affect the material world and are amenable to scientific testing.

I didn't claim they weren't. That doesn't provide evidence for the forces themselves.

I agree with the secular scientists that the designs are due to natural processes.

So you concede that there are designs you just agree that this apparent design is due to natural processes. So would you say that this is design or natural processes?

How about this?

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

No universal common ancestor in there.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

How does a material universe necessitate true and false? If the universe is a random, non-intelligent entity one could imagine a universe that was disorderly and chaotic. One could imagine that a universe without intelligence as a factor to be unintelligible. There would be no reason to believe it would have a constant mathematical behavior that could be reflected in mathematical equations.

Actually, there are hard physical reasons why we should expect mathematical behaviour. Such laws necessarily follow from simple premises, such as "Momentum can't be made or lost".

There is no reason to believe that a universe created by God would be irrational or inconsistent in its behavior, the opposite would be true. If God (the Christian God) exists as I and others claim, the universe would contain logic and intelligence as intelligence comes from intelligence. It is a consistent element in the Christian worldview.

But the universe contains disorder and chaos. What structure it contains looks very much like what would happen under normal circumstances - diffuse gas coaleses under gravity, conservation of momentum makes them spiral into a plane (i.e., elliptical galaxies, solar systems, etc)

Why would genetic markers eliminate Common Design?

He said the markers point to common ancestry, not that they eliminate common design. Markers that support common ancestry would be compatible with the theistic evolution flavour of common design, but not the flavour that says "God poofed the kinds into existence as is".

Have you personally seen all the fossil evidence in existence today? Do you have the entire fossil evidence possible for all past history?

I'm guessing his answer is 'no', but what on Earth do your questions have to do with his? Are you seriously saying you will only consider fossil evidence only when we've excavated EVERY fossil currently lying in the Earth's strata?

Do you have evidence of transitional living organisms other than species to species evolution in our present time?

Your question doesn't make any sense - they are one and the same. But please, give an example of the kind of "transitional living organism" you're thinking of (one hopes you don't have the crocoduck in mind).

 

[Loudmouth]

I didn't claim they weren't. That doesn't provide evidence for the forces themselves.

I have already shown how the forces are caused by physical, material particles.

So you concede that there are designs you just agree that this apparent design is due to natural processes.

I agree that it is natural design.

So would you say that this is design or natural processes?

Natural. Did you really think that humans were supernatural? What natural laws did humans break in order to produce Mt. Rushmore?

No universal common ancestor in there.

Then you didn't read much of it. It is in one of the first sections:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

 

[lasthero]

So you concede that there are designs you just agree that this apparent design is due to natural processes. So would you say that this is design or natural processes?

How about this?

What about this?

http://p2.la-img.com/1191/37756/16016812_1_l.jpg

 

[Oncedeceived]

Either two particles collided or they didn't. One of those two things had to happen. Only one of them can be true.

That is a rule of logic. IF the universe was not constant and the forces of the universe not absolute this statement would not be possible.

In an immaterial universe a supernatural deity can decide that both happen at the same time if they so wish. Up and be down, black can be white . . . pretty much whatever the deity wishes at any given moment.

That is simply a false dichotomy.

There would be every reason that a material universe would have mathematical laws, and I have gone over it in several posts now. I don't see why repeating it again will get through your denial.

No you haven't. You have not explained at all why a material universe would be mathematical in nature. I am not in denial, you having provided it.

So water suddenly turning into wine is not irrational or inconsistent? Man walking on water? Manna falling from the sky? A pillar of smoke to guide a people through the desert by the day, and a pillar of fire at night? I could go on if you like.

So on one hand, you claim that God would have no problem with any of these events, but on the other you claim that for God it would be irrational and inconsistent?

What shared genetic markers between species would you accept as evidence that they came about by evolution from a common ancestor instead of being separately created?

I never denied evolutionary processes didn't happen. Why do you deny that God could create allowing for evolutionary processes? You seem to be stuck with this idea of separated kinds. I've shown you that it makes perfect sense when looking at what we have in nature. Kingdoms...phylum...class...order..etc.

 

[Oncedeceived]

What about this?

http://p2.la-img.com/1191/37756/16016812_1_l.jpg

I don't recognize it.

 

[lasthero]

I don't recognize it.

Fair enough. Just at a guess - is it designed or did it come from natural processes, and how would you formulate such a conclusion?

 

[Loudmouth]

So you can see how it is hard to define such a complicated series of events.

But you aren't giving us a complicated series of events. You are giving us one of the least complicated events, as in a puff of smoke and suddenly appears a species.

You don't know if they evolved from a common ancestor. So how do you determine that defining species is more difficult than that of kind?

The evidence indicates that they did evolve from a common ancestor. Kinds should be easy to define since they don't share common ancestry.

There may have been a common ancestor. I don't know and you don't know either.

I have evidence indicating that they do.

What evidence do you have for the common ancestor? What evidence have you asked for it?

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

Fair enough, but you see you don't have evidence of either.

I do have evidence for a universal common ancestor for all life:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

Where am I being closed minded? Please give me an example of my close mindedness.

You can not describe for me a shared genetic marker or fossil that would change your mind. You can not tell me how common design is falsifiable.

 

[Loudmouth]

That is simply a false dichotomy.

How so?

No you haven't. You have not explained at all why a material universe would be mathematical in nature. I am not in denial, you having provided it.

Because the interaction of two particles has to have a constant result in a materialistic universe. I have said this time and again.

So on one hand, you claim that God would have no problem with any of these events, but on the other you claim that for God it would be irrational and inconsistent?

No, it would make for an irrational and inconsistent universe. When the universe is at the whim of a deity you lose all rational and consistent properties.

I never denied evolutionary processes didn't happen. Why do you deny that God could create allowing for evolutionary processes?

So you accept that all life evolved from a single common ancestor?

I am still waiting for you to present evidence that God did anything. So far, you have shown me zero evidence, so how could I deny anything?

You seem to be stuck with this idea of separated kinds. I've shown you that it makes perfect sense when looking at what we have in nature. Kingdoms...phylum...class...order..etc.

Those are nested kinds, not separate kinds.

 

[Loudmouth]

Correct in theory. However, we can use logic to determine what is consistent within a certain set of beliefs and that which is not and in doing so we must start with what lies outside of the scientific method to even use it. Logic can be tested with scientific methodology but logic itself is metaphysical in nature. So in reality we use the "supernatural" to initiate the process of scientific methodology.

That is a bunch of gobbleygook. So you start with a set of faith based beliefs to start the process of scientific methodology? How?

So there are real reasons that contribute to our assuming that the laws of nature are constant and that the assumption is probably true. We arrive at this conclusion by logic. Logic is not a material entity but a metaphysical one. Logic must be metaphysical or it becomes only relative or subjective in nature. We don't have real reasons to conclude anything if logic is a man made system of knowing.

The real reason is that our logic works and is able to make accurate predictions.

 

[Loudmouth]

Loudmouth a Nested Hierarchy is due to design. I've tried to explain this and it is difficult trying to say the same thing in numerous ways. We as humans discover elements of design whether that be in such simple elements as features to the similarities of strands of DNA. We discover them. We do not create them. We discovered that life forms through out history are related to one another by features or genetic make up and we organize these into a system which relates to the similarities of the organisms in the system. The fact that these organisms have evolved in the past creates a pattern in this history that can be shown to rest in a nested hierarchy.

You are saying that evolution will produce a nested hierarchy, not intelligent design/creationism.

You still have not explained why DESIGN would necessarily produce a nested hierarchy.

Materialists claim that this is due to a common ancestry beginning with a universal common ancestor.

So do you. Read the paragraph that you just wrote. You stated quite clearly that it is evolution that produces a nested hierarchy, not design. Therefore, if species fall into a nested hierarchy that means that they evolved from a common ancestor.

Christians who see that evolution does indeed happen can see that God designed the organisms to adapt and change.

Humans design species that are designed to adapt and change, but they don't fall into a nested hierarchy. We created genetically modified species that clearly violate the nested hierarchy. So are you saying that God is less powerful than humans are?

Man has come along and discovered past designs. The design came first, mans descriptions and discoveries are evidence of that design. The nested hierarchy is what they have discovered about the design.

You mean about the design that evolution has produced from a single universal common ancestor, right?

Mathematics did not come by man for if by man they come, the universe knew in advance they were coming. If mathematics came from the universe the universe must have known that man would evolve to understand in a rational, logical, mathematical way the universe in which it evolved.

You have the cart in front of the horse. Our brains have evolved to recognize the already existent mathematical features of the universe. The universe did not have to predict the existence of man. It just was. Man developed a brain that was able to figure out how nature works, not the other way around.

 

[Loudmouth]

Are there separate kingdoms?

There are three kingdoms united by their common ancestry.

Are there separate phylum? Are there separate Sub Phylum? I would say yes, how about you?

Is a human part of the same Family as other apes? Yep. So that means we share common ancestor with other apes, correct? We are in the ape kind, correct?

Are we also in the mammal kind, and the vertebrate kind, and the eukaryote kind? Do we share a common ancestor with all other eukaryotes, from ameoba to plants to birds?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Actually, there are hard physical reasons why we should expect mathematical behaviour. Such laws necessarily follow from simple premises, such as "Momentum can't be made or lost".

This is circular, the theorem is actually dependent upon the existing laws of physics.

But the universe contains disorder and chaos.

If anything it would seem it is falling into disorder and chaos, however, it is a fixed constant universe that remains the foundation.

What structure it contains looks very much like what would happen under normal circumstances - diffuse gas coaleses under gravity, conservation of momentum makes them spiral into a plane (i.e., elliptical galaxies, solar systems, etc)

I guess that is in the eye of the beholder.

He said the markers point to common ancestry, not that they eliminate common design. Markers that support common ancestry would be compatible with the theistic evolution flavour of common design, but not the flavour that says "God poofed the kinds into existence as is".

Why would he be arguing against something I never claimed? That would be rather irrational.

I'm guessing his answer is 'no', but what on Earth do your questions have to do with his? Are you seriously saying you will only consider fossil evidence only when we've excavated EVERY fossil currently lying in the Earth's strata?

I am pointing out that he is taking his "evidence" on authority. We all do. The fact that we don't have every fossil in existence means that we have only pieces of the puzzle. Which means we don't have the entire picture of life and its history.

Your question doesn't make any sense - they are one and the same. But please, give an example of the kind of "transitional living organism" you're thinking of (one hopes you don't have the crocoduck in mind)

No, but there should be evidence of transitions in the same vein as in the past. We I would think should see some evidence in life forms today of more than just species to species evolution. Since we don't it can be shown that evidence does not supply the necessary information to conclude certainty to some claims made in ToE.

 

[Loudmouth]

If anything it would seem it is falling into disorder and chaos, however, it is a fixed constant universe that remains the foundation.

We see order out of chaos all of the time, and it is produced by unintelligent, purposeless, and blind natural mechanisms.

The fact that we don't have every fossil in existence means that we have only pieces of the puzzle. Which means we don't have the entire picture of life and its history.

So how do you determine which are the pieces? What features would a fossil need in order for you to accept it as being transitional between humans and a common ancestor with chimps? What shared genetic marker between humans and apes would you consider evidence of humans and chimps sharing common ancestry?

Or is there any evidence that you would ever accept?

No, but there should be evidence of transitions in the same vein as in the past. We I would think should see some evidence in life forms today of more than just species to species evolution. Since we don't it can be shown that evidence does not supply the necessary information to conclude certainty to some claims made in ToE.

So what would this evidence look like?

 

[Kellyvee]

There is a line that is drawn when in the creation/evolution forum. It is a hard line to keep on both sides of the fence. Your comment would be one in which would be something that is not in line with the forum.

Not for me, you can say or ask me anything that pops into your head, about anything, if you give me a good reason to change my mind I will change my mind without a second thought, make more sense about something and my previous idea is gone, why? because logic and reason is the name of the game for both of us in everything we do,
however, your logic and reason stops at your religion while mine goes right on through.

There are dozens of things about your religion that I am not even allowed to mention or write about to you,
even writing this is quite likely to get me banned.

Actually, you are not excluded from defending any position that you take. It isn't only required of the Christian.

I don't care or need to defend anything because evolution is not my belief, it's the best explanation for how things are,
show me something else that makes more sense and I will change my mind in a heartbeat, you do not have that luxury.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I have already shown how the forces are caused by physical, material particles.

What evidence of these physical material particles do you have?

I agree that it is natural design.

I see a lot of side stepping here. I feel that you know it appears designed but you will not allow that it is anything other than natural. Which is fine. Your worldview will not allow for anything other than naturalistic processes. However, in a Christian worldview, we see design and know that God designed it. That is our pre-suppositional view. You just won't admit that you hold an a priori pre-suppositional view.

Natural. Did you really think that humans were supernatural? What natural laws did humans break in order to produce Mt. Rushmore?

So you assume natural laws must be absolute.

Then you didn't read much of it. It is in one of the first sections:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

OH?

 

[lasthero]

The fact that we don't have every fossil in existence means that we have only pieces of the puzzle. Which means we don't have the entire picture of life and its history.

We couldn't even know if we found every fossil, even if we somehow did it - it's not like we have a pre-established idea of how many species lived on this planet, there's no hard goal to reach and no way to tell when we'd be done. It's like collecting cards when you don't have any idea how many cards you need for a complete - no matter how many you get, there could always be more. Add on to that, the fact that many species rarely, if ever, fossilize, because of the way their bones are designed - bats, for instance.

But I don't think that's a fair analogy, somewhat. Just because you don't have all the pieces of a puzzle, doesn't mean we can't make judgments on the picture. I mean, look at this.

Yes, it's incomplete, but do I really need all the pieces in order to tell that it's a dollar bill?