Why do you feel a NEED for theistic evolution?

[Job 33:6]

"
I have conceded your claims about the platypus which is why I "separated from the topic" as you put it. Further arguing a topic of which I was obviously not fully informed or correct about would just make me look stupid. Apparently this is inconvenient because you wanted to go on arguing about it and make me look like a fool."

This is important because understanding simple cladistics and the geologic column and fossil succession are absolutely fundamental to understanding the theory of evolution. If you're coming to the table with claims about the platypus evolving from birds, and even human tracks inside Trex tracks, then you aren't ready. You've clearly long picked your side of the discussion before having a firm position. It is the opposite of how science is truly approached.

I would be happy to discuss literally any and every topic associated with the theory, but only if I knew that people in the discussion were earnest about it and not simply out peddling concepts that they've heard from third hand religious institutions. To understand the theory, you have to begin with the fundamentals, and you have to be in a neutral position willing to accept concepts that perhaps you hadn't anticipated accepting.

 

[Jamdoc]

I'd say we can demonstrate natural/ or guided selection within a pre-existing set of variations
Just as with the Peppered Moth- darker varieties always existed, the lighter ones were just de-selected

i.e. natural selection is a filtering process, it takes a larger set of possibilities and creates from it a smaller set
That's exactly the opposite of the evolutionary 'tree of life' is it not?

It works both ways. The genetic diversity is often there but suppressed, the trait moves to fixation when subjected to an environmental condition where that trait becomes preferrable, they just outbreed and survive where the other types aren't as successful. But sometimes it can be a novel mutation so now you have a branching off rather than a refinement of currently existing diversity. The precision of some of these mutations is what really to me, shows the hand of God at work. Otherwise you'd expect these mutations to not happen in enough individuals in a population for it to survive into a viable subpopulation. The chances of a mutation being 1. Not deleterious 2. actually beneficial in an environment, and 3. occurring in enough individuals to make it viable, are so small that it's laughable.
But for God? Not a problem, He can decide, I'm gonna make some of these breeding pairs of brown bears have a mutant pigment protein, and they'll be white, and they're going to migrate to a climate where it's snowy most of the year so it's a camouflage and they'll be fruitful and multiply.
Where as the naturalist would have that mutation happen spontaneously, and it'd have to happen multiple times on its own and those mutants would have to survive and breed, AND be in an ecological niche where it works. That's stacking coincidences

A lot of times when God works, it's seemingly impossible coincidences stacking on top of each other but consistently happening when they shouldn't.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It works both ways. The genetic diversity is often there but suppressed, the trait moves to fixation when subjected to an environmental condition where that trait becomes preferrable, they just outbreed and survive where the other types aren't as successful. But sometimes it can be a novel mutation so now you have a branching off rather than a refinement of currently existing diversity. The precision of some of these mutations is what really to me, shows the hand of God at work. Otherwise you'd expect these mutations to not happen in enough individuals in a population for it to survive into a viable subpopulation. The chances of a mutation being 1. Not deleterious 2. actually beneficial in an environment, and 3. occurring in enough individuals to make it viable, are so small that it's laughable.
But for God? Not a problem, He can decide, I'm gonna make some of these breeding pairs of brown bears have a mutant pigment protein, and they'll be white, and they're going to migrate to a climate where it's snowy most of the year so it's a camouflage and they'll be fruitful and multiply.
Where as the naturalist would have that mutation happen spontaneously, and it'd have to happen multiple times on its own and those mutants would have to survive and breed, AND be in an ecological niche where it works. That's stacking coincidences

A lot of times when God works, it's seemingly impossible coincidences stacking on top of each other but consistently happening when they shouldn't.

I think we pretty much agree then (but what fun is that ?

My point being that adaptation and evolution are distinct processes- like newtonian v quantum physics- scales matter, things DO work as entirely different processes at different scales.

A radio can adapt to different frequencies, but no twiddling of the dials will lead to evolution into a CD player- similarly in DNA control genes etc. So while I agree the odds of accidentally designing every new feature are vanishingly small by any mechanism- there is a more definitive problem: mere adaptation is not occurring at the right part of the design hierarchy - i.e. genetic adaptation is a design feature, not a design mechanism.

 

[Al Touthentop]

"

I would be happy to discuss literally any and every topic associated with the theory, but only if I knew that people in the discussion were earnest about it and not simply out peddling concepts that they've heard from third hand religious institutions. To understand the theory, you have to begin with the fundamentals, and you have to be in a neutral position willing to accept concepts that perhaps you hadn't anticipated accepting.

What evidence do you have that anything I've posted to you is "heard from third hand religious institutions?"

I think that seems to evidence a certain lack of sincerity on your part. What I have posted in reference to what I've said is typically people who believe in evolution, not religious institutions.

If you think that I have to accept "concepts you hadn't anticipated accepting," what about you? Do you also have to have that sort of an open mind?

Do you have such an open mind that you accept the theory that DNA and RNA literally rained from the sky?

 

[Jamdoc]

I think we pretty much agree then (but what fun is that ?

My point being that adaptation and evolution are distinct processes- like newtonian v quantum physics- scales matter, things DO work as entirely different processes at different scales.

A radio can adapt to different frequencies, but no twiddling of the dials will lead to evolution into a CD player- similarly in DNA control genes etc. So while I agree the odds of accidentally designing every new feature are vanishingly small by any mechanism- there is a more definitive problem: mere adaptation is not occurring at the right part of the design hierarchy - i.e. genetic adaptation is a design feature, not a design mechanism.

again it comes down to people's view of the word evolution itself. You're comfortable with adaptation, and agree that changes take place, but uncomfortable with the word evolution because it's connected to a naturalist viewpoint. That's like disliking the word holy because non Christians also use that word.
Adaptation to me is kind of an overarching concept. If a population adapts to a condition it can be done through multiple means. 1 is cultural, learned behavior, populations learn where good places to get food and what food is good for them in an environment and teach their offspring where to go and how to acquire this food, like bears teaching their cubs how to beat a "bear proof" garbage can once they figured out how to get it themselves, but if the sow doesn't teach her cubs in a generation, that adaptation is lost, it is not hereditary. The other is evolutionary, a hereditary trait that gives an advantage, like camouflage pigments. Both are adaptations. All evolution is, is hereditary change over time. That is the core concept; change over time. Just like you might use the word to describe a change in opinion over time. I used to be a naturalist, but my belief evolved to recognize God.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

again it comes down to people's view of the word evolution itself. You're comfortable with adaptation, and agree that changes take place, but uncomfortable with the word evolution because it's connected to a naturalist viewpoint. That's like disliking the word holy because non Christians also use that word.
Adaptation to me is kind of an overarching concept. If a population adapts to a condition it can be done through multiple means. 1 is cultural, learned behavior, populations learn where good places to get food and what food is good for them in an environment and teach their offspring where to go and how to acquire this food, like bears teaching their cubs how to beat a "bear proof" garbage can once they figured out how to get it themselves, but if the sow doesn't teach her cubs in a generation, that adaptation is lost, it is not hereditary. The other is evolutionary, a hereditary trait that gives an advantage, like camouflage pigments. Both are adaptations. All evolution is, is hereditary change over time. That is the core concept; change over time. Just like you might use the word to describe a change in opinion over time. I used to be a naturalist, but my belief evolved to recognize God.

Yes, definitions are important, and lead to many derailed debates here!

Genesis describes changes in life- even beginning in the ocean and culminating in man-

As David Raup, curator of Chicago Field Museum said-(paraphrasing) if we look at the fossil record, it's clear that change happened, how is a different question.

I think we can put a slightly finer point on the word though- we usually associate 'evolution' with 'progress' of some kind, which presents a problem unique to the 'random mutation + natural selection ' version of evolution I would argue.

I used to be a naturalist, but my belief evolved to recognize God.

^ likewise, I was raised a staunch atheist, - out of curiosity any one thing in particular that changed your position?

I have a bear problem you might help with too! for another forum maybe..

 

[Kenny'sID]

So the only issue is whether he used something like evolution or not.

And since the bible doesn't even so much as suggest evolution had anything to do with it, even that question is not plausible.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

And since the bible doesn't even so much as suggest evolution had anything to do with it, even that question is not plausible.

Who wrote Genesis 1? There is some debate but let's assume it was Moses as all other suggestions are later on in the timeline. Moses lived a long time after the supposed young earth creation, a few thousand years even. How did Moses know what happened thousands of years prior? Some, perhaps you, believe God told Moses what to write word for word. If this is the case, remembering God and Jesus are one and the same, do you think it is reasonable for God to tell a simplified creation story? Obviously it was simplified in the sense that He never described how He created an ant or a goldfish, but could it go further? Keeping in mind how Jesus talked in parables that is.

 

[Al Touthentop]

See the problem is your narrow definition of Evolution.
Evolution is just a biological process of hereditary change over time. It happens simply because of the way DNA replication and sexual reproduction work.
To deny evolution as a PROCESS, is to deny reality.

You have evolution set as an origins of life hypothesis only, and see it as a ladder that progressively gets better. That's a flawed view and untrue even in the eyes of naturalists that believe evolution takes place completely on its own, which it doesn't. It always requires some sort of outside pressure. Any time I've argued with strict young earth creationists, the "poofing into existence" people, they have always tried to redefine concepts that they agree naturally take place simply because they don't like the word "evolution" because it's tied with a naturalist world view.
But you have to get past that and see the word, and concept, for what it really is. Evolution is NOT strictly an abiogenesis concept or Godless.
I look at it very much the same way as pregnancy and childbirth are, intricate creations and designs by God, for life to produce more life.

I don't think that's fair. I think it's pretty obvious that life had to "poof" into existence. If as a part of that magic, it was designed to be able to have maximum adaptability and you want to call that evolution, fine. But word says that each species was created and was designed to reproduce of its own kind long before that was even a scientific "discovery."

The specific knowledge that a lion could not, because of biological limitations, make babies with a giraffe, wasn't scientifically noticed for thousands of years after Genesis was written. Physical limitations sure. But codified law in the form of DNA? The word doesn't have to spell it out in biological language before we see its correctness in that regard.

The idea that all mankind has a variation in genes of less than .1% was discovered recently and yet Paul preached that all mankind was made from "one blood" close to 2000 years before that knowledge occurred.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Who wrote Genesis 1? There is some debate but let's assume it was Moses as all other suggestions are later on in the timeline. Moses lived a long time after the supposed young earth creation, a few thousand years even. How did Moses know what happened thousands of years prior? Some, perhaps you, believe God told Moses what to write word for word. If this is the case, remembering God and Jesus are one and the same, do you think it is reasonable for God to tell a simplified creation story? Obviously it was simplified in the sense that He never described how He created an ant or a goldfish, but could it go further? Keeping in mind how Jesus talked in parables that is.

I saw no parable, no nothing that suggested evolution, nor anything in your post that refutes what I said, just could be's.

 

[Jamdoc]

Yes, definitions are important, and lead to many derailed debates here!

Genesis describes changes in life- even beginning in the ocean and culminating in man-

As David Raup, curator of Chicago Field Museum said-(paraphrasing) if we look at the fossil record, it's clear that change happened, how is a different question.

I think we can put a slightly finer point on the word though- we usually associate 'evolution' with 'progress' of some kind, which presents a problem unique to the 'random mutation + natural selection ' version of evolution I would argue.



^ likewise, I was raised a staunch atheist, - out of curiosity any one thing in particular that changed your position?

I have a bear problem you might help with too! for another forum maybe..

Not a single thing, a culmination of things of stacking increasingly improbable events lead you to think "something is working behind all of this, making it happen when by all probability it shouldn't"

 

[YouAreAwesome]

I saw no parable, no nothing that suggested evolution, nor anything in your post that refutes what I said, just could be's.

Fair enough (though a talking snake points in that direction -- see Snakes in mythology), I wasn't really making a case for or against YEC or evolution, just showing that the text leaves room. Because of this, we look at the evidence in the universe.

 

[Jamdoc]

I don't think that's fair. I think it's pretty obvious that life had to "poof" into existence. If as a part of that magic, it was designed to be able to have maximum adaptability and you want to call that evolution, fine. But word says that each species was created and was designed to reproduce of its own kind long before that was even a scientific "discovery."

The specific knowledge that a lion could not, because of biological limitations, make babies with a giraffe, wasn't scientifically noticed for thousands of years after Genesis was written. Physical limitations sure. But codified law in the form of DNA? The word doesn't have to spell it out in biological language before we see its correctness in that regard.

The idea that all mankind has a variation in genes of less than .1% was discovered recently and yet Paul preached that all mankind was made from "one blood" close to 2000 years before that knowledge occurred.

and yet a Coyote and a Wolf can make a hybrid, showing that they're closely genetically related, sharing an ancestor species not too long ago.
a lion and a tiger can make a hybrid, showing that they're closely genetically related, sharing an ancestor species not too long ago.
a donkey and a horse can make a hybrid, same story.
The wheat that you make bread with? Hybridized between I think 3 different species of Triticum grasses, by human cultivation.
One of the biggest misconceptions is the use of the word kind in the bible. I don't think a kind is a species as we know it but rather a taxonomical family.
See both naturalists, and the bible, recognize mass extinction events (the bible only 1 but paleontology recognizes at least 5), in which massive amounts of biodiversity were wiped out. Yet we have millions of species today. Do you think every species that is on earth now, was on earth at the 6th day, and that no new species have been created? I don't feel like that at all. I think the flood wiped out most species that existed prior to the flood completely out. Even naturalists agree on an extinction event called "the great dying". These species existed.. and then after a cataclysmic event.. they don't exist anymore. I don't think when Noah built the ark that God had him save 2 of every species of animal, but 2 of every kind. That's much easier to work with considering the Ark's dimensions. From those representative kinds, God had genetic material to work with to reestablish biodiversity, without starting all over, but new species were made rather than just replacing all the old ones. Sabertooth cats and Mammoths for instance, did not survive the flood, but a genetic cousin, a pair of Elephants, did, and there are a few species of Elephants that resulted from that today.
Had God had Noah save 2 of every species, we'd likely have mammoths today.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Not a single thing, a culmination of things of stacking increasingly improbable events lead you to think "something is working behind all of this, making it happen when by all probability it shouldn't"

Yes, I think it does come down to probabilities at some point- which is why a large chunk of the secular position has come down to some sort of infinite probability mechanism to account for them..

As Lawrence Krauss said of Hawkings' multiverse: 'If your theory relies on an invisible infinite probability machine, it's not entirely clear that you even have a theory'

Though I also agree with Hawking on Krauss "That moron couldn't theorize his way out of a paper bag"

(or something like that

Must call it a night, thanks all for the interesting discussion, stay well

 

[Aussie Pete]

Again, you're skipping something vital, you're making the same assumption over and over and over, you guys always do this.
Nobody here is saying it is happening on its own, that's the point of Theistic evolution, that it does not happen on its own, that God is working through it. If we can shut off the genes that separate a chicken from a therapod dinosaur, don't you think God can as well, and to a much larger degree than we can?
Theistic evolution IS saying God created, it's just saying God created using this process, where you say God created by poofing it into existence from nothing. Nobody here is debating that God created all life. The only debate is how.
and when I talk about demonstrating microevolution in bacteria in a lab, all you have to do is grow bacteria on media plates with discs of small concentrations of antibiotics on the plate. Each successive culture, you swab from the colonies growing closest to the disc, onto another plate, with more discs of antibiotics, and you titer up the dose. After several generations, you'll find that the bacteria grow right up to the edge of the disc, as they have evolved a trait that makes them not susceptible to that antibiotic's mechanism of action. How is it happening, are the bacteria as each individual cell "learning" to adapt to the antibiotic? No. Some of the bacteria have mutant genes that resist the antibiotic, and while the other bacteria die, they survive and reproduce, you are selectively culturing the bacteria that are able to survive, and moving a trait to fixation. That trait has helped them to survive in an ecological niche, and now you have a new strain. Now repeat that enough times over enough generations with varying different environmental pressures, and theoretically, the bacteria you grow will be so different from the original culture, that they won't be recognizable as the same species anymore.
Where do the original mutations come from? Most spontaneous mutations are deleterious, incompatible with life. So there are 2 options. A naturalist thinks that radiation and errors made in DNA replication are the source of these mutations, that is a very low chance and requires a very long time and a lot of a lot of coincidences and for it to happen across enough breeding pairs in a population for the ball to get rolling. Very low chance of that happening. Theistic evolution? God is manipulating the genes as He wants. It becomes easy then.

So evolution is so improbable that only God can cause it to happen? I bet the atheists just love that idea.

 

[Jamdoc]

So evolution is so improbable that only God can cause it to happen? I bet the atheists just love that idea.

Think about how much they'd love the idea that God is a scientist, not just a magician. Every law and relationship that our scientists discover, God wrote. Too often I find Atheists believing in nothing supernatural, but on the reverse side of the coin are believers who believe in ONLY the supernatural, they spiritualize everything to the point of it no longer seeming real.
It's very important for me to remember that God is both spiritual and physical, supernatural, and natural. He created a physical, natural world, with physical, natural laws that govern things according to His designs and His will, some of it is self sustaining, but He can also act on it to cause change, even against the laws that He put in place, and He does so using physical, material means much of the time. When He makes things new is He just going to leave us as body-less spirits in some nether realm? No. He's resurrecting us in new glorified YET PHYSICAL bodies, Jesus could be touched after His resurrection, He was a tangible, physical, glorified being. He's resurrecting us in a new earth, that is a physical place, it's material.
Think about examples that God used for punishment against Israel in the old testament, when they sinned, sometimes they fell dead right on the spot, that's a supernatural act. But other times, He gave someone a disease, that's a natural act, something material. Like Miriam the sister of Moses being given leprosy as punishment. Sometimes He used other agents to deliver His judgements for Him, like having Israel take a man out of the camp and stone him to death. God could simply speak and wipe out towns, but sometimes He sent angels to do the work instead. God never seems to do the same thing every time He does something, He's an infinitely complex being and that actually gives me hope where a lot of Christians think we're just going to stare at Jesus' face for all of eternity and I think God would think we're extremely boring and simple for wanting to do nothing but stare at Him, because He is always doing something different so He probably wants us to do different things too, not always the same psalms on repeat for eternity. That's why I think we have free will, so that we can use it to be creative in the ways we worship and glorify Him. He has angels to sing HOLY HOLY HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME. Why's He need multitudes of people just to do that?

a bit of a tangent, I'm sorry but I felt moved, it's important to me that God displays variation in His works in all things and that we should never try to box God into one thing.

 

[Jok]

Because the scientific evidence points there, and the Bible is a theological book.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Fair enough (though a talking snake points in that direction -- see Snakes in mythology), I wasn't really making a case for or against YEC or evolution, just showing that the text leaves room. Because of this, we look at the evidence in the universe.

I understand.

 

[Al Touthentop]

and yet a Coyote and a Wolf can make a hybrid, showing that they're closely genetically related, sharing an ancestor species not too long ago.
a lion and a tiger can make a hybrid, showing that they're closely genetically related, sharing an ancestor species not too long ago.
a donkey and a horse can make a hybrid, same story.

And this proves that the bible is wrong?

The wheat that you make bread with? Hybridized between I think 3 different species of Triticum grasses, by human cultivation.

How does this disprove genetics of "kind."

See both naturalists, and the bible, recognize mass extinction events (the bible only 1 but paleontology recognizes at least 5), in which massive amounts of biodiversity were wiped out. Yet we have millions of species today. Do you think every species that is on earth now, was on earth at the 6th day, and that no new species have been created?

By evolution?

Had God had Noah save 2 of every species, we'd likely have mammoths today.

Only if it was impossible for a species to go extinct after the flood. Mammoths have been found in ice that still had food in their mouth when they were frozen.

What Happens to Meat When You Freeze It for 35,000 Years

 

[Job 33:6]

What evidence do you have that anything I've posted to you is "heard from third hand religious institutions?"

I think that seems to evidence a certain lack of sincerity on your part.

In post #77, you sourced an article from a young earth Creationists website. Science really could not be approached in a more faulty way.

I suspect from a similar crowd that suggested that the platypus was some kind of anomaly. The only insincerity here is coming from your sources. Or perhaps just your own lack of effort in critiquing your own claims, starting with the platypus claims, followed by the human print inside a Trex print claims and onto even more claims, each one more strange than the last.

To be more specific, now that we've accepted that the platypus fits in well with evolution based cladistics, let's look at your claim of a human foot print inside a Trex foot print.

My counter response to this, is that such a thing simply doesn't exist. And you have responded by sharing a link, not to any formal scientific research, but rather to some random religious website.

If you trust religious figures, young earth creationist advocates such as Ken ham, over the scientific community, that is fine. But of course you should understand that the theory of evolution will never make sense to you, if you put your trust in concepts such as these, that aren't research or evidence based.

The theory of evolution will never make sense to you, if you're comfortable accepting young earth Creationists claims (whatever they may be), while simultaneously not caring if their claims are actually backed by the scientific method. And the TRex mixed human tracks and the platypus commentary are evidence of this.