Why I do not accept evolution part one

[Speedwell]

I don’t think that applies to believing in God and believing in His word. I think it stands to reason that if I can believe in God that believing in the Bible that He gave us would come naturally.

Except for believers in a God who has some other holy book to offer.

But to answer your question fairly, I would say that all of us here who are Christians believe that the Bible is the authoritative and inspired word of God. but not all of us believe Genesis to be accurate literal history or even that God intended it to be.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Newton's theory possessed considerable instrumentality--which is all that is really required of a scientific theory--and was useful until a better theory came along. So far we haven't seen a better theory of evolution.

Yes, & apples still fall from trees right?

As genetic apples fall not far from their genetic trees.

Both are unambiguous observable testable phenomena, the tempting fallacy in both cases is to extrapolate the superficial observation into a comprehensive explanation.

but things DO work very differently at different scales, they have to.

Darwin very reasonably proposed that biology might develop by the same general logic as the physical universe before it

I agree, only today that doesn't mean by a few reductionist laws and random chance, it means a great deal of very specific information pre-determining how, where, when development occurs

 

[Speedwell]

Yes, & apples still fall from trees right?

As genetic apples fall not far from their genetic trees.

Both are unambiguous observable testable phenomena, the tempting fallacy in both cases is to extrapolate the superficial observation into a comprehensive explanation.

but things DO work very differently at different scales, they have to.

Darwin very reasonably proposed that biology might develop by the same general logic as the physical universe before it

I agree, only today that doesn't mean by a few reductionist laws and random chance, it means a great deal of very specific information pre-determining how, where, when development occurs

but Darwin's theory, as brought up to date, still possesses instrumentality, and there is no better theory on offer.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

That's surely more improbable, as it requires some unspecified non-random directing influence for which there is no evidence or explanation - whereas a very large number of random trial-and-error events of which only a few provide an advantage predicts exactly what we observe in the genetic record, what we see in the fossil record and the relationship patterns of existing life, and are consistent with the genetic mechanisms we have discovered that underlie reproduction and inheritance; no mysterious inexplicable influences required ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I understand the premise, but at some point we need to try to put figures on the 'large number' and 'only a few'- do they fall within reasonable ranges of probability or not?

If a gambler plays 4 royal flushes in a row, chance is not impossible either, that does not make it the most probable explanation

 

[pitabread]

It’s not deceptive if the Bible specifically said how it was accomplished and you have to consider that all the theories on creation are based on science according to what we know now.

"Theories of creation" as you put it are not based on science. They are based on different interpretations of whatever religious dogma one is following.

This is one reason there are so many different and conflicting forms of creationism out there. Different people have different interpretations of different religious texts.

I think it’s safe to say that in the past science has been proven to be wrong more times than it has been right based on incomplete or incorrect data.

Science is ever correcting as we learn more about our universe. And in doing so, what we have learned that creation doesn't support a literal interpretation of 6-day creation per Genesis.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

but Darwin's theory, as brought up to date, still possesses instrumentality, and there is no better theory on offer.

debatable-

Darwin and followers explicitly predicted that the Cambrian explosion was merely an artifact of an incomplete record
skeptics predicted that it was not, that it was a true reflection of a sudden burst of new life appearing


& some of the most promising cancer research comes explicitly from the perspective of intelligent design- that pespective suggests an entirely different set of assumptions and paths of investigation than 'random chance'

 

[pitabread]

some of the most promising cancer research comes explicitly from the perspective of intelligent design- that pespective suggests an entirely different set of assumptions and paths of investigation than 'random chance'

"Intelligent design" in this context has absolutely nothing to do with ID as put forth by its religious proponents (e.g. Discovery Institute et al). I don't recommend equivocating here.

 

[Speedwell]

I understand the premise, but at some point we need to try to put figures on the 'large number' and 'only a few'- do they fall within reasonable ranges of probability or not?

If a gambler plays 4 royal flushes in a row, chance is not impossible either, that does not make it the most probable explanation

It might if you allow a little deck-stacking between each hand--i.e. natural selection.

 

[Job 33:6]

sguhsiuhgsg,regijgxoe ergreqpoeg egrewge!!


or to put it another way- the characters in the string have to be in the right order to be functional,
just like DNA

If you take the number of nanoseconds the universe has existed and multiply it by the number of individual organisms that ever existed, you still fall far short of the number of random tries it would take to accidentally form some of the simplest protein strings in the simplest organisms.

I would also recommend Stephen J Gould's "wonderful life", to examine the.. seemingly random, variations of life of the early fossil record.

But specifically to your post though, a numbers game doesn't really benefit the idea of intelligent design. When you consider that millions or billions of mutations occur in the matter of 5 to 10 years and many species, multiplied by the number of individuals of the particular population, multiplied by hundreds of millions or billions of years of time...

You get an extraordinary number of mutations to work with. Something for practical purposes that is uncountable. Especially in bacteria where there are gazillions of bacteria on earth.

Literally, I think the number is over a billion now, mutations have been observed in the lenski experiments and thats been going on a mere 5-10 years in a petri dish. Let alone what occurs on planet earth over billions of years.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Have you ever read, Neil Shubins most recent book? It is called "some assembly required". It has a few chapters on the "non-randomness" of evolution. How certain individual mutations can influence morphology in many species over time and how certain mutations produce patterns and even expedite late morphology changes in a seemingly non-random way. A lot of evolution, does follow patterns and I think most recognize that it isn't purely random in that sense.

But anyway, I would highly recommend the read if you haven't checked it out already.

The modern synthesis of Darwinism still offers only random chance to assume all the heavy lifting on the creative side. (There are some exceptions where secular biologists admit some pre-loading of necessary genetic information- but Darwinism that aint!)

Any form of selection thereafter is merely a form of selection- from a pre-existing range of options.
The old 'arrival of the fittest' is still and always has been the question, rather than mere survival- nobody really debates that


Thanks for the recommendation though, I do like to read on both sides

 

[Speedwell]

The modern synthesis of Darwinism still offers only random chance to assume all the heavy lifting on the creative side. (There are some exceptions where secular biologists admit some pre-loading of necessary genetic information- but Darwinism that aint!)

Any form of selection thereafter is merely a form of selection- from a pre-existing range of options.
The old 'arrival of the fittest' is still and always has been the question, rather than mere survival- nobody really debates that


Thanks for the recommendation though, I do like to read on both sides

So far you haven't shown us your side.

 

[Job 33:6]

As I said, this was merely to point out that the pattern in the fossil record itself, is in no way specific to naturalistic v creative mechanisms. (no need to mention God here)

But 'What would God do?' is a very subjective question. Cleary 'imperfection' is an inherent and necessary part of being human.
As for nested hierarchies- this is inherent in self replication, many are looking at designing machines which can gather their own resources and replicate- in some cases as a way to 'colonize' the galaxy with scouts for inhabitable planets etc- these would also be constrained to nested hierarchies to a large degree.

Then you also have things like orphan genes/ independent development of features using the same DNA. which could be used to argue against nested hierarchies being an 'immutable' law'.

is it demanded by the evidence- or just by the theory?

And I agree with the one section here. That creation hypothetically must be flawed. If it were not flawed, then it would be God itself. Creation must have its limitations.

 

[Job 33:6]

I understand the premise, but at some point we need to try to put figures on the 'large number' and 'only a few'- do they fall within reasonable ranges of probability or not?

If a gambler plays 4 royal flushes in a row, chance is not impossible either, that does not make it the most probable explanation

I think that the lenski experiments cover this topic well. Because, not only do they observe an incredible number of mutations, but they also observe populations reaching a certain status through what appear to be indirect ways.

For example, a mutation might be observed, may not fixate, back mutation occurs, the mutation occurs again etc. Before becoming fixated.

The evolution observed on a micro level appears to operate more in a trial and error fashion than in a intelligent designer picking and choosing a specific route kind of fashion.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It might if you allow a little deck-stacking between each hand--i.e. natural selection.

I would also recommend Stephen J Gould's "wonderful life", to examine the.. seemingly random, variations of life of the early fossil record.

But specifically to your post though, a numbers game doesn't really benefit the idea of intelligent design. When you consider that millions or billions of mutations occur in the matter of 5 to 10 years and many species, multiplied by the number of individuals of the particular population, multiplied by hundreds of millions or billions of years of time...

You get an extraordinary number of mutations to work with. Something for practical purposes that is uncountable. Especially in bacteria where there are gazillions of bacteria on earth.

Literally, I think the number is over a billion now, mutations have been observed in the lenski experiments and thats been going on a mere 5-10 years in a petri dish. Let alone what occurs on planet earth over billions of years.

I take your point, but that is a very 'Saganesque' treatment of the numbers 'billions and billions' of stars- so that must cover every possible hurdle against life existing somewhere else- well not really

math/probability still works at large scales, a googolplex of attempts still only gives you even odds if there is a 1 in a googolplex chance of success

it's the old grains of wheat on the chessboard phenomena. I believe it still holds true today that the entire annual production of the planet would not account for the last square- each improbability compounds the rest so that numbers become hyper-exponential very quickly

One calculation puts the odds of some simple protein strings randomly assembling in a functional order at 10^87,000,000,000 I believe- the number of elementary particles in the entire universe is estimated at only 10^80.

 

[Job 33:6]

And sorry to keep making posts but there's one other concept that I think is worth sharing.

When an individual wins the lottery, they have an incredibly low probability of winning.

It isn't always necessarily about what the probability of something is to happen, but rather it's a question of what mutations occur and when.

If we have what is a practically infinite number of populations of bacteria on planet Earth that are undergoing billions of mutations every decade. To reach a certain state, One population could reach that state in one year, while another population could reach a particular state after a billion years. And in fact in research we do see different populations acquiring certain mutations at different times. One population mutates this ability one year, and then another population mutates a similar ability 20 years later.

And so it's not even necessarily just a matter of probability. There's also a matter of...chance. So far as we are aware. As far as we can tell the numbers don't suggest a specific linear motion of evolution, but rather something that has a more trial and error like style.

Okay that was my last post and now I'll read some of the responses.

 

[Speedwell]

One calculation puts the odds of some simple protein strings randomly assembling in a functional order at 10^87,000,000,000 I believe- the number of elementary particles in the entire universe is estimated at only 10^80.

So what?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And I agree with the one section here. That creation hypothetically must be flawed. If it were not flawed, then it would be God itself. Creation must have its limitations.

I agree with that, though I had not thought of it that way- if we/Earth were perfect, how would we differentiate God and Heaven? i.e., what would even give those things meaning?

 

[Job 33:6]

I take your point, but that is a very 'Saganesque' treatment of the numbers 'billions and billions' of stars- so that must cover every possible hurdle against life existing somewhere else- well not really

math/probability still works at large scales, a googolplex of attempts still only gives you even odds if there is a 1 in a googolplex chance of success

it's the old grains of wheat on the chessboard phenomena. I believe it still holds true today that the entire annual production of the planet would not account for the last square- each improbability compounds the rest so that numbers become hyper-exponential very quickly

One calculation puts the odds of some simple protein strings randomly assembling in a functional order at 10^87,000,000,000 I believe- the number of elementary particles in the entire universe is estimated at only 10^80.

Well I would ask if you are questioning the process of a biogenesis or if you are questioning the process of evolution of proteins that already exist. I think there's a big difference between looking at probability of the formation of a protein string versus the probability that a protein string that already exists might mutate into another protein string.

There are only so many genes and base pairs in a genome that can mutate.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

And sorry to keep making posts but there's one other concept that I think is worth sharing.

oh- keep em coming, that's what we're here for!

When an individual wins the lottery, they have an incredibly low probability of winning.

It isn't always necessarily about what the probability of something is to happen, but rather it's a question of what mutations occur and when.

If we have what is a practically infinite number of populations of bacteria on planet Earth that are undergoing billions of mutations every decade. To reach a certain state, One population could reach that state in one year, while another population could reach a particular state after a billion years. And in fact in research we do see different populations acquiring certain mutations at different times. One population mutates this ability one year, and then another population mutates a similar ability 20 years later.

And so it's not even necessarily just a matter of probability. There's also a matter of...chance. So far as we are aware. As far as we can tell the numbers don't suggest a specific linear motion of evolution, but rather something that has a more trial and error like style.

Okay that was my last post and now I'll read some of the responses.

Good points, and I'd say as with the Royal Flushes, winning 4 in a row is no more improbable than any particular sequence of 20 cards, right? highly improbable things happen all the time

So how do you know, beyond reasonable doubt, that the guy is cheating?

i.e. it's not just the improbability of an event that casts doubt on chance, rather the probability of LESS improbable explanations for that same observation. 'Chance' can always technically do anything, that does not make it the prime suspect here . As long as you cannot entirely rule out cheating- that easily becomes the more probable explanation.

What are all the improbabilities compounded for creating the universe and life?
can we rule out 'cheating' to an even higher degree?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Well I would ask if you are questioning the process of a biogenesis or if you are questioning the process of evolution of proteins that already exist. I think there's a big difference between looking at probability of the formation of a protein string versus the probability that a protein string that already exists might mutate into another protein string.

There are only so many genes and base pairs in a genome that can mutate.

I do agree, the abiogenesis problem is distinct from evolution, though difficult to entirely separate in terms of whether the process is ultimately driven by purpose or unguided mechanisms.

Also distinct is mutation at different parts of the hierarchy- e.g. control genes v the gene regulatory network.

It's a little like checking random options for a car's exterior paint v random dimensions for engine components

one level is specifically designed for variation, a useful part of any design- how could life otherwise survive in a dynamic environment?