Why no evidence FOR creation/ID?

gaara4158 said:

You might find it extraordinary how many forms life has managed to flourish in, but you’re not seeing the multitude of failed forms that outnumber them a thousandfold.

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Yes, I am aware of the utter vastness of it all.

tas8831 said:

You doubt this, but can you explain what you mean by "randomness"?

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Quantum mechanical randomness. The position of an electron (for example) is random when the wave function collapses.

tas8831 said:

And that affects DNA how? Or doesn't? Or... not sure why you brought it up.

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Yes. Chemical biological life is based on the electrostatic force and quantum mechanics. If an electron appears on one side of an atom instead of the other at a key instant, it could have significant effects into the future.

jesus316 said:

Yes, I am aware of the utter vastness of it all.

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Then what is your objection?

jesus316 said:

I am a Christian who is not a young earth creationist and who does accept intelligent design. I also believe evolution is true, all except for the randomness part. I doubt that randomness is a sufficient cause to result in all the spectacular chemical biological structures and functions. I think there must have been a nudge from outside at certain key moments to direct subsequent events. This is where intelligent design comes in, probably at the quantum mechanical level such that every once in a while, the waveform collapsed in a directed manner, not by pure randomness. It happens this way so infrequently it can't be detected.

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Evolution isn't random; traits which benefit survival and reproduction are selected for, and those which are a hindrance are selected against. Mutation is the only random aspect in this process, and mutations aren't truly random either, given that large mutations aren't equally probable as single base pair mutations, and specific regions of genomes are more prone to mutations than others. Hence why it is not unheard of for some people with hemophilia to have it as a result of a mutation unique to themselves, but new mutations in eye color are extremely rare.

Not sure why you are bringing physics into it rather than chemistry, which would be more direct.

gaara4158 said:

Then what is your objection?

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My objection to randomness as the mechanism for generating mutations for natural selection to operate upon is that it is too improbable that all the needed mutations occurred in exactly the right sequence.

jesus316 said:

My objection to randomness as the mechanism for generating mutations for natural selection to operate upon is that it is too improbable that all the needed mutations occurred in exactly the right sequence.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "the right sequence." But it is possible that you are suffering from a form of the hindsight fallacy. Evolution has no long-term goals, no target beyond the next generation. Each new generation of a species presents a range of variants to the environment. The successful variants reproduce and the whole process starts over again. That's it. If the selection criteria (the environment) stays the same the population will remain morphologically the same. If the criteria change, then different variants will be selected, and the general morphology of the population will start to shift. Over many generations, this change can be considerable and may result in the population becoming so different from the parent species that they can no longer interbreed and a new species will have been formed. Are you with me so far?

The point is, each step, each new generation produces a population with increased fitness to the changing conditions. There is no further "goal" for evolution than that. There is no looking ahead in time to see what "mutations" might be needed to make some future creature. The process is entirely contingent and one way of understanding this is to consider the following thought experiment:

Imagine that you could turn back the clock, all the way back to the first life form and let evolution start over form the beginning, with exactly the same environmental conditions and events as the first time through. What you would get is a diverse biosphere just like we have now, but the odds are vanishingly small that you would get exactly the same species as we have now inhabiting it. There are some interesting present-day examples of what I mean. In New Zealand, for instance, flightless birds fill echolgical niches which in this country are held by ground-dwelling rodents. Why is that? Why not the other way around? Maybe in the retry it would be. Similarly, in South America live Capybaras, rodents, essentially giant Guinea Pigs weighing up to 150 pounds. These inhabit niches where we would expect to find ruminents, not rodents, goats in North America. Why? because that's just the way it worked out. Step by step as organisms adapted to conditions, with no impetus save the increased fitness, somehow, of the next generation.

tas8831 said:

And that affects DNA how? Or doesn't? Or... not sure why you brought it up.

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And you "know" for a fact that it could not affect our DNA? Exactly how?

Speedwell said:

the odds are vanishingly small that you would get exactly the same species as we have now inhabiting it.

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Thanks for your clear and detailed explanation.

Yes, I understand. My point is that the odds are vanishingly small that evolution would occur at all without some help to significantly increase the odds.

jesus316 said:

Thanks for your clear and detailed explanation.

Yes, I understand. My point is that the odds are vanishingly small that evolution would occur at all without some help to significantly increase the odds.

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Odds of what? The odds of evolution occurring are 100%. As to the odds of any particular outcome, like the present set of creatures, well, that's a different story. Your argument is akin to saying that because the odds against any single lottery ticket being the winner are so small, nobody can win it without cheating.

jesus316 said:

My objection to randomness as the mechanism for generating mutations for natural selection to operate upon is that it is too improbable that all the needed mutations occurred in exactly the right sequence.

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The probability is irrelevant. Billions of years is plenty of time for any number of improbable events to happen. If you don’t have an explanation that you can quantifiably demonstrate is more probable than random chance, you’re just making an argument from incredulity.

jesus316 said:

Thanks for your clear and detailed explanation.

Yes, I understand. My point is that the odds are vanishingly small that evolution would occur at all without some help to significantly increase the odds.

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How is survival of the fittest not a sufficient explanation of how random mutation could be guided to produce the life that we see today?

AnotherAtheist said:

How is survival of the fittest not a sufficient explanation of how random mutation could be guided to produce the life that we see today?

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Really? can you not see the contradiction in your question?

Look at your wording there...

jesus316 said:

My point is that the odds are vanishingly small that evolution would occur at all without some help to significantly increase the odds.

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AnotherAtheist said:

How is survival of the fittest not a sufficient explanation of how random mutation could be guided to produce the life that we see today?

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Survival of the fittest only operates on mutations that have already occurred. I agree this process weeds out poorly designed or non-adaptive mutations.

Mutations occur by random processes. Examples:

1. The weak force randomly triggers radiation which travels in a random direction to hit a random DNA molecule causing a random mutation.
2. The random bouncing around of chemical biological molecules can occasionally function incorrectly resulting in a mutation.
3. Each radioactive event in the sun results in a gamma ray aimed in a random direction which randomly hits a DNA molecule resulting in a random mutation.

I have trouble believing that all this randomness would generate the needed mutations to construct the incredibly intricate and complex molecular chemical machinery that operates within the cell. Seems there must be an intelligent and powerful entity guiding the process to increase the odds. (Yes, this is intelligent design.)

jesus316 said:

I have trouble believing that all this randomness would generate the needed mutations to construct the incredibly intricate and complex molecular chemical machinery that operates within the cell. Seems there must be an intelligent and powerful entity guiding the process to increase the odds. (Yes, this is intelligent design.)

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Why do you have trouble believing that 'all this randomness' would generate the needed mutations to construct the complex molecular machinery that operates within the cell?

If you just give the argument you have, you are saying that you don't believe it but don't give any reason except to describe the machinery as 'incredibly intricate and complex machinery. This is just an argument from ignorance. E.g. a possibly unkind but also possible accurate paraphrase of your argument is that you don't know how it could have developed, therefore it couldn't.

There is a lot of research and knowledge on how various bits of 'molecular machinery' developed. What is it about that knowledge that you find unconvincing?

Divide said:

Really? can you not see the contradiction in your question?

Look at your wording there...

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No I don't see any contradiction.

Survival of the fittest is feedback from the environment. This can guide (not intelligently) changes in the balance of alleles present in a population, which is evolution.

So, can you explain what you believe the contraction to be?

AnotherAtheist said:

There is a lot of research and knowledge on how various bits of 'molecular machinery' developed. What is it about that knowledge that you find unconvincing?

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No one has demonstrated it can happen via randomness. It is merely assumed. This, because of the assumption of materialism.

jesus316 said:

No one has demonstrated it can happen via randomness. It is merely assumed. This, because of the assumption of materialism.

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I'm not sure here what you mean by "randomness." In science, "random" merely means "unpredictable." There is no assumption of metaphysical materialism.

jesus316 said:

No one has demonstrated it can happen via randomness. It is merely assumed. This, because of the assumption of materialism.

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Evolution is not just random. The original mutations are random (according to current theory) but survival of the fittest filters those mutations which then makes the process as a whole highly directed towards fitter organisms. This is a very basic part of the ToE and it's concerning that you don't know it.

It is not just an assumption. It is a testable hypothesis, which has been tested. See the entire field of genetic algorithms.