Evolution: Religion or Science?

[Gurdur]

Au contraire. For a determinist, there is no boundary between physical and psychological. The mind is a product of our physical being. I am not making this up.

Just wondering how you claim to know this.

 

And you are simply wrong on a very practical and important level; in science, we do not use the vocabulary of the physical (neurology etc.) to explain the mind, we use an entirely different domain --- the vocabulary of science and philosophy of mind --- to describe the mind.

 

So again, your claims appear all confused to me. If you wish to state there is no boundary at all "between physical and psychological", you sound like a rather extreme monist to me; I wonder why you so airily dismiss dualism, which exists for rather practical reasons.

Determinists hold that all events are the resultant of earlier events. That includes our thoughts,

Like I said, you earlier confuse physical with psychological determinism, and FYI, science does not rest on any base of psychological determinism.

Very few determinists separate psychological determinism from physical determinism.

Actually, in practice a great many do. It happens all the time in science.

Just again FYI, about half of scientists in the USA are theist to some degree, which again contradicts several of your claims.

There are dozens of good examples. But for the moment, look at the incredibly slow uptake of Punctuated Equilibrium as accepted dogma. And the incredible lag time it takes for the dearth of evidence in support of gradualism (as a general speciation mechanism) to impact accepted dogma.

What is all that supposed to mean ? This sounds like simple hyperbole. "Dogma" ?

You never answered my question why you think scientists act like a herd, and FYI science does not run on the base of "accepted dogma".

Nor is punctuated equilibria "accepted dogma", nor is it even a widely accepted theory.

And "gradualism" was never said to be "a general speciation mechanism"; it seems to me you mistake the nature of both the gradualist and the punctuated equilibria models. Both rest on mutation as a driving motor, BTW.

[Gurdur]

.... Ok, I'll define 'sinned'. when an archer missed the target, they called that a sin in the old days. When you steal a cookie from the cookie jar, that is a sin.

Seems like a very very arbitrary and random way of defining "sin" to me. Is there any more consistant definition ?

I get my "unBiblical" theology diectly out of the Bible

Nowhere in the Bible is the whole Earth "cursed".

My Creator is the Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end, He claimed a name in Moses's day, called himself "I Am" "before the World was, I Am" which gives him a sence of eternal power.

He has a "sense" of eternal power ? But doesn't have it really ?

BTW, you never explained where this "Creator" came from; I guess that disproves your earlier claim that "everything has to come from something" ?

[Gurdur]

Could it be that you just don't fully understand it yet? :D

Perhaps, Southtown, you don't quite realise and fully understand the way the human retina is built in a completely unnecessary way, with light having to go through the neural connectors to reach the receptors ?

This was caused by evolution, nothing else.

 

Would you like a more complete description of the human retina and its problems to help you understand the problems here ?

[Erasmus00]

You should at least talk some science considering the thread topic. Explain to me how amino acids can form accidentally, make protiens and begin to reproduce, by completely non-organic mechanisms.

 

You are distortin what abiogenesis claims. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/ about the probability of abiogenesis.

-Will

[Biochemist]

Just wondering how you claim to know this.

Words have meaning, and we should use them. Let's start with a definition of Determinism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

 

"Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. No mysterious miracles or totally random events occur. If there has been even one indeterministic event since the beginning of time, then determinism is false.'

Keep in mind that I am not defending Determinism. I am trying to reference it.

And you are simply wrong on a very practical and important level; in science, we do not use the vocabulary of the physical (neurology etc.) to explain the mind...

Glad to hear it. I am not sure why you are bringing this up. You have completely lost my point (a: Determinists do not allow for external causality, and b: many scientists are determinists). That fact that some scientists are not Determinists (me, for example) or that some scientists assume Determinism is valid in a domain parochial to their field of study (like psyhchologists or neuroscientists) but not valid generally does not obviate my point.

 

The point was that Determinists cannot identify any causality for thought or feeling other than preexisting states of nature. Therefore feelings like "love" and higher constructs like "purpose of mankind" are meaningless, since they are only resultants of prior events.

 

I have no idea why you are fighting this. And I give up defending a definition.

[Biochemist]

...the human retina is built in a completely unnecessary way, with light having to go through the neural connectors to reach the receptors ?

This was caused by evolution, nothing else...

This is a perfectly reasonable postulate. But it is only that. No one has demonstrated that the neurological physical plant is an evolutionary step, or that the neurological placement is an error. These are assumptions.

 

You can assume whatever you like based on the morphological observations, and you can assert causality as well. But to assume there is no other potential mechanism or interpretation of the observed morphology is a little short sighted.

[Biochemist]

... Just again FYI, about half of scientists in the USA are theist to some degree, which again contradicts several of your claims....

Theists tend not to be determinists, since they allow for external causality. I have no idea what point you are making.

[Biochemist]

Nor is punctuated equilibria "accepted dogma", nor is it even a widely accepted theory.

That was my point. It should be, but it is not.

And "gradualism" was never said to be "a general speciation mechanism"

It was for Darwin, and that presumption held nearly universal acceptance among evolutionary biologists until PE was advanced in the early 1970s. What are you talking about?

..it seems to me you mistake the nature of both the gradualist and the punctuated equilibria models. Both rest on mutation as a driving motor...

PE makes no assumptions about mechanism. It describes a problem as elucidated in the fossil record. PE is a paleontological assessment, not a genetic one. I understand that gradualism assumes mutation. I think that portion of gradualism is very poorly substantiated. Very poorly. Gradualism via genetic drift (in contrast) has credible support.

[eMTee]

Seems like a very very arbitrary and random way of defining "sin" to me. Is there any more consistant definition ?

 

Ok it says in Romans 3:23

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

 

"sinned" just simply means "missing the mark"

read the 10 commandments.

 

The Bible says that "if you do any of these in the least of them, you are guilt of all"

 

Back in Medieval times, when an archer missed his mark the achiever of the arrow would inspect it and and anounce it a sin like "he has sinned"

 

Nowhere in the Bible is the whole Earth "cursed".

 

Gen 3:14

And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,

thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;

upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of

 

thy life:

 

Gen 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy

seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise

his heel.

 

Gen 3:16

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy

conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire

shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

 

Gen 3:17

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of

thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee,

saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake;

in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

 

Gen 3:18

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt

eat the herb of the field;

 

Gen 3:19

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto

the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and

unto dust shalt thou return.

 

 

 

He has a "sense" of eternal power ? But doesn't have it really ?

BTW, you never explained where this "Creator" came from; I guess that disproves your earlier claim that "everything has to come from something" ?

 

In otherwords he HAS eternal power.

 

The creator (God) always was, is and forever will be.

[Fishteacher73]

You should at least talk some science considering the thread topic. Explain to me how amino acids can form accidentally, make protiens and begin to reproduce, by completely non-organic mechanisms.

 

There are a number of models that suggest ionized laminar clays attracted early "organic"-like compounds in specific patterns. The charged ions, would then in turn attract the clay again in the specific ionic patern. This began a competetion of sorts for resources, the best able to attract and replicate gained the resources. This continued for only about a billion years until the first signs of life (aprox 3 billion years ago).

 

There are a few other theories as well.

 

Considering the diversity, complexity, and intricate balances of the ecosystem on our little mud ball, the fact that we're all still here testifies to it's adequacy. The human eye doesn't appear too shabby to me, either.

 

“While today’s digital hardware is extremely impressive, it is clear that the human retina’s real-time performance goes unchallenged. Actually, to simulate 10 milliseconds (ms) of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of [1985] Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second.” John K. Stevens, “Reverse Engineering the Brain,” Byte, April 1985, p. 287.

 

Could it be that you just don't fully understand it yet? ;)

 

The issue here is that Byte is not particularly a acclaimed biology publication, and got it WRONG. The physiology of the human eye is a moderate design at best. The eye is simply an organ that intakes information. All this wonderous annalyzing occurs in the brain not the eye. It is on par with a pin-hole camera, with a blind spot.

[Southtown]

There are a number of models that suggest ionized laminar clays attracted early "organic"-like compounds in specific patterns. The charged ions, would then in turn attract the clay again in the specific ionic patern. This began a competetion of sorts for resources, the best able to attract and replicate gained the resources. This continued for only about a billion years until the first signs of life (aprox 3 billion years ago).

 

There are a few other theories as well.

Would that be kind of like crystal growth?

 

The issue here is that Byte is not particularly a acclaimed biology publication, and got it WRONG. The physiology of the human eye is a moderate design at best. The eye is simply an organ that intakes information. All this wonderous annalyzing occurs in the brain not the eye. It is on par with a pin-hole camera, with a blind spot.

Were the random DNA mutations that brought about the eyeball simultaneous, or did we just start out with two holes in our face?

[Skippy]

And? So what? We have not yet duplicated the conditions in which abiogenesis occured, so it is hardly surprising that we have not observed it.

THAT, my friend IS THE POINT OF THIS THREAD. Thank you for admitting that fact.

 

You prove that your faith has been placed in evolution. Quote, "And? So what?" Unquote - Your zealous defense of that faith proves the point that evolutionism IS a religion. Your prophet Darwin said that his theory should be discarded if it couldn't be proved, he didn't say one should continue to edit past suppositions with other suppositions just to keep his theory breathing, he said it should be put away.

[Southtown]

Ok it says in Romans 3:23

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

 

"sinned" just simply means "missing the mark"

read the 10 commandments.

 

The Bible says that "if you do any of these in the least of them, you are guilt of all"

 

Back in Medieval times, when an archer missed his mark the achiever of the arrow would inspect it and and anounce it a sin like "he has sinned"

I did not know that. o_O Sin, of course being an English word, was just used in translation. And the bible when it says, "All have sinned," simply means "nobody's perfect," which sounds rational enough. ;)

[Skippy]

Evolution is a scientific theory without question. Just because some people have faith that it is true does not make it a religion, it just means they are poor scientists.

Couldn't help but have that quote reiterated ;). (As I posted earlier, the definition of religion says the proponents exhibit zealous devotion to a principle or cause - THAT is why evolution should be considered a religion)

[Skippy]

Selection Boerseun, selection will happen. That means a decrease, not an increase.

 

Given enough time, probability will permit quite a lot, but it won't explain anything.

 

Yes... you believe, and blindly at that. I find it humorous that people who cling to ideas given to them through mandatory, government education can consider themselves critical thinkers.

 

P.S. This is just some of the biological evidence. There's still geological and astronomical evidence not included here (such as oceanic trenches and the age limit of the Moon's orbit) that directly effect the time afforded to any theories regarding the proliferation of life on Earth.

What an awesome post Southtown! ;) ! Everyone needs to go back and read Post #111 (it was too long to repeat here).

 

Keep up the good work Southtown!

[Erasmus00]

Ok, I'll define 'sinned'. when an archer missed the target, they called that a sin in the old days. When you steal a cookie from the cookie jar, that is a sin.

 

I don't know where you get your information, but sin comes from an indo-european root (es) which is the oldest form of "to be." At some point (before passing into old english) es branched out to something more like synn and came to mean something along the lines of a transgression of a religious imperative. Its particularly interesting to me, because the notion that man is inherently evil is apparently not a new one, in that "to be" or to exist became wrapped up in transgressing religion.

-Will

[Fishteacher73]

Would that be kind of like crystal growth?

Similar, but crystaline growth is not competetive, and it relies upon its own structure for form. The ionic clay model is a multiple component theory that produces replicating organic molecules. Not a bad place for life to start.

 

Were the random DNA mutations that brought about the eyeball simultaneous, or did we just start out with two holes in our face?

There have been a few variations on the visual recpetion organ, from just light sensitive eye spots, compound eyes, to multiple iris designs. The basic human type eye have been around way longer than most mamals, much less human faces with holes to fill. Ancient sea life has eyes that would astound many (the giant squid has the largest eyes ever, and many squid optics are used for research into human vision). They all use an arangement of either cone, rod, or both cells as a electro-chemical receptors that absorb various portions of the spectrum.