Evolution & Creation CAN coexist!

[questor]

Linda, if evolution is the answer, please explain why:

since modern man is only about 100,000years old, what was his immediate predecessor ? why did the Neanderthal go extinct instead of evolving to meet environmental requirements? why did other Homo species die out rather than evolve ? if we descended from the ape, what was the animal that yielded the ape ?

[T0M]

Linda, if evolution is the answer, please explain why:

since modern man is only about 100,000years old, what was his immediate predecessor ? why did the Neanderthal go extinct instead of evolving to meet environmental requirements? why did other Homo species die out rather than evolve ? if we descended from the ape, what was the animal that yielded the ape ?

 

Please read the whole thing, most of your questions have answers in my (or other's) earlier replies.

 

Neanderthal went extinct by our predecessors. They did evolve to meet environmental requirements (except for our predecessors).

For the rest of your questions go read the rest of the thread. Or just read a bit about evolution.

[questor]

i have read a bit about evolution and if you think Cro Magnon sought out every Neanderthal and axed him, i think you should read more. that is not even a partial explanation.

[T0M]

:eek2:

[Boerseun]

That is, new features and new functions cannot develop gradually because the partially-formed stages would be useless and would make it more difficult for an organism to compete in its environment. In other words, the new features and functions that macro-evolution would promise can only benefit the organism if they are present in their entirety, fully functional and ready-to-use. Natural selection wouldn't tolerate any gradual development of new structures, features and functions. The intermediate stages would be selected out by natural selection and the evolutionary process would die with it.

Haha - once again: WRONG.

 

Take a bird as a case in point. They evolved from reptiles. Now, a reptile is a cold-blooded animal. Right? So. Any reptile with an enlarged surface area that can be turned towards the sun will have an advantage. So, the frontal limbs started increasing in size, a beneficial change without the eventual function (wings) in mind. Scales slowly changed into feathers, every slight move towards a feather being beneficial in terms of protecting the heat it got from the sun from radiating out again. The first birds we know of, archaeopteryx, did have claws on its wings (and used it to climb trees and stuff) and no keelbone - it could not fly. It could, however, glide from tree to tree or from a tree to the ground, in order to save energy that would've been needlessly spent in climbing up and down. And then, members of that species that did have a slightly enlarged breastbone could flap it a few times and either glide further or maybe even gain some altitude, and through this had access to more resources. And so a keelbone started developing, every small enlargement giving that specific bird a slight edge over the rest. And then the process continued till the amazing variety of birds we have today. Nowhere in this slow progression was any of these changes 'not' beneficial, or 'not' allowed.

 

The initial idea behind wings and feathers (as thermal regulators) had nothing to do with the end result. Today, birds have huge keelbones, feathers and wings. And only because at some ice-age or some specifically cold period in the past, a couple of cold-blooded reptiles wanted to stay warm.

 

Intelligent Design? - BUSTED!!!:shrug:

[TRoutMac]

Take a bird as a case in point. They evolved from reptiles…

 

That was a nice fairy tale, Boerseun. Trouble is, it's all speculation and none of it can be proven on a scientific basis.

 

The initial idea behind wings and feathers (as thermal regulators) had nothing to do with the end result.

 

First of all, that there was an initial "idea" behind wings and feathers at all implies intelligent activity. Secondly, you have no way to prove empirically (scientific method) that the initial "idea" was anything different than the end result. You're just stating your personal beliefs and dressing them up in a "science" suit.

 

Today, birds have huge keelbones, feathers and wings. And only because at some ice-age or some specifically cold period in the past, a couple of cold-blooded reptiles wanted to stay warm.

 

Fairy tale.

 

Intelligent Design? - BUSTED!!!:shrug:

 

Oh, puhleeeeez…

[chatlack]

It is not needed to coexist, as creation do not have to exist. Just delete creation and ignore fundamentalist.

 

It is a bit hard but I personally do not try to convince them. But do not get me wrong, I dont interfere them as well. Everyone has the right of thinking. But if you say something on a book , not a scientific chain of evidences, do not bother science about it...

[Boerseun]

That was a nice fairy tale, Boerseun. Trouble is, it's all speculation and none of it can be proven on a scientific basis.

Hmmm... lemme see... speculation, being backed up by the fossil record, genetically proven with DNA comparisons between different species, yeah - you're right. It must be a fairytale, simply because it opposes your view. A pretty compelling fairytale, though. But then I'm sure the evidence is fabricated. Can't be otherwise. Let's just pommel them with nonsensical analogies. Yeah... that'll do the trick. :shrug:

First of all, that there was an initial "idea" behind wings and feathers at all implies intelligent activity. Secondly, you have no way to prove empirically (scientific method) that the initial "idea" was anything different than the end result. You're just stating your personal beliefs and dressing them up in a "science" suit.

Ouch. Now you're really getting to me, and the fallacy behind my trust in science and evolution. If ever I said there was an initial "idea" behind wings and feathers, you have conveniently misread and misinterpreted my post.

The "idea" was for it to serve as thermal regulating devices. The "idea", of course, was no premeditated "idea", like your proposed "Designer" would have, but simply a response to environmental pressures in a feedback loop created by death and sex. There's no "consciousness" behind the "idea" of the initial purpose for wings and feathers. If I didn't make myself clear in my previous post, or in this one, well, maybe my command of English is lacking. Or maybe I'm just flat-out wrong and trying to take over the World with my materialistic atheistic evil evolutionary heathenly un-Christian ways. Mwuhahahaha....

Fairy tale.

Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you? Now bring me the evidence so that we can sit around like a couple of grownups and discuss your point of view. So are currently saying "I believe in ID. The Scientific Community won't give me the time of day. Therefore, Science must be wrong." Have you ever considered the possibility that the Scientific Community is merely waiting for ID to supply the evidence? Have you ever considered the possibility that Science has weighed the evidence brought in to date and found it unscientific? Have you considered that millions of ludicrous theories are presented every year, challenging established science? And that science looks at it objectively, and then fail it? Why, of all these theories, should the whole of Science decide to change the scientific method and embrace ID?

Come, now. Either bring the evidence, or accept defeat and go and look for the next theory to promote.

Oh, puhleeeeez…

Yep. Still BUSTED, though! :cup:

[TRoutMac]

Hmmm... lemme see... speculation, being backed up by the fossil record, genetically proven with DNA comparisons between different species, yeah - you're right. It must be a fairytale, simply because it opposes your view.

 

I was waiting for you to use the fossil record as support again… because in another post in another forum you said the fossil record was incomplete and a "work in progress", or words to that effect. And I said something like "I'll remember that next time you use the fossil record to support your view." Information gleaned from fossils is purely a matter of interpretation. Comparing DNA does not PROVE evolution. You may interpret it as support for your view, but I may interpret it as support for mine. Common design.

 

If ever I said there was an initial "idea" behind wings and feathers, you have conveniently misread and misinterpreted my post.

The "idea" was for it to serve as thermal regulating devices. The "idea", of course, was no premeditated "idea", like your proposed "Designer" would have, but simply a response to environmental pressures in a feedback loop created by death and sex.

 

I merely said that using the word "idea" implies an intelligence. I think it's interesting that evolutionists consistently use language which implies design and intelligence. The biologist's proverb "Evolution is cleverer than you are" is a particularly good example… cleverness comes from intelligence. Oops. Freudian slip there, I think.

 

Now bring me the evidence so that we can sit around like a couple of grownups and discuss your point of view.

 

Been there, done that.

 

Have you ever considered the possibility that Science has weighed the evidence brought in to date and found it unscientific?

 

The "scientific community" won't weigh the evidence it's been presented… that's the whole problem. The "scientific community" is committed to methodological naturalism and refuses to admit the embarassing inadequacies of that philosophy.

 

Have you considered that millions of ludicrous theories are presented every year, challenging established science? And that science looks at it objectively, and then fail it?

 

It's not "objective" to disallow evidence for competing theories. That's called "cooking the books".

 

Why, of all these theories, should the whole of Science decide to change the scientific method and embrace ID?

 

What you fail to realize is that ID is an effort to restore the scientific method to biology. It's evolution that has departed the scientific method.

[Southtown]

By no means am I an expert in either field.

I've read the Bible and I've read about Evolution.

I simply cannot SEE what the Creation Fundamentalists have against Evolutionary process! :shrug:

Couldn't GOD 'create' evolution???

Someone else already brought this up in another thread...

Because of this, even as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death passed to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.

--

Romans 5:12 litv

 

And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden, to work it and to keep it. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Eating you may eat of every tree in the garden; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, dying you shall die.

--

Genesis 2:15-17 litv

Paraphrase: Death came through one man... Evolution says man came through death. If you actually think about it, it's kinda dark from a sanctity-of-life standpoint.

[mhatch]

Bringing back an old thread here (found it because strangely it is the only one with search hits on the term 'methodological naturalism').

 

Evolution and Creation can certainly co-exist becuase there had to be a beginning to life, and micro-evolution (changes in the sizes of bird beaks) certainly does happen, but, as is brought up earlier in the thread, what about all of the extinction and explosion of life events we see in the fossil record? Why do complete complex ecological systems appear suddenly? How can we explain the diversity of complex life that evolutionary processes (macro-evolution) struggles to?

 

I think one of the key ideas here is that God is repeatedly creating the just-right complex life in each epoch to prepare the earth to support advanced complex life.

 

Psalm 104:27-30 speaks to this:

 

27 These all look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

28 When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand,

they are satisfied with good things.

29 When you hide your face,

they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

they die and return to the dust.

30 When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the earth.

[Boerseun]

Bringing back an old thread here (found it because strangely it is the only one with search hits on the term 'methodological naturalism').

Yes - our search function sucks a bit. Sorry.

Evolution and Creation can certainly co-exist becuase there had to be a beginning to life, and micro-evolution (changes in the sizes of bird beaks) certainly does happen, but, as is brought up earlier in the thread, what about all of the extinction and explosion of life events we see in the fossil record? Why do complete complex ecological systems appear suddenly? How can we explain the diversity of complex life that evolutionary processes (macro-evolution) struggles to?

Macro evolution happens. Please supply an alternative explanation for whales having hip bones, if not for macro evolution.

I think one of the key ideas here is that God is repeatedly creating the just-right complex life in each epoch to prepare the earth to support advanced complex life.

It's not a key idea, its simply wrong and introduces redundant elements. If it's God who did it, bring us a slice of God so we can test it. Judging by God's inferred qualities, powers and abilities, a tiny piece of it would be far more interesting that anything you'd care to test in a lab.

Psalm 104:27-30 speaks to this:

 

27 These all look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

28 When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand,

they are satisfied with good things.

29 When you hide your face,

they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

they die and return to the dust.

30 When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the earth.

 

Your entire post is preaching. This is against the rules. Please don't, or face banishment into the deep dark pits of scientific materialistic hell where evil atheists will eat your babies. Apparently they go down fine with chianti.

[maikeru]

Bringing back an old thread here (found it because strangely it is the only one with search hits on the term 'methodological naturalism').

 

Evolution and Creation can certainly co-exist becuase there had to be a beginning to life, and micro-evolution (changes in the sizes of bird beaks) certainly does happen, but, as is brought up earlier in the thread, what about all of the extinction and explosion of life events we see in the fossil record? Why do complete complex ecological systems appear suddenly? How can we explain the diversity of complex life that evolutionary processes (macro-evolution) struggles to?

 

I think one of the key ideas here is that God is repeatedly creating the just-right complex life in each epoch to prepare the earth to support advanced complex life.

 

Psalm 104:27-30 speaks to this:

 

27 These all look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

28 When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand,

they are satisfied with good things.

29 When you hide your face,

they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

they die and return to the dust.

30 When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the earth.

 

The first problem is that there's not a clear line dividing microevolution and macroevolution. Actually, there is no line except in the imagination. There's just evolution. So to divide the process into two is a fallacy. There is only one. The change in allelic frequencies of a population from generation to generation. Note this definition, commonly found in genetic textbooks regarding evolution, does not distinguish between micro- and macroevolution.

 

Second, the appearances of complex lifeforms and ecosystems is not "sudden," although it can appear sudden in the paleontological record. Remember that fossils may record changes occurring over hundreds, thousands, and millions of years in what seems like a preserved instant.

[Qfwfq]

Evolution and Creation can certainly co-exist becuase there had to be a beginning to life, and micro-evolution (changes in the sizes of bird beaks) certainly does happen, but, as is brought up earlier in the thread, what about all of the extinction and explosion of life events we see in the fossil record? Why do complete complex ecological systems appear suddenly? How can we explain the diversity of complex life that evolutionary processes (macro-evolution) struggles to?

Darwin expands very much on these things in The Origin of Species except for the problem of the very very beginning, on which he made no whatsoever claim and which is still a somewhat open matter although there are plenty of conjectures and theories.

 

Note that the creationists he argued against were naturalists, most of his contemporary colleagues, who had been mislead by the imperfection of the fossil record, Darwin discusses this at great length throughout the book. These naturalists were not arguing on grounds of the book of Genesis but instead on what they saw in the fossils.

 

He also argues against Paley's watch argument --which he had previously found compelling-- and pointed out various explanations for many things that previously been great obstacles: basically the "you can't have an eighth of a eye" type of objection.

 

It's a book that makes excellent reading, try it. :rolleyes:

[mhatch]

Given this is in the Philosophy -> Theology forum I didn't think I would get blasted for proposing alternative ideas that include God (and in a thread titled as this one is) - and I don't intend to preach (unless you define any suggestion of God as preaching then I'm certain I will be banned - how does that speak of the open minded-ness of this site?)

 

Macro evolution happens. Please supply an alternative explanation for whales having hip bones, if not for macro evolution.

 

An alternative explanation is that there are useful common design patterns. We see this in architecture. I'm not an adherent to ID as a movement, but couldn't reuse of common designs patterns explain the recurrence of hip bones? Ok, so you will probably reply that one can't assert design because that implies intelligence, and science is not allowed to assert anything that doesn't come from the natural world (methodological natrualism).

 

To that argument, I offer this paper discussing an alternative (which I also started a separate thread on, so I'm sure there will be some good responses there).

 

Replacing Methodological Naturalism :: Robert A. Delfino :: Global Spiral

[Buffy]

I would recommend you read the sticky thread for the Theology forum: this forum is restricted to *analysis* of religious beliefs. Arguing for specific "roles" that "God" plays is getting into territory that we proscribe not because we are officially hostile toward religion, but because such discussions when they assume a particular theological viewpoint as being correct are offensive to those of differing beliefs, whether those beliefs are religious, agnostic or atheistic. Using scripture to support a particular world view is not considered a valid justification of the "truth" beyond the sociological discussion of the impact of what specific *humans* believe.

 

Now, what set most of us off here was the cognitive dissonance set up between:

I think one of the key ideas here is that God is repeatedly creating the just-right complex life in each epoch to prepare the earth to support advanced complex life.

..and the statement in your intro thread that specifically stated that you do not believe in a "God of the gaps." It's not that we don't think you should be allowed to have such thoughts, but that the contradiction leads some to believe that your original statement was intentionally misleading.

 

In any case, justifying an interpretation of reality as being that God interferes at any point to affect the physical world is generally considered here to be a position that is not provable by the scientific method, and because in absence of such an approach that one is forced to start quoting scriptures--as you did here--your discussion is outside the bounds of what we accept here.

 

There are plenty of places on the internet to profess one's faith-based beliefs, but this is not one of them.

 

We do have discussions on Theological topics, but our definition of Theology is not the standard one, which is why we re-explain it constantly.

 

True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is, :Guns:

Buffy

[mhatch]

I would recommend you read the sticky thread for the Theology forum: this forum is restricted to *analysis* of religious beliefs. Arguing for specific "roles" that "God" plays is getting into territory that we proscribe not because we are officially hostile toward religion, but because such discussions when they assume a particular theological viewpoint as being correct are offensive to those of differing beliefs, whether those beliefs are religious, agnostic or atheistic. Using scripture to support a particular world view is not considered a valid justification of the "truth" beyond the sociological discussion of the impact of what specific *humans* believe.

Understood, thanks Buffy. I'll take a look at the sticky - sorry for assuming!

Re-thinking my intent in posting the scripture - I was not trying to direclty support the viewpoint, but rather show that extinction/explosion events were potentially described by Psalmic writers thousands of years before science discovered them in reality. I will think twice in the future about it, though, and make sure I describe my intent.

 

Now, what set most of us off here was the cognitive dissonance set up between:

 

..and the statement in your intro thread that specifically stated that you do not believe in a "God of the gaps." It's not that we don't think you should be allowed to have such thoughts, but that the contradiction leads some to believe that your original statement was intentionally misleading.

 

In my mind, I was not trying to insert God as an explanation for the life explosion events, but rather say that since we see explosive events in the geological record, one potential purpose for those events would be to provide the right life for each period to prepare the earth. But now that I've tried to explain myself I see that saying there is a 'purpose' to it doesn't sound much different to anyone that doesn't believe there is a purpose.

 

Huh. Trying to articulate these things in a balanced way is challenging - part of the reason I joined... I'm so excited and interested in the amazing things science discovers every day I want to dialog about it - I'm bummed that the hostility between science and faith (which I don't think needs to exist at all) has reached such a state that a site like this threatens to ban me so quickly.