Surely you understand that "science cannot prove everything, hence God" is a really blatant argumentative fallacy?
Science has shown great evidence for certain things. It can't prove anything, but do you believe in gravity? Science shows evidence for it. Lots of evidence. It hasn't proved it, but you still believe it (you also believe in gravity from personal experience, I know, but this is just an example). What I was saying was that it shows a LOT evidence for it.
It is not completely reliable.
And what is completely reliable? That's right: Nothing.
I disagree with you here. There is one thing that is completely reliable. And that is God. You don't agree with me on this, so please don't talk about it further.
(I'm numbering these myself and reorganizing this so I can answer easier)
1. What kind of "creator"?
2. Is this "creator" sentient?
3. Does he exist currently? (After all, it's possible that this "creator" created the universe, but consumed itself completely in order to do so and thus ceased to exist.)
4. Are there more than one, or is this "creator" unique?
5. Was this "creator" itself also created by another?
6. How long has this "creator" existed?
7. Where is this "creator"? (Is he in a specific place, or is he "everywhere"?)
8. What are the properties of this "creator"?
9. Does he observe us?
I shall answer these from a Christian standpoint (I know you may think this unnecessary, but I still feel like I should).
1. If you mean His personality, then it is explained in the Bible. He is loving (He is love). He is righteous, while still being merciful. These all add up to Him condemning us, but paying the price for it ourselves.
2. Yes. He created us in His image, so He (as we are) is sentient.
3. He has been doing things to history (mainly to people) after He created it. He still does things today (I am a witness to that).
4. The Bible multiple times says that there is only one God. The trinity may confuse things a bit, but He is still only one.
5. No. He always has been, and He always will be.
6. He doesn't "exist" in the same way we do. He was never "made", he always has been.
7. He is in heaven, which isn't in this universe.
8. He doesn't exist in this universe, so we can't quite say what his "properties" are.
9. Oh yes. I know he does from experience.
As long as we can't observe and measure this hypothetical "creator", it's a useless hypothesis. It only raises more questions than it answers.
First of all, a hypothesis that can't be observed and measured doesn't mean it's useless. It just doesn't get answered. But I believe that we can observe and measure Him (through what he does in the world) so we can see some things about Him.
It's also funny how "science cannot prove anything", but immediately when it's time to (ab)use science to prove how life could not have been formed on its own, suddenly science consists of well-proven and irrefutable facts.
There are probably billions and billions of planets in our galaxy alone. (Multiply that by the amount of galaxies in the universe.) Each planet has some randomly-set conditions. Their composition, mass, radius, density, distance from the star, the properties of the star, possible moons, other planets in the same system and a million other variables vary randomly from planet to planet. All these parameters are quite random due to how planetary systems form.
Some planets will be more inhospitable than others due to all these factors. A few planets in existence in the universe will have all these parameters just right for some kind of life to be possible on their surface. Yes, completely by chance. This isn't even far-fetched. One of those planets happened to form around this particular star in this particular galaxy. There's nothing special about this particular star or galaxy; there are probably many other similar planets elsewhere. There's nothing "impossible" about Earth being like it is.
Let's say that in the universe, of all the gazillions of planets out there, there are about a million that can support life (I find this to be a reasonable estimate, if not too large. While there are a lot of planets, there are so many variables (even Jupiter's exact orbit helps us (it pulls meteorites (I'm pretty sure I used the wrong form of the word here) towards it saving us from a bunch of them.)) that not many could support life). And let's say that on each of these, every million years or so (all of these are very rough estimates, you could change these by a lot) all of the EXACT RIGHT chemicals are in the same place to make some life form a bit simpler than a bacterium (I say a bit simpler because something too much simpler wouldn't survive). Let's even go so far as to say that the whole cell (which would be VERY hard to make) (which would include the cell membrane, the DNA, the cytoplasm and ribosomes (which makes proteins) (you can research all these things yourself)) was all made correctly (this should reduce the times of this happening to about a billion years, but let's go with the old estimate of a million).
DNA's code says how to make proteins. I won't put up references, but you can research this part to make sure it's true (I'm not saying it's proved by science). DNA has four nucleotides, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. DNA looks like it does here (I don't know how to post pictures in forum posts :P)
At the middle the nucleotides bond with each other. Adenine only bonds with thymine, and cytosine only bonds with guanine. When the cell wants to make a protein, messenger RNA (mRNA) (which works the same as a strand of DNA but only has one strand and thymine is replaced with another nucleotide called uracil (which works exactly the same)) comes in and while something else is unraveling the DNA it figures out what the DNA says by temporarily bonding with it. It goes to a ribosome, and there there is something called transfer RNA (tRNA), which temporarily bonds with the mRNA. tRNA is connected to amino acids, and when the tRNA links with the mRNA the amino acids link up as well. Proteins are made of amino acids, and when the RNA is all finished, a protein is made.
Sorry about the biology lesson (I basically copied it from a biology textbook (Exploring Creation in Biology p. 192-199)). But my point is, in the earlier scenerio, the DNA would have to be completly random (the whole thing is random). So, obviously, the nucleotides, and, in turn, the amino acids, are all random. Let's look at the chance that one of the simplest proteins in life (ribonuclease (this is an example from the same textbook, p. 155-156) would be made from random nucleotides. The amino acids need to link up in the exact right way for it to be ribonuclease. The order of amino acids to form ribonuclease are (abreviated) Lys Glu Thr Ala Ala Ala Lys Phe Glu Arg Glu His Met Asp Ser Ser Thr Ser Ala Ala Ser Ser Ser Asp Tyr Cys Asp Glu Met Met Lys Ser Arg Asp Leu Thr Lys Asp Arg Cys Lys Pro Val Asp Thr Phe Val His Glu Ser Leu Ala Asp Val Glu Ala Val Cys Ser Glu Lys Asp Val Ala Cys Lys Asp Gly Glu Thr Asp Cys Tyr Glu Ser Tyr Ser Thr Met Ser Leu Thr Asp Cys Arg Glu Thr Gly Ser Ser Lys Tyr Pro Asp Cys Ala Lys Thr Thr Glu Ala Asp Lys His Leu Leu Val Ala Cys Glu Gly Asp Pro Tyr Val Pro Val His Phe Asp Ala Ser Val (I may have made a typo somewhere in that, sorry). And yes, this is one of the most simplest proteins. Typical proteins have thousands of amino acids.
If you calculate the chance that the nucleotide sequences (the nucleotide sequences and the amino acid they call can be found at this page (most amino acids can be called from more than one set of nucleotides)) will make exactly this protein (if a single amino acid is wrong, it's useless) is 1 in 8442211036948634762598486050803957413514603031263111711861287638137
7899285162557042129229697427303765112836665680647157024923665607092
369548745599623765885246036908449569177600. Remember, this protein is very simple. Now, divide this by the million planets that can support life times the times it happens (the estimated age of the universe (which I don't agree with) of 13.75 billion years / million years (which is 13750 times)) you get 1 in 6139789845053552554617080764221059937101529477282263063171845555009
3017661936405121548530689038039101900244847767743386927217211350612
63239908770881728428017893593341 chance. Remember, other proteins would make this number a lot larger. I won't believe that chance happened randomly. Something had to make that happen.
Sorry about the long post, but I was just wanting to say what I thought I should say.
EDIT: I don't know why it decided to make the whole page three times as long when I made the post. Could anybody tell me how to fix that?
EDIT: I fixed it, but the numbers are not quite right. I don't feel like formating exactly right. :P
Science has shown great evidence for certain things. It can't prove anything, but do you believe in gravity?
It's not a question of belief. The term "belief" implies some kind of blind faith based on flimsy or no evidence, based more on feelings. I prefer to use "I don't have any reason to doubt" that gravity exists.
And what is completely reliable? That's right: Nothing.
I disagree with you here. There is one thing that is completely reliable. And that is God. You don't agree with me on this, so please don't talk about it further.
You are making such a category error here that I'm not even bothering to try to correct it. I'm pretty sure you yourself understand it.
1. If you mean His personality, then it is explained in the Bible.
So you are not only saying that a creator must have created this universe, you are moreover saying that this creator is the God of the Bible. Why do you assume that the Bible is correct and accurate?
(And that was a rhetorical question. I don't think you can give me an answer I haven't heard a million times already. All such answers are logical fallacies. If you really want to, you can give me your reasoning and I can tell you why it's a fallacy, but I'm not sure if this thread should become such an endless back-and-forth discussion that will not convince either one of us.)
(Also notice that I'm not saying that what the Bible says is not true. What I am saying is that the Bible is not proof of anything, from a scientific or even just rational point of view. "This is true because the Bible says so" is not even an argument. Although many of the things you say are not found in the Bible either. They seem to be your own interpretations.)
All of your answer that you gave in your post make the unjustified assumption, so there's really no need to go over them. Except perhaps for this one:
9. Oh yes. I know he does from experience.
What kind of experience would that be?
And let's say that on each of these, every million years or so (all of these are very rough estimates, you could change these by a lot) all of the EXACT RIGHT chemicals are in the same place to make some life form a bit simpler than a bacterium (I say a bit simpler because something too much simpler wouldn't survive).
That's one of the most common misconceptions that creationists (and even some other people) have about abiogenesis. They believe that "evolution" (with which they really mean abiogenesis) says that in the initial "primordial soup" a simple single-celled organism appeared ready-made by pure chance, maybe via a lightning strike.
No. The very first form of "life" (if it can be called that) were most probably simple molecules that could self-replicate in one form of another. It probably took hundreds of millions of years of natural selection before the first simple single-celled organisms evolved from these self-replicating molecules.
And this is not just hand-waving. There's a good deal of research done on the mechanisms of these self-replicating molecules. Of course fully understanding this would require reading quite a lot of scientific papers on the subject, and it would require advanced knowledge in biochemistry and molecular biology...
But my point is, in the earlier scenerio, the DNA would have to be completly random (the whole thing is random).
Exactly why do you assume that DNA formed in one single step, and that it was completely random?
No, DNA most probably formed from very simple self-replicating molecules in a timespan of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection. Randomness was involved, but so much more was selection. (I assume you understand the most basic concepts of natural selection so I don't have to explain it.)
Your numbers are completely fallacious because you start from the assumption that DNA formed in one single step at random. It didn't.
Science has shown great evidence for certain things. It can't prove anything, but do you believe in gravity?
It's not a question of belief. The term "belief" implies some kind of blind faith based on flimsy or no evidence, based more on feelings. I prefer to use "I don't have any reason to doubt" that gravity exists.
That's just as much based on belief as believing in God because you see overwhelming evidence for his existance after observing loads of evidence for it from your own experience. Seriously, think about it. You're making the very same mistake you ascribe to religious people here. You assume it's there because it seems like a reasonable explanation to you, then you say there is no reason to doubt it. Basically, you're just assuming it's true and plan to keep doing that untill you see something that disproves it. There is reason to doubt in gravity is an elemental force. It's poorly understood, it's spooky action at a distance and it's for some reason a lot weaker than all the other elemental forces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXUhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity
As long as there are alternate explanations, it's not reasonable to just blindly pick one and believe in it, and that includes gravity the way we commonly understand it. Even though it's not reasonable (except for thought experiments), one may take guesses and see if they lead to contradictions, but doing that they shouldn't forget that they took a big random guess at one point, and an alternate guess maybe wouldn't have led to any contradictions either. So, regarding my personal belief system, I prefer to take as little of these guesses as possible.
That's just as much based on belief as believing in God because you see overwhelming evidence for his existance after observing loads of evidence for it from your own experience. Seriously, think about it. You're making the very same mistake you ascribe to religious people here.
No, I'm not. Gravity as a phenomenon can be measured and tested, and we can observe its effects and see that it behaves consistently. You can create formulas that describe gravity and using them make accurate predictions on how it will behave. Gravity does not act differently on different people, nor is it dependent on each person's individual perceptions, feelings and thoughts. It always acts the same on everything independently on who is making the observation and testing.
God, on the other hand, cannot be detected, observed, measured or tested. There are no formulas, consistency nor predictive power in the notion of God. The whole concept of "God" is fuzzy, everybody has different opinions on what it is, and it's very, very much dependent on personal feelings and emotions how one perceives the concept. Nobody can even give a consistent definition of "God". Even the most vacuous definition of "whatever caused the universe to exist" is meaningless and empty because, as said, we cannot know anything at all about this hypothesized "God" because we cannot observe, measure nor test it.
There's a whole world of a difference.
There is reason to doubt in gravity is an elemental force.
Now you are making a category error. Nowhere did I say "I think gravity is an elemental force."
It's poorly understood, it's spooky action at a distance and it's for some reason a lot weaker than all the other elemental forces.
So what?
As long as there are alternate explanations, it's not reasonable to just blindly pick one and believe in it
Blindly? That sentence couldn't be more nonsensical even if you tried.
Not all explanations are equal. Some explanations are more backed up by experimental evidence and research than others. The existence of alternative hypotheses does certainly not make all of them equally valid. That's just silly.
Well, gravity in the sense that large masses actively attract lower masses is a random belief. It may seem that way, similar to how it may seem that there is a God, but it might not be the correct way to explain the phenomenon. When people say they know there is a God, they can feel him, and for everybody who has actively asked him to give them a sign, they can feel that he's there as well, that's a testable phenomenon as well. If that many people can feel his presence, then it might be that he's real or it might just be a psychological phenomenon. It doesn't make sense to believe in him just because you can feel it, as it doesn't make sense to believe in gravity in the common sense because we can observe it. From wikipedia (I know): "Gravitation, or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass." Now do they really do that or is there something else going on that just makes it seem that they do?
If you ask God to give you a sign, he'll definitely give you one. Once you think you've received it, has he really given you one or is there something else going on?
Edit: @Warp below: If I believe in God as a psychological phenomenon, then I can't just get away with saying "I believe in God", as people would infer I believe in the more common notion of God. For me, it's similar when it comes to gravity. When saying "I believe in gravity", if your idea of gravity differs form the Newtonian one, which I believe is still the most common one, then I personally feel like that requires clarification as well.
Well, gravity in the sense that large masses actively attract lower masses is a random belief.
The question was not "what do you think gravity is, exactly?" The question was: "Do you believe that gravity exists?"
There's no reason to doubt the existence of gravity. We can discuss all day long about the exact terminology to refer to the causes for gravity, but that doesn't change the fact that there's ample evidence that it exists. As I have said many times: You can observe, measure and test it, you can formulate it, you can make accurate predictions of how it will work in different situations and you can test those predictions. Gravity is falsifiable.
The existence of God is none of those things. God is a hypothesis that cannot be tested nor verified.
Not all explanations are equal. Some explanations are more backed up by experimental evidence and research than others. The existence of alternative hypotheses does certainly not make all of them equally valid. That's just silly.
Just nitpicking on this. It's pretty logical that older hypotheses will be backed up by more evidence, as there has been more time to collect evidence and resolve possible conflicts (f.e. gravity stood in conflict with the notion that electrons could be tiny particles surrounding the nucleus at one point. Rutherford has resolved this one, if I'm not misinformed). That's also why there's so much evidence supporting the Bible. But that doesn't make anything more true. It just shows that the hypothesis is self-consistent and reflects reality under most circumstances. It means it's a good hypothesis, but you can't prove that that's how reality truly works that way, it only proves that it's a working substitute for whatever is really going on (of course any working substitute could be the real thing, but there is no way to find out). Better substitutes are found as science advances. Of course for that to be possible, falsifiability is very crucial and religion doesn't have that. Science is definitely superior in that regard. But when it comes to finding absolute truths, they both aren't particularly good instruments (there exist none. we are inherently incapable of finding the absolute truth, there exists no reason to assume otherwise). Science will maybe eventually lead to a pretty good approximation, but we'll never know if it's the real thing.
If we just reject alternate explanations because there's less evidence for them, that's no good for scientific progress at all. We need to test them empirically, preferably as well as the more common explanations have been tested. Then you can make a decision as to what's the better approximation of reality or leave both explanations in tact at the same time (wave/particle duality f.e.). Trusting in new theories to conduct thought experiments leads to progress, believing in either theory as the one and absolute truth is just random and no different from what religion does. I'm proposing we become more open-minded by not believing in anything at all that strongly. I simply don't find it reasonable. (Open-mindedness does not mean blindly believing in anything, on the contrary, that's how you become close-minded)
We are biased by experience. If I eat strawberries for 5 times in my life, and I get sick every single time, it doesn't make sense for me to strongly believe that strawberries are bad for me, but it makes sense for me to believe that it definitely seems that way to me so far. That's a crucial difference imo. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe I should take my time to think of alternate eplanations and test them. It also could have been just chance. If I pray for 5 times and it comes true all of the times, it's the same. Don't jump to hasty conclusions. Don't just believe in the first explanation that makes sense to you as the absolute truth.
We are also strongly biased by how our brain works. Cause and effect, objects, these concepts seem so natural to us, but does the universe really work that way? Isn't how it works at a microscopic scale the real deal and everything beyond that is just extrapolations? If we are honest we really don't know anything at all in absolute terms just because of that.
We will never find out, whether we live in the real world or inside a simulation embedded in a higher dimensional world. If the many-world interpretation of quantum physics is true (which I doubt), we could be a brute force simulation. Does it make sense to believe that? No. Would it make a huge difference? No, but it illustrates that we just aren't capable of knowing everything. If it's a simulation, that could mean that there are components from out of this world strongly involved in how the universe works. Even if we aren't in a simulation that might very well be the case. F.e. some quantum phenomena offer some evidence for that.
Science isn't truth, it's just our best guess. It works and has been tested, so it's a working approximation/substitute for how reality really works. Whether it's really true, there is no way of finding out. Of course that's even more so true, when it comes to religion. Because it isn't falsifiable, it stands on even more shaky grounds.
It's not a question of belief. The term "belief" implies some kind of blind faith based on flimsy or no evidence, based more on feelings. I prefer to use "I don't have any reason to doubt" that gravity exists.
I don't have any reason to doubt that God exists.
So you are not only saying that a creator must have created this universe, you are moreover saying that this creator is the God of the Bible. Why do you assume that the Bible is correct and accurate?
sudgy wrote:
I shall answer these from a Christian standpoint
What I meant by saying this was that the questions can be answered. I wasn't saying that they are the truth (even though I think it is).
Warp wrote:
What kind of experience would that be?
Very simply, I have prayed, and the prayer has been answered. He also still does miracles today.
The existence of God is none of those things. God is a hypothesis that cannot be tested nor verified.
We can in some ways test and verify God. We can through what he does on Earth.
The very first form of "life" (if it can be called that) were most probably simple molecules that could self-replicate in one form of another. It probably took hundreds of millions of years of natural selection before the first simple single-celled organisms evolved from these self-replicating molecules.
And this is not just hand-waving. There's a good deal of research done on the mechanisms of these self-replicating molecules. Of course fully understanding this would require reading quite a lot of scientific papers on the subject, and it would require advanced knowledge in biochemistry and molecular biology...
Let's say that these self-replicating molecules somehow did evolve into single-celled organisms. But there is very little evidence that the single-celled organisms evolved into more complex organisms. First of all, don't try to say that the geological column is evidence, because it can be evidence for it or against it. We don't know how the rocks were made. They could have been made slowly, and then it would be evidence for macroevolution (I say macroevolution because it is completely different than microevolution. Microevolution has a lot more evidence than macroevolution). If it were made quickly (by some catastrophical event) then it is evidence against macroevolution. Because we don't know how it was formed, it is inconclusive.
Second, there are barely any (if there are any) fossils of intermediate links. Don't try to say that the eohippus to equus evolution is true. The parts of the fossils were found in many different continents, they all lived at (according to the assumption that the geological column was made slowly) the same time, and other bones (such as the ribs and spine) change randomly through the course of time. Even macroevolutionists admit this. Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, and a believer in macroevolution, says:
"I admit that an awful lot of that has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in his museum] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable..." (As quoted in Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, Master Books 1988, p. 78)
Macroevolutionists sometimes have to lie to make people believe it. They have now come up with another version of macroevolution, punctuated equilibrium. They say (basically) that at certain points in the past, life forms were exposed to high amounts of radiation or something like it, which would make them mutate. Natural selection then selects the few who got a beneficial mutation, and this process repeats until the high amounts of radiation go away. This gets rid of the need for intermediate links. The problem is, there has never been a mutation that has been completely benificial. The best one is one is that there is a mutation that makes you not as likely to die from malaria. But, it makes your blood much less efficient in transporting oxygen, making 25% of the people who have it die prematurely. I wouldn't call that benificial.
Those first two don't do to much to provide evidence, but the next two do. Structural homology is "The study of similar structures (bones or organs, for example) in different species." When Darwin saw that many very different organisms had some of the same features, he said that this probably meant that they all had a common ancestor that had those features, and as the organisms evolved, they changed just slightly. This would lead you to assume that the DNA which codes these things in different species are similar. This is not the case at all. Dr. Michael Denton, an macroevolutionist says:
"The evolutionary basis of homology is perhaps even more severely damaged by the discovery that apparently homologous structures are specified by quite different genes in different species...With the demise of any sort of straightforward explanation for homology one of the major pillars of evolution theory has become so seakened that its value as evidence for evolution is greatly diminished." (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Michael Denton, Adler and Adler 1985, pp. 149 and 151)
The DNA is coded very differently for each of the species that has the same structures. This is actually great evidence for a Creator, for if you were making something and found a good design, you would want to use that design in other things too.
Molecular bology is the best evidence against macroevolution. A good explanation of why is here. There is no progression from one species to the next. This says that macroevolution simply did not happen.
Kuwaga wrote:
Science isn't truth, it's just our best guess. It works and has been tested, so it's a working approximation/substitute for how reality really works.
From the evidence, evolution is NOT how reality really works. We need to find a new hypothesis to try to answer the question "how did we get here?" Creation agrees with all the data, so I think that should be the new "working approximation/substute" for that question.
Warp wrote:
I'm not sure if this thread should become such an endless back-and-forth discussion that will not convince either one of us.
If you want to, we can stop the discussion. I won't change my views, so if you stop, then I'll stop too. And on that, I have a question for Bisqwit. What do you think of people arguing on a forum topic made for you?
Regarding macroevolution, it's just microevolution on a larger scale (over a longer period of time), coupled with geographical seperation of the population of the species (so they can eventually become sexually incompatible with each other and one long chain of microevolutions changes one part of the species' population, while another long chain of microevolutions changes the other into something different). You might be interested in watching [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfe4IUB9NTk]this video[/URL].
Regarding macroevolution, it's just microevolution on a larger scale (over a longer period of time)
This is entirely false. This assumption was one of the reasons that macroevolution became accepted. But, microevolution occurs when through reproduction, the genetic code is changed slightly. This happens over and over again with the guidance of natural selection so that after a while, a new subspecies emerges (this is what happened to dogs, and Darwin's finches). People thought that this could happen over and over again to lead to macroevolution. But microevolution has limits. When changes in microevolution occur, the organism is changing within its genetic code. However, macroevolution says that organisms can add information to the genetic code. Reproduction can't do that, and microevolution counts on small changes occuring through reproduction. The only way that an organism can add to the genetic code is through mutation. As I said earlier, there are no benificial mutations. So, if an organism were to receive a mutation, they probably wouldn't be naturally selected to survive.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
1. The argument from poor design in invalid. Humans were created perfectly. The Fall (when Adam and Eve fell into sin) upset the balance in nature, and then everything was imperfect.
2. This is the same thing as microevolution not being able to lead to macroevolution. Living organisms can not slowly turn from "red to blue" like it does there.
1. So what you're saying is: Adam didn't have nipples; Adam and Eve didn't have a curved spine or a tailbone; their voice box nerve went from the brain to the voice box without curving around the cardioid artery, etc etc, but once the Fall happened we suddenly got all of these poor design traits that we seem to share with other species in some cases?
Doesn't that strike you as the least bit disingenuous?
2. Actually, that post is an argument for "macroevolution" is possible given "microevolution" which are both just simply evolution. Over generations, yes, both can happen. The evidence is overwhelming.
Here's a challenge. What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that evolution is true? Assuming that the request is a valid claim of evolution, I can present evidence to support it.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
As I said earlier, there are no benificial mutations.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
I personally suspect that if evolution is real, then there could have evolved some mechanism in advanced life forms by which relatively useless (or troublesome) genes are identified and mutations in them are encouraged. Such a mechanism would speed up evolution and thus be preferred by natural selection, so we could all have it. That might just be a thought experiment, but I am curious if we will ever find any real evidence for something like that. I confess I find it difficult to believe that evolution would still rely on chance and natural selection alone, when such advanced mechanisms could have evolved. I'm simply not used to seeing nature working so inefficiently, as to not have something like that.
But even without that, I don't see why there could be no beneficial mutations. Granted, the chance for a mutation to be beneficial on its own should be pretty small, so it should take a long time for them to occur, but they are still possible.
You might also consider this: A mutation could be counter-productive on its own, but not so badly counter-productive as to prevent the life form from producing offspring. That offspring could through various smaller adaptations maybe turn it into a good thing in the end. So I personally don't see how the mutation problem disproves macroevolution at all.
Even if there are beneficial mutations that would make that problem go away, (I could see the examples on the page to be from simple microevolution though, as they just looked at the species at the beginning then at the end. It still could have been mutations though) there still is the problems with structural homology and molecular biology.
1. So what you're saying is: Adam didn't have nipples; Adam and Eve didn't have a curved spine or a tailbone; their voice box nerve went from the brain to the voice box without curving around the cardioid artery, etc etc, but once the Fall happened we suddenly got all of these poor design traits that we seem to share with other species in some cases?
I believe that all those things had (or have) a reason for being there.
2. Actually, that post is an argument for "macroevolution" is possible given "microevolution" which are both just simply evolution. Over generations, yes, both can happen. The evidence is overwhelming.
As I said earlier, microevolution is different from macroevolution. Microevolution has its limits. Macroevolution happens through mutations. Scientists even say this.
Here's a challenge. What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that evolution is true? Assuming that the request is a valid claim of evolution, I can present evidence to support it.
First of all, I will never believe in macroevolution. It is clearly in conflict with the Bible, and with the scientific research. If your evidence is showing that organisms can change over time, I believe that can happen. Wild dogs evolved into domestic dogs. But, that was microevolution. There has never been a complete change from one species to a completely different species that we have recorded. They are able to change somewhat, even to the point that they are a new species, but they still are similar to what they originaly were, as with dogs. And if you were to look at the DNA of a wild dog and a domestic dog, they would still be similar. That is not the case with other similar species.
Here's a challenge. What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that evolution is true? Assuming that the request is a valid claim of evolution, I can present evidence to support it.
First of all, I will never believe in macroevolution. It is clearly in conflict with the Bible, and with the scientific research. If your evidence is showing that organisms can change over time, I believe that can happen. Wild dogs evolved into domestic dogs. But, that was microevolution. There has never been a complete change from one species to a completely different species that we have recorded. They are able to change somewhat, even to the point that they are a new species, but they still are similar to what they originaly were, as with dogs. And if you were to look at the DNA of a wild dog and a domestic dog, they would still be similar. That is not the case with other similar species.
If you don't have a criteria to be convinced then you are not debating in good faith. And thus, are not worth arguing with.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
No. It's still in conflict with the Bible. And there is a lot of scientific evidence against it, so I don't see how you could give me the evidence.
So I'll have to disprove both the asserted age of the universe in the Bible, and then prove to you that the theory of evolution is valid on a multi-million year time scale then, and not in conflict with any valid scientific research?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
So I'll have to disprove both the asserted age of the universe in the Bible, and then prove to you that the theory of evolution is valid on a multi-million year time scale then?
The Bible specifically says that God created everything in seven (six to be exact) days. I don't think everything could evolve in seven days.
I'm just working out the terms of the argument.
So as it stands, my understanding is I have to convince you that:
1) The literal interpretation of the Biblical time frame (6000 years, 7 days) is in error and inconsistent with nature.
2) "Macroevolution" is not inconsistent with nature (or scientific research, which is the same thing).
And then you'll accept "macroevolution" as a valid explaination of the way the world works.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
I'm just working out the terms of the argument.
So as it stands, my understanding is I have to convince you that:
1) The Biblical time frame is in error and inconsistent with nature.
2) Evolution is not inconsistent with nature (or scientific research, which is the same thing).
Basically, but I don't think you can convince me that the Biblical time frame is in error and inconsistent with nature. Earth (and the universe) could easily be only about 6000 years old (which is about what the bible says). I also don't think you can convince me that macroevolution is not inconsistent with nature.
