What's wrong with evolution?

Originally posted by amannion
Why not life by accident?
It's no less likely than that some supernatural tooth fairy created the whole thing.

So, you're stuck on the brain.
Alright, let's do a little tour of life on earth - much in the same way as I started doing with the eye.

Jellyfish, worms, insects, and of course the vertebrates all show a huge range of development in their b ution of a brain fits this. Give me a valid supernatural alternative and I'll consider it.

You ask me "Why not life by accident?"

Why not life by intelligent design?


Life not by accident because any process evolving into life forms displays a "look ahead" characteristic of steering development in view of an intended end.

I don't believe that it is possible to arrive at such results randomly by accident.


The question I posed was not really about natural verses supernatural.
It is random accidental forces verses intelligently purposefully designed ones. That is forces directed in intelligent view at arriving at a certain functional result.

That is something akin to human inventing.

Originally posted by jaywill
You ask me "Why not life by accident?"

Why not life by intelligent design?


Life not by accident because any process evolving into life forms displays a "look ahead" characteristic of steering development in view of an intended end.

I don't believe that it is possible to arrive at such results randomly by accident.


The question I ...[text shortened]... t arriving at a certain functional result.

That is something akin to human inventing.

No, you make the classic mistake of seeing evolution as having some sort of goal. It's entirely opportunistic - if a mutation helps an organism at that time, then it's selected for; if it doesn't help, then it isn't.
The oxygen uptake of the dinosaurs is a nice example - the large dinosaurs being capable of extracting enough oxygen for survival only through useful mutations, which, when the meteor hit suddenly became useless. A good mutation at one time, a bad mutation at another.

The design apparent in evolution is purely with hindsight - wings look like great design modifications for a bird right? But that's only our view after the evolution of the wings.


I don't believe that it is possible to arrive at such results randomly by accident.
Which after we boil it all down is the motivation behind any ID/Creation/Supernatural explanation. 'I don't believe' it could happen this way. But then of course, nature doesn't always correspond to what we believe ...

Originally posted by jaywill
You ask me "Why not life by accident?"

Why not life by intelligent design?

I guess it's like a little kid who sees a plant grow, and you can either say to them, 'It is by the grace of God', or you can explain how cells work, the plant absorbs water and co2 etc etc. The first does not explain what actually physically happens, leaving aside any other thoughts on the issue.

I am interested as to why you did not respond to the point of all these different brains in all these different animals, that we see around us, and where some can be shown to 'think', others are more 'primitive'. Is it not possible we are looking at different stages in the development of the 'brain' as you are referring to it?

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I think that your "guess" is really off and really besides the point.

You can explain how the cell works as much as you like. My guess is that intelligence and design is behind the workings of that cell. I'm happy to hear all about what scientists have figured out about the way a cell works - at least according to a layman's level of appreciation.

We are not talking about "the grace of God" here doing it. We are talking about the likelihood of such things as a living cell falling out of a random cascade of accidental events, allbeit with some kind of probabalistic "selection" going on.

I think your "guess" is an attempt to recast the issue into my supposed unwillingness to appreciate the mechanics of a living cell.

The issue for me is that because of what I do know, I have a strong suspicion that those mechanics of the cell did not happen without intelligent design intending to organize matter to yield such a result.


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I am interested as to why you did not respond to the point of all these different brains in all these different animals, that we see around us, and where some can be shown to 'think', others are more 'primitive'. Is it not possible we are looking at different stages in the development of the 'brain' as you are referring to it?
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I fully realize that there are many levels of the abilities of brains. I fully realize that lining them up according to ability we see some kind of graduated incline.

Going UP the incline to more and more capable and advanced brains and arriving at what we well might call, the summit or pinnacle of levels, did not, I think, happen by random accidents.

You may notice that this is not a rejection of some amount of evolutionary process outright. It is a statement that intelligence design is responsible for the graduated levels in one manner or another.

It is like me telling you that burning ember of some stone was a meteorite which fell from outer space. That is believable.

Then I tell you that a landing Bowing 747 jet airliner was also a meteor falling from outer space that somehow evolved on the way down. You probably would not believe me because you detect that such things like that don't form while tumbling through space or air.

I know we are talking about millions upon millions of years here. So the analogy is not exactly the same. However, I don't think that long time could cause even a earthworm brain to come tumbling out of the randomness of interacting energy and matter without some "knowhow" and some "lookahead" and some "foresight" directing the activity.

You can dazzle me all you like how much you know about the inner workings of a worm's brain. But that such a thing came about by randomness is no less a miracle than it occuring by a one time act of "the grace of God".


You seem to fail to understand that you are asking me to believe in the miraculous. Perhaps you replace "the grace of God" with "the grace of natural selection".

Scotty,

Perhaps it is "the intelligence of God" at issue rather than "the grace of God."

Of course intelligent design doesn't inform me that life was formed by Vishnu or Yahweh or Allah or a super smart computer or space aliens or even some Invisible Pink Unicorn Athiest Deity.

Don't reshape the issue to be about "the grace of God". If you want to recast your quip to be about "the intelligence of God" maybe that is okay.

And by the way, sometimes even children can grasp the essential truth about things better than adults. So characterizing me as a little kid is not that much of a put down.

Recently some little kid asked a billionaire US wouldbe presidential candidate whether or not he was rich. You would have thought he was being grilled by a congressional commitee the way he evaded the question.

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No, you make the classic mistake of seeing evolution as having some sort of goal.

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Maybe it is not a "classic mistake."

Why don't you reconsider this so-called "classic mistake."


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It's entirely opportunistic - if a mutation helps an organism at that time, then it's selected for; if it doesn't help, then it isn't.

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Is the notion of "opportunity" totally without the idea of "goal"?

Opportunity for what ? If no goal is intended then where does "opportunity" come into the picture?


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The oxygen uptake of the dinosaurs is a nice example - the large dinosaurs being capable of extracting enough oxygen for survival only through useful mutations, which, when the meteor hit suddenly became useless. A good mutation at one time, a bad mutation at another.
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You mean that suddenly maybe the earth became waste and wild ?

Don't look now but that sounds like Genesis 1:1,2.

Seriously, the problem of how the dinos got there in the first place still looms in my questioning mind.

Were the dinos an accident of the random interaction of energy and matter? Did this interaction somehow look for "opportunity" to arrive at something like a Triceritops or a T-Rex?

What were the horns for on the Triceritops for, defending itself ?

Did that randomly occur that that happened that way? Was there any kind of looking for an "opportunity" to arrive at a "goal" of allowing this herbavor to ward off attacks from large predetors like T-Rex?

No goal? No goal but something seeking "opportunity?"

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The design apparent in evolution is purely with hindsight - wings look like great design modifications for a bird right? But that's only our view after the evolution of the wings.
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It is at precisely this point that I think we drift into a kind of philosophic pseudo Buddhism. The "design" is an illusion, you now imply.

To me this is pseudo Buddhist philsophy that what seems apparent is only an illusion - like human suffering is an illusion. So you say the design is an illusion.


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Which after we boil it all down is the motivation behind any ID/Creation/Supernatural explanation. 'I don't believe' it could happen this way.
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I think the way to approach the problem is to first decide if we detect intelligent design.

If you want, then you can go on to discuss motive or such things. Some people complain that if there is an intelligent designer it wasn't very effective. However, a poor design is still a design.

So to those who complain "If God designed such and such, God did a lousy job. At least I would have had the intelligence to change this or that. Sheesh!"

Okay, you could have done better? It is not undesigned simply because you think you could have done better if it had been.

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But then of course, nature doesn't always correspond to what we believe ...
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I'll accept that I may be reactionary. However,
how about visa versa for you too?

Are you pristinely immune from a reactionary skepticism against things which are not according to how you want to believe?

And another thing, since this is a Spirituality Forum - I notice that you appeal to me to please consider the TIME it takes for life to do certain things.

I'll remember that next time we are talking about the TIME also it takes God's life to transform a Christian into maturity.

You say, it is not instantaneous what natural selection did. And you say that life takes some time. Okay, I'll remember to remind you that spiritual life also takes some time. The Bible doesn't start with the Gospel of Luke. It took some time for God to gradually unfold aspects of His nature and plans to mankind as well.

So the next time one of you skeptics chokes on something in Exodus as reflecting poorly on God's character I'll remind you that His plans were revealed gradually in levels of grace.

For example, the killing of the Canaanite children of that wicked society did not pre-clude their eternal destruction. On one level the society was judged as a warning and example. On the other hand perhaps they receive great mercy in the eternal scheme of salvation.

Some indication of this may be seen in the teaching of Jesus in Luke 10:12; Mark 6:11

Originally posted by jaywill
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I think that your "guess" is really off and really besides the point.

You can explain how the cell works as much as you like. My guess is that intelligence and design is behind the workings of that cell. I'm happy to hear all about what scientists have figured out about the way a cell works - at least a ...[text shortened]... replace "the grace of God" with "the grace of natural selection".[/b]

I think that your "guess" is really off and really besides the point.
No offence intended - it's just that we can appreciate a wonderful world around us and still be curious as to how it all works; curiousity is a wonderful gift as well you know; and nothing prevents us saying both...

You can explain how the cell works as much as you like. My guess is that intelligence and design is behind the workings of that cell. I'm happy to hear all about what scientists have figured out about the way a cell works - at least according to a layman's level of appreciation.

We are not talking about "the grace of God" here doing it. We are talking about the likelihood of such things as a living cell falling out of a random cascade of accidental events, allbeit with some kind of probabalistic "selection" going on.
Evolution does not deal with the start of life; only the development therof; eg hospital bugs becoming resistant to antibiotics etc etc

I think your "guess" is an attempt to recast the issue into my supposed unwillingness to appreciate the mechanics of a living cell.

Not at all, I don’t detect any unwillingness on your part to investigate life…

The issue for me is that because of what I do know, I have a strong suspicion that those mechanics of the cell did not happen without intelligent design intending to organize matter to yield such a result.

What about the thought that God can work through evolution? (1)
I fully realize that there are many levels of the abilities of brains. I fully realize that lining them up according to ability we see some kind of graduated incline.
If we line them up according to ability then they will be in a graduated incline by definition.

Going UP the incline to more and more capable and advanced brains and arriving at what we well might call, the summit or pinnacle of levels, did not, I think, happen by random accidents.
Evolution is not entirely random accidents. Also, see point (1)

You may notice that this is not a rejection of some amount of evolutionary process outright. It is a statement that intelligence design is responsible for the graduated levels in one manner or another.
See point (1)


It is like me telling you that burning ember of some stone was a meteorite which fell from outer space. That is believable.

Then I tell you that a landing Bowing 747 jet airliner was also a meteor falling from outer space that somehow evolved on the way down. You probably would not believe me because you detect that such things like that don't form while tumbling through space or air.

I know we are talking about millions upon millions of years here. So the analogy is not exactly the same. However, I don't think that long time could cause even a earthworm brain to come tumbling out of the randomness of interacting energy and matter without some "knowhow" and some "lookahead" and some "foresight" directing the activity.

The analogy is not even close. I would urge you to stop thinking ‘entirely random’ and ‘accidents’, and try to understand the basics. Also see (1).

You can dazzle me all you like how much you know about the inner workings of a worm's brain. But that such a thing came about by randomness is no less a miracle than it occuring by a one time act of "the grace of God".
Even if I knew all about a worm’s brain, I would not try. Incidentally did you know that Darwin himself studied worms. However I would urge you again to stop thinking ‘entirely random’ and ‘miracles’, and try to understand the basics. Also see (1).

You seem to fail to understand that you are asking me to believe in the miraculous. Perhaps you replace "the grace of God" with "the grace of natural selection".
Not at all. Perhaps you fail to see point (1). After all, who can say what God is thinking?

Originally posted by jaywill
Scotty,

Perhaps it is "the [b]intelligence of God" at issue rather than "the grace of God."

Of course intelligent design doesn't inform me that life was formed by Vishnu or Yahweh or Allah or a super smart computer or space aliens or even some Invisible Pink Unicorn Athiest Deity.

Don't reshape the issue to be about "the grace of God". I ...[text shortened]... ought he was being grilled by a congressional commitee the way he evaded the question.[/b]

I didn't intend any insult or putdown, I was simply saying one can either try to understand the natural world using what we have got, or assign supernatural forces to what we do not understand. And to suggest that a plant grows through the intelligence of God is a bit bizzare for me I am afraid. I will stick to 'We are here through the grace of God' thank you.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]========================================

No, you make the classic mistake of seeing evolution as having some sort of goal.

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Maybe it is not a "classic mistake."

Why don't you reconsider this so-called "classic mistake."


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It's entirel ...[text shortened]... n the teaching of Jesus in [b]Luke 10:12; Mark 6:11[/b]

Wow, not sure where all the biblical stuff fits in here so I'll ignore that.
In fact, I'll respond to only one part of this - your notion of opportunity.

Opportunity for what, you ask.
That's simple - opportunity to 'make it' in the environment.

You talk about 'random' as if that somehow makes it impossible to get from one state to another - which might be true if it wasn't for the important part of evolution and that is the filter that weeds out the useless and keeps the useful - natural selection.
Random mutation on its own would likely never produce the results we see in the natural world. But random mutation with this filter produces the appearance of life being designed beforehand.
It's only an appearance.

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That's simple - opportunity to 'make it' in the environment.

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Is "making it in the environment" anything like an accidental event which occurs randomly millions upon millions of times.

What in the program of evolutionary development steers activity towards this end for so many species ?

Whatever that mechanism is what is so more intuitive about assuming no intelligent design steers evolutionary activity towards to the repeated outcome of "making it in the envirnonment?"

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That's simple - opportunity to 'make it' in the environment.

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What in the program of evolutionary development steers activity towards this end for so many species ? That is making it in the environment.

Whatever that mechanism is, what is so more logical about assuming that no intelligent design steers evolutionary activity towards the "best" repeated outcome of "making it in the envirnonment?"

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]================================

That's simple - opportunity to 'make it' in the environment.

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Is "making it in the environment" anything like an accidental event which occurs randomly millions upon millions of times.

What in the program of evolutionary development steers activity towards ...[text shortened]... evolutionary activity towards to the repeated outcome of "making it in the envirnonment?"[/b]

I'm not sure I understand your question, but Ill reiterate - what 'steers' evolution (and I use that time grudgingly obviously since I'm of the opinion that evolution has and needs no direction) is the environment.
If a mutation is useful for the environmental circumstances a species finds itself in then it's selected for.
If a mutation is not useful then it's either selected against or else simply continues without positive or negative selection.

The environment itself is the selector - hence no need for a designer.
It's not that wings or brains or eyes or anything else are being sought after and hence designed - they're simply the end result of this evolution through filtering process that keeps useful mutations and ignores or rejects useless ones.

amannion,

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Wow, not sure where all the biblical stuff fits in here so I'll ignore that.

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This is a Forum on Spirituality. This questions about "What is Wrong With Evolution?" is a discussion question in an discussion environment focused on Spirituality.

So my little "diversion" ( as perceived by you) from "What's Wrong With Evolution" into the Bible is not really peripheral to the nature of the Forum.

I am interested in truth.

So since we cannot use science itself to prove the presuppositions that science assumes rationally to be its foundation there must be other ways explored to discover what truth is about some things.

That is where Spirituality is related to the topic. Because I am interested in truth.

There is some truth that can be solved by use of the scientific method. And there is some truth which cannot be resolved by the scientifc method because those truths are presupposed as foundations of science.

The belief that scientific method discovers truth, cannot be proven by the scientific method itself. It can only assume that. Science also presupposes mathamatics and logic. What science presupposes as its working foundation cannot be proved by science itself. That would be circular reasoning.

So I make a brief reference to what I believe is revelation as another avenue to know some truth. To think that science is the only source of objective truth is a self defeating argument.

To get a fuller picture of truth I use science in its realm and spirituality with revelation from the Bible in its realm. The nature of this Forum allows for that I think.

Originally posted by jaywill
amannion,

[b]==========================

Wow, not sure where all the biblical stuff fits in here so I'll ignore that.

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This is a Forum on Spirituality. This questions about "What is Wrong With Evolution" is in an discussion environment focused on Spirituality.

So my little "div ...[text shortened]... evelation from the Bible in its realm. The nature of this Forum allows for that I think.[/b]

I don't have any problem at all with discussions that concern the limitations of science - I recognise that science is indeed, not the only way to approach questions of truth and reality and the nature of existence and so on.
I posed the original question in this forum because the forum seems to have been subverted - away from discussions of spirituality towards discussion of christian biblical literalism. That is something different entirely and i reject the notion that one must discuss biblical passages and the interpretation or otherwise of them to be somehow given 'the keys' to this forum.
Not of course, that you aren't entitled to raise these points yourself.
My concern is that the truth or otherwise of a scientific model is being considered from a non-scientific perspective.
It'd be like me claiming that god exists or doesn't because I've scientifically proven the case. (Of course, there are some atheists here who make such a claim. I don't.)
And it leads me back to my original question, framed in light of our discussions here.
Given that evolution is our best explanation of variation in living species (and I discount ID here as a viable alternative - it most certainly isn't), what is wrong with its use for this purpose?

Originally posted by amannion
I don't have any problem at all with discussions that concern the limitations of science - I recognise that science is indeed, not the only way to approach questions of truth and reality and the nature of existence and so on.
I posed the original question in this forum because the forum seems to have been subverted - away from discussions of spirituality t ...[text shortened]... le alternative - it most certainly isn't), what is wrong with its use for this purpose?

Thanks for the clarification.

I entered into this discussion most recently, I think, because someone made a sweeping statement that ID was nonsense.

I think that idea itself is nonsense.

The universe is very hostile to life. But we have it here on earth in this little corner of the planet.

Look at a one celled amoeba. Its a tiny creature, several hundred of which we could line up in one inch. I know a zoologist who happened to be a also a strong Darwinist, who admits that the message found in just the nucleus of a tiny amoeba is more than thirty volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I think he admits that the information in the DNA is a much as in 1,000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

(See Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pages 17-18, 116)

In other words to spell out all the A,T,C and G nitrogen bases in this single celled animal could fill up 1,000 sets of the Encyclopedia Britanica.

If a simple sentence like "How are you today?" or "Please take out the garbage" requires intelligence, I think a message requiring something like 1,000 sets 30 volume encyclopedias also probably requires intelligence.