The Psychological Reasons Maybe

[Keep The Reason]

It has been my observation that those who cry loudest about the arrogance of others are typically the most arrogant people of all. The pretenders who exaggerate their own competence tend to see any real competence as arrogance because it threatens the deception they try to maintain -- the deception of others and the deception of themselves.

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[tirtlegrrl]

...there are certainly lots of genuinely arrogant people in my field (classical music) but it comes back to bite them in the butt particularly in the freelance world which is largely word of mouth. Fortunately I know even more amazing musicians who are sweet and down to earth; I recently overheard the winner of a MAJOR violin competition and international soloist being introduced to some undergraduate students who didn't recognize him...he described himself as "yeah, I play some solo concerts..." etc. With a totally straight face, no condescension at all. On the other end of the spectrum I've seen soloists throw tantrums at the orchestra, and I've had lessons with people who have outright said "You should do it my way, because I'm so-and-so." As though that made theirs the only valid opinion on the planet.

[Moonwood the Hare]

There's a thing Blake said - one of the proverbs of hell - and I wasn't thinking of this when I told the story about Hopkins - “The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow.” Hopkins was in his own way a humble guy and he was one of those artists who remained unknown in their lifetime but as far as his writing goes he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. So with Hopkins there is no look at me I'm special stuff just that he knew his own path and followed it. Since I'm in a quoting mood now here's one from Nietzsche 'One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil'. This is what Jung quoted to Freud after their split - Freud was not buying it.

[Rian]

Getting around to a couple of things ...

...But maybe we're all talking about the wrong thing, because I'm convinced that the real topic for discussion is what makes some of us Christian and others atheist, what's behind it all.

Humanguy,
Could it be that what's behind it all is that christians and atheists are talking about two different religious belief systems? The christian religions tend to believe that "intelligence came by intelligence;" whereas the atheistic religion seems to believe that "intelligence came by 'chance'" - and possibly additional "chances". Both christian and atheistic religions seem to "church together" around the belief/idea/concept that creation is by "intelligence". It seems like the atheists' belief system - the creation of "intelligence by chance" - actually requires "greater faith" in order for it to become more credible by individuals. Perhaps this is why the atheist "church" is "smaller" - It simply demands more and greater faith. Just as their belief system in "creation by intelligence" requires more and greater faith from an individual, so also it requires more and more credit to chance. Hence, I see atheim as a "religion of/by chance".

Sigh.

Why do some thiests not understand that evolution is not chance? How many times does this have to be repeated over and over and over before it's understood?

The real right to sigh belongs to the theists, who keep getting bombarded with the convoluted ways with which atheists try to twist a theist's statement to downplay the role of chance in evolution, and then include references to Natural Selection, like it was some amazing and complex scientific discovery instead of one of the most obvious and observable things in the universe, then follow it with the inevitable link to one of their high holy texts, TalkOrigins.

From TalkOrigins' "Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution"

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating. ...

If evolution isn't driven by chance, then neither is, say, blackjack. I can take any of the supporting sentences in the TalkOrigins quote and use it to prove that blackjack isn't driven by chance, either. Yet I've never seen an atheist get all defensive about someone claiming that blackjack is driven by chance.

The simple fact is that it's perfectly valid to say that evolution is based on chance, like blackjack is. Of course, both of them have processes involved that aren't chance, but to try to deny that either one is strongly driven by chance is just head-in-the-sand denialism.

[Keep The Reason]

The real right to sigh belongs to the theists, who keep getting bombarded with the convoluted ways with which atheists try to twist a theist's statement to downplay the role of chance in evolution, and then include references to Natural Selection, like it was some amazing and complex scientific discovery instead of one of the most obvious and observable things in the universe, then follow it with the inevitable link to one of their high holy texts, TalkOrigins.

A "holy text" with links to the actual science, debates, evidence, tests, -- all of which you can, if you wish -- embrace yourself and do the work yourself. Which you won't of course, but it still remains a fact that you can TEST the evidence, which is why TalkOrigins.org is a reference site, and the bible is not. Unless you want to show us how to TEST for sin and heaven and hell?

Well, we know you will never admit the difference. Ever. Even though the very medical science that is giving you the best hope you have to conquer your illnesses exploded in knowledge because of the thing you denigrate, which is evolution and understanding genetics, biology, and how humans relate to animals -- all of it thanks to the Theory of Evolution and what it's been able to teach us. So go on, keep denigrating it. While you take full advantage of what it has to offer. At least you're lucky enough to be alive during a time when we do have this technology to save lives.

But you know-- I often wonder... If evolution is just so much "blind faith", but your faith in god is so much more a foundation for your well being, why don't you abandon all medical treatment and rely on prayer-- ask Jesus to heal you, and do it in his name-- it cannot be denied you.

(Oh, never mind-- we know why you won't. You know why you won't too. And if there is a god -- he knows why you won't either.)

From TalkOrigins' "Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution"

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating. ...

If evolution isn't driven by chance, then neither is, say, blackjack. I can take any of the supporting sentences in the TalkOrigins quote and use it to prove that blackjack isn't driven by chance, either. Yet I've never seen an atheist get all defensive about someone claiming that blackjack is driven by chance.

The simple fact is that it's perfectly valid to say that evolution is based on chance, like blackjack is. Of course, both of them have processes involved that aren't chance, but to try to deny that either one is strongly driven by chance is just head-in-the-sand denialism.

The above is proof that you still don't get it.

Chance is applied to any given individual, just like it is to any individual play of the cards, but playing cards are not biological entities that reproduce and pass on the odds of winning. Each new game of blackjack is the odds ZEROED OUT, so new each game IS purely chance.

But animals are a culmination of previous additions-- they inherit both wins and losses, add their own, and hand them off to the next generation. The difference between any living creature and a game of blackjack is so blindingly obvious that only people who don't get it would make this argument in the first place.

Evolution doesn't apply to just a single individual, but to the species as a whole and the lineage as a whole of that given individual-- even the "no longer existing" lineage that may end with the death of an individual (providing the death occurs BEFORE the individual reproduces itself).

This is why the link I posted clearly said "chance plays a role in evolution" and then went on to explain how. (See the red part that apparently swept by you).

Example: An animal with a genetically crippled leg runs across a street, and is killed by a car. This is a chance act. But the consequence is that this genetically weaker animal DOES NOT LIVE TO REPRODUCE -- hence, the genetic mutation is ended (it may appear in others, but in this particular descendency, it dies).

Conversely, an animal that has a good gait makes it across the road, isn't killed. This is ALSO as much a "chance" as the one getting hit and killed, except chance in this case was in its favor (and thanks to better legs). So it lives to reproduce, and its offspring, unless they harbor a mutation -- gets those stronger legs as well. These are tiny incremental changes, pressured by certain chance events, but the overall development of any species is not "just chance". It is a SELECTION process that rewards survival and literally ignores failure to survive (because it's not a conscious process).

And finally, while artificial selection (breeding) was known for centuries (millenia in fact), Darwin's achievement was to recognize that natural selection not only also happens, but it can happen without directed intent or specific (like breeding does) but simply given enough time and the non-perfect process of reproduction. And that it can account for the broad diversity of life (as opposed to the laughable notion of a god creating 600,000 different species of beetles, or whatever the outlandish number of species of beetles is)

Denigrating Darwin is something the scientifically uneducated do -- because they think natural selection is obvious to their 20/20 hindsight, it's not any big achievement. Yet the same people never bother to denigrate Newton for "discovering" gravity. Which is also completely obvious, especially when you have the clarity of vision that comes from perfect hindsight.

[Rian]

Well, we know you will never admit the difference. Ever. Even though the very medical science that is giving you the best hope you have to conquer your illnesses exploded in knowledge because of the thing you denigrate, which is evolution and understanding genetics, biology, and how humans relate to animals -- all of it thanks to the Theory of Evolution and what it's been able to teach us. So go on, keep denigrating it. While you take full advantage of what it has to offer. At least you're lucky enough to be alive during a time when we do have this technology to save lives.

Macroevolution, which is the part of the theory of evolution that I (and many reasonable people and many scientists) have trouble with, is not the foundation for any new actual knowledge. The finds in, say, fields like genetics are actual finds on their own. They do NOT stand on macroevolution being true, or fall if it's false.

I don't have a PhD in evolutionary biology, but you don't have to have a PhD in evolutionary biology to recognize an extrapolation based on assumptions, which is what macroevolution is. Evolution might be true, but I lean towards it not being true. I think a creation event is more likely, although neither one is the basis for my Christianity.

But you know-- I often wonder... If evolution is just so much "blind faith", but your faith in god is so much more a foundation for your well being, why don't you abandon all medical treatment and rely on prayer-- ask Jesus to heal you, and do it in his name-- it cannot be denied you.

(Oh, never mind-- we know why you won't. You know why you won't too. And if there is a god -- he knows why you won't either.)

There you go using that "we" again!

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

The above is proof that you still don't get it.

and what you write in the following part is proof that you miss vast swaths of what people write.

Chance is applied to any given individual, just like it is to any individual play of the cards, but playing cards are not biological entities that reproduce and pass on the odds of winning. Each new game of blackjack is the odds ZEROED OUT, so new each game IS purely chance.

But animals are a culmination of previous additions-- they inherit both wins and losses, add their own, and hand them off to the next generation. The difference between any living creature and a game of blackjack is so blindingly obvious that only people who don't get it would make this argument in the first place.

Evolution doesn't apply to just a single individual, but to the species as a whole and the lineage as a whole of that given individual-- even the "no longer existing" lineage that may end with the death of an individual (providing the death occurs BEFORE the individual reproduces itself).

This is why the link I posted clearly said "chance plays a role in evolution" and then went on to explain how. (See the red part that apparently swept by you).

I saw the red part. That's why I didn't say there is NO chance. What I was actually complaining about (the part that YOU apparently swept by) was how evolution proponents downplay the role of chance in evolution. I also said "Of course, both of them have processes involved that aren't chance" - did that "sweep" by you, too?

And it's "blindingly obvious" that there ARE strong similarities between blackjack and evolution - they are both based on chance events, and then acted on by non-chance events. If you want to further refine it by bringing in the generational aspect, then refine the blackjack side by saying it's a team tournament, with penalties to the team with the poorer players or something like that. Or find another game based on chance that is a better example. But the fact remains (and it's blindingly obvious, to keep using your terms) that both evolution and blackjack have a strong basis in chance - mutations for the former, and card deals for the latter.

Example: An animal with a genetically crippled leg runs across a street, and is killed by a car. This is a chance act. But the consequence is that this genetically weaker animal DOES NOT LIVE TO REPRODUCE -- hence, the genetic mutation is ended (it may appear in others, but in this particular descendency, it dies).

Conversely, an animal that has a good gait makes it across the road, isn't killed. This is ALSO as much a "chance" as the one getting hit and killed, except chance in this case was in its favor (and thanks to better legs). So it lives to reproduce, and its offspring, unless they harbor a mutation -- gets those stronger legs as well. These are tiny incremental changes, pressured by certain chance events, but the overall development of any species is not "just chance". It is a SELECTION process that rewards survival and literally ignores failure to survive (because it's not a conscious process).

Of course natural selection isn't chance. The part that IS chance is the mutation bit. And most evolutionist backers continually try to downplay it - why, is open to speculation. I'm guessing it's because evolution and atheism are so strongly tied together that atheists are just blinded when evolution gets criticized.

And finally, while artificial selection (breeding) was known for centuries (millenia in fact), Darwin's achievement was to recognize that natural selection not only also happens, but it can happen without directed intent or specific (like breeding does) but simply given enough time and the non-perfect process of reproduction. And that it can account for the broad diversity of life (as opposed to the laughable notion of a god creating 600,000 different species of beetles, or whatever the outlandish number of species of beetles is)

Where is the laughable/non-laughable line for beetles, if you assume God created the universe? 30? 100? And what's wrong with God making 100 beetles and then they diversity to 600,000? I don't know of any creationist that has problems with beetles coming from beetles; do you?

Denigrating Darwin is something the scientifically uneducated do -- because they think natural selection is obvious to their 20/20 hindsight, it's not any big achievement. Yet the same people never bother to denigrate Newton for "discovering" gravity. Which is also completely obvious, especially when you have the clarity of vision that comes from perfect hindsight.

You offer fallacy after fallacy for arguments - could you drop the "we" and the "uneducated" and just use actual arguments?

[Rian]

ps -

Denigrating Darwin is something the scientifically uneducated do -- because they think natural selection is obvious to their 20/20 hindsight, it's not any big achievement. Yet the same people never bother to denigrate Newton for "discovering" gravity. Which is also completely obvious, especially when you have the clarity of vision that comes from perfect hindsight.

if by "discovering" gravity, you mean Newton discovered that things fall down, then yes, that's as obvious as natural selection (and Newton certainly didn't "discover" that). But Newton's actual discoveries are far more complex than natural selection.

Darwin's work with pigeons was really good, but macroevolution is an entirely different bird - massive extrapolation, and unprovable.

[Moonwood the Hare]

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

I wonder what the soul is and why science can't work on it.

I saw the red part. That's why I didn't say there is NO chance. What I was actually complaining about (the part that YOU apparently swept by) was how evolution proponents downplay the role of chance in evolution. I also said "Of course, both of them have processes involved that aren't chance" - did that "sweep" by you, too?

And it's "blindingly obvious" that there ARE strong similarities between blackjack and evolution - they are both based on chance events, and then acted on by non-chance events. If you want to further refine it by bringing in the generational aspect, then refine the blackjack side by saying it's a team tournament, with penalties to the team with the poorer players or something like that. Or find another game based on chance that is a better example. But the fact remains (and it's blindingly obvious, to keep using your terms) that both evolution and blackjack have a strong basis in chance - mutations for the former, and card deals for the latter.

There is a chance element in evolution but there have been people on the creationist side who want to criticise evolutionary theory as if it were pure single step chance - what Dawkins calls the 747 gambit - the idea that an explosion could create an aeroplane. Evolutionists deny chance because they want to make it clear that is not what they mean. Dawkins uses the very helpful example of the pebbles on a beach which are arranged with the larger ones further up and the small ones near the sea. The creationist might say clearly these stones are not in a random order therefore they have been arranged like this by someone. But in fact the operation of laws which are themselves consistent and orderly has had this outcome. The order is not produced by chance but neither is it design. It is of course possible at a deeper level to say God has created the laws which brought forth this apparent order.

Where is the laughable/non-laughable line for beetles, if you assume God created the universe? 30? 100? And what's wrong with God making 100 beetles and then they diversity to 600,000? I don't know of any creationist that has problems with beetles coming from beetles; do you?

There is a problem of 600,000 beatles coming from 100 in the time scale that young earth creationists allow. There are no known scientific laws that could explain how that could happen. Darwin didn't discover something trivial he made an imnportant first step towards working out how evolution happened though people had been guessing at some kind of evolution for dome time before that and as far as we can tell he got it basically right. Evolution is unprovable, so is Newton's theory of gravity - it's not a huge problem for a theory that it can never be definitively proved; if it was proved we'd call it a fact.

[Rian]

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

I wonder what the soul is and why science can't work on it.

Science is a wonderful thing, but it's limited - it can't tell us why something is beautiful, for example, although it can measure chemical reactions to something that we think is beautiful. I'm not anti-science by any means; what I do object to is the idea that it's more than it is.

There is a chance element in evolution but there have been people on the creationist side who want to criticise evolutionary theory as if it were pure single step chance - what Dawkins calls the 747 gambit - the idea that an explosion could create an aeroplane. Evolutionists deny chance because they want to make it clear that is not what they mean.

That could certainly be the case. I'm just trying to be accurate, so it bugs me when evolutionists try to deny chance, when it's clearly an important part of the process. I think that many people on both sides go too far; I try to take whatever I find right wherever I find it and disregard what side it comes from.

I agree with the quote from the TalkOrigins article. What I had a problem with was KTR's comment.

Dawkins uses the very helpful example of the pebbles on a beach which are arranged with the larger ones further up and the small ones near the sea. The creationist might say clearly these stones are not in a random order therefore they have been arranged like this by someone. But in fact the operation of laws which are themselves consistent and orderly has had this outcome. The order is not produced by chance but neither is it design.

Good example - I agree.

There is a problem of 600,000 beatles coming from 100 in the time scale that young earth creationists allow. There are no known scientific laws that could explain how that could happen.

I didn't claim a YEC timeframe, just in case you thought I did.

Darwin didn't discover something trivial he made an imnportant first step towards working out how evolution happened though people had been guessing at some kind of evolution for dome time before that and as far as we can tell he got it basically right.

Mmmm, well, it's certainly a possibility, but as far as macroevolution ... well, I just don't see enough solid evidence to support the extrapolation.

Evolution is unprovable, so is Newton's theory of gravity - it's not a huge problem for a theory that it can never be definitively proved; if it was proved we'd call it a fact.

But as far as the level and kind of unprovable - there's no getting away from the fact that macroevolution is a huge, HUGE extrapolation and we can't see it in a lab, while things about gravity we CAN see and measure. They're in different categories; it's just that simple. And I think that's an important distinction.

[mitchellmckain]

Could it be that what's behind it all is that christians and atheists are talking about two different religious belief systems? The christian religions tend to believe that "intelligence came by intelligence;" whereas the atheistic religion seems to believe that "intelligence came by 'chance'" - and possibly additional "chances". Both christian and atheistic religions seem to "church together" around the belief/idea/concept that creation is by "intelligence". It seems like the atheists' belief system - the creation of "intelligence by chance" - actually requires "greater faith" in order for it to become more credible by individuals. Perhaps this is why the atheist "church" is "smaller" - It simply demands more and greater faith. Just as their belief system in "creation by intelligence" requires more and greater faith from an individual, so also it requires more and more credit to chance. Hence, I see atheim as a "religion of/by chance".

Unfortunately you have left the door wide open for the ideological team players to make what you say a pretext for equating the question of theism to the question of evolution which is just complete bullshit! There is no reason to take what you say in that manner at all. You can take it for granted that the theory of evolution is the process by which life came into existence and the question of whether there is a creator or not remains in spite of this. The way that you avoid leaving yourself open to this kind of bullshit twisting of what you are saying is to make it clear that what you juxtaposing with chance is NOT design. By accepting the role of the theory of evolution you have to accept that the creation of life is not about designing the perfect system for anything. That kind of creation by design may work just fine for nonliving objects like buildings, automobiles and integrated circuits, but when we are dealing with living things then we are talking about work much more like that of farmers, shepherds, teachers and parents. Because you are not working with inanimate objects, but with things that always play their own role in the creation process.

Furthermore, there is a little side issue you have to take into account before equating the absence of a role of intellegence in the evolutionary process with that chance alone, and that is dispensing with the completely absurd idea that evolution is a deterministic process. A simple logical study of the process quickly reveals this. There is no natural selection without death. Evolution cannot occur without serious challenges to the survival of the species. But however much those with the mentality of social Darwinists believe that they somehow DESERVE to survive because they are better than everyone else the truth is that sometimes the challenges to survival are so severe that whole species die no matter how fit any individual members may be, and sometimes stupidest and least fit survive simply by dumb luck, it is only that often enough such events allow a few to survive, and more often than not it is those who best deal with the challenges that manage to survive so that the gene pool shifts dramatically in an evolutionary step "forward". Furthermore the kind of event that can cause the total extiction of all life on this planet is a common place event in the universe. SO, the question of thesm is indeed whether this is all just chance or whether there an intellegent intentional agent involved in events. There is no objective means to decide that question and you have not claimed that there is, and so the objections raised are without any foundation.

The real right to sigh belongs to the theists, who keep getting bombarded with the convoluted ways with which atheists try to twist a theist's statement to downplay the role of chance in evolution, and then include references to Natural Selection, like it was some amazing and complex scientific discovery instead of one of the most obvious and observable things in the universe, then follow it with the inevitable link to one of their high holy texts, TalkOrigins.

If evolution isn't driven by chance, then neither is, say, blackjack. I can take any of the supporting sentences in the TalkOrigins quote and use it to prove that blackjack isn't driven by chance, either. Yet I've never seen an atheist get all defensive about someone claiming that blackjack is driven by chance.

The simple fact is that it's perfectly valid to say that evolution is based on chance, like blackjack is. Of course, both of them have processes involved that aren't chance, but to try to deny that either one is strongly driven by chance is just head-in-the-sand denialism.

The driving force of evolution is neither chance NOR natural selection but variation. That is where the process of evolution MUST begin. Evolution is simply a learning process and no learning process is possible without the creativity to try different things. Thus when we look at the history of the development of life on this planet we find that the process accelerates when organisms find new means to introduce more variations (or better variations) into its genome. YES increased variation can in itself can be seen as a survival mechanism because without variation, the species doesn't have the flexibility to withstand great challenges. But survival is nothing more than a filtering process. It is MERELY selective. It doesn't drive anything. The plain fact of the matter is that variation MUST COME FIRST!

Macroevolution, which is the part of the theory of evolution that I (and many reasonable people and many scientists) have trouble with, is not the foundation for any new actual knowledge. The finds in, say, fields like genetics are actual finds on their own. They do NOT stand on macroevolution being true, or fall if it's false.

But Rian, it's a scientific theory. Its purpose is NOT to dictate what happened but to provide a theoretical framework for the explanation of a great variety of scientific observations. You can presume that something else happened all you want but that will not change the fact that it works as a scientific theory for the origin of the species. It seems to be that you have to ask yourself one question and that is whether you want an understanding of God, creation and Christianity that is consistent with the discoveries of science or not.

I don't have a PhD in evolutionary biology, but you don't have to have a PhD in evolutionary biology to recognize an extrapolation based on assumptions, which is what macroevolution is. Evolution might be true, but I lean towards it not being true. I think a creation event is more likely, although neither one is the basis for my Christianity.

A creation event? What? An instaneous appearance out of nothing? It has to be magic? You would not only affirm that God is responsible for things because He has the know-how and the ability but would also dictate how they must be accomplished. Why must everything be trivial for God? Does the state of the world really agree with the idea that everything is trivial for God? Why assume that the creation of life is so trivial - so little more than nothing at all that God can just snap his fingers and there is -- nothingness with a new look. You see, I think that is a vision of creation that happens in dreams only and what you create in a dream really is practically nothingness with a new look -- it isn't real, not ouside of your own head. Its just a part of you. I cannot believe in a creation like that. I believe God created something real apart from himself. That is the whole point of all these mathematical laws of the universe by which it all exists -- so that things can happen according to those laws.

But you know-- I often wonder... If evolution is just so much "blind faith"

Faith? Absolutely. But BLIND? Blind faith IGNORES the evidence and the theory of evolution CAME from the evidence and continues to agree with the evidence so it is hardly that! But faith? Yes, and it is frankly a Christian faith. It is a faith that the world is the creation of a loving God and not a monster who fills it full of lies and deceptions desiring that those who live in the world remain in darkness and ignorance! I say this in these terms so that you can understand it, but the same thing in the language of science is simply that it rests on the faith that the evidence does not lie to us. YES it affords a great deal of freedom for the atheists from the imposition of religion beause they certainly can agree to a faith that there are no goblins, demons or malign gods out their doing their best to decieve us by making up false evidence.

Rian, if you cannot see a way in your mind to reconcile Christianity with science, then I do understand. I cannot fault the priorities which puts a relationship with God before the declarations of science. I only ask you consider that Christianity can be bigger than what you understand -- it can be something that includes scientists and people like me, for whom a Christianity that is not consistent with the evidence just isn't an option.

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

I wonder what the soul is and why science can't work on it.

Either everything is measurable and governed by mathematical laws that can be established objectively or not. There is no way to answer this question by scientific means. Science simply defines itself by the study of things which CAN. I am one who believes that the answer is no, and furthermore I believe that the most central and defining aspect of who we are is one of these things that cannot be measured or governed by such mathematical laws. Some call it the soul and others call it the spirit, but for me at least, it is absolutely clear that it cannot by definition be something that science can "work on".

Evolution is unprovable, so is Newton's theory of gravity - it's not a huge problem for a theory that it can never be definitively proved; if it was proved we'd call it a fact.

Incorrect. We do not restrict the word "fact" to things that can be definitively proven. The vast majority of the time we use the word "fact" for things which we simply have no reason to believe to the contrary. By this understanding, according to which the word "fact" is used more than any other, the theory of evolution IS SCIENTIFIC FACT, just the same as quantum theory and the theory of relativity. They are given the name of "theory" for an entirely different reason that is not in ANY way opposed to them being FACTS.

But as far as the level and kind of unprovable - there's no getting away from the fact that macroevolution is a huge, HUGE extrapolation and we can't see it in a lab, while things about gravity we CAN see and measure. They're in different categories; it's just that simple. And I think that's an important distinction.

Science isn't just based on the things we can see directly. It relies on all kinds of means to see around corners to things that are out of sight whether it is a corner of being too small, too far away or too long ago. No the origin of the primates is not an event that we can reproduce in the laboratory, but DNA transmits information to us from such events and give us such an indirect way of seeing things in this case. In the same way, physics is studying the first moments of the universe in measures of time so small that they have no intuitive meaning to us (like 10^-43 to 10^-36 second which we call the Grand Unification epoch). Of course we were not there to see it. It is by indirect means that we see these events and in the same way the biological sciences ARE seeing the events, however dimly, of what you call macroevolution.

[tirtlegrrl]

rian wrote:And what's wrong with God making 100 beetles and then they diversity to 600,000? I don't know of any creationist that has problems with beetles coming from beetles; do you?

So...how much would a beetle have to change before you decided not to call it a beetle anymore? Just curious, because creationist terminology can get kinda goofy (what's a "kind" anyway?) When I was a creationist, YEC specifically but I guess it could be the same for OECs too, I was taught that speciation didn't really happen, but if God could create 100 species (basically non-interbreeding populations) of beetles that diversified into 600,000 species, I don't see why God couldn't have created an ancient ancestral population of things that diversified to result in the variety we see today. What's to stop "microevolution" from turning into "macroevolution"? Is there some kind of invisible barrier in animal genomes?

[Moonwood the Hare]

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

I wonder what the soul is and why science can't work on it.

Science is a wonderful thing, but it's limited - it can't tell us why something is beautiful, for example, although it can measure chemical reactions to something that we think is beautiful. I'm not anti-science by any means; what I do object to is the idea that it's more than it is.

That would deprnd on what you meant by why. If the question is why human beings respond to certain stimuli with a certain type of response that we might call aesthetic then science could in principle say a lot about that; it could look at what stimuli human beings find attractive, for example whether humans prefer perfect or imperfect symmetry, I believe this experiment has been done, or there is a famous experiment where you get men to look at almost identical pictures of a woman and say which is most attractive and almost invariably people pick the one on the left which has artificially enlarged irises, and you can speculate on and test for the biological origins of these. But if you want to ask What is Beauty? as the ancient Greek philosophers did then science can't answer that kind of metaphysical question any more than modern science could answer the question what is gravity. This is a question Newton was accused of not being able to answer and he freely admitted he couldn't. He could describe what it did not what it was - saying it's a force just means its some kind of something that does something it's not the same as saying gravity is the attraction between objects where attraction is conceived as something like an interpersonal relationship which is the mediaevals thought of gravity. But how there came to be a diversity of species isn't a metaphysical question and not beyond science even in principle.

That could certainly be the case. I'm just trying to be accurate, so it bugs me when evolutionists try to deny chance, when it's clearly an important part of the process. I think that many people on both sides go too far; I try to take whatever I find right wherever I find it and disregard what side it comes from.

I don't think they do in general

There is a problem of 600,000 beatles coming from 100 in the time scale that young earth creationists allow. There are no known scientific laws that could explain how that could happen.

I didn't claim a YEC timeframe, just in case you thought I did.

I just can't see any point in saying God created some beetles and others evolved. As soon as you say well maybe God just did this then you are right outside the realm of science. It is possible that God periodically intervenes in natural processes but there is no way of knowing if it ever happens in any particular case; it may be there is something a theory cannot explain and we need a better theory but then we won't get it if we just explain the gap by saying God intervened. Did you know this is exactly what Newton did when the observed facts about planetary orbits didn't fit his theories? He just said that was where God intervened. Later Laplace was accused of not taking account of this when accounting for orbits and this is why he said I have no need of that hypothesis - ie he was not saying God was a hypothesis he had no need for, as far as we know he remained an orthodox Christian, just that he didn't need to bring God in to cover gaps in his theory

Mmmm, well, it's certainly a possibility, but as far as macroevolution ... well, I just don't see enough solid evidence to support the extrapolation.

The genetic evidence is pretty solid. For example there is a DNA string in human beings which deals with smell and the same string is found in other apes. In humans part of this string is turned off, so all the code is there but it does not do anything with the result that humans have a less sensitive sense of smell than other apes. Now evolution explains this. If humans are a completely separate creation then when God made us he put a string of completely useless DNA inside us that exactly matched the DNA of the animals we believe to be our closest relatives on other grounds ; if evolution did not happen then it looks like God was trying to fool us into thinking it did! And there are lots of examples like that.

Evolution is unprovable, so is Newton's theory of gravity - it's not a huge problem for a theory that it can never be definitively proved; if it was proved we'd call it a fact.

But as far as the level and kind of unprovable - there's no getting away from the fact that macroevolution is a huge, HUGE extrapolation and we can't see it in a lab, while things about gravity we CAN see and measure. They're in different categories; it's just that simple. And I think that's an important distinction.

There is a difference in that we cannot experiment on evolution in the same way we can experiment with physical laws and many creationists pick up on this. I really do not think this means there is no evidence for evolution. It is a massive extrapolation to go from what we can observe in a laboratory to something like a theory of quantum gravity but to limit science to what we can directly observe is to cripple it.

[Rian]

Hey tirtlegrrl, nice to see you back - I wish there were more women here!

Before I write anything else, I'd like to make clear that I'm not a rabid creationist, nor am I anti-evolution; ok? I think both sides have some good points. I think either kind of thing could have happened, but I think creation is more likely, based on what I've seen and am aware of.

As far as "kind" - well, species is a man-made construct, and scientists don't even always agree on what qualifies as a different species (here's an articlefrom a birding site that discusses that), so I don't see what the big deal is. Creationists don't have ANY problem with the kind of speciation that we can observe. What we actually SEE is animals reproducing after their own kind, in the common sense of the word. I don't have a problem with creationists trying to explore and define what this means.

I don't see why God couldn't have done what you said (created an ancient ancestral population of things that diversified to result in the variety we see today), but I don't see why he couldn't have done what Genesis generally describes, either (keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the Bible isn't scientific). What's to stop microevolution from turning into macroevolution? I don't know, but I don't have to - all I'm going off of is what we've seen over and over and OVER - animals reproduce after their own kind; mutations are mostly neutral, then a small percentage harmful, then a very VERY tiny percentage debatably helpful. Sure, macroevolution is possible; I just don't think it's probable. There's just no hard, observable evidence for it, and it's such a massive extrapolation off of the tiny bit of probable evidence for it that I don't think it happened. People talk like macroevolution is just microevolution plus time, but the burden of proof isn't on me to show what's stopping it, it's on them, to show that's what happened. And what is offered in reply is not proof - it's extrapolation. What is actually observable shows that, well, birds stay birds and beetles stay beetles. Even with species that reproduce VERY quickly, it's the same thing.

[Rian]

I don't see any reason to abandon medical treatment. I think God gave us our brains to use them for good. Science won't work on the soul, though, which is even more important than the body. But I don't see any reason to not use medical treatment.

I wonder what the soul is and why science can't work on it.

Science is a wonderful thing, but it's limited - it can't tell us why something is beautiful, for example, although it can measure chemical reactions to something that we think is beautiful. I'm not anti-science by any means; what I do object to is the idea that it's more than it is.

That would deprnd on what you meant by why. If the question is why human beings respond to certain stimuli with a certain type of response that we might call aesthetic then science could in principle say a lot about that; it could look at what stimuli human beings find attractive, for example whether humans prefer perfect or imperfect symmetry, I believe this experiment has been done, or there is a famous experiment where you get men to look at almost identical pictures of a woman and say which is most attractive and almost invariably people pick the one on the left which has artificially enlarged irises, and you can speculate on and test for the biological origins of these.

Well, yes, that's what I said - it can measure some aspects of it.

But if you want to ask What is Beauty? as the ancient Greek philosophers did then science can't answer that kind of metaphysical question any more than modern science could answer the question what is gravity. This is a question Newton was accused of not being able to answer and he freely admitted he couldn't. He could describe what it did not what it was - saying it's a force just means its some kind of something that does something it's not the same as saying gravity is the attraction between objects where attraction is conceived as something like an interpersonal relationship which is the mediaevals thought of gravity. But how there came to be a diversity of species isn't a metaphysical question and not beyond science even in principle.

But it gets into the realm of extrapolation very quickly, as opposed to many other branches of science. And I'm not saying stop looking into it; I'm just saying keep it in mind.

That could certainly be the case. I'm just trying to be accurate, so it bugs me when evolutionists try to deny chance, when it's clearly an important part of the process. I think that many people on both sides go too far; I try to take whatever I find right wherever I find it and disregard what side it comes from.

I don't think they do in general

I think they do. I've been following the debate closely for years, and I've seen it over and over.

Now just a note - when I say "evolutionists", I don't necessarily mean only the actual scientists. I think the problem is mainly at the secondary and tertiary levels - people at, say, our level.

There is a problem of 600,000 beatles coming from 100 in the time scale that young earth creationists allow. There are no known scientific laws that could explain how that could happen.

I didn't claim a YEC timeframe, just in case you thought I did.

I just can't see any point in saying God created some beetles and others evolved.

I can see a point - I think God gave us the world and then let it go, and it's cool to see what happened. Also sad many times, but also wonderful.

As soon as you say well maybe God just did this then you are right outside the realm of science.

Both sides have to start with an assumption. Evolution starts with the assumption that abiogenesis happened. Creationism starts with the assumption that Genesis happened.

(sorry, couldn't resist the play on words - but the general point remains - both sides have to assume a starting point.)

After that, I don't see any reason to say "God did it". But both sides have to make starting assumptions.

It is possible that God periodically intervenes in natural processes but there is no way of knowing if it ever happens in any particular case; it may be there is something a theory cannot explain and we need a better theory but then we won't get it if we just explain the gap by saying God intervened.

I don't see why you're saying this in response to me, because I don't think I ever advocated that, but maybe you're just making a general statement.

Did you know this is exactly what Newton did when the observed facts about planetary orbits didn't fit his theories? He just said that was where God intervened. Later Laplace was accused of not taking account of this when accounting for orbits and this is why he said I have no need of that hypothesis - ie he was not saying God was a hypothesis he had no need for, as far as we know he remained an orthodox Christian, just that he didn't need to bring God in to cover gaps in his theory

Well, again, I'm not proposing that, beyond a starting point (but both sides need to assume a starting point).

Mmmm, well, it's certainly a possibility, but as far as macroevolution ... well, I just don't see enough solid evidence to support the extrapolation.

The genetic evidence is pretty solid. For example there is a DNA string in human beings which deals with smell and the same string is found in other apes. In humans part of this string is turned off, so all the code is there but it does not do anything with the result that humans have a less sensitive sense of smell than other apes. Now evolution explains this.
If humans are a completely separate creation then when God made us he put a string of completely useless DNA inside us that exactly matched the DNA of the animals we believe to be our closest relatives on other grounds ; if evolution did not happen then it looks like God was trying to fool us into thinking it did! And there are lots of examples like that.

Surely you see the philosophical issue here, MW.

Evolution is unprovable, so is Newton's theory of gravity - it's not a huge problem for a theory that it can never be definitively proved; if it was proved we'd call it a fact.

But as far as the level and kind of unprovable - there's no getting away from the fact that macroevolution is a huge, HUGE extrapolation and we can't see it in a lab, while things about gravity we CAN see and measure. They're in different categories; it's just that simple. And I think that's an important distinction.

There is a difference in that we cannot experiment on evolution in the same way we can experiment with physical laws and many creationists pick up on this. I really do not think this means there is no evidence for evolution. It is a massive extrapolation to go from what we can observe in a laboratory to something like a theory of quantum gravity but to limit science to what we can directly observe is to cripple it.

I don't think there is no evidence for evolution, either, and I've said that several times in my last few posts. Are you just making a general point, or are you thinking that I think that?

I think that any theory that relies on massive extrapolations should be in the same category as macroevolution, and you know what? They generally are treated that way. But many evolutionists try to get special treatment for the theory of evolution, and that's when I object, because I think it distorts the truth.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Hey tirtlegrrl, nice to see you back - I wish there were more women here!

Before I write anything else, I'd like to make clear that I'm not a rabid creationist, nor am I anti-evolution; ok? I think both sides have some good points. I think either kind of thing could have happened, but I think creation is more likely, based on what I've seen and am aware of.

As far as "kind" - well, species is a man-made construct, and scientists don't even always agree on what qualifies as a different species (here's an articlefrom a birding site that discusses that), so I don't see what the big deal is. Creationists don't have ANY problem with the kind of speciation that we can observe. What we actually SEE is animals reproducing after their own kind, in the common sense of the word. I don't have a problem with creationists trying to explore and define what this means.

I don't see why God couldn't have done what you said (created an ancient ancestral population of things that diversified to result in the variety we see today), but I don't see why he couldn't have done what Genesis generally describes, either (keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the Bible isn't scientific). What's to stop microevolution from turning into macroevolution? I don't know, but I don't have to - all I'm going off of is what we've seen over and over and OVER - animals reproduce after their own kind; mutations are mostly neutral, then a small percentage harmful, then a very VERY tiny percentage debatably helpful. Sure, macroevolution is possible; I just don't think it's probable. There's just no hard, observable evidence for it, and it's such a massive extrapolation off of the tiny bit of probable evidence for it that I don't think it happened. People talk like macroevolution is just microevolution plus time, but the burden of proof isn't on me to show what's stopping it, it's on them, to show that's what happened. And what is offered in reply is not proof - it's extrapolation. What is actually observable shows that, well, birds stay birds and beetles stay beetles. Even with species that reproduce VERY quickly, it's the same thing.

I'm not even sure what you mean by creation. To me, and this is the historic Christian position as far as I am aware, to say God created the cosmos is to say the cosmos depends on God for its existence. So creation and evolution are not really alternatives. If by creation you mean supernatural intervention then it would make things clearer if you said that. So yes could could have created an ancestral population by supernatural intervention and made it look as if it had evolved but there would then be no way of knowing he did that and nothing to discuss. A theory does not have to be probable to be valid, generally the more improbable it is the better as long as we have evidence for it. There is a massive amount of evidence to show that macroevolution is what happened; consider the example I just gave about the DNA strands in Apes and Humans.
Good articles on this from a Christian perspective here http://www.cis.org.uk/resources/articles-talks-and-links/creation/ Try anything by Denis Alexander. I met him last year; he was surprised how many of his books I'd read including some old ones! His book Creation or Evolution: do we have to choose is excellent and also was the title of the lecture I heard him give.
Rian I just read your post and I'm not going to respond in detail now because it's nearly midnight and I want to go and read about cops who are tracking down a black magician in modern London (though they can't call him that since the language is potentially racist). However if all you are saying is that life could have originated by direct divine intervention, by a miracle in C.S. Lewis's sense of the word then at present that has to remain a possibility. However one could also say that life arose as a result of a random quantum event and the two would look exactly alike. So the scientists can either except that and give up or they can carry on looking for a detectable explanation; those are the options.