Evolution: The Scientific Evidence

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

However, I must break for now, and continue later.

(Oops. One disruptive thing, then another came along, and now I have to recall how I planned to continue my above posting. Meanwhile, the following, in answer to those who consider evolution to be a threat to religion:)

Just recently, I came across:

Originally Posted by The Great Ideas - A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Volume I, Chapter 5. Astronomy, p. 88

Plato considers the opposition to astronomy on religious grounds by those who think that men who approach celestrial phenomena by the methods of astronomy "may become godless because they see . . . things happening by necessity, and not by an intelligent will accomplishing good." His answer points out that one of the "two things which lead men to believe in the gods . . . is the argument from the order of the motion of the stars and of all things under the dominion of the mind which ordered the universe." It was a false understanding of these matters which "gave rise to much atheism and perplexity."

So it seems now, with "evolution" substituting for "astronomy".

Has astronomy killed belief in gods or God since the time of Plato? Nope. Religions came to accomodate it (though it took the Catholics 350 years to pardon Galileo). So, I think, it will eventually be with evolution (with respect to which the Catholic church has moved more than twice as fast as it did with respect to heliocentrism -- give credit where credit is due!). In the meantime, evolution-denyers will continue to cause trouble by trying to interfere with education and research in the vain hope that such interference will shore up their theistic beliefs.

[cheesehead]

... later:

Originally Posted by The Great Ideas - A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Volume I, Chapter 5. Astronomy, p. 95

Darwin, for example, finds in the astronomical controversy a precedent to which he can appeal in the defense of natural selection against its adversaries. "The belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis", he writes, "was until lately not supported by any direct evidence." But the absence of direct evidence does not leave a scientific theory without foundation, Darwin argues, if it has the power to explain several large classes of facts, which "it can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain" in so satisfactory a manner. Darwin defends the theory of natural selection as having such power.

... and since Darwin's time, modern biology, including genetics, has filled in lots of detail about the way in which natural selection works, of course.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

I lost my pet dog we called 'Plato' for 13 years early this year. He was practically hairless but this was because he had a bad attack of mange and though hospitalised he could not be cured. I wonder if this is the -ve side of evolution.

Well, the Demodex canis mites that cause mange (http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body...tic_mange.html) have evolved to parasitize dogs. And dogs have not yet evolved to eliminate certain ways in which they can succumb to excessive mange if their bodily functions are abnormal. Of course, ever since dogs were domesticated from wolves, humans have had a great influence on their evolution.

We never know what's on Gods Mind and why he makes fingers so.

In other words, religion doesn't even try to explain.

Its up to you evolutionists to explain why as they conclude its due to the genes and not an excess of testosterone as they thought before.

... whereas scientists ("evolutionists") are trying, have arrived at some explanations, and continue to try to improve their explanations by continuing to study, experiment, and compare their theories to the natural world using methods designed to avoid self-deception, none of which religion does in any manner designed to avoid self-deception.

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Well, the Demodex canis mites that cause mange ([URL] Of course, ever since dogs were domesticated from wolves, humans have had a great influence on their evolution.

In other words, religion doesn't even try to explain.

... whereas scientists ("evolutionists") are trying, have arrived at some explanations, and continue to try to improve their explanations by continuing to study, experiment, and compare their theories to the natural world using methods designed to avoid self-deception, none of which religion does in any manner designed to avoid self-deception.

Well cheesehead, speaking for myself, and tuning in to the various points raised in this thread, I have arrived at a reconciliation between evolutionists and creationists.
There is no doubt that what the archaeologists dig up are true specimens that once existed before man came on the scene. Yes there were a line of ape-man species that predated homo sapiens also.
Then God comes along and takes up 'dust' from a fossil that was very close to man and breathes in him a living soul distinct from whatever was in the fossil and thus forms Man.

That is the end of scientific bickering.

The Lord gives man various qualities distinct from his predecessor fossil, like Free will, the sense to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil and a *conscience* to be aware of his actions and many more qualities too numerous to present the differences from his immediate predecessor fossil.

But now we come into the realm of theology and leave evolution behind to take its natural course.
We now come to spiritual evolution which branches from natural 'brute' evolution and its pace is faster.

Man looks up at the stars and realises an intelligence far beyond his and concludes that there is an intelligent Being far superior to himself.

And so we go on and on..

He ponders the integers, plain ideas which only have existence in the Mind (wherever that is!) and concludes like Kronecker as late as the 19 century that these ideas were made by God and that he could never conceive of them by himself.
Every where he looks he finds a superior Being. He has left the old ape-man behind, who is still fascinated by a coconut to ease the hunger in his beastly stomach.

Spiritual evolution has taken over and he works out that he is Spirit, Mind and Soul.

He realises that it is wrong to kill a fellow human being. Why ? He has an inbuilt conscience that tells him it is wrong to do so. So who told him so? Was it a fellow human Being? The Laws of Manu which predate the Christian era told him so and who told Manu?
These are not jump starts but gradual natural evolution but Spiritual in nature.
I welcome your comments.
Mally

[brunoparga]

My comments.

Although I have to recognize Mally's nice effort to reconcile his beliefs with wildly widespread evidence, I still think that the idea of the need of a God, in the way he presented it, is inelegant.

The second whatever-was-its-form unicellular species was unique, had certain unique features which distinguished it from the very first one. Those features arose by means of natural (i. e. godless) evolution. The same holds true when we think of the third species, compared with the former two, and it also holds true as we approach the present - each new species has its own unique traits. Those traits - all of them - arise from natural (i.e. godless) evolution. Certain aspects of the human mind are what sets us apart from the other primates. Those aspects, as much as any other distinctive feature of any other living species, arise from natural (i.e. godless) evolution.

Assuming the non-interference of a God in each and every intricate step of evolution, but one, seems to me as invoking a needless presupposition and therefore as inelegant. Specially because it just so happens that this special step of evolution happened to no other of the tens of millions species which have populated this planet than *us* - this is an inimaginable pride. Besides being, as usual, circular - we think, therefore we're special; since we're special, our evolution must have been special too; and, because our evolution was special, we think.

Bruno

PS: In 2004 I've seen what remains from a Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich. I can't believe in such thing as a "spiritual evolution".

PS2: I know that in my post I may have oversimplified issues about the definition of "species", but I don't think that invalidates the whole reasoning.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

My comments.

Although I have to recognize Mally's nice effort to reconcile his beliefs with wildly widespread evidence, I still think that the idea of the need of a God, in the way he presented it, is inelegant.

The second whatever-was-its-form unicellular species was unique, had certain unique features which distinguished it from the very first one. Those features arose by means of natural (i. e. godless) evolution. The same holds true when we think of the third species, compared with the former two, and it also holds true as we approach the present - each new species has its own unique traits. Those traits - all of them - arise from natural (i.e. godless) evolution. Certain aspects of the human mind are what sets us apart from the other primates. Those aspects, as much as any other distinctive feature of any other living species, arise from natural (i.e. godless) evolution.

Assuming the non-interference of a God in each and every intricate step of evolution, but one, seems to me as invoking a needless presupposition and therefore as inelegant. Specially because it just so happens that this special step of evolution happened to no other of the tens of millions species which have populated this planet than *us* - this is an inimaginable pride. Besides being, as usual, circular - we think, therefore we're special; since we're special, our evolution must have been special too; and, because our evolution was special, we think.

Bruno

PS: In 2004 I've seen what remains from a Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich. I can't believe in such thing as a "spiritual evolution".

PS2: I know that in my post I may have oversimplified issues about the definition of "species", but I don't think that invalidates the whole reasoning.

I also liked Mally's reinterpretation of the evidence for evolution.

Your "special event" point certainly needs attention and, preferably explanation. I would point out, however, that special things happen all the time by pure chance, unless you believe that God is such a control freak that every last thing happens by conscious effort. In this model and on the assumption of Mally's hypothesis, the special event he describes happened by pure chance. At one point in time, a particular individual (whom we may as well label Adam) was just sufficiently over the tipping point for God to step in and breath in an immortal soul.

Paul (playing Devil's advocate again. Not often you see God and the Devil arguing the same side of a case. )

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

My comments.

Although I have to recognize Mally's nice effort to reconcile his beliefs with wildly widespread evidence, I still think that the idea of the need of a God, in the way he presented it, is inelegant.

Bruno

PS: In 2004 I've seen what remains from a Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich. I can't believe in such thing as a "spiritual evolution".

PS2: I know that in my post I may have oversimplified issues about the definition of "species", but I don't think that invalidates the whole reasoning.

Well Bruno, I have to agree with you and Paul that introducing God at the formation of Adam is inelegant. Its very difficult to over look the fact that God is really not necessary.

As Paul says it might have happened by pure chance.

But not to give up what is innermost in my soul we have to go back to the Creation of the universe and establish that it was created by God and not by pure chance. If at that moment God was necessary then Him creating Man will be a walk over

The big bang: was it created out of nothing or by chance? And here we are back to another thread but lets continue in this one.

How would you define pure chance when there is not even an event or the ordinate of time as per all math equations starts at zero?

I await your analysis as I have the late night movie 'The Interpreter' on with Sean Penne and Nicole Kidman and it is getting very interesting.

Yes, regards Dachau we must remember that spiritual evolution works in both directions. Man can be very good, almost realising God in himself, or very evil.
Dachau gives us the evil end of the spectrum. Its a real pity but unless Man knows evil, how can he appreciate the Goodness of God?

Mally

[brunoparga]

Well, Mally, it's nice that we've agreed that the assumption that God exists, when based upon the evolving of man, is inelegant and unnecessary.

Now, it seems to me that the same applies to the reasoning based upon the beginning of the Universe.

You're probably aware of the laws of physics; energy is, in a sense, fundamentally the same thing as matter (and there's the famous e=mc^2 equation, which relates them both). Also, this thing (let's call it just energy) cannot be created or destroyed; all it does is transform. Ice melts becoming water; electricity on a light bulb becomes heat and light; atoms in an atom bomb decay and part of their matter becomes (kinetic, thermal...) energy .

In this way, it's easy to see that, rigorously speaking, nothing can be created. We usually think of e.g. a work of art or a machine as a creation, but in this fundamental sense it isn't; it's just the rearranging of energy. I hope you'll agree that the world exists today; everything that exists already existed, in the same form or in a different one, one minute ago. Everything which existed a minute ago existed an hour ago, too. yadda-yadda-yadda a year ago. A decade. A century. A millenium.

This reasoning is similar to one which states that, given any integer, you can always add 1 to it, and therefore there are infinitely many of them. This alone would lead to the conclusion that time is infinite towards the past.

But, as you have pointed out, science has found out that things aren't that way. There was a time zero, that is, the amount of time in the past is finite. But, as we have seen, everything that exists already existed, whether as itself or as something else, any time ago (provided that that time isn't larger than the finite amount of past time) and thus everything already existed at time zero. At that time, of course, absolutely nothing was at its present form; the entire energetic content of the universe was concentrated together. That's time zero. To me, there seems to be no reason for that energy to have been created - please notice the inconvenience of using a tense with a past idea when dealing with the instant zero, with the moment without past.

Anyway, that's just what I think.
Bruno

[T.Rex]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

In this way, it's easy to see that, rigorously speaking, nothing can be created.

Mally and people of his kind do not care about scientific rigour. Otherwise, they would have changed the way they think their God.
I could agree that people believe in a God if, and only if, their beliefs are coherent with our actual scientific knowledge.
A belief could be that something has used a very big amount of unused energy and played with in order to create something new, or something very slightly different from another toy World. Like an experiment.
But I could not agree with them if they think this creator is still controlling the experiment and is looking at us, dust lost among stars.
Very probably we are alone in this World and our future will look like the one of the people who lived and destroyed the Easter Island.
BTW, the hope that my wife will survive his cancer is very very small now. I do not see any God around. I only see that we are wonderful but mortal and fragile poor things. Tears and moanings. There is no after-life and the only answer to: Why do we die ? is that death is part of life. Without death, there is no life. But she's too young for dying. She will not have joys she deserves, like kissing grandchildren. Now, she's able to discuss only some minutes a day. I'm so sad ... We can have spirituality without the need of a religion and of a God. But that seems much more difficult than believing in a fable for children. So I can agree that people believe in a God if they admit that they do that because that's easier than a spirituality without a God. I do not believe in a God, but I haven't built my own spirituality. Kind of a lost guy ... However, I'm not alone, and I prefer my place than Mally's place. Keep the good things and remove the bad things of the Christian religion. Build something new.
T.

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by brunoparga

Well, Mally, it's nice that we've agreed that the assumption that God exists, when based upon the evolving of man, is inelegant and unnecessary.

Now, it seems to me that the same applies to the reasoning based upon the beginning of the Universe.

You're probably aware of the laws of physics; energy is, in a sense, fundamentally the same thing as matter (and there's the famous e=mc^2 equation, which relates them both). Also, this thing (let's call it just energy) cannot be created or destroyed;

Anyway, that's just what I think.
Bruno

Bruno.

ASFAIK mathematically speaking, all energy equations give E=0 when t=0

But even if something exists and you call it energy or mass for all time(which means your energy or mass was always there present) I dont see why I shouldn't call the energy God who has Intelligence to order that energy.
So you see that while you are thinking of a blob of matter, energy, whatever we are agreeing that that same blob is what I am calling an intelligent God as there is every evidence that the universe is ordered and not random.

Also T.Rex has taken the words out of my mouth!

What does the Darwinian hypothesis say about death?
Do you believe that evolution leads us back to dust? and no more?

Then lets follow the Epicurean philosophy 'Lets eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we will die?'
Will you say that on your death bed breathing your last? What a morbid thought.
Every civilisation has believed in life after death including the Buddhists.

Even the most hardened atheist will hope for some existence after death.
You only have to see the inmates on death row or a movie on them.
Let me ask you why then are we afraid of death?
We die every time we breathe out so why is the final breathing out so difficult and awesome?
This is where the Darwinian theory fails. It returns us not even to the animal we ascended from.
Even the suicide bombers of our day believe they will be in a paradise when they blow themselves up. The Jap kamikaze pilots of the last war were brainwashed in a similar manner.
So all of us are searching for some type of existence after death.
Strange enough the DT stops right there and fails to answer a question man has been pondering upon for ages since his type started to exist.

This is where Jesus steps in to the picture. He knew what lay after death.
More so he conquered death by breaking its shackles. In three days he rose after predicting he would.
He came to earth as he knew people will be haggling over a mysterious invisible God. Hence he became Man to demonstrate a very own personal God
He was every bit like us. He went thru a physical life like the rest of us.
And so the story goes from generation to generation.
Speaking for myself if it wasn't for Him I do not know where I would have landed up. I depend on him every moment of my existence.
He said ' I am the Vine thou art the branches. Those who abide in me
, I will abide in him and shall bear much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing'
Mally

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by T.Rex

Mally and people of his kind do not care about scientific rigour. Otherwise, they would have changed the way they think their God. ~ ~
I could agree that people believe in a God if, and only if, their beliefs are coherent with our actual scientific knowledge.
~ #
a spirituality without a God. I do not believe in a God, but I haven't built my own spirituality. Kind of a lost guy ... However, I'm not alone, and I prefer my place than Mally's place. Keep the good things and remove the bad things of the Christian religion. Build something new.
T.

My dear Tony,
May I sympthasise with your plight.

When I stood at my mothers grave and she was being let down, as a young man, I was sorrow stricken.

The words 'life is uncertain, but death is sure' echoed in my brain.

Then I heard the words of the priest reading Jesus' comforting words

" I Am the Resurrection and the LIFE. Those who BELIEVE in Me shall not PERISH, But have EVERLASTING LIFE"

This is not the end, Tony; its only the beginning

May these same words comfort you in your hour of grief.

Mally