Just wondering what type of "proof" would convince you of the truth of evolution? Is there any sort of thing, at all, that could convince you?

If you were convinced that evolution was true, would that in any way affect your percepton of God?
Doug

For Karlis and Yeti:
Each scientific discipline is based on a fundamental theorem whose truth is either provable (as in mathematics), or highly likely based on how well it matches up with observation. For example, statistics rests on the Central Limit Theorem. Disprove that and you have demolished the entire discipline. Atomic science rests on the Atomic Theory and Microbiology rests on the Germ Theory.

You refer to it as "Creation Science." Has anybody stated a fundamental theorem for it? Once the theory of creationism has been stated, how well does it agree with observations? Have any studies actually been done to establish this? What correlaries result from its fundamental theorem? What evidence supports that theorem?

Basically, I'm asking: what qualifies "creation science" as science?
Doug

I would suggest, PA that firstly, the eye is part of our body - it is a physiological adaptation and, as such, lends itself more easily to study and also to leaving evidence of it's evolution. Behaviour - such as homosexuality - may have genetic components and this is one of the exciting things our ever-increasing knowledge of genetics is discovering. However, genetics is a very much less-developed and newer field of study than physiology so it would make sense the conclusions are more tentative.

Genetics is probably also a more sensitive subject than physiology, especially when we start looking at topics such as a genetic cause for behaviour. While scientists may be seen as being cold and rather detached, most are very human with normal human sensitivities. Being understated and diplomatic about sensitive issues such as the one you raise makes sense as it would be easy for lay-people to misunderstand the position science has on issues like that.

Once again, Karlis, it must be stressed there are no 'proofs' in science. If you require proof then you will be waiting for a VERY long time.

There are facts in science, and evolution is an established fact - we know organisms evolve. When it comes down to specifics such as organs etc, there will be a tendency to be less certain of the evolutionary mechanism and sequence. Part of this is that some of the evidence we have (fossils being one) can not be examined in some of the ways we can examine a living organism.

The wiki article (and the sources it uses) provide strong evidence for the evolution of eyes, however your enquiry about it providing 'proof' is leading as there is no such thing as proof in science. The question is unanswerable with respect to asking for proof of the evolution of eyes.

I would not suggest a parallel between my cube analogy and the story of the blindfolded men studying the elephant as there is no suggestion of a false conclusion in my cube analogy, simply the highlighting of the part uncertainty plays in science. Perhaps the analogy was a poor one.

That's a very broad question-answer issue, Doug. I suppose it may boil down as to what each of us will accept as "proof", agreed?

* From what I gather so far, proponents of evolution "seem" to accept theories as proof; as long as theories are tied to each other in a continuous chain -- and as long as that chain of theories also has an equally long chain of observable facts in nature that also are neatly in a continuous chain of observations.
In my opinion the above is a theory; not proof.

As proof of evolution, I would need clear, unambiguous fossils, where one species is shown to have evolved into another species.

No -- I do not think that concrete proof of evolution would affect my beliefs; nor affect my perceptions of God at all.
I wonder why you think that such proof would possibly affect my perceptions or beliefs?

Problem is -- there seem to be no concrete proofs for evolution of life from inanimate to conscious life forms.

What do you think?
Karlis

I don't think that it's anything more than an idea right now. As time passes and more people, scientists, whomever make contributions to the field, maybe it will grow into something more. I think there are people who find the theory of evolution inadequate and their looking for an explanation. I'm sure many people are working to discover some proof of God's existence, or in the creation story itself.

Unfortunately promotion of this pseudo-science is becoming seriously detrimental to America's scientific educational quality and scientific reputation.

Yes, I am claiming that by disproving evolution one is in fact proving creationism; although that's not what I set out to do with this thread. That's what it has morphed into. You are aware that for any possible event there are an infinite number of potential outcomes. This is theoretical. As far as our existence goes, there are only two good explanations for it. Unless you want to allow for the existence of aliens with time travelling capability. It's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. I understand that logically speaking disproving A does not automatically prove B. In this case however, I don't see it as much of a stretch. You are right that we can't prove God's existence by disproving the theory of evolution, but we could say that it is much more likely.

Occam's razor? This simplest possible outcome is usually the right one. I think in view of all the questions regarding evolution and the fact that we've never observed evolution in the broad sense of the word, it's much easier to conclude that we are the result of a supreme designer. IMO.

Emma said that a babies eye develops from conception to birth. I think this is perhaps one of the greatest "proofs" of creation. Think about how miraculous it is that a baby can follow its genetic blueprint like that and be born. It's amazing how it all happens. I find it hard to consider the developing fetus, and the birth of a baby without giving thanks to God for his marvelous works. Just to think of the oxygen intake switch alone that must occur from the amniotic fluid to a breathing baby is astounding.

In a distant, far-off past, was not a similar attitude exhibited towards those who opposed the Flat Earth Theory?

Karlis the heretic of evolutionists

I have been reading this thread and it is quite interesting, but I have a couple questions. To the folks who have a problem believing in the theory of evolution, do you also have a problem with all other scientific theories or is it only the theories that touch on your religious beliefs that cause a problem for you? Do you understand all the other scientific theories out there and just hit a stumbling-block on evolution? It appears to me that there is a problem with just the basic understanding of the term theory as applicable to science:

"In scientific usage, theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Theories_as_.22models.22

So no theory will ever be "proven" in the way you are asking for - and that is a good thing. It means that scientist acknowledge the chance that they are wrong, allow room for new evidence to be incorporated, or even a revision of the starting hypothesis. It also keeps them from being in the same boat some creationists are in, while they (creationists) think they are right with no proof what so ever, scientists are willing to accept all new information whether it supports their theory or not. You will believe in god with absolutely no proof, but yet you require science to have exactly what it takes to make you believe in something that many people have no problem believing from the evidence in front of them. What if you applied that same mindset to religious belief? Do you even question that or just take it on faith? Would you be able to continue your beliefs if you demanded the same level of proof from god as you do from science?

And don't expect to disprove Evolution. Its not going to happen. The amount of advancements that have come from understanding evolutionary principles is outstanding, more so and another field of science. The advancements alone in medicine, agriculture, virology, etc..., validate evolution as a fact and process. There are however, tons more evidence. The dover trial demonstrated this to the general populace. Anyone, even if they have a PhD in science as Michael Behe does, who attempts to say evolution doesn't happen is oblivious to biology.



I was in the same boat when I was a Christian and before I got into biology. Its not that outstanding once you have a grip on genetics and things such as hox genes.

I'm a forest biometrician. Each field has its own standards of what is acceptable probabilistic proof. In ecology, they usually accept a variable if it "explains" 60 to 80% of the variation in a model. Us biometricians try for 95%, but sometimes have to settle for a little less. Physicists want 98% or better; psychologists will go with a good hunch. In statistics we can put a number on what is sufficient. The exact number is arbitrary and tests that are close to the boundary result in a lot of head-scratching, but mostly, models aren't even close to the limit. Other fields can't necessarily do this - paleontology, for example. I was just wondering if you had considered the question enough to set a limit, or you were going to reject evolution categorically. I gather from your comments that you don't actually have a standard of proof that you can point to and say: "This meets the requirements." If you have a background in statistics, I'm asking: "What is your critical value?"

I also gather that for you, evolution is proven or disproven based solely on fossils. What about something like dendrochronology, where still-living trees record climate from 8200 BP? What about lab tests that have artificially produced a new species from an older, naturally-occurring species in just one generation (instant evolution)? How about Craig Venter's production of a living cell from previously-non-living components? What about land forms like cirque valleys and continent-sized glacial ground moraine where there is no glacier today? What about the continuous sedimentary deposits, more than 50,000 feet of them, in the Gulf of Mexico? They weren't put there in a single cataclysmic event: where and how did they originate? What about the continuous sequence of diatoms found in the bottom sediments of Lake Yao in southern Chad (Current issue of Science.) where a continuous line of descent progresses from fresh-water species to salt-water species. What about AIDS? One reason it is so deadly is its ability to evolve new forms faster than the immune system can launch counter-measures. There are three know strains of AIDS - M, N and O. I'm not sure if these would constitute new species or not, but they demonstrate evolution. What about super-weeds (like rosette-form dandelions that have adapted to lawn mowers) and super bugs (like pesticide-resistant grasshoppers)? Evolution isn't just something that occurred in the dim past; it is all around you right now.

Is it the age of the earth you dispute, or is it just the processes involved in the evolution of life? Which process(es) do you think can't happen?

Based on size and rate-of-growth, some Rocky Mountain aspen clones are estimated at a million years old. That's an example of evolution at dead stop. Nothing has changed in the genome in a million years. A whole new species (big-toothed aspen) has evolved during the life spans of still-living clones.

Back in the 1960s some wildlife researchers were measuring deer hoof size on Isle Royale. They didn't have time to complete the measurements in one seaon, so they decided to come back and finish the next summer. That winter, snow conditions were such that large-footed deer could run across the surface, while narrow-footed deer broke through the crust. There was serious wolf predation, cutting the Isle Royale deer herd by about 70% in just days. The next summer, the researchers found that the surviving deer had wider feet; in the decades since, the wider foot characteristic has been maintained. That's measurable evolution, without a mutation, in just one season. The only reason evolution takes so long is that it isn't usually in operation. Most of the time, nothing is happening.

I don't recall where, but somewhere on UM, on one of these evolution debate threads, somebody posted a set of photos of fossils showing the change of one species into another. It will take a lot of hunting, but the fossils you're looking for are listed on this very site. If this is not adequate, I suspect that with a little effort, you could collect photos of most, if not all, fossils of a given species and assemble the list yourself. I'd bet it's been done more than one genus.

I am not a paleontologist, but I have been looking at the evolution of North American Ice Age fauna in an attempt to fathom what climatic changes may have occurred here. One example is the horse, which was exterpated in North America about 13,000 years ago. The horse co-evolved with grass. Originally the horse was about the size of a medium-sized dog with fairly short teeth. As grass acquired traits to resist grazing, such as silicate crystals in the leaves, horses' teeth got longer and heavier to resist the wear. This process continued over the course of several different species of horse.

The Wooley mammoth originated in Europe, evolving into the Imperial mammoth and the Columbian mammoth as it spread eastward. It's a clear sequence. I think those progressions of fossils you're looking for exist; it's just a matter of digging through the literature to find them.

I have a proposal: pick any paleo species you like and carefully note the precise differences between it and other related species. If you found a fossil, how would you know that it did (or didn't) belong to your subject species? Then ask how these differences might have originated, and what was driving the changes. If you think creationsim produced the differences you see, explain how that happened. If you don't think evolution could produce these changes, explain why. Specifics. If evolution is impossible, there has to be a reason. What is it?

Answer these questions and you'll be making progress toward turning creationism into a science. Offer alternate theories. Right now, "creation science" doesn't have any. If creationism is ever to replace evolution, it has to offer an explanation of how the natural world we see around us came into being and it has to do a better job of it than evolution does. As of now, evolution is the default paradigm because creationism hasn't been able to come up with anything better and that, I propose, is the reason for all the attacks on evolution we see on this site without ANY supporting evidence for creationism.

For me, the evidence is everywhere I look, from dead sand dunes along the highway, to the different habitats occupied by closely-realted tree species, to glacial moraines under the junior high school I attended in Ohio, to a dozen or so different shorelines left by the retreating Great Lakes, to the Niagara and St. David's gorges, to age-related inclines of the various alluvial fans in the Colorado Front Range, to U-shaped glacial valleys under Nederland, Colorado (Remember Grand Pop-sickle?) - it's an endless list and the whole system fits together seemlessly.

Personally, I see no conflicts between evolution and God. Either could occur with or without the other. I ask, because so many people see the evolution-creation argument as two extremes: 1. God created everything, so evolution couldn't have; or 2. evolution created everything, so God doesn't exist. Their religious and secular teachers have left them poorly-trained to handle such questions. I was wondering if you were one of these.
Doug

As a microbiologist you and other scientists like yourself are used to observing things in the micro. All of the advancements that you are referring to come as a result of study of microorganisms, their behaviors, compositions, etc. You observe resistent bacteria and you see evolution happening.

Bacteria are easy to grow in a laboratory. Scientist have been culturing bacteria for over a hundred years now. Entire populations of bacteria can be grown overnight. In all the years of study of bacteria, creating and observing populations of bacteria, they have yet to observe bacteria morphing from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. These are the kind of changes that must follow for the theory of evolution to be valid, and it is precisely this kind of evolution that has not been observed. If evolution is a force of change powerful enough to create all life on this planet, then we should be able to see some in action.

I understand your point Ann. We have explained our position many times. No, we don't have a problem with science or other medical advancements. We (or I specifically) have a problem with abiogenesis and the theory of evolution. As far as the God part, yes we do have faith - which is by definition, believing without seeing. As far as proof goes, that's another issue entirely. I have proof for God's existence that sastified the question for me. It's not the kind of proof that is considered scientific. Some things about my faith aren't even accepted as real by science such as the existence of a person's soul.

Yeti,

First I would like to express my frustration in this conversation. You guys keep asking for details and evidences, expressed in layman's terms (which can be quite a challenge given the depth of our knowledge base in biology) and whenever I make a somewhat scientific post it goes unaddressed. Are you reading it? Are you skipping over it? Does it seem too complex?

If no one is going to read any evidence presented, then I feel this is a terrible waste of effort to open such lines of communication.

That said, I am going to leave this one up to the reader as a learning activity. You ask why we don't see bacteria "morphing" from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. The question first is did bacteria "morph" to eukaryotes? They may not have, likely members of the kingdom Archaea did. The next question is one you need to answer, do you believe that is what happened? That prokaryotes "morphed" to eukaryotes? The wordage there you use leads me to believe you think this is a quick "change". It was likely not a quick thing. If you had a time machine to go back to the start of the endosymbiosis and plasma membrane envagination events that gave rise to planets and animals you would not be able to observe it, as it likely took many many many of your life times. You would have to hop about in your time machine to get a clear picture.

If you question is, why don't we observe endosymbiosis events taking place today? The answer is we do. Here is where the "learning activity" comes in, Please read up on Cryptomonads and endosymbiosis, as they are a great living model for what may have taken place some 1500 million years ago. Also, I think a brief read up of cellular physiology is required. The ER and Nuclear envelope are derived from the plasma membrane.

Again if you answered "Because of increased surface area" (Like I told you too ) you would be correct. The in-folding of the plasma membrane offered a greater surface area to run metabolic reactions across. The further in-foldings to form a nucleus offers protection against the small, intracellular parasites that still hijack some prokaryote genetic mechanisms. Thus, granting a great selective advantage.

~Regards

Hi Paranoid,

First, I would point out that you are comparing (at least I assume this because you said "studies") wikipedia and scientific literature.

Most scientific literature you read will take the tone as illustrated in numerous posts above. This does not matter the discipline or material. Even in annual or biannual reviews, reviewers use terminology like "Their study suggests".

Terminology becomes more comfortable with time. As hypotheses are tested and retested, language becomes more definitive. For an example look at papers from the 50's and 60's regarding affinity chromatography, then look for papers from the 90's or now. When these researchers refer to old discoveries they use much more definitive language.

As Leonardo suggested, we are just beginning to understand the genetic basis for behaviors. In other words, pathways and gene expression hypothesis are not time tested yet. If I had to guess, I would say you could observe the same change in language in genetics in 15-20 years as you can observe with other sciences.

cimber i rather enjoy your posts, and now that i know that you were once a christain I have more of a hats off to you... it says so much to me one who challenges their beleifs and changes them , its not an easy thng to do.....

Karlis, I am worried that you are left with confusion about the type of language used in the Wiki article and in science in general. Can you let me know whether you accept the explanations given by various people on the idea of "proof"?
And could you do me a favour and tell me if your amended quote above makes more sense - I can actually answer it if one changes the word "proof" to the word "evidence"

NO. No conclusions are ever drawn in science without evidence. There is no proof. there is only overwhelming evidence.

Yes

This picture says it all. People should learn EVERYTHING thats even close to relevant about something before they come to ANY conclusion.

Yeah, I feel like this too. Like, I honestly cannot see how so many people say "well it's all too amazing to be natural, it must be designed" as if... nature isn't... amazing?

Stuff like...


Just reminds me of the guys at the flat earth society. http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index...p;topic=11211.0

One of the guys there said that proof for the earth being flat was "It looks that way up close." And that, honestly to me, is exactly the same as what the people who continually compare our ability to design and create with natural things in the world - as if they had creative purpose and a designer. Like they HAD to be created by a thinking mind. It's truly daft. I just can't understand why you only see things so simplistically and then argue that we cannot comprehend God's... power or whatever, when what you're explaining is easy to comprehend because it's related to our own abilities. It's anthropomorphizing the entire world because you can't understand it any other way. It's so... child-like! It really is.

THAT is what it looks like, to me. Anyone else feeling this?

All other incidentals aside, DogsHead, may I get back to the wicki article of "evolution of eyes"?

That article claimed that it PROVED evolution of eyes.
If you agree that the article proved that point, could you please copy-paste the segments of proof from that article?

Even though I believe that the article contains no such proof, I still look forward to your reply,
Karlis

PS: As to what form of proof that article may contain, I leave that for you to decide. So, will you please copy-paste what you consider is proof in the article?
K

Hands up here, Haj!



Thanks for your response Y. I certainly understand your position. As a former Christian of 15 years, I understand your thinking, for it was the same as mine. However, that quickly changed when I sat in a biology class in college. The evidence was so overwhelming, that I simply could not deny evolution. So, to have my cake and eat it too, I believed in "Guided Evolution" -- that God simply created everything, and guided it along an evolutionary path to where it is today. And to me, that made God even more awesome -- his creation more miraculous. Evolution showed a masterful hand at work, a God of unfathomable intelligence. It made me appreciate life all that much more. Just snapping something into existence, I found diminished Gods omnipotence.



Of course, I'm going to take the opposite view here. I think Oscam's Razor can be applied to the Theory of Evolution for the very same reason you apply it to a creator. The evidence, and I know you disagree with this, is simply overwhelming -- both on the micro and macro level. In nearly 150 years, and 10s of thousands of experiments, it has only bolstered this theory. But, that does not mean there is no God. That is not the role of science. It is quite plausible that some sort of supernatural force -- call it God if you want to -- exists. I would not be shocked in the slightest if, indeed, that was the case. And as I stated above, that would only make me appreciate that "force" all that much more.



I couldn't agree more. Such a thing is astounding. However, if this is one of the greatest proofs of a creator, why are so many children born with terrible diseases, disabilities etc.? And why do 50% of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion? This is something I could never grasp. If God creates life in the womb ... why is he ending such a large percentage of his own creation before they are born? And why is he putting the mother of that lost child through such emotional torment? It simply does not make sense to me.

Most kindly,

Sean

Morning K.

Forgive me for reposting this ...

As for the whole "Eye" argument ... Just curious ... Why do you believe the eye is an example of ID ... when it's such a complete mess?! How many people use glasses/contacts and/or have to have laser surgery? If you don't, you almost certainly will! Studies have shown by the age of 40 or so, eyesight begins to deteriorate. And what about cataracts? My farther just had the lenses in both his eyes replaced because of cataracts--as has a whole slew of his friends.

Unintelligent Design by Robyn Williams (p., 64-66):

So are eyes perfect? Well, not according to the evidence of the glasses on my nose as I write, nor the immense range of eyes in the animal kingdom, nor the ghastly set up of our eye structure compared to, say, that of the octopus. This is superbly demonstrated, again, in Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker and I recommend that anyone still favouring Argument from Personal Incredulity should look at those sections of his book. The detail is overwhelming—and fun. Descriptions of light-sensitive cells pointing the wrong way, of optic nerves barging right through pivotal areas and causing blind spots, of components going bung—the indictment of this ‘divine perfection in design’ is extraordinary. Any thoroughgoing examination of our optical system shows compromise, adjustment, re-routing and patching up. It is like when you buy an old house and every electrician and plumber you call in shakes his head over the bodgie jobs done by his predecessor: ‘Ooooooh dear, I can see what he tried to do there. Hopeless. Had to cover it up with laster. Lucky we found it, mate, or you’d have been in trouble. Must have been an amateur. One less brain cell and he’d have been a Brussels sprout! ’Fraid it’s going to cost.’ Eyes are excellent, and I insist on keeping mine, but let’s not get carried away: we have a case for compensation.

Take Andrew Walker’s recent books on the role of light-sensitive cells in causing the evolutionary explosion two billion years ago. From a world where life was not much more than clusters of single cells or parts thereof, where the greatest attainment in the accretion of slight modifications was not much more than pond scum, simple eyes gave some living things huge advantages. They could perceive (see is too grandiose a term for those first little devices reacting to not much other than light or shade) things to eat and other things to avoid. From this, says Walker, came the Cambrian proliferation of species 540 million years ago. Because they were now able to exploit many more places to live, millions more animals evolved over this key period in organic history. Seeing was the key breakthrough. It is a sensationally better alternative to not seeing at all. The eye, in its various forms, thereafter evolved separately at least forty times. In squid, octopuses, insects, worms, snails—the creator must have been extremely busy.

Their Own Eyes

...defeat them doubly. First, creationists trot out that old saw about how "nothing as complex as an eye could evolve in stages, since a half-eye is no good at all." Darwin himself trounced that one roundly by merely observing that there are creatures alive today with eyes in all "stages of development," from a few light-sensitive cells, to a cup-shaped receptor with no proper lens, to eagle eyes far sharper than ours. Other creatures seem to get along fine with half-eyes and even 1/100 eyes.

Then for the final insult, human (the pinnacle of creation) eyes are clearly an engineering mistake! The retinas are inside out. The nerves and blood vessels come out through the light-sensitive area of the retina, producing a blind spot, then spread over the front of the light-receptor cells, so that light has to get past the fibers into the receptors. Why aren't the nerves and capillaries behind the receptors, where they would be out of the way and there would be no need for a blind spot? Squid eyes are arranged just that way. Since ours aren't, one is reminded of the maxim that evolution has to work with the materials at hand, adapting systems already in place, with results that often seem jury-rigged or needlessly complicated. Would an Ultimate Engineer make such an obvious blunder, especially having got it right in creatures created earlier?--The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins, Richard, p., 93

Most kindly,

Sean

To answer your points, seanph, I think we should sort of "step back" from "attributing" all events to God's specific doing.

Let's try to stand back and see a broader view:
* ... "why are so many children born with terrible diseases, disabilities etc.?"
* And why do 50% of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion?
* If God creates life in the womb ... why is he ending such a large percentage of his own creation before they are born?
* And why is he putting the mother of that lost child through such emotional torment?

To be very simplistic; let us assume that God took a mostly "hands off" attitude, after Mankind chose to go their own road. Thus, every process in all societies is an evolved result of Man's way of life. In some aspects Mankind has prospered; in other aspects, suffered consequences of wrong actions ... genetics may well be one such road?

Why is it so?
As I have posted before -- we may be living in a "learning mode world", where God has allowed Mankind to choose all and every possible wrong choice.

As I see it, this will continue to the point where:
Mat 24:22 And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved [alive]. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.

Be as it may, how realistic does this sound?
Karlis

Hi seanph -- I think I can give you no better answer than copy-paste part of my previous post, as follows:
-=-=-

* How many people use glasses/contacts and/or have to have laser surgery?
* And what about cataracts?

To be very simplistic; let us assume that God took a mostly "hands off" attitude, after Mankind chose to go their own road. Thus, every process in all societies is an evolved result of Man's way of life. In some aspects Mankind has prospered; in other aspects, suffered consequences of wrong actions ... genetics may well be one such road?

Why is it so?
As I have posted before -- we may be living in a "learning mode world", where God has allowed Mankind to choose all and every possible wrong choice.

As I see it, this will continue to the point where:
Mat 24:22 And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved [alive]. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened.

Be as it may, how realistic does this sound?
Karlis

PS: And I ask again .. where is the proof in that wicki article that eyes evolved?
K

Have you had a chance to read the Nature article or my post #996. If so, thoughts?

I feel the same way, I see no difference between modern humans denying evolution because of religious faith, and using religion to "explain" everything they do not understand and primitive man creating gods to explain thunder and lightening (which we now know is not a god making a racket, or zeus throwing thunderbolts) or any other natural phenomenon that they did not have the ability to explain. Although in primitive humans defense, they did not have the science behind how things worked, unlike modern humans who just choose to ignore the science.

As long as you do not believe that the earth is only 6000 or so years old, there is no reason to argue against evolution if you're thinking about God as having a "hands off approach".

Why only apply the "hands off approach" to man-kind and it's development within a single species?

Lets say he started the ball rolling with the first lifeforms... Or even, he "pressed a button" and created everything with "the big bang!", and everything since has been his indirect doing. He made the laws of the physical world, evolution being one of them... And it's been occurring ever since off it's own back.

Do you have a problem with that idea? Why? Since It's you who suggested that he's been "hands off" with us. Why not all life? Why not the entire UNIVERSE?

That is easier for me to understand, that a God created things to work by themselves. That's what we try to do. Like artificial intelligence. Learning robots. You understand me? My problem is not that you accept creationism (in some way, as long as it's not literal) but that you do not accept evolution - which to me is blatant fact because I can see evidence of it all around me even without the scientific evidence. I compare my foot to my dog's paw and I the similarities are too blatant to ignore, for me personally. Do you understand how the two are not, directly, in as much competition as everyone makes out? It's not "evolution or creationism must be true". There is no "one or the other".

The idea that all creatures are obviously interlinked isn't a modern idea. It wasn't first explored by Darwin. It's been around as long as man. Why? Because you can SEE it.

This is why I do not understand why you deny it.

Morning K. First, you honestly believe that because we have made bad decisions -- taken the wrong road -- that has had negative consequence on our eyes?! I must be honest, that does not sound even remotely realistic! Second, I did not supply the article of which you speak, so I cannot comment on it. Third, the proof that our eyes are a product of evolution I provided in my last post. To say our eyes are a complete mess, would be an understatement! And for that reason, they certainly do not show any kind of intelligent design in my humble opinion. On the contrary, it shows hundreds of millions of years of evolution -- a process, which still has major work (and I do not mean to personify evolution) to do.

Of course, I know you're going to disagree. So the best I can do is say to each his own.

Most kindly,

Sean

Yes Copassetic, I did read your post -- and thank you again for posting it; you obviously put time and effort into it, and I for one appreciated reading it.

Now, here is where I think I will find it difficult to get my point across to you, and to other science-oriented people:
You posted very detailed explanations on how eyes in different creatures operate, and you posted a detailed list of creatures ... from very primitive to more and more complex creatures.
* You showed how the eyes of the simpler creatures are simpler in construction,
* and more complex in more complicated creatures.

You show that there is a "chain" -- simpler lead on to more complex.

Now, that is exactly what the wicki article showed. However, there is no proof that the simpler "evolved" into the more complex.

What is indisputable is:
It is possible to list a "chain" -- the simplest to the more complex -- and to show that there are many similarities between some of the simpler eyes and some of the more complex eyes.

Then, comes the quantum leap: these "chains of comparisons prove" that simple evolved to complex.

Sorry, but that is not acceptable as proof of evolution -- well, not to me, anyway.

I guess I will remain a sceptic to evolution if that is the kind of "proof" that is provided by proponents of evolution.
Karlis

Ok so far.

Now you are misunderstanding what I wrote, HAJIME.

I do not accept that God ever had a "hands off approach" to Mankind coming into existence. I still stand by my belief that Man as a species was consciously created by God the Creator.

What I wrote was that God has a "hands off policy" (to a certain extent) regarding what Mankind chooses to do in general; which includes allowing Mankind to go down every possible wrong road, which, over time, leads to all sorts of genetic flaws, etc., etc.

However -- the Bible shows that God is "guiding" Mankind's future to a specific destination.

I have no problem with what you write, until you seemingly assume (???) that evolution led to the existence of all the myriad of living creatures, culminating with Mankind. I stand on my belief that God consciously created life, and consciously created the different living *species* of creatures.

As far as evolution in *chemicals-elements-atoms-molecules-etc* (excuse my lack of a better phrase), I have no problems with that -- up to the point that "like begets like".

As far as evolution within a species goes, I have no problems with that either; since no evolution has ever been shown between DIFFERENT species; and by "different species", I mean *different kinds*.

I think what I wrote above, covers that also.

The problem is -- that can only be shown "in theory". There is no proof for that. If there is proof -- please show that proof, without theories, and without saying that the links are lost.

Oh I understand ... just show me artificial intelligence or a robot that evolved without a creator, and we are in business.

Well -- if your foot is the same as your dog's paw, one of you has a great deal of difficulty in walking, is all I can say.

Please pardon me for saying this, but that is pure gobblydygook. Would you please try rephrase that?

Yes, I can see interdependence between and within species.
I can see similarities between species.
I can see that a Corgi and a Great Dane evolved within the same species.

However, I do not see a link via evolution between a Whale and an Elephant.

Well, I hope what I wrote here helps you to understand what I deny, and what I accept,
Karlis

The "chain" is the model. If a workable model can be presented (and you are not arguing that it is not workable), then it is shown that evolution via this model is POSSIBLE. That does not mean that events actually unfolded in this manner, just that they COULD HAVE.

Let's compare that with what I assume (because nobody has ever postulated one) is the Creationist model: some unseen force caused the observed differences. In this context, creationists are not arguing that the changes don't exist: they are not arguing against evolution, but rather, about what caused it.

How is this version of creationism different from evolution? The unseen force. Otherwise, the two ideas are the same.

What could that unseen force be? God? Or maybe, cosmic rays? That's where the difference is. One side sees a natural cause and the other side sees an unnatural one. Actually, the problem goes away altogther if God and cosmic rays are the same thing.

So this is not about evolution; it's about God. BUT: there is no inherent reason that the two should conflict. Logically, both God and evolution can exist without the other.

So, just what is it we're arguing about?
Doug

I agree with that -- unless someone decides to say that this now becomes "proof" that life evolved from inanimate matter; became more and more complex; and evolved into conscious mind in Man.

As I see it, creationists do not have a "model". I for one claim faith in God, without physical proof.

Of course, there are those who claim that sudden, wide-spread appearances of fossils of a species appearing suddenly, *without* fossil links to intermediary fossils, indicate (or "prove") Creation by God.

Well creationists may claim that, but I for one do not claim this view. But, that's just me.

I hope you have noted that I do not equate God with evolution, with cosmic rays, or anything else. My view is that life was *consciously created" by a sentient Creator.

Evolution exists within the physical creation. Life was created by God.

So, are we going round in circles here?
Karlis

What do you mean religious oppression of science?

Karlis would be surprised to find out that dolphins are related to goats I feel. Not just through the fossil record (which is excellent for cetaceans) but genetics also show this too.

This is basic logic. Standard math class stuff. Scientists are aware of this, but some science-enthusiasts aren't. Be careful you know which you're "debating" with. Again, proof only exists in math class, not in the real world. The question is: how much evidence is enough? And the answer is subjective.

We are going to have to figure out how the brain creates mind. That hasn't been accomplished yet. After that, we'll pretty much know how evolution did it.

Artificial intelligence (computer intelligence) may make a big contribution, too. And that brings up another question: what would a machine with a mind tell us about how mind evolved in the first place?


A model is nothing more than a specific proposal about how the world is. If you say that God created life, then that's your model. It's not a very useful model, because it doesn't explain anything and it doesn't allow you to separate Truth from fantasy. If your model (idea) could say something about HOW God created life, it would be more useful and might actually contribute to knowledge.


I am not aware that such a situation exists. There are some lines of descent about which we would like some more information and eventually the so-called "missing links" will be found. Could you please indicate an organism that appears suddenly in the fossil record without having ancestral forms? Also, many fossil sequences are now complete: what do these say about evolution vs. creationism.

All the lack of a specific fossil would indicate is that it hasn't been found yet: it would provide exactly NO support for creationism.

As I've mentioned many times, there's a lot more evidence for evolution than just fossils. I've posted a good many examples in this thread. Please answer some of them. For example, in the lab, grass plants have been induced to produce an entire new species in one generation. There are no intermediate forms that could become fossilized. So how does the lack of an intermediate form prove creaionism in this case?


Sounds like we're not even talking about the same thing. Science has nothing to say about God. It wasn't designed for that purpose. Science can tell us how life came about, but can't say anything about why that happened in the first place.

Unfortunately, your statement about life being consciously created by a sentient being says nothing about how that was done. The Intelligent Design folks say that an "intelligence" directed the process, which could have been evolution. That of course, means they admit that enough time has elapsed to make evolution possible and that's evolution's major hurdle; thus, if intelligent design is possible, evolution without intelligent design is also possible.

My take is that life is a property of matter, especially carbon. What gave matter that property is beyond me.

It seems to me that just saying "God did it" is another way of saying "I don't know." The "God-did-it" approach doesn't provide any information. How do you take "God did it" and turn that into a model of how life works? That, at least, has been done with evolution: it is a description of how life works. You SHOULD be able to take a God-based model and make some predictions using it, things like: this is what happened last time God interceded in the process and this other thing is what will probably happen next time and here is what God will probably do.

Religion has been working on this for thousands of years without success. It's time to try something new before the religious types blow up the planet.
Doug

I see part of the problem now and it is as I suspected. Which is why I said


No worries, my fault in the assumption. Let's digress from eye evolution for a moment and speak of phylogenetics, as it is key to understandng evolution and how we derive these "chains" as you have called them. Let's first explain some basics of phylogenetics then maybe you will see how this is evidence, these "chains"

Phylogenetics is the study of infered relationships among organisms, particularly the evolutionary relationships and history of specific lineages. That is to say the study of Darwin's "common descent". Phylogenetics seeks to identify the historical communities of descent through shared features, which well call nested sets. The relationships can be described in two basic ways: Branching (cladogenesis) and Linear (anagensis). We can choose any number of visual representations to display these relationships; trees, circles etc, it makes no difference. The information represented is the same in both examples below.




So the question then becomes, where and how do we arrive at these relationships?

The answer is in the math. If we study organisms and characterize their variation we can array this in a matrix. We can then analyze many matrices and find these nested sets that pertain to the groups. Today, we use computer programs that use clustering algorithms. There is mathematical proofs such sets arise, but let's skip the math for now while we cover basics (if you wish to come back to it at a later time let me know).

These shared features can look similar because of chance, convergences or common histories (homologies). We can see a simple example of homologies in limb bones.


So what kind of evidence to support homologous structures? We have lots of genetic evidence, in the form of genes, ultraconserved non-coding regions etc. We can construct trees based up phenotypical traits and test them against the genes that code for these traits. Do we know though this is the absolutely 100% correct tree? No, like all science we can only say this is the tree that best represents the data.

We can talk of groups in 3 basic ways. The first is a monophyletic group. That being all the descendants of a common ancestor. Seen in this example:


The next type of grouping is paraphyly this includes some, but not all descendants of a common ancestor. In this case (for the example below) its saying, "Dinosaurs but not birds"


Finally we have polyphyly, which is distantly related groups lumped together.


(Bare with me there is some points in all this)

So what kind of errors can we make interpretation of group relations? Or chains as you called them.
We see with paraphyletic relationships that we exclude some members of the lineage. In the case of polyphyletic relationships we make the mistake of of including unrelated organisms. Easy to do with convergent features such as the eye.

So how do we minimize error? By sampling an extremely high number of attributes and the associated variations.

So, as a few people here are fond of claiming "Evolution is not testable" or "Evolution is belief and not science". If evolution is a science, in particular the science of phylogenetics, then it should not only be testable, but it should help us ask questions and make predictions.

What kind of questions can we ask with phylogenies? Things like; What is the evolutionary origin of a particular group, trait, feature, structure? What adaptations accompany changes of life history or habitat? Are particular attributes unique to the specimen or are they characterized by a broader group?

In formulating these questions we can form hypothesis that we can then test against fossil, genetic, protein etc data.
Lets look at an example with mammals, everyones favorite .

We can ask the question are mammals a monophyletic group?

We can then build a tree based on the attributes of mammals. Using matrices we can derive some commonalities which we have deemed above, nested sets. These we can order on our tree as per their value in the matrices and we come up with something like this:


One would expect if what you and others who argue against the many sciences involved in evolution are true ("chains of comparisons prove"that simple evolved to complex is a leap of faith, as you said), then we ought to find violations to the nested hierarchies inherent in the system. Meaning, we should find placental mammals which lack ear bones on the skull, or monotremes with pouches. If was a leap of faith made and we simply assume all these things, then why is this what data supports? There should be evidence to the contrary.

We then can use common descent as a null hypothesis for similarity in the progression of "simple to complex" (yuck, that is gross misrepresentation to life on earth but I am trying to keep this simple). When we see similar attributes, we can then assume they are the same, that is they represent the same basis for testing. Homology then becomes our null hypothesis we are testing.

Now lets come full circle, you said:
"* You showed how the eyes of the simpler creatures are simpler in construction,
* and more complex in more complicated creatures.

You show that there is a "chain" -- simpler lead on to more complex."

Then you claimed the leap is made when we say it evolved. As you can hopefully see now, there has been no leap of faith, nor untestable/unfalsifiable science being done. All we have done is to construct a tree based on the shared attributes of specific animals and groups of animals, albeit it is much more complex than the simple illustrations I have highlighted above. What is certainly interesting, as I noted in my original post, is not only do we have structural evidence to support our evolutionary relationships, but genetics and molecular (cellular) as well.

If you are at all confused by this, please respond so that we may resolve any complications you see with it.

~Regards

Very nice appraisal of morphological phylogeny there.

...and if you, Karlis, now say "but where is the PROOF?" I will personally hunt you down and forcibly enrol you in an undergraduate course in genetics.