Evolution My ToE

[Hockeycowboy]

I do. The problems you mention don't impact our lives - not climate change nor drug abuse. Almost everything in my world is good. The world beyond our village has problems that don't impact us, like war, creeping authoritarianism, and extreme weather, but my life is easy and interesting, and I'd be ungrateful to complain or let remote problems degrade that.

I think I've shared with you that the most pessimistic people I've encountered regarding the world have been Jehovah's Witnesses.

We had an Aussie JW posting here who I haven't seen on these threads for a few years now who had an extremely pessimistic view of the world such that she would chastise me for telling her what I just wrote to you about being happy. She was angry that I could be happy when so many people were unhappy.

But she also posted dozens of pictures of nature - especially flowers and animals - as part of her effort to promote her god and the beautiful and wondrous world she believed it had created. Unfortunately, if you take her at her word, she couldn't be happy in it, but I suspect that she was happy going about daily life and only lapsed into her downer state when she was in her religious mode as when posting on RF.

And I told you about the JWs who came to my door maybe three years ago who began with the assumption that I was pessimistic about the future like they were, and who thanked me and left when I told them what I told you above, which was hard to understand. They were seeking new members, and before they knew that I wasn't interested, they seemed to consider me a lost cause based only on my not agreeing that the world was a terrible place.

You have some of that yourself. You seem like you're probably happy in your daily life. You're cheerful to other posters and have been friendlier to me than any other creationist of any stripe, but you have the same message as the Aussie woman I described and the JWs at the door. Your focus when you write is on the negative as it has been here.

I can only conclude that that is JW doctrine and that relatively happy people with lives as safe and bountiful as mine are carrying a message of doom and gloom that doesn't actually affect their psychology like one might expect - at least not in a manner I can detect.

I just reread my words above while editing and realized that that probably describes your world as well - that you're probably pretty fortunate and living a safe and comfortable life. You're also aware of problems in the world that largely don't impact you. But look at how differently we write about that.

There's another group that is also very pessimistic, but they are affected psychologically and are very unhappy in their daily lives because of the burden that's been laid upon them, and that's American conservatives subjected to and susceptible to conservative indoctrination media. These people are typically bitter and resentful with endless grievance, which doesn't describe either you or me. Your religious instruction doesn't seem to have done that to you.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day. I'm anticipating one myself.

Yes, for the most part, we have a positive attitude for the long run. We know better times are coming.

I will try to deal with more of your statements later.

You have a good day, too!

 

[gnostic]

Sorry to say because I don't want to hurt your evolved feelings but what you say above isn't making sense. Since you are confirmed in your viewpoint, my answer to any questions you may hove about the comment is...have a good one!!

That’s funny, as other members actually understood what I was saying.

@nPeace made assumptions that Evolution is about perfection. His assumptions are wrong.

nPeace clearly doesn’t understand Evolution any more better than you, making false assumptions about biology that he doesn’t understand.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

for the most part, we have a positive attitude for the long run. We know better times are coming.

Yes, but only if one becomes a Jehovah's Witness, correct? As an unbeliever, my future doesn't contain better times, correct?

Some people (not sure if they're all atheists at least on these forums) speak of anything short of evolution as magic if an account defies the natural law.

Defying natural law is pretty much what magic is.

what about Mary getting pregnant? Would they say that goes against the theory of evolution?

No. The theory is not about all of biology - just the transformation of the last universal common ancestral population to the tree of life. Parthenogenesis is a fact of biology, albeit not human biology - at least not yet (that word was an "answer" on Jeopardy! yesterday). From J! Archive - Show #9180, aired 2024-10-11

Evolution certainly has death as the outcome ... According to the theory as goes, death is the end prospect of life.

Death is a fact of biology as well, and also not part of the theory, although the phrase "survival of the fittest" might suggest otherwise. Evolution involves competition to reproduce, but one needn't die to lose that "battle." If a population were immortal, we would still expect it to evolve until it reached an optimal form which chance mutations couldn't improve upon, but the process of adaptation would continue when its habitat changed.

What's gloom and doom?

Describing man as a sinner, meaning spiritually sick and doomed for perdition absent salvation, and describing human society as sick and doomed for extinction soon.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

In my opinion, what these discussions often reveal has nothing to do with the subject. There are a group of deniers that, by the evidence, consider themselves the most well informed part of the discussion. This would hold up but for the fact that the veil is lifted when they actively engage in the discussions.

Then it is revealed that these self-appointed and most well informed don't seem to know or understand the subjects very much at all. The evidence reveals a reliance on logical fallacies, misinformation, misunderstanding and baseless opinion. Still they seem to feel they have the advantage. As well, they often become incensed when all these failings are rationally and reasonably pointed out. Waved away most often as persecution against their seeming hold on some absolute understanding that is denied all those not them.

How do you address ignorant people that hold the apparent belief of complete knowledge and understanding coupled with the claims and asperations of a persecution complex? Dunning Kruger on heavy rotation with a very thin skin is what I see. It is certainly very frustrating to engage and debate people that don't really seem at all interested in anything you have to say. They seem to be here only to preach and reveal their "truths" and not to learn anything. In my view, they don't consider there is anything to learn.

To be honest, I am still uncertain how you engage people with that sort of mindset. Their problem seems to be in maintaining the engagement. Because that really is all that there is as far as I can tell. As long as public denial is maintained it must seem real. I don't know how anyone can think that is a way to maintain engagement and not just lead to boredom and interest. Perhaps that is what is seen as a victory. A war of attrition where ignorance can hold out longer than knowledge.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In my opinion, what these discussions often reveal has nothing to do with the subject.

Agreed. You've got two populations here that you can learn from, one from their insights and the other from their lack of insight - what I frequently call the lecture and lab portions of this "class."

You referred to the latter as the Dunning-Kruger set, and I agree. What I've learned about that participating on RF is that D-K is rarely somebody thinking that he has elevated himself to loftier heights than he thinks, but that most are unaware that there are loftier heights. They don't see themselves as experts. They don't recognize expertise. They are unaware of what critical thought is and does for the critical thinker, which includes arriving at correct conclusions and knowing that they are correct.

This became apparent to me during the pandemic, when the reaction to advice for all eligible people to take the vaccine was called, "just your opinion." What does that tell us about how they think and how they believe others think? To such people, the advice of experts is just another opinion guessed at or believed by faith like their own beliefs. They don't see that as just one way to be, but rather, the only way possible to be.

It's a fool's errand to try to break through a confirmation bias of any kind. They're filters that defend faith-based beliefs from contradictory evidence.

How do you address ignorant people that hold the apparent belief of complete knowledge and understanding coupled with the claims and aspirations of a persecution complex?

You don't. They're irretrievable.

You must know that at some level, but perhaps you're not ready to accept it (I think that you and I have discussed this before). You feel a duty to help if you can, but do you think you're doing that? Maybe, but I don't see evidence of creationists learning from you. me, or anybody else. They're not trying to learn, although they represent that they care about reason, evidence, and learning.

But they're still demanding proof rather than evidence, calling hypotheses theories and writing "it's only a theory," implying that we'd need to go back int time to know what happened in the past, that repeatable in science means things like repeating the Big Bang, still offering their understanding as a metric as when they say that something is unbelievable or doesn't make sense to them and implying that that means that it isn't sensible, still denying that man is an animal or an ape (and apes are still apes), still committing the same incredulity (I just can't see it so it's wrong), ignorantiam (if you can't delineate the path from nonlife to life or the path from chimp-human last common ancestor to man, then the hypothesis or theory is wrong), and special pleading fallacies (a cell is too complicated to not have been designed, but not a god, which just is and whose existence needs no explanation).

Neither of us can impact that.

Yes, I respond to their posts, too, but if they and I were the only ones here, I wouldn't, meaning that I am not actually writing to them (with one exception, who I actually enjoy conversing with), but rather, I write to people who can benefit from sound, evidenced arguments, and also for my own benefit. This activity has been great practice constructing cogent arguments, identifying and naming logical fallacies, developing better writing skills, and researching replies.

And your comment about persecution is apt. Another divide between the two populations is one's relatively dispassionate and impersonal demeanor and the other's frequent devolution into anger, frustration, and name-calling. I attribute this difference to the degree of education. The former are academic methods and habits, whereas the others' educations largely come from a pulpit, where these qualities are honed to an art in delivering sermons. You are to be angry with the devil and "enemies" of God, and harshly judgmental of their rebellious, licentious, and god-hating ways. When a judge, or professor does that, they're censured by their own. The two cultures don't overlap much.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yes, but only if one becomes a Jehovah's Witness, correct? As an unbeliever, my future doesn't contain better times, correct?

Not necessarily. Because God reads the heart, knows our mental and emotional makeup.

Defying natural law is pretty much what magic is.

Possibly one could link it that way. The reason I say that is because in the Bible when Moses wanted permission from Pharaoh for the Hebrews to leave Pharaoh had magic-practicing priests who made rods into snakes. And Moses did the same thing with rods ... so I can't exactly say now.

...
Death is a fact of biology as well, and also not part of the theory, although the phrase "survival of the fittest" might suggest otherwise. Evolution involves competition to reproduce, but one needn't die to lose that "battle." If a population were immortal, we would still expect it to evolve until it reached an optimal form which chance mutations couldn't improve upon, but the process of adaptation would continue when its habitat changed.

Describing man as a sinner, meaning spiritually sick and doomed for perdition absent salvation, and describing human society as sick and doomed for extinction soon.

I can only give you what happened to me before and after studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't like to go into much detail, but I embraced a different view of life, death, and my actions.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Yes, but only if one becomes a Jehovah's Witness, correct?

No (not in this System).

As an unbeliever, my future doesn't contain better times, correct?

Your future after your death, will “contain better times”, as you put it. The resurrected “unrighteous” of Acts 24:15 , are not worshippers of Jehovah.

The “judgment”, mentioned in that verse, is based on how they act / what they do after their resurrection. Not what they do in this System (Arrangement or Kosmos).



Have a good day, my friend.

 

[Valjean]

Not necessarily. Because God reads the heart, knows our mental and emotional makeup.

Possibly one could link it that way. The reason I say that is because in the Bible when Moses wanted permission from Pharaoh for the Hebrews to leave Pharaoh had magic-practicing priests who made rods into snakes. And Moses did the same thing with rods ... so I can't exactly say now.

I can only give you what happened to me before and after studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't like to go into much detail, but I embraced a different view of life, death, and my actions.

What you're doing is trying to fit reality into a mythology. You accept the folklore of God and the Bible as actual fact; as the actual pattern of existence. You've fit everyday life into this narrative and you're oblivious to any discrepancies. You refuse to see or even look at them, even when they're repeatedly pointed out to you.
You could do the same with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, but you've chosen the Bible. You've invested your whole ego-identity into this epic fable and cannot abandon it.

 

[YoursTrue]

What you're doing is trying to fit reality into a mythology. You accept the folklore of God and the Bible as actual fact; as the actual pattern of existence. You've fit everyday life into this narrative and you're oblivious to any discrepancies. You refuse to see or even look at them, even when they're repeatedly pointed out to you.
You could do the same with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, but you've chosen the Bible. You've invested your whole ego-identity into this epic fable and cannot abandon it.

The more I learn about the Hebrew Aramaic scriptures (commonly called the Old Testament) and how it well coordinates with the Greek scriptures (the New testament) the more I realize Jesus is the Messiah and offers hope to many.

 

[YoursTrue]

What you're doing is trying to fit reality into a mythology. You accept the folklore of God and the Bible as actual fact; as the actual pattern of existence. You've fit everyday life into this narrative and you're oblivious to any discrepancies. You refuse to see or even look at them, even when they're repeatedly pointed out to you.
You could do the same with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, but you've chosen the Bible. You've invested your whole ego-identity into this epic fable and cannot abandon it.

P.S. valjean, before I believed in God and his way of communicating with mankind, I lived a different life. I can possibly go over some things you might think of as discrepancies when I have more time. I believe it is essential to pray to God for help. Have a nice day.

 

[Pogo]

P.S. valjean, before I believed in God and his way of communicating with mankind, I lived a different life. I can possibly go over some things you might think of as discrepancies when I have more time. I believe it is essential to pray to God for help. Have a nice day.

most of us sit back at the end of the day and ask ourselves how did we deal with our days in terms of what we know works and where might we have made mistakes without attributing any external agency to our and other's actions. We have also found it to work generally well and even be in consort with scientific understanding and history of human relations, but you are welcome to your own evening analysis.

 

[Valjean]

The more I learn about the Hebrew Aramaic scriptures (commonly called the Old Testament) and how it well coordinates with the Greek scriptures (the New testament) the more I realize Jesus is the Messiah and offers hope to many.

Literary analysis as epistemology?
How well does it coördinate with empirical fact?

 

[YoursTrue]

Literary analysis as epistemology?
How well does it coördinate with empirical fact?

Better than the changing analyses of various substances and circumstances by scientists as time goes by. As far as I am concerned.

 

[Valjean]

Better than the changing analyses of various substances and circumstances by scientists as time goes by. As far as I am concerned.

Huh?

 

[Massimo2002]

How did they figure out the millions of years with certainty was the age of the preserved bug fossil ?

 

[Valjean]

How did they figure out the millions of years with certainty was the age of the preserved bug fossil ?

Probably radiometric dating.

 

[gnostic]

How did they figure out the millions of years with certainty was the age of the preserved bug fossil ?

Using radioactive isotopes that have higher known ("known" as in well-tested) half-life.

The most frequently used isotopes are uranium-lead method (either U235 or U238), potassium-argon (K40). They both can measured from millions to billions of years. But there are also samarium-neodymium, rubidium-strontium, can be used.

 

[Subduction Zone]

How did they figure out the millions of years with certainty was the age of the preserved bug fossil ?

That sort of dating is usually done by a combination of absolute and relative dating. Absolute dating is almost always radiometric dating. But we cannot date every layer radiometrically. Fossils on the other hand are very very common. They put a relative date on strata. We will know that layer B is newer than layer A but lower than layer C so it is younger than A and older than C, And this applies worldwide. There are also usually multiple fossils in any layer allowing us to get a very good relative date of almost any layer anywhere. Somewhere in the world volcanism is always occurring. So somewhere in the world we will have an absolute date for any particular assemblage of fossils.

 

[YoursTrue]

That’s funny, as other members actually understood what I was saying.

@nPeace made assumptions that Evolution is about perfection. His assumptions are wrong.

nPeace clearly doesn’t understand Evolution any more better than you, making false assumptions about biology that he doesn’t understand.

As we both know, no one of the human species has seen fish evolve to anything more than...fish. or better put, finches evolving to anything other than finches. Have a good day.

 

[YoursTrue]

Using radioactive isotopes that have higher known ("known" as in well-tested) half-life.

The most frequently used isotopes are uranium-lead method (either U235 or U238), potassium-argon (K40). They both can measured from millions to billions of years. But there are also samarium-neodymium, rubidium-strontium, can be used.

I'd love to hear more about that testing, what they tested and how they figured that it evolved.