How does the story of Adam and Eve compatible with science?

[exchemist]

How is human evolution a testable concept? You say in general it's a testable concept. Please detail that with tests that have been performed, thank you.

You've been told this many this many times before, I feel sure, but as the others have had enough of your bad faith "questions" I will answer, at least for the benefit of any other readers who may not know. Evolution makes testable predictions in a variety of areas.

Perhaps the most obvious is what types of fossil we should find in rocks of a given age and what changes we should be able to track through the fossil record at different ages. This is done all the time. We have a huge range of fossils which show forms intermediate between earlier ones and later ones, just as evolution predicts.

Secondly, evolution predicts that DNA similarities should be more marked between species that are shown as being closely related in the evolutionary tree than those that are more distantly related. This, again, is what we find in practice. Furthermore, the fact we share 50% of our DNA with a banana points towards a common ancestor for both plants and animals.

Thirdly, evolution predicts that organisms adapt to their environment via natural selection. We see this occurring in real time, among those simple organisms that have a very fast rate of reproduction, when they are put into a hostile envirnoment, Famous examples are bacteria, viruses and cancer cells. We have just lived through a pandemic in which evolution has been observed several times over, in the development of different strains of virus that are more capable of evading the immune respone triggered by our vaccines.

So the fact of evolution is as plain as the nose on your face, while the theory of it, while still being further developed as more mechanisms are uncovered, is borne out by huge amounts of evidence.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sure..…we all believe that don’t we

No "belief" needed when you can just go and look at the fossils.

….and not a finer specimen such as Lucy and her skull.

Absolutely false.
Meet Little Foot:

Litte Foot takes a bow

Little Foot is the only known virtually complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date. It is by far the most complete skeleton of a human ancestor older than 1.5 million years ever found. It is also the oldest fossil hominid in southern Africa, dating back 3.67 million years. For the first...

www.sciencedaily.com

A near complete skeleton fossil of that species.

There’s never any question the science is suspect.

Maybe you should think your medieval beliefs are suspect when it requires the constant willful ignorance and strawmen you keep spewing on here.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The atheist presentation for evolution is very erratic if not silly. One says Lucy is a completely irrelevant case, the other says Lucy is strong scientific evidence. One claims she IS THE missing link when the skeleton could be anything. This discredits atheists.

Evolution is not exclusive to atheists.
In fact, there are a lot more evolution accepting theists then there are atheists in the world.

Btw using genetics to explain evolution breaks the second law of thermodynamics. There’s no way evolution can go toward more complex organisms without breaking this law.

Funny. Even the most hardcore creationist propaganda channels advice creationists not to use this argument on the count of it being so utterly stupid.

Statements like this still make me wonder if you are not just a Poe. These are the kinds of statements we see in satire and alike.
I have a hard time accepting that creationists who are actually serious make this argument, thinking they have some kind of point.


I'll play along, just for kicks.

Go out during the day, look up. Do you see that giant ball of nuclear infernus that lights up the sky? It's called the sun.
It feeds the world with workable energy 24/7. The earth is not a closed system.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Think how genes can acquire information when they are just made up of atoms.

Every single time a chemical reaction takes place, information is created.
Information theory. Another subject you can add to the enormous list of things you have no knowledge off.

Mutations do not create information they do the opposite

False. For example, the mutations in Lenski's e.colli experiment which created an entirely novel metabolic pathway allowing the bacteria to consume a source of food that their ancestors were physically unable to.

And that's just one example off course. There are millions of such examples every single day.

and destroy it hence evolution to more complex organisms just is not achievable.

Arguing strawmen will not help your case.

 

[exchemist]

Evolution is not exclusive to atheists.
In fact, there are a lot more evolution accepting theists then there are atheists in the world.




Funny. Even the most hardcore creationist propaganda channels advice creationists not to use this argument on the count of it being so utterly stupid.

True.

I'm intrigued you say harcore creationists are actually advised against using the thermodynamic argument. I was aware they have stopped using it, but did not know there is actual advice out there not to do so. Where did you come across that? I'd quite like to file a link to that, for future use

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You change the subject.
We call that a strawman.

?????????

So I ask you a question, you reply by yapping about a gif instead, I try to bring it back to topic by noting you didn't answer the question.... and *I* am the one who's changing the subject????????


The hypocrisy is astounding!

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Try this...
You are having a conversation with someone about the colors of crayons.
Someone jumps in, and starts arguing about the texture of the crayons, and insisting that you get the point.
What do you call that person?
You answer. I don't want to get it wrong.

Now that you are on another subject, I might as well join you.
Natural selection has no goals. Get the point?

Try this...
Light a match above a candle, in your cozy living room. What do you get?
Now, light a match under the bundle of wood, in your fireplace. What do you get?
You can try lighting the match, and dropping it in your wastepaper basket. What do you get?
Now go to your kitchen. Turn on all the gas, wait a couple minutes. Then light a match. What do you get?

Different environments, right? Are the results random? Why not? Go figure.
Do you say the environment directed the lighting of the match?
Hope that doesn't fly over your head.

I'm not the one who's doing his very best to change the topic.

The topic is what steers / directs evolution. You asked that question. I replied to that by saying it is the environment and explained multiple times how it is the environment.
The summary of it is that the environment determines selection pressures. And natural selection happens through selection pressures.

It seems that after all this time, you still didn't get the point.

Or, which I suspect, you DID get it, but are doing your very best to avoid acknowledging it anyway.

 

[Apostle John]

@Apostle John your screen name tells me you are full of yourself "apostle John" think you are doing the work of apostle John, eh? The good disciple.

May seem a bit rude but thinking Christians are a class apart is elitist and discriminatory and arrogant, so there's that.

I chose this screen name after several attempts at picking others upon joining this forum, they appeared to have already been taken.

It will seem rude to non-Christian when they finally stop breathing and see only Christians enter heaven.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

'Personal evidence' is an oxymoron.
...

Not really. But it only works for the single individually personally. I have first person evidence of how I am subjectively. I then confirm that with another persons personal understanding of me. And the more different personal evidence I have besides my own, the more certain I become.

We are play if something subjective can be true as subjective. That is such great subjective fun to play.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How is human evolution a testable concept? You say in general it's a testable concept. Please detail that with tests that have been performed, thank you.

Evolution makes literally billions of testable predictions concerning all kinds of topics. Every time one is tested, it confirms the theory. Never has there been a test that contradicted it.

One of the, imo, most convincing predictions is about genetics.
If evolution happened, then all extant species should be related.

When biological organisms are related, they form a family tree. DNA, as it is passed on to offspring in mutated form, allows us to generate such a tree simply by comparing DNA and plotting out matches on a graph. This, for example, is also how you can find out that you were switched at birth at the maternity hospital. Taking your DNA and that of your supposed family, a family tree will be revealed and your DNA will not fit in as it should if your parents aren't your biological parents.

So, to continue: evolution predicts a giant family tree comprising of all living things. This is called a phylogenetic tree.

Since plotting such a graph is just a question of mapping out DNA matches in comparative DNA studies, we can automate this process (to avoid human mistakes or manipulation). This work has been done. Millions of strands of DNA have been fed into such a process and the matches were objectively plotted.

Here's the result:

Phylogenetic tree - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Such a tree is the only possible outcome of a process like evolution.
While at the same time, it is the very last pattern we would expect if species were created from scratch without common ancestral lineages.
One would have to go out of his way to assemble a product line of distinct products / species and have them fall in such a pattern.
It would have to be done intentionally and the only possible motivation for doing so would have to be to be deceptive.

Why? Easy.... this is not an efficient way to create things. It's a very bad and wasteful use of resources. It also results in sub-optimal designs.

For example, take the GULO gene. This is a defective gene that is present in all great apes (humans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas and oerang utangs). In all these species, it is defective in the exact same way.

Why would a designer do that? What possible motivation or reason would there be to add a "broken part" into a set of product lines? And why would this match the exact same pattern as all other data in said genomes? There is zero reasonable reason to created such nested hierarchies of broken parts or even working but yet sub-optimal parts.

Evolution, on the other hand, pretty much requires such features to be present. If such nested hierarchies (of both broken AND working parts) didn't exist in life, then evolution would be falsified.



This is not just "smoking gun" evidence. This is in fact as close to "proof" as it gets in science. It makes common ancestry of species nothing short of fact.

Having said all that.... here's another fun related factoid....
You can also map out such trees by looking at other independent lines of evidence...
Like comparative anatomy, tracking of specific traits, tracking of geographic distribution of species, etc.

When you do this... guess what? You end up with the exact same tree.
When you have multiple independent lines of evidence all converging on the same answer, then you know you have a solid and accurate model.

If you know this, realize this, understand this..... Then trying to deny common ancestry of species / evolution is really nothing short of pervers. It's beyond sticking your head in the sand. Beyond intellectual dishonesty.

It's simply ignoring the obvious and the epitome of irrationality.

 

[Apostle John]

I'll play along, just for kicks.

Go out during the day, look up. Do you see that giant ball of nuclear infernus that lights up the sky? It's called the sun.
It feeds the world with workable energy 24/7. The earth is not a closed system.

Every single time a chemical reaction takes place, information is created.

So you’re now claiming undirected energy from the sun make genes/chemicals intelligent so they can grow bigger, faster, stronger organisms. Are you a trained scientist or one of those comedians that won the Richard Dawkins Award? You’ll say it’s all achieved by random chance over millions of years next.

 

[ratiocinator]

So you’re now claiming undirected energy from the sun make genes/chemicals intelligent...

Nobody (except you, maybe) is claiming that genes and chemicals are intelligent. The problem is that you don't understand information theory any better than evolution, i.e. not at all.

Are you a trained scientist...

Asks the person who has shown nothing but ignorance of every science topic that you've posted about....

 

[Apostle John]

Evolution makes literally billions of testable predictions concerning all kinds of topics. Every time one is tested, it confirms the theory. Never has there been a test that contradicted it.

Nobody (except you, maybe) is claiming that genes and chemicals are intelligent. The problem is that you don't understand information theory any better than evolution, i.e. not at all.

So by the last response you are claiming it is all achieved by random chance…..the testable predictions must be based on back-fitting, back-engineering of genetic data.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

So by the last response you are claiming it is all achieved by random chance…

No, they're not. "A result of natural, biological forces" is not the same as "a result of random chance".

A biological process that relies on selective natural pressures is not "random".

 

[ratiocinator]

So by the last response you are claiming it is all achieved by random chance…..

Natural selection is not random.

 

[1213]

Both these biblical narratives don't match the evidence of reality.

They don't match with atheistic opinions. But they match very well with everything that can really be seen in real life.

 

[1213]

Actually, it doesn't. I've listened to many debates over the decades, and none of them were too close to call. For just one point, there simply is no evidence for a worldwide flood.

There are lot of evidence, you just insist it is for something else.

 

[ratiocinator]

They don't match with atheistic opinions. But they match very well with everything that can really be seen in real life.

Simply false. It is not an atheist view. The science is clear in that the evidence is that a world-wide flood never happened. This is accepted by most religious scientists. It is only the tiny cult of literalists (with an obvious vested interest, and hence bias) who disagree,

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, they're not. "A result of natural, biological forces" is not the same as "a result of random chance".

A biological process that relies on selective natural pressures is not "random".

No, it is a guided process, right? It is random in the sense that it is not based on reason, but just happens.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

No, it is a guided process, right? It is random in the sense that it is not based on reason, but just happens.

It is random is the sense we cannot necessarily predict the outcome due to the large number of variables, but it is selective in the sense that what determines the outcome is not pure chance.