If Evolution is Not True...

[Malicex]

Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not "try" to supply what the organism "needs." In this respect, mutations are random

Sure, mutations are random. But this still doesn't mean "design changes occurred by pure blind luck". Mutations are inevitable and some of them being beneficial is inevitable. If you roll two dice millions of times, you're going to get a 7. It's not blind luck. And after millions of mutations, having beneficial ones aren't luck either. Winning the lottery is luck, but a lottery being won isn't.

"The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time"

It's not possible to have fewer, unless he's talking about a ratio and/or the fact that for every transition you find it creates two more gaps in a sense (imagine if you have two coke cans and put another one in the gap, you create two more gaps). But in the end, it doesn't matter, fossilization is rare, and we're talking millions of years, so it's to be expected that a lot are missing. Also, on the geological timeline, the amount of time we've been actively looking for fossils is incredibly small.

but we also see some gaps, jumps, differences between the older and newer that have no intermediates that have been found..

There is always going to be gaps somewhere. We haven't even discovered all the lifeforms living now, let alone a thousand, million or a billion years ago. It's strange to me that people see this as a worthwhile argument, I figured everyone knew it was to be expected after learning about fossilization.

And again, there is no other scientific explanation for faunal succession and all these biospheres with animal forms coming into and out of existence. There is no other explanation for what we know about the whale. It's clear that a land animal evolved to live in the water. And there is definitely no other explanation for why genetics "coincidentally" lined up so well with this view.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Sure, mutations are random. But this still doesn't mean "design changes occurred by pure blind luck". Mutations are inevitable and some of them being beneficial is inevitable. If you roll two dice millions of times, you're going to get a 7. It's not blind luck. And after millions of mutations, having beneficial ones aren't luck either. Winning the lottery is luck, but a lottery being won isn't.

But in life, the bad rolls count, every individual stakes it's life on it's roll, and those bad rolls would vastly outnumber winning ones (if they really were random)
But If a die keeps rolling a six, you know it's loaded

It's not possible to have fewer, unless he's talking about a ratio and/or the fact that for every transition you find it creates two more gaps in a sense (imagine if you have two coke cans and put another one in the gap, you create two more gaps). But in the end, it doesn't matter, fossilization is rare, and we're talking millions of years, so it's to be expected that a lot are missing. Also, on the geological timeline, the amount of time we've been actively looking for fossils is incredibly small.

You would have had to have to argued your assertion with Raup, but his point was; that transitionals that were assumed in the Victorian age Darwinism was conceived, have been long since debunked. Today even those most 'reliable' transitionals; birds from dinos, dogs from wolves, are being refuted by modern scientific evidence,

There is always going to be gaps somewhere. We haven't even discovered all the lifeforms living now, let alone a thousand, million or a billion years ago. It's strange to me that people see this as a worthwhile argument, I figured everyone knew it was to be expected after learning about fossilization.

This you could have argued with Darwin long ago- the prediction was that the gaps were merely an artifict of an incomplete record, but the evidence has revealed the gaps to be ever more distinct, to the point that even evolutionists have splintered into 'punctuated equilibrium' which acknowledges what ID science has said all along; the gaps are real, not artifacts.

And again, there is no other scientific explanation for faunal succession and all these biospheres with animal forms coming into and out of existence. There is no other explanation for what we know about the whale. It's clear that a land animal evolved to live in the water. And there is definitely no other explanation for why genetics "coincidentally" lined up so well with this view.

As my previous post- we see similarities yes, shared traits, some dead ends, and regressions, but a general trend towards bigger and better, more sophisticated adaptation to varying environments... , also gaps, jumps, differences between the older and newer that have no intermediates that have been found..

what conclusion can you glean from all this that leaves 'no other explanation' as you put it?

 

[osgart]

it even sounds ridiculous, and there is no evidence for it, evolution.

thanks for blasting it for what it is,

 

[URAVIP2ME]

It could be the two perspectives are correct. God designed the universe and evolution on earth was part of that design. If we could only know about God's plan and its purpose, then we might know more about the particulars.

I find we do know about God's purpose according to Genesis 1:28 in that we are to live forever on a beautiful paradisical Earth forever. Created mankind was to reproduce until Earth was populated ( Not over-populated nor over filled )
Satan and Adam threw a monkey wrench into God's purpose, but that does Not mean that God has abandoned his purpose, but that the particular is found in God's promise of Genesis 3:15 showing that Jesus would be the promised 'seed' (offsping ) that will fulfill God's purpose to have Earth a paradise like Eden originally was, and that there will be healing for earth's nations as mentioned at Revelation 22:2.

 

[Repox]

I find we do know about God's purpose according to Genesis 1:28 in that we are to live forever on a beautiful paradisical Earth forever. Created mankind was to reproduce until Earth was populated ( Not over-populated nor over filled )
Satan and Adam threw a monkey wrench into God's purpose, but that does Not mean that God has abandoned his purpose, but that the particular is found in God's promise of Genesis 3:15 showing that Jesus would be the promised 'seed' (offsping ) that will fulfill God's purpose to have Earth a paradise like Eden originally was, and that there will be healing for earth's nations as mentioned at Revelation 22:2.

I think it is possible to have a second paradise on earth, but only if humans obey God's Commandments. It all comes down to obedience to God. Humans have a bad record for obeying God.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I think it is possible to have a second paradise on earth, but only if humans obey God's Commandments. It all comes down to obedience to God. Humans have a bad record for obeying God.

I agree about humans having a bad record for obeying God, but that does Not mean ALL humans.
Jesus did teach that MANY would prove false in Matthew chapter 7 but Not everyone.
Those who are favorably judged as humble meek ' sheep '-like people do obey.
They live by the Golden Rule and Jesus' New commandment to have self-sacrificing love for others - John 13:34-35.
They will be classed as being the righteous ones of Matthew 25:37.
So, they will be the 'foundation' for the beginning of Jesus' coming 1,000-year governmental rulership over Earth when Jesus' millennium-long day of reigning over Earth begins.

 

[Repox]

I agree about humans having a bad record for obeying God, but that does Not mean ALL humans.
Jesus did teach that MANY would prove false in Matthew chapter 7 but Not everyone.
Those who are favorably judged as humble meek ' sheep '-like people do obey.
They live by the Golden Rule and Jesus' New commandment to have self-sacrificing love for others - John 13:34-35.
They will be classed as being the righteous ones of Matthew 25:37.
So, they will be the 'foundation' for the beginning of Jesus' coming 1,000-year governmental rulership over Earth when Jesus' millennium-long day of reigning over Earth begins.

I hope you are correct. I believe Revelation proposes the possibility. It depends on freewill. I believe the most important issues is obedience to God. For that, only God knows.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I hope you are correct. I believe Revelation proposes the possibility. It depends on freewill. I believe the most important issues is obedience to God. For that, only God knows.

To me the coming separation between the humble sheep and haughty goats of Matthew 25:31-33 is in Christ's hands, then Jesus is the one who decides on the issue of obedience to his God as only God would know.
We do know people like King David and others did disobey God, but also that David repented.
So, to me God does judge that even through imperfect if our 'overall dominate heart' is complete toward Him, then we can have a favorable judgement as the humble figurative sheep will have according to Matthew 25:37, and I think that will be at the time of the coming great tribulation of Revelation 7:14 when the humble sheep will come through that tribulation into God's righteous new world under Christ's millennial reign as mentioned at 1 Corinthians 15:24-26.

Since Matthew 24:14 is about completely accomplished on an international scale today, I think what is left for us is the ' final signal ', so to speak, of 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 when ' they ' (powers that be) will be saying, " Peace and Security " or " Peace and Safety " as the precursor to the coming great tribulation before Jesus, as Prince of Peace, ushers in global Peace on Earth among persons of goodwill ( aka such as the meek/sheep-like ones ).

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's a good point on definitions; if we merely define evolution as 'change over time' this is not inconsistent with Genesis, which also tells us about animal life beginning in the ocean, and humans appearing last.. long before this was validated scientifically

So what most people are skeptical of is not the science of evolution, but Darwinism; the philosophical speculation that all these design changes occurred by pure blind luck, all the way from a single cell to a human being. This may have been a perfectly logical extension of classical physics 150 years ago, but it hasn't held up to scientific scrutiny any better.

I think it is stretching the Genesis story out of proportion to get it to line up with the scientific evidence of evolution, not to mention that the order of creation varies between Chapter 1 and 2. Genesis is a story of creation of living things and the theory of evolution is an explanation of the change in living things that is revealed in all the evidence that has been observed. The two are very different.

Mutation is random, but what Darwin did is provide a mechanism that places a non-random selection on those mutations. Evolution is not a random process. He backed up the theory with page after page of evidence. It is hardly philosophical speculation.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I think it is stretching the Genesis story out of proportion to get it to line up with the scientific evidence of evolution, not to mention that the order of creation varies between Chapter 1 and 2. Genesis is a story of creation of living things and the theory of evolution is an explanation of the change in living things that is revealed in all the evidence that has been observed. The two are very different.

Genesis fundamentally describes clear changes in the makup of life over time, describing sudden appearances of life as if planted with no evolutionary history whatsoever, with distinct separations, - very little change within each kind of animal itself. 'explosions' of life just like the fossil record has revealed., in stark contrast to the vast numbers of intermediates and slow gradual plodding change originally predicted by Darwin.

Mutation is random, but what Darwin did is provide a mechanism that places a non-random selection on those mutations. Evolution is not a random process. He backed up the theory with page after page of evidence. It is hardly philosophical speculation.

The natural selection of a significantly superior design goes entirely without saying, it's why we still have Ford Mustangs but not Ford Pintos- that's a given

The relevant question is how those superior designs were originated in the first place , before they can be selected- ToE proposed pure blind chance- which made sense 150 years ago within a classical/Victorian understanding of reality- not so much today

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Genesis fundamentally describes clear changes in the makup of life over time, describing sudden appearances of life as if planted with no evolutionary history whatsoever, with distinct separations, - very little change within each kind of animal itself. 'explosions' of life just like the fossil record has revealed., in stark contrast to the vast numbers of intermediates and slow gradual plodding change originally predicted by Darwin.




The natural selection of a significantly superior design goes entirely without saying, it's why we still have Ford Mustangs but not Ford Pintos- that's a given

The relevant question is how those superior designs were originated in the first place , before they can be selected- ToE proposed pure blind chance- which made sense 150 years ago within a classical/Victorian understanding of reality- not so much today

I hope I didn't screw up my response as badly as I think I might have done. I haven't got the hang of the responding and quoting yet.

I'll just go with what I know how to do for now in regards to replying.

It is a little difficult for me to discern what you are saying. It appears you are contradicting yourself and agreeing and disagreeing that Genesis shows change over time. I disagree with the idea that Genesis shows change over time or any kind of evolution. Genesis describes creation on demand. There is no discussion of change over time. All the animals and plants are made at once on different days.

If I have mistaken your words, I apologize.

The explosions we see in the fossil record, and I am assuming you mean the Cambrian Explosion, is an artifact. Prior to the Cambrian, there were animals with more soft tissue and less hard tissue that could be fossilized. We know this because occasionally soft tissue did leave fossil evidence and because there are fossils found in older strata predating the Cambrian.

Natural selection doesn't demand that traits be superior. Only that it provide a fitness benefit to those with the trait. That the trait give an advantage in the environment in which it is expressed. It is superior in a sense, because it allows those with the trait to reproduce in gradually greater numbers. That superior traits develop is a side effect of natural selection and not the goal of it. Never the less, superior traits are the result of natural selection. But it could be that a reduction of a trait is the superior path to survival. Parasites and troglobytes are an example of that. They have lost a good deal of structural complexity compared to the ancestral stock.

The traits originate from genetic variability within the population. Either a reshuffling of existing variability, new variability directly through mutation or variability through gene flow. That latter being a form of reshuffling. The variability would be random as you say. It is the selection that is non-random and results in the protection of traits that mark the bearer with greater fitness in the particular environment. That is what Darwin actually did for evolution. He gave it a mechanism for how traits could be protected or discarded.

 

[The magical volleyball]

As an atheist I am open to the slim possibility that life was created and not evolved but why does the creator have to be a god with supernatural powers. the link below is to a video about ancestral simulations. This to me seems like a plausible theory as to how any intelligent life could become the creators of universes.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...CB0wAA&usg=AFQjCNF1sHlk2z9QIx28jtvfnGP_UlkifA

 

[The magical volleyball]

Sorry bad link try this one for ancestral simulation.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

As an atheist I am open to the slim possibility that life was created and not evolved but why does the creator have to be a god with supernatural powers. the link below is to a video about ancestral simulations. This to me seems like a plausible theory as to how any intelligent life could become the creators of universes.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=#&ved=0ahUKEwiqk7mvtv3UAhWs3YMKHaPvCUYQxa8BCB0wAA&usg=AFQjCNF1sHlk2z9QIx28jtvfnGP_UlkifA

That's an interesting thing I have noticed, atheists increasingly considering the possibility of a universe transcending ID, as a way to solve the puzzle of life and the universe that supports it.. as long as they don't have to call it 'God'

The distinction seems a little fuzzy; the term 'supernatural' is generally used as a deal buster for atheists- yet consider that we are looking for an explanation for nature itself... something that can, by necessity, transcend everything we know of as nature-- so isn't 'super-natural' by definition, a box you want to be able to check?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That's an interesting thing I have noticed, atheists increasingly considering the possibility of a universe transcending ID, as a way to solve the puzzle of life and the universe that supports it.. as long as they don't have to call it 'God'

The distinction seems a little fuzzy; the term 'supernatural' is generally used as a deal buster for atheists- yet consider that we are looking for an explanation for nature itself... something that can, by necessity, transcend everything we know of as nature-- so isn't 'super-natural' by definition, a box you want to be able to check?

Maybe that is similar to the creationists that deny evolution but have found a way around accepting it by calling it adaptation instead.

I still think of anything that transcends nature as we understand it, to be supernatural. A statue shedding blood for example.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As an atheist I am open to the slim possibility that life was created and not evolved but why does the creator have to be a god with supernatural powers. the link below is to a video about ancestral simulations. This to me seems like a plausible theory as to how any intelligent life could become the creators of universes.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=#&ved=0ahUKEwiqk7mvtv3UAhWs3YMKHaPvCUYQxa8BCB0wAA&usg=AFQjCNF1sHlk2z9QIx28jtvfnGP_UlkifA

I don't find that unusual. Not believing is not the same as ruling out. It is a reasonable to me, based on the idea that God can't be shown to exist or to not exist based on any evidence.

I think a good skeptic would consider the possibility without feeling a need to believe in the possibility.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Maybe that is similar to the creationists that deny evolution but have found a way around accepting it by calling it adaptation instead.

To appreciate the difference, this forum software supports adaptation in the size, color, and shape of text, much like the digital DNA code in animals-

But I'm sure you understand why this capacity for adaptation, can never be used to write the very software which supports that capacity.. i.e. micro adaptation to macro evolution is not just a matter of scale, it's a paradox inherent to such hierarchical information systems

I still think of anything that transcends nature as we understand it, to be supernatural. A statue shedding blood for example.

Multiverses, M Theory, String theory, steady state?

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

Let us now look at the causes of polio and smallpox, which have both been eradicated in the most of the first world, along with a host of horrible other creatures, from amoebae to revolting parasites.

If polio and smallpox were created (as they must have been if evolution [and abiogenesis] is false), and if they were created with a purpose

How Plumbing (Not Vaccines) Eradicated Disease

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
The western medical institution is 90% monopoly snake-water ponzi-scheme.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

How Plumbing (Not Vaccines) Eradicated Disease

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
The western medical institution is 90% monopoly snake-water ponzi-scheme.

What's your argument? That where there's lots and lots of plumbing there's no more disease (after all, that's what "eradicated" means)?

Have you visited a New York City or Toronto or Dallas or LA hospital lately? Trust me, there's still some disease, despite more plumbing than you can shake a snake at. Even people with gold-plated plumbing succumb.

Yes, it is certainly true that cleanliness goes a huge long way in preventing many diseases, and I'm very glad that we've learned that -- although I think we owe more debt to Lister than to the Bible for that. But it is not enough, and it does not refute my argument.

(As an aside, have you noticed that the Bible doesn't actually mention plumbing, let alone brushing your teeth -- which have prolonged the lives of billions and billions of human beings? Wonder why not.)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Second aside -- since I mentioned Lister -- US President William McKinley was primarily killed not by the bullet of his assassin, but by the stupidity of his doctors -- good Christian men who didn't believe Lister at all and insisted on putting their filthy hands directly into the President's body. Between Lister and Alexander Bell (men of science), they'd have saved him with ease.