Just Accidental?

[savagewind]

But the changes didn't occur overnight, or by magic or by miracle, but by many generations of small changes, and the environment of their habitat was one of many possible factors for those changes.

.

Yes, and I think that @Deeje even agrees with that!

 

[savagewind]

All they can see is stupid, which I guess is funny. I am not offended and I do not know if anyone is.

I suppose some people think that God is offended. I don't believe that way. Might they be right?
I don't think so.

 

[savagewind]

They are trying to cram in evolution into my little space up top. The understanding of it is already there and is probably why it appears to not fit.

 

[savagewind]

I am the one who believes the origin of the species isn't blind. Evolution is blind because it doesn't have a mind. I do not believe in the miraculous appearance of life. God has a mind, or IS a mind, but I do not know how God's Mind works. If I knew, I would be God. I am not God fyi.

If evolution isn't blind, like you say, then what sees is what I call GOD.

 

[metis]

That's a rhetorical question, right? I'm sure that you know the answer.

Yep.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

C


"Creation" doesn't require intelligence or intention. Present weather conditions can create a blizzard. Sunrise can create a beautiful vista. Losing your car keys can create a problem getting home.

Likewise, design doesn't require a designer. That becomes apparent if you call a design a pattern instead.

Similarly a fully automated watch making machine can create a watch without a watchmaker. It doesn't require intelligence in this sense, but of course ultimately it does.

i.e. automated processes do not, in and of themselves, exclude the necessity for creative input, and so we cannot say definitively, that anything can be created without ultimately requiring creativity.

The creation of the watches, the weather, the snowflakes, all operate, by necessity, on specific underlying instructions, patterns, designs, call them what you like. How was this info created?

We know for certain that creative intelligence can create something truly novel, that nature alone never can. It's not clear that this can happen without creative input- creation without creativity....

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It is obvious it is not clear to some of us. I have to believe that the changes could not have been random or perhaps they were but each and every random change was beneficial to the coming organizm.......which we know is mathematically impossible. Isn't it? When I see the many changes need be (and I am not referring to only one line of evolution) I just have to add in all the changes that didn't produce something of substance. Of every adaptation in the DNA that produced anything substantial, there were many, many, many more that didn't. Please try hard to consider HOW MANY. It is clear to me that if you are right evolution now is NOTHING like it must have been before this time. The changes must have happened at a fantastic rate! Why has evolution slowed to a crippled crawl, in your opinion? You are going to say it hasn't slowed. LOL
I agree with that.

Evolution proceeds in fits and starts, a phenomenon called punctuated equilibrium. If a species is well suited for the niche it occupies in a stable habitat, it is more difficult for a mutation to be of benefit than it is in the case of a population whose habitat has changed.

This is what happened to man's arboreal ape ancestors when the North and South American continents came together altering the pattern of ocean currents. There was an easterly current going from what is now the Pacific ocean into the Atlantic and then to the west coast of North Africa. The result was the conversion of much of Africa's jungles into the relatively treeless savanna forcing the apes there to come to the ground, leaving a habitat that they were well adapted to and entering into one that required other skills.

The apes remaining in the jungles haven't changed as much as man since we parted ways and lifestyles, which is why our last common ancestor with the chimps would be expected to be very chimplike. Suddenly, our ancestors had to stand on two legs, run long distances, hunt and eat meat, and use their hands in a new way, so mutations facilitating these changes were selected for.

Had the same mutations occurred in the arboreal apes, who still benefited from a vegetarian diet, using their feet to grasp rather than walk, using their hands to swing through the branches, etc., they would have been selected against.

Some creatures have remained fairly stable morphologically for tens or even hundreds of millions of years. This suggests that they live in stable habitats that they are optimally adapted to exploit. This would be more likely for a marine form like a coelocanth, or one that can burrow like an ant. They probably evolve, but not necessarily visibly. They may acquire new enzymes or new behaviors instead of changing size or shape..

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Has it been studied for a hundred years? Show me the new life form, please.

I am not talking about a "species". Sometimes one species appears to be the same as another.

Just show me one. Please let it not be a fly. A fly form to another fly form doesn't count to us stupid people.

You can only see what there is to see. The theory of evolution explains what we find. It doesn't specify how fast the process must proceed or what we will see over a hundred years.

The new fly species is a new life form, which is why it can no longer mate with the form it evolved from. And given enough time and a new habitat, it would likely become a flying insect that you might not recognize as a fly.

No argument that is based on what we don't know or haven't found yet is an argument against evolution. A hundred years ago, less was known and less had been found. Most of the hominin fossils have been uncovered since then. You could have argued more forcefully against evolution citing a bigger bag of unknowns, but the arguments would be just as invalid as when they are made now.

The theory was correct then and still is, where by correct I mean that it accounts for the observations we have made, it is falsifiable but has never been falsified, it makes predictions that have been confirmed, and its practical application has been fruitful. That's as good as any idea can get. Why would we jettison that?

Creationism cannot do any of that. Creationism predicts nothing, explains nothing, and is not an idea that can put to use. Why would we embrace that in place of a useful theory?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Yes. I think six billion years is a short time for every species ever to have existed to have evolved blindly.

How much time do you think would be needed,and how did you decide that?

Incidentally, the time that evolution has had is much less than 6 billion years. The earth is 4.6 billion years old, it had to cool, form a crust, and accumulate oceans before abiogenesis could begin, it had to endure a period of heavy bombardment that may have reset the clock multiple times, and then see replicators evolve from non-living chemicals before evolution could begin. That may have begun 3.5 billion years ago.

Then there was a huge delay before eukaryotic cells arose, and another before multi-cellular life arose. That probably takes us to 600 million years ago, meaning that all life big enough to see with the unaided eye likely evolved over the last 600 million years.

OK. Sooner or later there should be a branching off. A new species from this human species. When if ever do you think that will happen? It sure would prove evolution. Wouldn't it?

Evolution is already proven. It is observed. And the theory explaining it unassailable in its core tenets.

Man will probably have to wait until he colonizes space to see evolutionary branching. New habitats -that's the ticked. Different gravity, different radiation level, different activity levels, different diets will all contribute. And if they encounter life - simple life, no doubt - they may have to co-evolve in different ways according to what they have to contend with.

Separating populations has that effect.

Here on earth, I expect people to become more homogeneous as the races intermingle and everybody ends up light brown with more similar hair, eyes, height, etc.

Also, cultural evolution and artificial selection will play a bigger part in the changes humanity experiences than Darwinian (undirected biological) evolution. More myopic and diabetic people, for example, will survive, more otherwise infertile people will reproduce, more people with oncogenic genes will survive to pass them on, etc..

Someone thinks that the human species appeared two million years ago. No new species in two million years. Isn't that slow?

That depends what you mean by "human." If you mean any species of the genus Homo, then yes, Homo habilis is thought to have appeared about 2.5-2.7 million years ago.

If you mean Homo sapiens, then no. He has been around less than a tenth of that time.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

LOL. That would take faith to believe. Wouldn't it?

Only if you don't know how to evaluate the evidence.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I hope that I didn't offend you. If so, I apologize. I was being frank. We seldom change at our ages (I'm a little older than you, but close). If you weren't a lover and student of science before, you likely won't be now. Do you disagree?

Science is about being right. I like to be right. Does that count?

No.

I hope that that was you being facetious.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You heard right. of course, God isn't a "thing".

I think a god would count as a thing.

Are you calling god which you do not believe in complicated?

I'm saying that an entity (do you like that word better?) that can create a cell would be less likely to exist undesigned and uncreated than a cell.

But, God is the simplest explanation. Why are you calling The God complicated?

"God" is not an explanation. Saying that God did something has no more explanatory power than saying "Norman did it" or "It did it itself." It's claim with no mechanism.

I was not taught to believe in God. It is my opinion that people who have suffered in this life are the people who go looking for God.

Yep. If don't get them young, you have to get them in distress. There are more conversions on skid row and death row than restaurant row.

I do believe that a person has to want to find God to find God. I want to and it appears that you do not want to.

Why do you say that? I've searched extensively. I was born and raised without religion, but became a Christian at about twenty. And yes, like you, it was due to being in a state of extreme angst.

By my mid-twenties, my situation had improved, the angst had resolved, no god had manifest itself, and I could see that the religion was claims that weren't supported and promises that didn't have to be kept, with the promises involving this life not being kept.

So, I left the religion at about thirty. No regrets about having been in it, and none about leaving it.

 

[Valjean]

My first thought was, "leave him alone and let him have the last word", but here I am! I hear you saying that evolution can see. Do we agree that there is no mind involved? Evolution has no mind. Right? But, it can see. Haha

Water flows downhill and takes the path of least resistance. Does water 'know' which direction is downhill or preplan the route?

I am the one who believes the origin of the species isn't blind. Evolution is blind because it doesn't have a mind. I do not believe in the miraculous appearance of life. God has a mind, or IS a mind, but I do not know how God's Mind works. If I knew, I would be God. I am not God fyi.

If evolution isn't blind, like you say, then what sees is what I call GOD.

You don't believe in the miraculous appearance of life, and you believe evolution isn't blind (I take this to mean evolution's intentional or directed). I guess I'm not following your line of thought. "Goddidit" seems miraculous to me.

Similarly a fully automated watch making machine can create a watch without a watchmaker. It doesn't require intelligence in this sense, but of course ultimately it does.

i.e. automated processes do not, in and of themselves, exclude the necessity for creative input, and so we cannot say definitively, that anything can be created without ultimately requiring creativity.

The creation of the watches, the weather, the snowflakes, all operate, by necessity, on specific underlying instructions, patterns, designs, call them what you like. How was this info created?

We know for certain that creative intelligence can create something truly novel, that nature alone never can. It's not clear that this can happen without creative input- creation without creativity....

Evolution works through reproduction with variation. Watches don't reproduce and there is obviously no reproductive variation. The comparison is a non sequitur.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

That would be cool if it was I who added them up. Good idea! Unfortunately, I entered college in the era of lower middle-class women go into teaching, office work or nursing. I like chemistry, so I chose nursing, because, like I said, I am a stupid person. Can anyone imagine me a nurse? LOL

I might have discovered something much more useful than God.

You're not a stupid person. You just lack a scientific background and aren't used to critical analysis. I think that you could have learned those things once, but it doesn't generally happen at almost sixty.

And I don't know any stupid nurses.

Thanks for your good cheer.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Water flows downhill and takes the path of least resistance. Does water 'know' which direction is downhill or preplan the route?
You don't believe in the miraculous appearance of life, and you believe evolution isn't blind (I take this to mean evolution's intentional or directed). I guess I'm not following your line of thought. "Goddidit" seems miraculous to me.
Evolution works through reproduction with variation. Watches don't reproduce and there is obviously no reproductive variation. The comparison is a non sequitur.

Many iterations of similar designs are made, with variety in shape, size, color and even functions. The most successful designs are favored and survive for further reproduction in successive generations with further variations

which am I talking about, watches or species?

The mathematical algorithm is the same, it doesn't care whether the watches fall in love & hump each other as part of the technical process of reproduction, that's entirely irrelevant to the algorithm.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Science has lit up the nights, given us engines and motors....,

Agree wholeheartedly

But you have to recognize the distinction between science; the method, we all know and love, and science; the academic, political, human institution

Thomas Edison was a businessman/ inventor, Henry Ford an industrialist. Powered flight, arguably the greatest scientific advancement - that ultimately got us to the moon and back, came from a couple of high school dropouts from Ohio- the furthest thing from 'scientists'

Currently 'scientists' are largely combating the advances these technologies bring us, campaigning to revert humanity back to a medieval reliance on sun and wind to dictate when and where we can produce energy, disseminating the most ancient and destructive of all superstitions: that bad weather is caused by bad people angering Gaia.


i.e. the method and the institution are often diametrically opposed to each other.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"Creation" doesn't require intelligence or intention. Present weather conditions can create a blizzard. Sunrise can create a beautiful vista. Losing your car keys can create a problem getting home. Likewise, design doesn't require a designer. That becomes apparent if you call a design a pattern instead.

Similarly a fully automated watch making machine can create a watch without a watchmaker. It doesn't require intelligence in this sense, but of course ultimately it does.

i.e. automated processes do not, in and of themselves, exclude the necessity for creative input, and so we cannot say definitively, that anything can be created without ultimately requiring creativity.

My position is not that a creation cannot have a creator. If it were, your example would refute my claim.

My position is that creation does not require a creator. The automated watch making machine doesn't refute that.

The creation of the watches, the weather, the snowflakes, all operate, by necessity, on specific underlying instructions, patterns, designs, call them what you like. How was this info created?

I'm not sure what you mean by information. What information is needed to create a snowflake or the weather? Who needs to be informed of what? Would a gravitational tug be considered information?

The current understanding is that the very early universe experience a series of symmetry breaking events that generated the four forces, quarks and leptons, and that the interactions of these particles and forces are dictated by the resultant natures of these.

 

[savagewind]

Water flows downhill and takes the path of least resistance. Does water 'know' which direction is downhill or preplan the route?

No, and that is why what you call evolution I call blind.

You don't believe in the miraculous appearance of life,

I don't believe that all living things were placed on the earth as finished products.

you believe evolution isn't blind (I take this to mean evolution's intentional or directed). I guess I'm not following your line of thought.

I did not say evolution isn't blind. I called it blind evolution and HE said evolution isn't blind. That to me is the same as saying that it can see. The powers outside can't see. They just are. The organism that the forces touch can not know that it is being touched for a change. Both are blind. He said they are not. I said that the origin of species is God, who can see.

"Goddidit" seems miraculous to me.

I don't think I am saying, "God did it". I am saying that I think it is impossible without God.

 

[Sapiens]

Adaptation is an amazing ability......and yes it is still at work today because environments are constantly changing, thanks to man's mismanagement of the Eco-sysyem.....but the plants remained plants through the whole process. Can I just emphasize that adaptation is not macro-evolution. Science likes to pretend that they are one and the same, but one does not prove the other.

Just because species have ability to make minor changes to adapt to a changing environment, doesn't mean that they can ultimately change from an amoeba to a dinosaur, no matter how many millions of years you throw at it.....science wants to make that leap, but it has no real evidence that it ever took place. It has assumptions and it makes guesses and predictions.....but ultimately, it cannot "join the dots" because there is nothing between two species to prove that they evolved from one another. There is just as much evidence to suggest that the fossil species were separate creations by the same Creator, using the same basic genetic material.

You (and your fellow travelers) are the only ones making such ridiculous claims as, "change from an amoeba to a dinosaur." Amoebas are every bit as modern as any other animal alive today. Your inability to "join the dots" is a clear result of your inability to either recognize the dots, of to place the dots in any sort of rational order.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Agree wholeheartedly

But you have to recognize the distinction between science; the method, we all know and love, and science; the academic, political, human institution

Thomas Edison was a businessman/ inventor, Henry Ford an industrialist. Powered flight, arguably the greatest scientific advancement - that ultimately got us to the moon and back, came from a couple of high school dropouts from Ohio- the furthest thing from 'scientists'

Currently 'scientists' are largely combating the advances these technologies bring us, campaigning to revert humanity back to a medieval reliance on sun and wind to dictate when and where we can produce energy, disseminating the most ancient and destructive of all superstitions: that bad weather is caused by bad people angering Gaia.


i.e. the method and the institution are often diametrically opposed to each other.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Do you blame science for its harmful application?

I take it by your use of the word "medieval" that you have some disdain regarding the use of solar and aeolian power. I use the sun to power my home. In less than two years, my system will have paid for itself, and my electric power and will be free. This system also reduced my propane bill by 75%.

I thank science for that.

Also, I am being a conscientious citizen. I have reduced my carbon footprint to zero even though I still burn a tank of propane a year and a tank of gasoline every other month,because I deliver more power to the utility than they need to return. If you're unfamiliar, we don't actually use the power we harvest directly. If we did, we would need storage batteries for nights and overcast days.