Mother Nature vs. God?

[McBell]

Oh, that's a very real problem facing the scientific community. I have yet to hear a scientist 'blow the whistle' regarding studies in evolutionary biology, however.

Really?
So you have never heard of the Piltdown Man?
Or what about:

The Nacirema Tribe
Ray Santilli
The Fiji Mermaid
Mary Toft
Archaeoraptor
Woofen Poof
Ompax spatuloides
​

 

[Anonymouse]

Jose fly-There's your problem. You think there is some sort of decision going on, when in reality it is nothing more than surviving/not surviving and reproducing/not reproducing.

What you are describing is not natural selection but desperate living. Is this what scientists are studying?

Jose Fly-As I said, you may as well ask "Who decides whether the coin I flip comes up heads or tails".

Before this conversation sinks further into an Abbott and Costello sketch, I am not asking you who decides whether the coin comes up heads or tails, I am trying to find out who is flipping the coin (even you must admit that coins don't flip themselves) and why they chose heads or tails. Wings or gills. Feathers or scales. Segmented eyes or bony thorax.

Anonymouse-I don’t believe that the research involved in evolution would be funded on the premise of the study of “rolling bones”.

Jose fly-Sorry, but that makes no sense at all.

Patience, I’ve been told it takes awhile.

jose fly-Notice the word that comes right before "selection"..."natural". Do you know what that means? It means it happens all on its own.

Do you know what unnatural selection means Jose? It means that there is another possibility nature could have traveled. Who or what decides this selection? Who or what decides what is natural or unnatural? How did scientists arrive at the “natural” in natural selection? Is it becasue science says "that's how it happens"? Maybe Mother Nature does work in mysterious ways.

So now you're invoking shadowy conspiracy theories?

I’m not sure where your inquisitive interest stops and where your paranoia begins but if you’re funding millions of dollars into any research and development project you are going to want positive results by however you define positive and whatever means you can benefit from these results (or why would you fund it?). Having paid millions of dollars for said research and development program you will also have the right and luxury to obtain and/or disclose any information you want. Who is going to blame you for any of your decisions or actions? Who is going to accuse you of a cover-up? It's your money that's funding the project!

 

[Father Heathen]

The Theory of Evolution and the concept of god are not mutually exclusive. Evolution only conflicts with literal interpretations of ancient creation myths. Literal interpretations of ancient creation myths do not have a monopoly on god. It's not necessary to cling to primitive, shortsighted perspectives to believe in god.

 

[Looncall]

What you are describing is not natural selection but desperate living. Is this what scientists are studying?

This exhibits one of the core failings of religious thinking. You seem to be unable to imagine that an event occurs without some entity intending it.

Consider your own existence. If any of your many ancestors had happened to: die in childbirth, fall victim to disease, perish in war, fail to find a mate, die of starvation etc, you would not be here. Until very recently, all these were very common. You yourself are a massive improbability! Yet you are here. Uncertainty is built into the very fabric of the universe.

All organisms have to cope with accidents and limited resources. Those that can cope, reproduce. Those that cannot, don't. Traits that aid in coping persist and spread. Simple. Automatic. Nothing mystical about it. No entity making decisions. Natural.

 

[Jose Fly]

What you are describing is not natural selection but desperate living. Is this what scientists are studying?

Um, no...it's natural selection. Please try and study the subject before attempting to discuss it. I mean, would you try and discuss 18th Century Russian literature before you've ever read a single book by a Russian author?

Before this conversation sinks further into an Abbott and Costello sketch, I am not asking you who decides whether the coin comes up heads or tails, I am trying to find out who is flipping the coin (even you must admit that coins don't flip themselves) and why they chose heads or tails. Wings or gills. Feathers or scales. Segmented eyes or bony thorax.

But they do happen all on their own. Natural selection acts on variability within populations, and we know for a fact that this variability comes about all on it's own. We see it happen, all the time, every day, right before our eyes.

Do you know what unnatural selection means Jose? It means that there is another possibility nature could have traveled.

It's called "artificial selection", and it refers to when humans do the selecting, typically for traits that while they may not be beneficial for survival in the wild, are beneficial towards our use of the animal, e.g. fatter cows, domesticated dogs, woolly sheep, etc.

Who or what decides this selection? Who or what decides what is natural or unnatural? How did scientists arrive at the “natural” in natural selection? Is it becasue science says "that's how it happens"? Maybe Mother Nature does work in mysterious ways.

We call it "natural" because it happens on its own. If you're going to argue that in reality, some god or other entity is doing the selecting, then please provide supporting evidence. Otherwise, you're simply making something up.

I’m not sure where your inquisitive interest stops and where your paranoia begins but if you’re funding millions of dollars into any research and development project you are going to want positive results by however you define positive and whatever means you can benefit from these results (or why would you fund it?). Having paid millions of dollars for said research and development program you will also have the right and luxury to obtain and/or disclose any information you want. Who is going to blame you for any of your decisions or actions? Who is going to accuse you of a cover-up? It's your money that's funding the project!

So you're accusing the scientific community (specifically the subset that works in evolutionary biology) of fraud and conspiracy. Now where I'm from, if you're going to accuse people of something that serious, there's an understood obligation to back that accusation up with evidence. Simply making a serious accusation without any evidence whatsoever is considered very ugly and nasty behavior. Perhaps things are different for you, and you feel absolutely no such obligation; perhaps you feel you are free to accuse anyone of anything, no matter how heinous, and you don't have to back it up with anything at all.

So which is it? Do you have evidence of this conspiracy, or do you feel no moral obligation to provide any?

 

[lunakilo]

Before this conversation sinks further into an Abbott and Costello sketch, I am not asking you who decides whether the coin comes up heads or tails, I am trying to find out who is flipping the coin (even you must admit that coins don't flip themselves) and why they chose heads or tails. Wings or gills. Feathers or scales. Segmented eyes or bony thorax.

I am confused. Do you not understand the principle of natural selection, or are you claiming that the selection is done by God?

Example:
Male and female mountain goats meat. They have a kid. The kid has a poor immune system and dies shortly after.
Next year they have another kid, it is strong and has steay legs and survives to adulthood and has kids of its own.
Next year they have another kid, it has a mental disorder and thinks it can fly. It jumps off a cliff and dies.

So obviously the strong healthy kid gets to pass on its genes to the next generation, but the badly made kids don't.
I call that natural selection.

In the above case I would say it is mum and dad goat that flips the coin and mix their dna.
I guess you could look at the mixing of dna, or rather the outcome of the mixing, as the result of God - the great random number generator.
Is that how you see it?

 

[Android]

I’m not sure where your inquisitive interest stops and where your paranoia begins but if you’re funding millions of dollars into any research and development project you are going to want positive results by however you define positive and whatever means you can benefit from these results (or why would you fund it?). Having paid millions of dollars for said research and development program you will also have the right and luxury to obtain and/or disclose any information you want. Who is going to blame you for any of your decisions or actions? Who is going to accuse you of a cover-up? It's your money that's funding the project!

I take it you didnt read my reply? (#52 on page 6) Or did you just choose to ignore it?

 

[Thief]

This exhibits one of the core failings of religious thinking. You seem to be unable to imagine that an event occurs without some entity intending it.

Consider your own existence. If any of your many ancestors had happened to: die in childbirth, fall victim to disease, perish in war, fail to find a mate, die of starvation etc, you would not be here. Until very recently, all these were very common. You yourself are a massive improbability! Yet you are here. Uncertainty is built into the very fabric of the universe.

Yet we are here....but not an accident.

All organisms have to cope with accidents and limited resources. Those that can cope, reproduce. Those that cannot, don't. Traits that aid in coping persist and spread. Simple. Automatic. Nothing mystical about it. No entity making decisions. Natural.

You confused the word 'intend' with the word 'attend'.

God set this entire planet in motion a long time ago.
Evolution is a 'massive' chemical reaction that does not need hands on attending.

God did it.....and His immediate attention is not required.

However Chapter Two of Genesis demonstrates intervention.
Something happened...wanna talk about it?

 

[Anonymouse]

Looncall- This exhibits one of the core failings of religious thinking. You seem to be unable to imagine that an event occurs without some entity intending it.

But aren’t the religious minded asking science for the same consideration when exploring and explaining the origin of God?

Besides, science doesn’t have to imagine it. Science could easily prove it by scientific method.

Prop a dead person up in a chair next to a table which contains a blank piece of paper. Ask a surviving family member which hand this person preferred the most (this keeps the experiment fair and appeases any probable naysayers) and place the arm on the table with the hand in the middle of the sheet of paper. Carefully place (or tape) a pencil between the thumb and first finger (for a more challenging experiment, imagine that this event will occur without some entity intending it). Ask the deceased to the best of their ability to draw a farmhouse and a silo. You can have as many years as you like to conduct this experiment but I can bet you the only thing this dead person draws first is flies.

Looncall-Consider your own existence. If any of your many ancestors had happened to: die in childbirth, fall victim to disease, perish in war, fail to find a mate, die of starvation etc, you would not be here.

Really?? With all the different kinds of species on this planet reproducing you don't feel that I could find my way into this existence?

 

[camanintx]

Prop a dead person up in a chair next to a table which contains a blank piece of paper. Ask a surviving family member which hand this person preferred the most (this keeps the experiment fair and appeases any probable naysayers) and place the arm on the table with the hand in the middle of the sheet of paper. Carefully place (or tape) a pencil between the thumb and first finger (for a more challenging experiment, imagine that this event will occur without some entity intending it). Ask the deceased to the best of their ability to draw a farmhouse and a silo. You can have as many years as you like to conduct this experiment but I can bet you the only thing this dead person draws first is flies.

Is this supposed to be some sort of argument for the existence of a soul? If so, it ranks right up there with the Theory of Intelligent Falling.

 

[Anonymouse]

I take it you didnt read my reply? (#52 on page 6) Or did you just choose to ignore it?

My apologies, mostly it has been a question of time.

Android-Firstly, Here in Australia you can get the government to loan you the cost of your degree. You pay it back out of your annual tax return IF the degree gets you a job that earns you enough to pay it back!

What I was explaining here is that there aren’t that many people who could afford to explore any areas of the scientific field of their own free will, time and expense and there are not many agencies offering nothing to interested, intelligent people to come work for them. Anyone with an interest in a field of science who cannot afford to go through the protocols necessary to make a living through science are not going to be able to maintain a private research or even have their theories considered by the communities of science who feel they are already established.

Android- Second, yes, industry pays for most of the research that is done primarily to advance that industry.

If someone is going to pay someone for their knowledge or expertise, the possibility exists that an employer may not want their employee using their money, time, supplies to pursue or research any of the employee’s other beliefs, theories or concepts concerning this particular field of science.

Android-But, in absolutely NO WAY are the findings/conclusions controlled in any way! Industry pays big dollars to do research and there is no point in lying about results, it does nothing to advance the field.

Your faith is admirable but misplaced. I was not applying the act of deception to these results. If whoever is funding the research decides not to claim or release the results of their research (for whatever reason) you wouldn’t know whether they were truthful or not unless you had firsthand knowledge of what the industry was researching and why they wanted to fund the research (the agenda). Once you had this knowledge you could research and re-test the experiment yourself (if you had the time, expense and supplies to do so on your own) but not many people are in a position to do this.

We can find this similarity in religion as well.

We come across many people ready to promote and support the Bible but rarely do we come across people who have written their own.

 

[Anonymouse]

Anonymouse-…if you’re funding millions of dollars into any research and development project you are going to want positive results by however you define positive and whatever means you can benefit from these results (or why would you fund it?). Having paid millions of dollars for said research and development program you will also have the right and luxury to obtain and/or disclose any information you want. Who is going to blame you for any of your decisions or actions? Who is going to accuse you of a cover-up? It's your money that's funding the project!

Josefly-So you're accusing the scientific community (specifically the subset that works in evolutionary biology) of fraud and conspiracy. Now where I'm from, if you're going to accuse people of something that serious, there's an understood obligation to back that accusation up with evidence. Simply making a serious accusation without any evidence whatsoever is considered very ugly and nasty behavior. Perhaps things are different for you, and you feel absolutely no such obligation; perhaps you feel you are free to accuse anyone of anything, no matter how heinous, and you don't have to back it up with anything at all.

So which is it? Do you have evidence of this conspiracy, or do you feel no moral obligation to provide any?

How did you arrive and continue to perpetrate the conclusion that I am contriving a conspiracy from the evidence in this paragraph?

Gosharooney, you quoted my post but did you even bother to read it?

 

[Yerda]

Well, I've been a professional scientist for 16 years now, and I have yet to meet any colleague who has done any sort of falsification for money.

Usually they just put a name to a study commissioned and produced by a corporate lab. You've never heard of this practice?

 

[Yerda]

Really?
So you have never heard of the Piltdown Man?

Some Arthur Conan Doyle hoax?

 

[Anonymouse]

Lunakilo-I am confused. Do you not understand the principle of natural selection,

Yeah, so far it seems to be the study of “****** happens”.

Lunakilo-or are you claiming that the selection is done by God?

I’m supporting the point that with all the beauty, ugliness and technicality evident in the different species on this planet it must be conceptualized and executed by artists.

Lunakilo-In the above case I would say it is mum and dad goat that flips the coin and mix their dna.I guess you could look at the mixing of dna, or rather the outcome of the mixing, as the result of God - the great random number generator.
Is that how you see it?

My understanding comes very close to thief and Seyorni.

Seyorni-Nature is not a personage and does not judge, nor does it have goals. Its workings are entirely mechanical.

Thief-To speak evolution and assume it leaves God out is naive.
To speak creation without science is close minded.

My only addition to Seyorni’s comment is that I believe that there were programmers that programmed nature to behave that way.

Thief’s post was also very insightful. I just don’t grant divinity and holiness to the concept of God being a creator.

 

[PolyHedral]

My only addition to Seyorni’s comment is that I believe that there were programmers that programmed nature to behave that way.

Based on what?

 

[Anonymouse]

Based on what?

The fact that we are replicating these procedures today.

 

[Jose Fly]

Gosharooney, you quoted my post but did you even bother to read it?

So if you weren't specifically accusing the people who work in evolutionary biology and the associated fields of having their research altered by the people who fund it, what specific branch of science were you talking about? And if it's not evolutionary biology, why did you bring all that up in the midst of a discussion about evolution in a message board entitled "Evolution vs. Creationism"?

 

[Jose Fly]

Usually they just put a name to a study commissioned and produced by a corporate lab. You've never heard of this practice?

Not in my field.

 

[Anonymouse]

Josefly-So if you weren't specifically accusing the people who work in evolutionary biology and the associated fields of having their research altered by the people who fund it, what specific branch of science were you talking about? And if it's not evolutionary biology, why did you bring all that up in the midst of a discussion about evolution in a message board entitled "Evolution vs. Creationism"?

If we are to continue our discussion, I may have to ask you to please refrain from using artificial selection to promote points in my posts that were not intended.

The premise is very simple:
The person(s) funding the scientific research controls the disclosure of the conclusions. It is the reason we are not reminded everyday of the news that the scientific community has once again failed to discover the origin of life.