Evolution just proves God does not break God's own law. If everything appeared at first by magic it would be God performing real magic which God says is not OK.
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Putting the JW Stand on Evolution into Perspective
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
This makes sense. Honestly, I really don't get why some theists/creationists have such a hard time believing that maybe evolution was God's chosen method of diversifying life. It's like either "God did it in this extremely specific way" or else no God was involved at all, when I don't see why any theist couldn't look at evolution and say "God did it this way, simply by utilising the biological functions of nature, and the reason scientists cannot see inherent design is because there really is no difference between God's design and nature". Of course, that's not what I believe, but I don't see why there are so many creationists who don't.
Monk Of Reason
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You made a typo there. I fixed it for you. Your welcome.
Looncall
Well-Known Member
Curiously, muslims claim the same for their religion.
It amazes me that so very many people are so very intellectually lazy.
Rumpelstiltskin spun straw into gold. Both your statement and mine are simply assertions and neither has been or can be proven true.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
There's always the possibility that the entire body of evidence behind a scientific theory consists of illusions that have been projected by some supernatural force to fool us into thinking that something is happening. Of course, at that point you're positing that there's effectively no such thing as evidence, since any empirical data can be illusory.
However, if you're not positing some kind of radical solipsism in which you can't be reasonably certain of anything outside your own head, then the equivalency you're drawing here doesn't work. Rumplestiltskin's spinning straw into gold isn't in the same universe as biological evolution, which is something that we can observe in real time and is the only model that makes sense of the data we have.
Basically, you either believe in evidence and reason and a methodical approach to the truth, or you believe that there's no such thing as those and people just choose to believe whatever, for no reason, so it's all moot anyway.
Macro-evolution is not observable in real time, and that is what is being discussed. Assertions are not evidence.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
"Macro-evolution" is not a scientific concept. It's an arbitrary line that creationists made up so that they could pretend that their position isn't completely unreasonable. There's a good reason why nobody in the scientific community recognizes those terms.
The fact is that if you accept the mechanism behind what creationists call "micro-evolution" (i.e. genetic mutation resulting from errors in DNA replication, coupled with natural selection), then it would take a supernatural force to prevent the changes from piling up over time until organisms no longer resemble their precursors. Given sufficient time and environmental pressures, evolution into what we think of as different species (not a strict delineation even in a scientific context) is inevitable, not just hypothetical. You would actually need to demonstrate why this would not happen, why there would be a magical barrier preventing mutation beyond an arbitrary point. Nobody has managed to demonstrate that, and nobody will, since it relies on a belief in magic.
And yes, that has been observed as well, on levels from the microbial to the mammalian. The only thing that hasn't been directly observed (even though we can observe the evidence for it) is the kind of change that requires billions of years, because... well, that should be obvious, shouldn't it?
But anyone who thinks that's an argument against the theory in question hasn't got any experience with geology, astrophysics, anthropology, or any other discipline that deals with spans of time that are much longer than a human lifetime. Saying that any phenomenon that you can't observe in the span of time it takes to watch a Youtube video therefore has no evidence to support its existence is simply stupid.
outhouse
Atheistically
No one is asserting anything, evolution is fact.
If anyone was asserting anything it is your 100% lack of evidence for a replacement hypothesis.
I see plenty asserting mythology as reality with no evidence. But that is only the pseudoscientific creationist claims
Monk Of Reason
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We have also never used a tape measure to get the distance from the Earth to the sun. Is this also unreliable information?
My college textbook actually mentions those terms. It defines them as such:
Microevolution - Changes in gene frequencies and trait distributions that occur within populations and species.
Macroevolution - Large evolutionary changes, usually in morphology; typically refers to the evolution of differences among populations that would warrant their placement in different genera or higher-level taxa.
The lines between the two are still pretty blurry, though. Interestingly, the idea that all living cat species came from a single cat species would represent a case of macroevolution as defined above, as cats span several genera. This is backed up by the fact that you can form a line of hybrids between many cat species from housecats all the way up to lions (Domestic cats can hybridize with ocelots, ocelots can hybridize with pumas, pumas can hybridize with leopards, and leopards can hybridize with lions). Even creationists agree that all cats came from one original cat "kind".
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JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Well actually the terms "are" used by some in scientific circles.....mainly because they observe one and try to imply that they are actually one and the same same process, just over a much longer period of time. That is not provable....it is an assumption based on how they wish to interpret their "evidence". You can argue about that all you like, but science fiction can never be science fact unless you "believe" it is. Evolition is a "belief" about what "might have" taken place...nothing more.
Error #1 Adaptation within a species is not an error. It is a fully programmed response in the genetics of all species to adapt to changes in environment and food supply. It is confined to small changes, not monumental ones that change one "kind" of organism into a completely different "kind" altogether. Bacteria remain bacteria. Viruses remain viruses no matter how much they mutate....they won't become cows over a few million years!
Error #2 This is an assumption. You have been led to believe that it is "inevitable" by those who believe this and strongly promote it. But where is the proof? Science does not have any. They fill in the blanks with assertions, not provable facts. They hate it when you challenge them and so begins the ridicule and derision that inevitably follows. If you can shoot down a person's credibility, you can discount everything they say. Protesting that someone is uneducated and therefor cannot possibly know what they are talking about is an old ploy. People today can educate themselves and so it becomes harder to pull the wool over their eyes. They don't have to attend university to read the evidence for themselves. I see the language of educated guessing, not scientific facts.
Error #3 You have no evidence that this genetic barrier does NOT exist. Science has not proven that this barrier does not prevent one "kind" from evolving into another completely different "kind" of creature, no matter how much time has elapsed. There were no witnesses to these events except the Creator himself, and he has told us a completely different story.
When Darwin observed the creatures on the Galapogus Islands....did he see finches that were becoming ravens...or seagulls? Or did he simply observe a change in the shape of their beaks that facilitated a different type of food supply because of environmental factors that did not exist on the mainland? That is adaptation, not evolution. Did the fact that iguanas found food in the sea make them into something other than an iguana that was adapted to feeding in a different environment? Did they ALL not simply adapt to a different food source? What a leap to assume from those minor changes that organic evolution was even a possibility? Imagination can produce amazing conclusions! These are not facts.
Error #4 Is it obvious? Or only obvious to those who seek to support that pre-conceived conclusion? When you have no actual evidence, you fill in the gaps with "something" you believe is plausible......it's called assumption, speculation, educated guessing, presumption...or any number of words that describe what science does....but none of it is "fact".
Error #5 The accusation that anyone who dares to question your chosen belief system is "stupid". Peer pressure doesn't just work on teenagers you know.
The Bible is not a science textbook, but when it touches on matters of true science (as opposed to theoretical science) it is beautifully accurate in its simplicity. No one needs a science degree to understand it.
The order in which life appeared is clearly stated in Genesis, and science basically agrees with that. Life began in the oceans and the last being to appear on earth was man. The "kinds" are not biologically specific as to species within a "kind" but we understand that it eliminates the possibility of whales descending from land animals or vice versa. Grass is not an ancestor of man unless you believe that eating vegetation makes us cannibals?
Why is it so hard to admit that evolution is a theory in every definition of the word? There are no "facts" so we are actually in the same playing field.....both have belief systems that we cannot prove. That makes people's choices a little easier IMO?
Take away the bully boy tactics and what do you have that is superior to what we have?
Do you believe that death was brought upon the Earth by Adam and Eve's sin? Or were plants and animals capable of dying before Adam and Eve showed up?
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Good question!
The only beings promised everlasting life in the big scheme of things was man...the animals and plants have a natural cycle of life and death.
Being the only creatures made in "God's image and likeness" these human "animals" were unique. Not only were they mortal, like all other living cretures, but they alone had the means to sustain life indefinitely. All they needed to do was obey their Maker and follow his directives.
They were given free will instead of being solely programmed by instinct, so they could choose their course in life.
There was a "tree of life" also in the garden that guaranteed endless life as long as they did not break the one command that would introduce death. But they did break that command and access to the tree of life, once freely accessible, was now barred....permanently. (Gen 3:22-24)
Does that answer your question?
I'm actually impressed. A lot of creationists I've seen before try to argue that nothing could have died before sin entered the world, which runs quite afoul of the fossil record (things have to die in order to fossilize). So I'll give you a thumbs up for that.
JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
Most people do not appreciate that there is a middle ground...a balanced and reasonable one that is found in the Bible. It's all in the way you interpret things. This view does not fight with true science and advocates for an intelligen designer for all living things without stretching anything for those who think that science and creation are at odds...they aren't really.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
While you are correct that "micro-" and "macro-evolution" are terms originally coined by the scientific community (although these days the terms are most often used by creationists), the terms don't really make sense if you acknowledge one and not the other. If "macro-evolution" does not occur, what is the point of using the term "micro-evolution"? The phrase "micro" simply makes no sense if you don't have a "macro" to compare it to. The fact is that the two do refer to the exact same process, merely over larger periods of time. Saying you accept the former but not the latter is no different to saying you can walk down the street, but walking to the next city is impossible.
As has been asked before, you need to specifically define "kind" before you start claiming that evolution remains constrained to it. All that is required for evolution is for organisms to replicate a variation of what they are: hence, everything remains in the same taxonomical phyla as what produced it: mammals produce mammals, hominids produce hominids, etc. What changes occur occur within the phyla, and the speciation we observe is not a result of animals producing "different kinds" of animals, but of organisms producing variations of what they are. Hence mammals produce variations of mammals, one of which is wolves. Wolves produce variations of wolves, one of which is dogs. Dogs produce variations of dogs, etc..
You seem to assume that science is some sort of puzzle-solving process, where you need every piece or else you cannot solve the puzzle. This is wrong. Science is about using the facts and evidence we have at our disposal to form educated, testable and informed conclusions about things we cannot directly observe. If you think science cannot make assertions about things it doesn't have hard evidence of, then you don't know the function of science. There will always be gaps in every scientific theory. Gravity has gaps (many argue that the theory of gravity is far less supported by evidence than the theory of evolution). Your reliance on the notion of "proof", despite it being said to you that "proof" does not exist in science - only evidence, is essentially just an excuse to ignore the evidence that is actually available. If you wish for proof, or you wish for a theoretical model for which every claim and postulation is an absolute fact, then do yourself a favour and stop attempting to debate science, because you'll not find it here. The truth is that the evidence we have has compelled over 99% of the world's biologists to accept the theory of evolution; not because of bias, not because of some hidden agenda or conspiracy, but because it is the best available explanation of the facts that we observe. You are free to disagree, but you are not free to dismiss this overwhelming support by evoking conspiracy theories and asserting that any process which doesn't possess ALL the facts ALL the time cannot make educated claims. That is not a reasonable position.
See above for the problem of "kinds", but to address the former point you are clearly and obviously coming at this from an unscientific position. If you wish to claim that there is a genetic barrier that prevents speciation above a certain level you have to demonstrate that it exists, because currently no such barrier is known to exist. For it to be true would essentially require two different kinds of genes: those that are susceptible to mutation and allow for "micro-evolution", and those are not susceptible to mutation and therefore prevent "macro-evolution". We do not observe this. What we observe is that all genes are subject to mutation: this is a testable and demonstrable fact of genetics. So if you are going to posit that something exists that contradicts this, the onus is on you to demonstrate that it does.
Again, you are looking at one specific piece of evidence and saying "but this isn't evidence of the WHOLE of the theory", while ignoring all the rest of the evidence. This is akin to going to help in the relief efforts of an earthquake ravaged country, heading into a city in which most of the buildings have crumbled completely, picking through the wreckage to find a chipped mug and then saying "All I see a single, broken mug - I see no evidence of wide-scale devastation" while ignoring the rubble, devastation and death all around you. When Darwin observed the finches, he noted their change as evidence of natural selection, not common descent. The evidence of common descent is different but no less conclusive: the fossil record and genetics. I have yet to see you provide a suitable explanation as to why we clearly see speciation in the geological strata. What you are doing is akin to dropping a pebble and saying "I see evidence that gravity is pulling on the pebble, but you can't use this as evidence that gravity forms entire planets!" They don't, and neither did Darwin. The evidence lies elsewhere, and you seem reluctant to address it.
Everything in evolutionary theory is supported by facts and evidence. There are no preconceived conclusions; the scientists who work with and support the theory of evolution come from a wide variety of social, economic and religious backgrounds. Meanwhile, those who reject evolution are almost exclusively from a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim background. Which group is more likely to have a preconceived bias?
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Vishvavajra
Active Member
Mutation is an error in the duplication process of the amino acids that form our genetic material. If you don't know that, then I don't know how we can reasonably discuss this topic. Evolution occurs by the same mechanism that causes cancer, with the difference being that some mutations are benign. Adaptation isn't a programmed response at all. The entire point of the theory of evolution by natural selection is that what we call "adaptation" is the result of random mutations, but that the randomness is mitigated by natural selection, which means that the more viable ones will tend to proliferate over time. In short, polar bears didn't have something in them that automatically turned them white when they started living in the snow; the lack of pigmentation was a random mutation of the sort that occurs frequently in many species (tigers, alligators, humans, et al.), only in the case of polar bears the white mutant bears happened to have a much easier time hunting and surviving, so they had more kids, and their genetics came to dominate the region.
As for this imaginary species barrier, you do realize that there's a line of microbial colony cells that have evolved from the cervical cancer of a human woman, right? They're well known and used in a number of experimental applications because of their resemblance to human tissue, even though they're not strictly human anymore. The fact is that all our DNA does is code for the formation of proteins. There's no magical "human" gene. Again, cancer happens precisely because for that reason: a single mutation can cause cells to create tissues that are not part of the species in question.
I'm not a Jehovah's Witness, so stop assuming I operate like one. It's not an assumption, any more than the assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow. Lacking a magical barrier between species, which cannot be demonstrated to exist, and which can be demonstrated not to exist (and which would be incoherent to begin with, as species are arbitrary and vague categories to begin with), a sufficient number of mutations would inevitably lead to our recognizing it as a significantly different creature. People have observed this with a number of creatures in laboratory settings, but you're not interested in the science, so you won't have heard of them (and won't look them up in any case). But let me put it this way: both great Danes and chihuahuas come from mutations and selective breeding from wolves as a starting point. Wolves and coyotes also come from a common ancestor (and are still interfertile). That's not so hard to understand. Go one step further, other canines come from a common source that differentiated over time. Go back to that point and the difference between canines and, say, felines isn't apparent.
So where do you draw the magic line? Drawing it between bacteria and cows is just rhetorical puffery, based on appealing to "common sense" instead of actually engaging with the topic.
You're the one positing a magic barrier between species (which are arbitrary categories invented by humans, which we often revise, making this discussion even more absurd). Nobody needs to prove that those magical barriers don't exist. You would have to prove that they do, which you can't, since there's absolutely no evidence. And no, ancient creation myths are not scientific evidence. If you have to play that card, you've already lost.
You misunderstood me. What I meant was that it's obvious why we haven't observed in real time the kinds of changes that require millions and billions of years to play out, not that the conclusions are obvious. Setting that standard is ludicrous because it amounts to claiming that human knowledge can never encompass anything we can't see right in front of us, which is tantamount to chucking the entire discipline of science out the window. Inference based on evidence is a source of knowledge. If you call anything that people don't see play out in front of their eyes "mere supposition," "bare speculation," etc., you're basically saying that science is impossible and that people don't actually know much of anything. For example, if you say the world is round and that the moon is made of rock, that's pure speculation, since you haven't directly experienced those things yourself. In short, you're doing immense violence to the very concept of evidence and analysis.
Please. You demonstrate over and over again your scientific illiteracy, as well as the fact that you're unwilling to educate yourself on the subject. There's no peer pressure here. It's a simple description of how you operate. Nobody is trying to pressure you to change your mind because your mind is impervious to evidence, logical argument, and anything else that might contradict the absurdly literalist way you've been indoctrinated to read the Bible. You, on the other hand, constantly insinuate that those who disagree with you only do so out of some mental or moral deficiency. The difference is that whereas the JW indoctrination I mentioned is plain for anyone to see (you're a very good example, basically making my argument for me), what you're peddling is this absurd idea that all of science is a hoax, there's no such thing as evidence or the proper analysis thereof, and all scientists do is believe whatever they want to believe and concoct a vast, world-spanning conspiracy to delude people (ostensibly because they hate God or are slaves to Satan or something). One of these is evident right here in this thread; the other is bone-headed.
As for the rest, Biblical fundamentalism is not a middle ground. If it seems that way to you, you must be pretty far gone already. It's contrary to all human knowledge, both religious and secular. Actual Biblical scholars know better than to read Genesis as a factual account of the origin of the world and its inhabitants, as did its original authors and audience.
Of course, what you are claiming is contrary to known facts concerning impenetrable boundaries between types of animals and plants. "A number of scientists have therefore concluded that the evidence for evolution is too weak and contradictory to prove that life evolved. Aerospace engineer Luther D. Sutherland wrote in his book Darwin’s Enigma: “The scientific evidence shows that whenever any basically different type of life first appeared on Earth, all the way from single-celled protozoa to man, it was complete and its organs and structures were complete and fully functional. The inescapable deduction to be drawn from this fact is that there was some sort of pre-existing intelligence before life first appeared on Earth.”
On the other hand, the fossil record closely matches the general order of the appearance of living forms found in the Bible book of Genesis. Donald E. Chittick, a physical chemist who earned a doctorate degree at Oregon State University, comments: “A direct look at the fossil record would lead one to conclude that animals reproduced after their kind as Genesis states. They did not change from one kind into another. The evidence now, as in Darwin’s day, is in agreement with the Genesis record of direct creation. Animals and plants continue to reproduce after their kind. In fact, the conflict between paleontology (study of fossils) and Darwinism is so strong that some scientists are beginning to believe that the in-between forms will never be found.” ( g04 6/22)
Monk Of Reason
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Can you point out what fossil evidence supports this? Specifically? What dig? What fossils it was that they found?