Some thoughts about evolution vs creation debates

[Subduction Zone]

Maybe so. What I mean is that there there might be constraints in the nature of matter and energy that have resulted in the same genes appearing in different life forms, even if they did not originate at the same time in the same pool.

That would take quite a bit of 'spalinin' on your part.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It is logical to think that evolution would be involved in some way with any creative activity which may have taken place -as that is what we see in that which would have been created.

What's logical about throwing creationism in with evolution? We have evidence for the latter, but not the former. Logical would be to go only with that for which we have evidence.

It is also true that mainstream science cannot rule out the idea that creative activity has taken place

That doesn't matter. Science has no duty to rule anything out. It simply accounts for observations.

A rational skeptic doesn't wait for disproof to not believe that which is unsupported by evidence. Nobody's ever disproven the existence of vampires or leprechauns, either, ]but hopefully you would agree that it would be irrational to believe in such entities given their lack of evidentiary support. Likewise with gods. We don't need disprove to not believe.

most are not actually looking for it

Science is looking at reality and attempting to account for its objects and processes in ways that allow us to successfully predict outcomes. If no evidence for a creator arises, no creator will be hypothesized. Science has no need for a god hypothesis in any of its theories, and inserting one would add nothing to its explanatory or predictive power.

But there are people looking for god in nature - the intelligent design movement - and its exactly that that makes it pseudoscience. They have started with a premise, almost certainly false, and examine reality through the lens of that belief, which exactly how science shouldn't be done. It is to avoid that that kind of investigator bias that medical studies are double-blinded, meaning neither the patient reporting symptoms nor the clinicians evaluating patients know which patients got the therapy being studied and which got placebo.

The ID people are looking for a god, and so see one where there is no supporting evidence. How many times have they offered some complex biological system as evidence of irreducible complexity just to be shown that they were wrong again? Pseudoscience, with zero hope of generating any evidence of supporting a god if there is none, no doubt why the research to date has been sterile, just as research to show that the stars guide our lives would be sterile.. Good science is done without preconceptions.

As far as education goes, I don't see any problem with teaching an honest and unbiased overview of the present state of any ideas presently held by humans.

I do. Public schools are not out there to teach creationism. They teach academic subjects - liberal arts - and a smattering of other things like physical education and shop. Sunday school and home are where religion is taught. Creationism has no staus in academics.

The "controversy", however, is based primarily on an assumption about what the bible seems to say to some (which it actually does not), their belief that said particular idea must be absolutely true -and defended. In itself, it is pointless. However, though many on either side have dug in and closed their minds even more, others have considered both sides and are better for it.

There is no controversy in that area in science. Science isn't dug in. Religion is. Scientists have to be open-minded and revise their conclusions, which are always tentative and amenable to new evidence, whenever new evidence requires such a revision a modification of the narrative that unifies all relevant findings. Not all scientists are that true to best scientific practices, but the collective will always do just that.

Theologians don't. They are the definition of closed-minded, meaning that no evidence could change their position. That's not surprising, since they didn't come to that position using evidence -just faith - and we wouldn't expect evidence to move them from their faith-based beliefs. These people will tell you as much:

[1] The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, "What would change your minds?" Scientist Bill Nye answered, "Evidence." Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, "Nothing. I'm a Christian." Elsewhere, Ham stated, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

Clear enough?

[2] "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig

Same thing. Nothing can budge this guy, and he's telling you so.

[3] “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Is this something to be proud of? I'm sure he thinks so. He's virtue signalling to other believers how strong his faith is, but I get a different message. This is bad thinking.

[4] "As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate." – Kurt Wise, YEC and geologist.

OK. Evidence can't pierce this mind, either. That is the very definition of closed-mindedness, Nye was the only open-minded person named, and the only non-Christian. Here's another example of what open-mindedness looks like:

"I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god, and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Super Bowl and turns all the nachos into loaves and fishes, well, I'll think ... "Oh, look at that. I was wrong. There he is. My bad. Praise the Lord." - Bill Maher

So, no. Both sides are not closed-minded - just the faith-based thinkers.

Also it seems like a lot of creationists think that if evolution theory for whatever reason is demonstrated to be wrong, then that will be good for creationism. But it still doesn't proof it, that is why they need to provide evidence for it regardless. So very little is gained from attacking evolution.

It speaks mountains that they usually attack evolution rather than give pro-creationism arguments, which are fallacious when given, such as that the world seems too complex to them to have arisen without an intelligent designer (incredulity fallacy), the scientists have never disproven creationism, so there must be a god (ignorance fallacy), but how this god can exist undesigned and uncreated is waved away with a hand because god transcends reason and physics and has always existed (special pleading). Also, there is no evidence for macroevolution (wrong), and the odds of even one protein forming are astronomical (Hoyle's fallacy). Notice that even here, it's mostly attacking science without providing evidence for a creator.

 

[viole]

The most popular way of thinking now might be what some call a “primordial soup,” some pool of water with a variety of pre-life or early life forms trading genes back and forth. Some kinds and combinations of genes thrived more than others and were passed around. Somehow the genes started being passed around a lot less, and most new combinations were only by reproduction. I don’t see any researchers saying that there was ever a single organism that was the ancestor of all life on earth.

I haven’t done the research that I would want to do, to agree or disagree.

we do not need a lot of research, i think. I would say a mirror and a visit to the ape area in the next zoo, should suffice

anyway, before even starting addressing common descent, you should first settle this, i think. For, if we and gorilla do not share a common ancestor, then common descent is immediately defeated. And to address our common ancestry with gorillas is much simpler, since it happened much more recently.

ciao

- viole

 

[nPeace]

There are popular new mainstream hypotheses about how life started on Earth, but none of them to my knowledge are suggesting that ultimately there wasn't a beginning moment of first life form (self-replicating structure) somewhere, somewhen. A beginning somewhere and somehow, no matter where or how, then always implies a common descent is very possible, plausible (even though there could even be more than one instant of beginning(!)). They are only discussing various possibilities about how life started or arrived onto Earth.

Example:

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-lab-credence-life-earth-asteroids.html
Despite a lot of effort, scientists still do not know how life started on planet Earth. They also do not know if it sprang out of existing ingredients or if those ingredients came from somewhere else, via asteroid or comet. There are two current leading theories. The first suggests that life began in a hot spring on land or in a deep-sea thermal vent, because the right mix of ingredients were there to allow it to happen. The other main theory suggests that the basic ingredients for life arrived on a comet or asteroid and things took off from there. In this new effort, the researchers have found some evidence that supports the latter theory.
(phys.org is a mainstream science news summary site of very high quality)

But if your instinct is that Genesis chapter 1 fits evolution without any problem, that's a correct guess. It is though very much a problem for some of the various competing theories believers have have invented (certain views, but not others) using select bits from Genesis (while adding assumptions nowhere in the text). My attitude is that is somewhat like the silly Flat Earth ideas. People can invent theories using scripture as a starting point if they add some ideas without realizing the ideas are nowhere in the text, and isolate verses out and away from the total sense of meaning that full reading without prejudice would give. If they alienate the verses from the flavor of the full text.

The problem seen with the theory, is the assertion that life - whether one or millions - started from a single-celled organism, from which ALL the various life forms emerged.
It is true all life on earth share common ancestors.
There is no verifiable evidence for the idea of universal common descent,
The evidence looks like this...

 

[QuestioningMind]

It looks to me like from the time of Darwin, sometimes people have tried to use evolution theories to discredit Christianity or some Christian beliefs. More recently some people who felt targeted by that started thinking that it was happening in public schools, and they have responded by trying to have evolution theory removed from the curriculum and/or have creation theory added, and by trying to discredit evolution theory. The debates here may or may not have some roots in that.

As I understand it, the creationism that’s being debated here includes thinking that one of the creation stories in the Bible is an actual physical description of how the universe, including the earth and all living creatures, were first created less than 10,000 years ago. I don’t claim to know if that’s true or not, but however that may be, I disagree with trying to have evolution theory removed from the curriculum or having creation theory added to it, and I disagree with trying to discredit evolution theory. Even if evolution theory is being used in public education to try to discredit some religious beliefs, I disagree with those ways of responding to that.

The arguments that I’ve seen here for thinking that all life on earth has a common ancestor look very weak to me, and it looks to me like many researchers, possibly most of them, have abandoned that idea in practice.

Since the VAST majority of people who believe in a creator god ALSO believe in the theory of evolution, the notion that evolution is used to discredit Christianity is rather absurd. The only ones who feel threatened by the notion of evolution are the ignorant fools who completely ignore reality and insist that the Earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old.

 

[Jose Fly]

It’s important to understand that the intelligent design theory was not developed by religionists.

Completely false. ID creationism was specifically developed as a means to sneak creationist arguments into science classes, following a series of court rulings banning the teaching of creationism (in science classes). Perhaps the most obvious evidence of this is the "cdesign proponentsists" foul up....

Of Pandas and People - Wikipedia

​

If that isn't enough, then look at The Wedge Strategy, a document written by ID creationists where they describe what it's all about.

It begins with "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built".

It also states: "Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."

It also states: "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

Also, during the Dover trial ID creationist Michael Behe had to admit under oath that the only way ID creationism could be scientific, would be to expand the definition of "science" to the point where astrology would also qualify as science.

Q Under that same definition astrology is a scientific theory under your definition, correct?

A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that -- which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and many other -- many other theories as well.​

ID is without a doubt a version of Christian creationism.

 

[halbhh]

The problem seen with the theory, is the assertion that life - whether one or millions - started from a single-celled organism, from which ALL the various life forms emerged.
It is true all life on earth share common ancestors.
There is no verifiable evidence for the idea of universal common descent,
The evidence looks like this...

Ok. But since these are both theories, it's not best to put too much faith in either one. God could do either one. He could even do either one in a way that would be hard to distinguish from the other unless one personally did (even if just in small part) some involved science themselves, getting into more esoteric and technical stuff.

Here's a far-out idea one person presented to me when I explained how we have total absolute certainty stars in our galaxy are much older than 10,000 years using only geometry alone. Not even using any theory. Just pure observation and geometry. Establishing as simply observation most stars are further than 10,000 light years away. (this involves precise observations of how nearby stars shift in apparent position vs further away background stars over many orbits of the Earth around the sun, over time, using the Hubble telescope and basic optics effects to add extra precise location sensitivity)

Ergo -- therefore without any theory, using only geometry and observation, it's immediately implied result is the galaxy is far older than 10,000 years old (even before we use other types of understanding to better learn just how old it really is).

He responded with this far-out theory: God made it all not so long ago (6,000 something years), with the light already traveling through space as if it was far older.

To which I realized I could only say ".......Ok".

I mean, I'm not going to be able to get him to read 100 astronomy articles over years of time, do some observations with telescopes, and really get how real this all is. I started to wonder: why does it even matter what he wants to believe about these kinds of small detailed theory, so long as he doesn't force it onto others, doesn't insist it's equal to God (doesn't say his theory is God)? The main danger of preaching some odd creationist theory in schools is that it won't stand up to much scrutiny later, and you end up having as it were substituted (accidentally) an crude painting in place of the awesome, overwhelming wonder and awe of the real thing God has made when He made physics itself, the Universe, all at once as it were, unfolding like a flower from a seed ever since.

 

[Milton Platt]

It looks to me like from the time of Darwin, sometimes people have tried to use evolution theories to discredit Christianity or some Christian beliefs. More recently some people who felt targeted by that started thinking that it was happening in public schools, and they have responded by trying to have evolution theory removed from the curriculum and/or have creation theory added, and by trying to discredit evolution theory. The debates here may or may not have some roots in that.

As I understand it, the creationism that’s being debated here includes thinking that one of the creation stories in the Bible is an actual physical description of how the universe, including the earth and all living creatures, were first created less than 10,000 years ago. I don’t claim to know if that’s true or not, but however that may be, I disagree with trying to have evolution theory removed from the curriculum or having creation theory added to it, and I disagree with trying to discredit evolution theory. Even if evolution theory is being used in public education to try to discredit some religious beliefs, I disagree with those ways of responding to that.

The arguments that I’ve seen here for thinking that all life on earth has a common ancestor look very weak to me, and it looks to me like many researchers, possibly most of them, have abandoned that idea in practice.

The Theory of Evolution is supported by close to 200 years of accumulated evidence in numerous scientific fields of study. There is no abandonment of this very strong theory. I fail to see how you can look at the evidence for the ToE and feel it is lacking, nor cn I see how you could lean towards creationism since it lacks a workable hypothesis, much less a tested theory.

My guess is that your perusal of "evidence" amounts to no actual reading of the research. If I'm wrong, my apologies. Provide specific research you feel is faulty and explain why.

 

[nPeace]

Ok. But since these are both theories, it's not best to put too much faith in either one. God could do either one. He could even do either one in a way that would be hard to distinguish from the other unless one personally did (even if just in small part) some involved science themselves, getting into more esoteric and technical stuff.

Here's a far-out idea one person presented to me when I explained how we have total absolute certainty stars in our galaxy are much older than 10,000 years using only geometry alone. Not even using any theory. Just pure observation and geometry. Establishing as simply observation most stars are further than 10,000 light years away. (this involves precise observations of how nearby stars shift in apparent position vs further away background stars over many orbits of the Earth around the sun, over time, using the Hubble telescope and basic optics effects to add extra precise location sensitivity)

Ergo -- therefore without any theory, using only geometry and observation, it's immediately implied result is the galaxy is far older than 10,000 years old (even before we use other types of understanding to better learn just how old it really is).

He responded with this far-out theory: God made it all not so long ago (6,000 something years), with the light already traveling through space as if it was far older.

To which I realized I could only say ".......Ok".

I mean, I'm not going to be able to get him to read 100 astronomy articles over years of time, do some observations with telescopes, and really get how real this all is. I started to wonder: why does it even matter what he wants to believe about these kinds of small detailed theory, so long as he doesn't force it onto others, doesn't insist it's equal to God (doesn't say his theory is God)? The main danger of preaching some odd creationist theory in schools is that it won't stand up to much scrutiny later, and you end up having as it were substituted (accidentally) an crude painting in place of the awesome, overwhelming wonder and awe of the real thing God has made when He made physics itself, the Universe, all at once as it were, unfolding like a flower from a seed ever since.

So if I understand you correct, you are saying, "let people make their assertions. So what."
OK. I need a new topic.

 

[nPeace]

Since the VAST majority of people who believe in a creator god ALSO believe in the theory of evolution, the notion that evolution is used to discredit Christianity is rather absurd. The only ones who feel threatened by the notion of evolution are the ignorant fools who completely ignore reality and insist that the Earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old.

Gee. I wonder who feels "threatened by the notion of evolution".
I don't think those who "insist that the Earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old", are fools. They might be misled, but fools?
Surely, you don't think that of scientists who work out things to the best of their ability... even though wrong.
How often have we humans been wrong? Does that make humans fools?

You sound quite . Reminds me of Dawkins... Only, he turns red.

 

[exchemist]

All the reasons that I’ve seen for thinking that all life on earth has a common ancestry in one original species, look to me like they can be explained by lateral gene transfer and parallel evolution.

I discussed one example of researchers rejecting the idea of a single original species here:

Histories of life: tree, web and ring models

I don't see that in the link. They are talking about horizontal gene transfer as an alternative pathway for evolutionary change. But this is all about DNA, still. So the populations of organisms taking part still have the same basic biochemistry - indeed they must do or HGT would not work.

The article does not seem to me to suggest any reasons for thinking that that life on Earth came from more than one original life form. For that, one would need evidence that there are traces of more than one fundamental biochemistry in the life we see today.

It seems quite likely to me that there may have been more than one biochemistry floating around at the beginning. But the biochemical evidence suggests that if that did happen, one became predominant - and probably "ate" all the others to get the nutrients.

 

[lukethethird]

Respectfully, and I can't know this for a fact that my way is correct, but I interpret stories and scriptures as containing an element of metaphor. I'm willing to believe the Adam and Eve story is 50-99% metaphor. And if you were to ask me if I do the same to Hinduism, I do.... for example, I like that Krishna is depicted as being blue, because it helps me to look at pictures and determine who is being depicted, but I tend to think it's metaphor and that he may not have actually been blue.

He's blue.

 

[lukethethird]

I have not seen any atheists use evolution to attempt to prove that God does not exist. I have only seen it used to refute a literal translation of Genesis. Refuting Genesis is not debunking God. Now some creationists do feel that way, but there are many possible versions of God. Just because one person's favorite version has been debunked does not mean that all versions have been debunked.

So many versions, so little time.

 

[Etritonakin]

There's even more than two sides.

Too often, the discussions get framed as if there are only two sides. Even ignoring the creation mythos of other world religions, there are more perspectives on the relationship between biological evolution and Biblical origin mythos than "100% evolution" and "100% Biblical creation." There are other perspectives that integrate the two together. When surveys are done about acceptance of evolution and Biblical creation mythos, the number of respondents accepting evolution goes up when the answers also allow them to affirm their reverence of God or the role their god has in evolution.

See - How Highly Religious Americans View Evolution Depends on How They’re Asked About It

Agreed, but when there is "controversy" (in my experience) it usually involves people who believe something in particular about Genesis.

 

[Etritonakin]

What's logical about throwing creationism in with evolution. We have evidence for the latter, but not the former. Logical would be to go with that for which we have evidence.



That doesn't matter. Science has no duty to rule anything out. It simply accounts for observations.

A rational skeptic doesn't wait for disproof to not believe that which is unsupported by evidence. Nobody's ever disproven the existence of vampires or leprechauns. It would be irrational to believe in such entities without evidence, a kind of thinking called faith-based thinking.



Science is looking at reality and attempting to account for its objects and processes in ways that allow us to successfully predict outcomes. If no evidence for a creator arises, none will be hypothesized.

But there are people looking for god in nature - the intelligent design movement - and its exactly that that makes it pseudoscience. They have started with a premise, almost certainly false, and examine reality through the prism of that belief, which exactly how science shouldn't be done. It is to avoid that that medical studies are double-blinded, meaning neither the patient reporting symptoms nor the clinicians evaluating patients know which patients got the therapy being studied and which got placebo.

The ID people are looking for a god, and so see one where there is no supporting evidence. How many times have they offered some complex biological system as evidence of irreducible complexity just to be shown that they were wrong again. Pseudoscience, with zero hope of generating any evidence of supporting a god if there is none, no doubt why the research to date has been sterile, just as research to show that the stars guide our lives would be sterile.. Good science is done without preconceptions.



I do. Public schools are not out there to teach creationism. The teach academic subject - liberal arts - and a smattering of other things like physical education and shop. Sunday school and home are where religion is taught.



There is no controversy there in science. Science isn't dug in. Religion is. Scientists have to be open-minded and revise their conclusions, which are always tentative and amenable to new evidence, whenever new evidence requires such a revision a modification of the narrative that unifies all relevant findings. Not all scientists are that true to best scientific practices, but the collective will always do just that.

Theologians don't. They are the definition of closed-minded, meaning that no evidence could change their position. That's not surprising, since they didn't come to that position using evidence -just faith - and we wouldn't expect evidence to move them from their faith-based beliefs. These people will tell you as much:

[1] The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, "What would change your minds?" Scientist Bill Nye answered, "Evidence." Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, "Nothing. I'm a Christian." Elsewhere, Ham stated, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

Clear enough?

[2] "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig

Same thing. Nothing can budge this guy, and he's telling you so.

[3] “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Is this something to be proud of? I'm sure he thinks so. He's virtue signalling to other believers how strong his faith is, but I get a different message. This is bad thinking.

[4] "As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate." – Kurt Wise, YEC and geologist.

OK. Evidence can't pierce this mind, either. That is the very definition of closed-mindedness, Nye was the only open-minded person named, and the only non-Christian. Here's another example of what open-mindedness looks like:

"I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god, and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Super Bowl and turns all the nachos into loaves and fishes, well, I'll think ... "Oh, look at that. I was wrong. There he is. My bad. Praise the Lord." - Bill Maher

So, no. Both sides are not closed-minded - just the faith-based thinkers.



It speaks mountains that they usually attack evolution rather than give pro-creationism arguments, which are fallacious when given, such as that the world seems too complex to them to have arisen without an intelligent designer (incredulity fallacy), the scientists have never disproven creationism, so there must be a god (ignorance fallacy), but how this god can exist undesigned and uncreated is waved away with a hand because god transcends reason and physics and has always existed (special pleading). Also, there is no evidence for macroevolution (wrong), and the odds of even one protein forming are astronomical (Hoyle's fallacy). Notice that even here, it's mostly attacking science without providing evidence for a creator.

I wasn't personally referring to creation"ism" -and also said the controversy is pointless.
I was referring to education, overall -not, say, teaching creationism (or even creation) in a science class -though there might be a time to point out to students that science does not know whether or not creative activity was involved in the grand scheme of things -or a time for discussion about whether extreme purposeful complexity might indicate creative activity -whether by God or otherwise.
Our own example does show that certain things are not possible without it -so the subject should not be taboo.In itself, it is not unscientific at all. There might also be a time in a religious class where it should be pointed out that scientific discovery cannot be discounted based on a few words in scripture (which itself points out the possibility for misinterpretation of human language).

One interesting thing to think about in the meantime is that intelligent design (broadest sense) has certainly affected life on Earth -though "on-the-fly" in the case of human activity. It's a thing that happens just as certainly as evolution happens -it's just a matter of when/at what point/at what level.

 

[lukethethird]

It looks to me like from the time of Darwin, sometimes people have tried to use evolution theories to discredit Christianity or some Christian beliefs.

This is how conspiracy theories get started.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Gee. I wonder who feels "threatened by the notion of evolution".
I don't think those who "insist that the Earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old", are fools. They might be misled, but fools?
Surely, you don't think that of scientists who work out things to the best of their ability... even though wrong.
How often have we humans been wrong? Does that make humans fools?

You sound quite . Reminds me of Dawkins... Only, he turns red.

Gee. I wonder who feels "threatened by the notion of evolution".

I don't know... certainly not me. How about you?

I don't think those who "insist that the Earth is between 6 and 10 thousand years old", are fools. They might be misled, but fools?

There's nothing wrong with being ignorant. But if you have plenty of opportunity to educate yourself and you refuse to, then you're a fool.

Surely, you don't think that of scientists who work out things to the best of their ability... even though wrong.
How often have we humans been wrong? Does that make humans fools?

Again, absolutely nothing wrong with being uneducated... but if you continue to be willfully ignorant even after being educated then you're a fool.

You sound quite . Reminds me of Dawkins... Only, he turns red.

Funny, because I'm not angry in the least. Perhaps you just listen as if you're just waiting to be insulted.

 

[Jim]

It seems quite likely to me that there may have been more than one biochemistry floating around at the beginning. But the biochemical evidence suggests that if that did happen, one became predominant - and probably "ate" all the others to get the nutrients.

It seems like an unnecessary limiting assumption to me that the one that became predominant only appeared in one place.

 

[Jim]

I discussed one example of researchers rejecting the idea of a single original species here:

Histories of life: tree, web and ring models

I don't see that in the link. They are talking about horizontal gene transfer as an alternative pathway for evolutionary change. But this is all about DNA, still. So the populations of organisms taking part still have the same basic biochemistry - indeed they must do or HGT would not work.

The article does not seem to me to suggest any reasons for thinking that that life on Earth came from more than one original life form. For that, one would need evidence that there are traces of more than one fundamental biochemistry in the life we see today.

It seems quite likely to me that there may have been more than one biochemistry floating around at the beginning. But the biochemical evidence suggests that if that did happen, one became predominant - and probably "ate" all the others to get the nutrients.

I’m not saying that they’re rejecting the idea of a common ancestry, and now I see that “rejecting” is not right word. Some of them, possibly most of them are seeing the LUCA as possibly being a pool of cells which would not be a species by any definition. I don’t see any reason to think that there could not have been a multitude of pools with the same biochemistry, at different times and places, but even if there was only one, it was not a species.

 

[Jim]

we do not need a lot of research, i think. I would say a mirror and a visit to the ape area in the next zoo, should suffice

anyway, before even starting addressing common descent, you should first settle this, i think. For, if we and gorilla do not share a common ancestor, then common descent is immediately defeated. And to address our common ancestry with gorillas is much simpler, since it happened much more recently.

I don’t have any objection to common ancestry as a hypothesis in research. I do have an objection to depreciating people who don’t believe it, and using it as an argument against their beliefs.