The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[Aupmanyav]

When one studies particles, 'where they come from' also is part of the study. Can one study atoms without going into sub-atomic particles?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

More gooblygook to avoid getting to any real answers.

I did give you an answer. That answer was that it is unclear if your statement is accurate, because it gets fuzzy at the quantum level.
It gets even more fuzzy at the very start of the universe itself, since causality is necessarily temporal, and temporal conditions are an integral part of the universe. Meaning that talking about "before" the universe is very much like talking about "north of the north pole". It doesn't make much sense.

In summary: you can't demonstrate that statement, and there are very good reasons to think the statement isn't universally true.

You don't know the why or the how. It's ok to admit it.

I'm not the one who's pretending to know. That would be you.
I have no problems at all to "admit" that I don't know things that are currently unknown.

Your use of the word "admit", btw, is very telling also. As if it is a "bad" thing, as if one has to be ashamed of it.

How about simply "acknowledge"?

The origins of the universe are currently unknown.
I don't pretend to know. You do.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Of course... I see God's artistic work everywhere... Took a drive today to admire the ice frosted trees shining in the Sun. There's no reason for such diversity and order and beauty in an accidental world.

Except simple laws of physics.
And a subjective opinion.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Of course... I see God's artistic work everywhere... Took a drive today to admire the ice frosted trees shining in the Sun. There's no reason for such diversity and order and beauty in an accidental world.

You really have trouble differentiating demonstrable with just that you believe something. I believe things too, but I know the difference.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Except simple laws of physics.

Which don't require artistry and beauty.

 

[Wildswanderer]

You really have trouble differentiating demonstrable with just that you believe something. I believe things too, but I know the difference.

You would never look at a painting and decide there's was no artist involved. Even a rather poorly done painting. The complexity and diversity of nature is almost beyond comprehension and yet people want to say it just happened by a fluke. It would make a great comedy routine to mock evolution beliefs. When you boil them down to their essence, they make Hansel and Gretel seem like a documentary.

 

[gnostic]

Sigh. Because we exist.
Everything happens because of a former cause, yes?

Yes, we do exist.

And yes, there is cause - the cause is “natural processes” and you exist because the process involves “reproduction” and “childbirth”.

There are no supernatural cause to reproduction, like no divine interventions, no divine miracles and no baby-carrying storks.

And it required no god for a man to impregnate a woman, and humans have done so for hundreds of thousands of years, having children.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You would never look at a painting and decide there's was no artist involved. Even a rather poorly done painting. The complexity and diversity of nature is almost beyond comprehension and yet people want to say it just happened by a fluke. It would make a great comedy routine to mock evolution beliefs. When you boil them down to their essence, they make Hansel and Gretel seem like a documentary.

This is and old and widely refuted argument. You have an argument from ignorance and incredulity coupled with the fact that we know people create things. I do not know that science is used to claim that existence happened by a fluke. Now we can add straw man to your list of skills.

Nothing that cannot be verified objectively with evidence is a documentary of facts.

That you cannot conceive something is not evidence that something is false.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You would never look at a painting and decide there's was no artist involved. Even a rather poorly done painting. The complexity and diversity of nature is almost beyond comprehension and yet people want to say it just happened by a fluke. It would make a great comedy routine to mock evolution beliefs. When you boil them down to their essence, they make Hansel and Gretel seem like a documentary.

I am also fairly sure that Hansel and Gretel comment qualifies as false equivalence in logic.

 

[Aupmanyav]

You would never look at a painting and decide there's was no artist involved. Even a rather poorly done painting. The complexity and diversity of nature is almost beyond comprehension and yet people want to say it just happened by a fluke. It would make a great comedy routine to mock evolution beliefs. When you boil them down to their essence, they make Hansel and Gretel seem like a documentary.

Life itself is a fluke. MIT said the optimal level of carbon di-oxide is 280 ppm, and the danger level is 430 ppm. In 2021 we were at 416 ppm globally. So, say your prayers.

 

[Aupmanyav]

There are no supernatural cause to reproduction, like no divine interventions, no divine miracles and no baby-carrying storks.

Sometimes there is, take the famous case of Jesus.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I do not know that science is used to claim that existence happened by a fluke.

What do you call it when the universe supposedly exists due to an unguided process that has no explanation for it's existence?

 

[Wildswanderer]

And yes, there is cause - the cause is “natural processes” and you exist because the process involves “reproduction” and “childbirth”.

This is just kicking the can up the road and not very far.
Explanations of the how never explains the why.

Natural processes have to have an origin btw. Order cannot come from chaos. Or rather life from non life. If it can't be observed it's not science.

 

[metis]

If everything has to have a cause, then what caused God(s)? If one says that God(s) didn't have a cause, then they've defeated their own position. Thus, either way there had to be always a Something.

Material items, whether they be subatomic particles or mega-matter, interreact with each other, and through this inter-reaction different compounds emerge, and that's called "evolution".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Which don't require artistry and beauty.

No clue what you mean by that.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You would never look at a painting and decide there's was no artist involved. Even a rather poorly done painting.

Because we already know what a painting is, what paint is, what a canvas is and how it originates.
And we can demonstrate it as well.

The complexity and diversity of nature is almost beyond comprehension

Arguments of incredulity / awe are fallacious.
Having said that, how complex something is, has zero bearing on it being designed or not.

There are things that are extremely simple that are designed and there are things that are extremely complex that aren't.

How complex something is, just by itself, doesn't speak to how it originated.

and yet people want to say it just happened by a fluke

Nobody says that. Creationist misrepresent people like that all the time though. You seem no exception.

It would make a great comedy routine to mock evolution beliefs.

You can make great comedy routines about anything if you're a good comedian.
Off course, some subjects are easier then others... for example

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What do you call it when the universe supposedly exists due to an unguided process that has no explanation for it's existence?

Maybe it's a fluke. Maybe it's inevitable.
The thing about not having an explanation, is that it is unknown.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Explanations of the how never explains the why.

What "why"?

Natural processes have to have an origin btw.

Not really. Natural processes are things that inevitably happen due to the properties of matter, energy and space-time. That determines how they interact and affect one another.

The process of evolution for example, requires no "creating". Evolution instead, inevitably occurs whenever you have systems that reproduce with variation and which are in competition with peers over limited resources in an ever changing environment.

Put such systems together and evolution automatically occurs. Inevitably.
Either the whole thing breaks down and all systems go extinct, or the systems evolve over time.

Order cannot come from chaos. Or rather life from non life. If it can't be observed it's not science.

Atoms were being split before anyone ever was able to observe an atom.
Plenty of things observable today weren't observable before. But that didn't stop us from discovering them anyway.

 

[gnostic]

Sometimes there is, take the famous case of Jesus.

There are also cases of other demigods, like with Heracles (Hercules) and Polydeuces (Pollux) and his more famous sister Helen of Sparta, being children of Zeus and more mortal women.

And then there are few demigods, whose mothers were of divine sources and the men were mortals, like Achilles son of Thetis, Aeneas son of Aphrodite, or the Sumerian/Akkadian hero Bilgames/Gilgamesh whose mother was the goddess Ninsun.

There are literally hundreds of demigods in Greek myths, so Jesus’ debatable semi-divine origin was hardly original.

 

[gnostic]

The problem with Jesus being the “son of God”, may well be acceptable in Christian theology, which btw were probably influenced by foreign pagan religions, eg Hellenistic Greek theology, but in Judaism, such religious concept of Jesus being of part god and part mortal, to be blasphemy.