The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[Valjean]

I'm pretty sure all my scriptural arguments have come straight from the scriptures.

No all we need is validation of scriptural authority to use as major premises.

 

[Valjean]

So we are back to mutations being mostly harmful or useless.
We can certainly gain resistance to bacteria or antibodies through exposure though.

Quite so -- and mutation has nothing to do with the process.

 

[Valjean]

You're still deflecting.

OK. Don't cite the evidence. Just say what that evidence is in your own words. If you had any evidence I could google it.

You already know the evidence. It's in high school textbooks, it's in all biology textbooks, periodicals and scientific papers. It's been extensively disccussed here on RF.
It's common knowledge.
TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy -- Browse.

You're still deflecting.

OK. Don't cite the evidence. Just say what that evidence is in your own words. If you had any evidence I could google it.

You can google it, and you know it. You can't google anything biological or paleological without encountering it.
Evidence for evolution (article) | Khan Academy
What is the evidence for evolution? - Common-questions

 

[rrobs]

Why are you quoting scripture?

Because it's there.

 

[rrobs]

What a modern biologist means by genus is not how the ancient Greeks were using the word. Their use of "genus" was neither parallel nor analogous.

How exactly did God use it as opposed to how science uses it?

 

[rrobs]

I don't think a library-long post would be appreciated. I'm not going to give you an entire course.

You learned it in school. It's the basis of every branch of biology. It's basic, elementary, biology and palæontology.
Google. Read an 8th grade textbook. Anything I write would be either insufficient or so voluminous that it wouldn't be read.
A child will always speak the same language as his parents, and his children will speak the some language as him. Yet, somehow, Latin turned to French somewhere along the way. A new language "kind" was born, of accumulated, tiny changes.
...or did It all happen at the Tower of Babbel?

Now we're talking language? I'm having a hard time keeping up.

 

[cladking]

Those finches with the shorter, stronger beaks were fitter to cope with drought conditions and outsurvived and outbred the lighter-beaked ones.

To be relevant to my argument this drought would have needed to last at least half a million years. I agree and would add all change in species is SUDDEN. Every one of the finches with light beaks was 100% fit but were far more likely to die in the changed conditions and every one of the short beaks were 100% fit. "Survival of the fittest" exists only in the minds of believers.

All evolution is sudden. This will be seen one funeral at a time as older biologists die off and younger ones take their place. In time our ToE will be very similar to the ancient ToE which invented agriculture.

 

[rrobs]

I am familiar with your arguments from past attempts to fly them passed vigilant and knowledgeable people. Seems they have not changed that much.

Was pointing out that word usage and argument? What was the argument then?

That's your answer as to how God uses "seed" and "kind" in Genesis?

 

[rrobs]

It is a translation of Hebrew. The translators chose the word, unless you are claiming that every translation is dictated by God.

In science it is used to name the taxonomic category above species.

Evidence of the evolution of new genera has been observed by scientists. A good example is found in the cichlid fauna of Lake Victoria in Africa.

I know that creationists have tried for a very long time to define what kind means and I suspect that you are trying to kick it over the wall and declare that this passage in Genesis is calling kind to be what we recognize as a taxonomic category. Am a I wrong? There is no indication that is what is being done in Genesis. Kind has no scientific meaning. A dog is a kind of canine. It is a kind of mammal. It is a kind of vertebrate. Kind has no distinctive specific value in describing anything other than to denote at least two things are different in some way. A collie and an Afghan hound are two different kinds, but they are dogs.

I think when the Greeks used the word "genus" in Genesis they were advanced enough to realize that a dog was a dog, a cat was a cat, etc. It's not a difficult concept.

 

[Valjean]

Yes!!! Exactly!!! I said it as "visceral knowledge is infinitely more valuable than being right" but however you say it experience is the best teacher.

What the heck is "visceral knowledge" -- a gut feeling? an emotion? familiarity? When have these ever been reliable indicators of truth? People have had "visceral knowledge" for millenia, and when did they ever agree on anything?

Biologists are evolving to believe my theory. Give then another 50 years and Darwin might be as excommunicated as Budge or Mercer.

What 'theory'? A theory is published, tested, observable. I'm still waiting for evidence of this theory.

There is no survival of the fittest because all individuals are fit but we want to believe in survival of the fittest so it still has the upper hand.

Huh?
An individual might be fit within a particular environment at a particular time -- but environments change.

This might last much longer than the nonsense that holds anything happens slowly. All change in all life is observed to be very very sudden. This no doubt applies to change in species as well.

This is just not true. There is no such observation, and there are mountains of evidence for gradual change. Simply declaring something nonsense doesn't make it so. Where is your evidence?

 

[rrobs]

Ah, you don't agree with the idea that creatures get new names after millions of years of evolution after changing their appearance?

So would you like it if I still called you a monkey (scientifically speaking we are specialized monkies), or should I call you a Tiktaalik or perhaps a fish?

While you were in your mother's womb you went through the embryonic shapes that looked very similar to the embryo's of those animals.
Which of course is no coincidence, because you and I descended from them.

So there is nothing amiss with the believability of evolution.

There is evolution within a genus. That is how new species come about and others die off. There are several species within the Feline genus, around 40 or so I believe. However, the feline genus did not come from the canus species.

How believable is your fundamentalist type of religion though?

Accept Jesus as your lord and believe God raised him from the dead. That's how you'll learn the believability of the scriptures. Sorry, I can't do it for you though.

 

[Valjean]

Because it's there.

Would I be justified in quoting The Chronicles of Narnia, the Vedas or the Popol Vuh, then? Would you accept these as authoritative?

How exactly did God use it as opposed to how science uses it?

God did not use it. People used it, claiming to speak for their god, or just proposing an opinion that was later attributed to divine inspiration.

Scientific usage is based on demonstrable descent and genetics.

 

[Marcion]

There is evolution within a genus. That is how new species come about and others die off. There are several species within the Feline genus, around 40 or so I believe. However, the feline genus did not come from the canus species.

Both Felines and Canuses evolved from a common ancestor, and that ancestor has been found in the fossil records.

Accept Jesus as your lord and believe God raised him from the dead. That's how you'll learn the believability of the scriptures. Sorry, I can't do it for you though.

I cannot force you to reject religious dogma. You will have to evolve yourself.

 

[Valjean]

Now we're talking language? I'm having a hard time keeping up.

I'm saying evolution is established science. It's common knowledge. All of biology is based on it and you can't open any book or site involving anything biological without encountering it.

Linguistic change is just an analogy, to help clarify the fact that accumulated, small changes can create a whole different 'animal'. I think the analogy was pretty clear.

There is evolution within a genus. That is how new species come about and others die off. There are several species within the Feline genus, around 40 or so I believe. However, the feline genus did not come from the canus species.

But both radiated from a common ancestor, as fossil and genetic evidence indicates.
For the hundredth time: How does biology know to stop changing at the generic line? What stops the changes, and where are these static species?

 

[Valjean]

To be relevant to my argument this drought would have needed to last at least half a million years. I agree and would add all change in species is SUDDEN. Every one of the finches with light beaks was 100% fit but were far more likely to die in the changed conditions and every one of the short beaks were 100% fit. "Survival of the fittest" exists only in the minds of believers.

All evolution is sudden. This will be seen one funeral at a time as older biologists die off and younger ones take their place. In time our ToE will be very similar to the ancient ToE which invented agriculture.

It was not just drought. The islands have varied environments, climates, and food sources. There were many unfilled ecological niches available, making almost any reproductive variation in body shapes, bills, or behavior 'fit' for some, specific lifestyle.

There were multiple, untapped opportunities. The finches radiated in multiple directions, and, eventually established new species. Had Darwin arrived a million years hence, he'd have found even wider variation, with creatures he'd probably not even recognize as finch descendants.

 

[blü 2]

To be relevant to my argument this drought would have needed to last at least half a million years. I agree and would add all change in species is SUDDEN. Every one of the finches with light beaks was 100% fit but were far more likely to die in the changed conditions and every one of the short beaks were 100% fit. "Survival of the fittest" exists only in the minds of believers.

All evolution is sudden. This will be seen one funeral at a time as older biologists die off and younger ones take their place. In time our ToE will be very similar to the ancient ToE which invented agriculture.

Well, I won't detain you ─ you'll have quite a long letter to write to Nature.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Both Felines and Canuses evolved from a common ancestor, and that ancestor has been found in the fossil records.

No, a few bones have been found from a fisher like animal that someone thinks is the feline and canines ancestor.
Not even a full skeleton.

 

[rrobs]

Both Felines and Canuses evolved from a common ancestor, and that ancestor has been found in the fossil records.

At least that's what they think.

I cannot force you to reject religious dogma. You will have to evolve yourself.

Actually, it's God that evolving me.

2Cor 3:18,

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.
​

 

[rrobs]

For the hundredth time: How does biology know to stop changing at the generic line? What stops the changes, and where are these static species?

Reproduction. Specifically seed.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I think the key word here is "suggests."

An omnipotent God is tradition. There are tons of places in the scriptures themselves that show that God does not know everything nor can He do anything He wants. People have free will and God never knows for sure what any one individual may or may not do. God said He would not do certain things, therefore He does have limits. For example, there is a verse that says God can not lie. That is a limitation, so He is not all powerful as tradition avers.

God gave dominion to humans in Genesis (Gen 1:26). God is not "in control." Actually, if you put things together, you can see that Adam transferred his God given dominion to the devil. He is called the god of this world more than once. When he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world because they were his to give, Jesus didn't argue and tell the devil, "you are not in control of this world." He didn't say that because he knew all too well that the devil is "in charge" of this present world.

If it weren't for Christians introducing light into the devil's dark world, this place would be way worse than it is. It would be intolerable, which pretty much describes what happens after Christians meet Jesus in the air. No more Christians, no more light, and the horrors of the Apocalypse begins.

So all those genes you share with your ancestors don't demonstrate common ancestry, the farther you go back in your family tree?

As I've said many times here, Genesis does allow for evolution within a genus. There are many species within the canis genus and they continue to evolve and add new species, but they all all still in the canis genus.


Not if my "opinion" aligns with the scripture. The correct appellation for that would be "truth."

Who cares what Genesis says about scientific matters?