The flaws in Intelligent design

[Forever_Catholic]

So the next thing I'd like to cover is your earlier claim about a lack of species-species transitional fossils. However, since we've just established that the evolution of new species is actually an observed and documented event, perhaps we should look at the larger picture and whether or not there are transitional fossils between larger groups (e.g., reptiles-mammals, reptiles-birds, primates-humans). What do you prefer?

All of that larger-group stuff is where I get into a problem with the evolution theory. Hybridization between species of the same genus, or even related genera is kind of an all-in-the-family thing. There are groups of both plants and animals where separate species in a genus each have their own taxon, but they can readily interbreed because they all have common ancestry.

Going from reptile to mammal or dog to elephant, etc, is a whole different concept.

 

[Forever_Catholic]

If God is real and cared about me, then god would show up an make me a believer.

I'm certain that God does care about you. He loves every soul and wants each one to believe and love him back, but he doesn't "make" that happen because he wants it to be by their free will.

 

[Jose Fly]

All of that larger-group stuff is where I get into a problem with the evolution theory. Hybridization between species of the same genus, or even related genera is kind of an all-in-the-family thing. There are groups of both plants and animals where separate species in a genus each have their own taxon, but they can readily interbreed because they all have common ancestry.

Going from reptile to mammal or dog to elephant, etc, is a whole different concept.

Understood.

So let's consider the transition from reptile to mammal. Would you agree that if such an evolutionary transition occurred, we would expect to find fossil specimens that show a mixture of reptilian and mammalian traits? Also, would you agree that the overall, general progression among those transitional specimens would be to more mammal-like as we move forward in time?

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

I'm certain that God does care about you. He loves every soul and wants each one to believe and love him back, but he doesn't "make" that happen because he wants it to be by their free will.

Can you prove we have freewill?
God showing up in front of me has nothing to do with freewill.

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Understood.

So let's consider the transition from reptile to mammal. Would you agree that if such an evolutionary transition occurred, we would expect to find fossil specimens that show a mixture of reptilian and mammalian traits? Also, would you agree that the overall, general progression among those transitional specimens would be to more mammal-like as we move forward in time?

Sounds okay so far.

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Can you prove we have freewill?

You can see for yourself that your will is a primary component of your being. Your will is basically the boss that presides over desire and intellect. If God created people pre-wired to believe, love him, and obey his commandments, he'd just have robots. It would be like using a love potion on someone you had a crush on. That would not be reality even if it worked compared to that person loving you as a an act of their free will, would it?

God showing up in front of me has nothing to do with freewill.

It has to do with his own free will in response to yours.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

You can see for yourself that your will is a primary component of your being. Your will is basically the boss that presides over desire and intellect. If God created people pre-wired to believe, love him, and obey his commandments, he'd just have robots. It would be like using a love potion on someone you had a crush on. That would not be reality even if it worked compared to that person loving you as a an act of their free will, would it?


It has to do with his own free will in response to yours.

How do you know that God is real?

 

[Forever_Catholic]

How do you know that God is real?

I know for myself by his response to my prayers. That's where we really get into something that one person can't prove to another. The proof is in the one-on-one interactions with God. And the proof is not generally available as an up-front sort of thing where God must validate himself in advance. On the other hand, he does not require perfection of you. A sincere heart, open mind and at least little trust would be good to start with. A prayer expressing a desire to know him and grow in faith would be good.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You can see for yourself that your will is a primary component of your being. Your will is basically the boss that presides over desire and intellect. If God created people pre-wired to believe, love him, and obey his commandments, he'd just have robots. It would be like using a love potion on someone you had a crush on. That would not be reality even if it worked compared to that person loving you as a an act of their free will, would it?


It has to do with his own free will in response to yours.

Ah, but God could present itself in such a way, so as not to interfere with our free will.

 

[tas8831]

All of that larger-group stuff is where I get into a problem with the evolution theory. Hybridization between species of the same genus, or even related genera is kind of an all-in-the-family thing. There are groups of both plants and animals where separate species in a genus each have their own taxon, but they can readily interbreed because they all have common ancestry.

Going from reptile to mammal or dog to elephant, etc, is a whole different concept.

Cool assertion, yet one that seems rather arbitrary.

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

I know for myself by his response to my prayers. That's where we really get into something that one person can't prove to another. The proof is in the one-on-one interactions with God. And the proof is not generally available as an up-front sort of thing where God must validate himself in advance. On the other hand, he does not require perfection of you. A sincere heart, open mind and at least little trust would be good to start with. A prayer expressing a desire to know him and grow in faith would be good.

So you have to believe in god before god reveals itself.
Would you buy a car without test driving it?
Would you marry a person on the first date?
So why would you believe in a god, without it revealing itself to you?

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Ah, but God could present itself in such a way, so as not to interfere with our free will.

It seems to have become fashionable among atheists to use the "it" pronoun in reference to God. I'm seeing that a lot.

 

[tas8831]

So weird - I posted this in direct response to
Forever and he must have missed it:

Evidence? That's the biggest problem you have in selling the evolution theory -- no evidence to back it up.

I have shared this on this forum probably 10 times when creationists make such silly claims. Creationists generally ignore it, or will do something silly and desperate like google "phylogenetics" and copy-paste part of what they find, highlighting words they think will help their cause. it never does, and then they run off.

I forget now who originally posted these on this forum, but I keep it in my archives because it offers a nice 'linear' progression of testing a methodology and then applying it - I have posted this more than a dozen times for creationists who claim that there is no evidence for evolution:

The tested methodology:

Science 25 October 1991:
Vol. 254. no. 5031, pp. 554 - 558

Gene trees and the origins of inbred strains of mice

WR Atchley and WM Fitch

Extensive data on genetic divergence among 24 inbred strains of mice provide an opportunity to examine the concordance of gene trees and species trees, especially whether structured subsamples of loci give congruent estimates of phylogenetic relationships. Phylogenetic analyses of 144 separate loci reproduce almost exactly the known genealogical relationships among these 24 strains. Partitioning these loci into structured subsets representing loci coding for proteins, the immune system and endogenous viruses give incongruent phylogenetic results. The gene tree based on protein loci provides an accurate picture of the genealogical relationships among strains; however, gene trees based upon immune and viral data show significant deviations from known genealogical affinities.

======================

Science, Vol 255, Issue 5044, 589-592

Experimental phylogenetics: generation of a known phylogeny

DM Hillis, JJ Bull, ME White, MR Badgett, and IJ Molineux
Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.

Although methods of phylogenetic estimation are used routinely in comparative biology, direct tests of these methods are hampered by the lack of known phylogenies. Here a system based on serial propagation of bacteriophage T7 in the presence of a mutagen was used to create the first completely known phylogeny. Restriction-site maps of the terminal lineages were used to infer the evolutionary history of the experimental lines for comparison to the known history and actual ancestors. The five methods used to reconstruct branching pattern all predicted the correct topology but varied in their predictions of branch lengths; one method also predicts ancestral restriction maps and was found to be greater than 98 percent accurate.

==================================

Science, Vol 264, Issue 5159, 671-677

Application and accuracy of molecular phylogenies

DM Hillis, JP Huelsenbeck, and CW Cunningham
Department of Zoology, University of Texas, Austin 78712.

Molecular investigations of evolutionary history are being used to study subjects as diverse as the epidemiology of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and the origin of life. These studies depend on accurate estimates of phylogeny. The performance of methods of phylogenetic analysis can be assessed by numerical simulation studies and by the experimental evolution of organisms in controlled laboratory situations. Both kinds of assessment indicate that existing methods are effective at estimating phylogenies over a wide range of evolutionary conditions, especially if information about substitution bias is used to provide differential weightings for character transformations.



We can hereby ASSUME that the results of an application of those methods have merit.


Application of the tested methodology:

Implications of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonymous DNA identity between humans and chimpanzees: Enlarging genus Homo

"Here we compare ≈90 kb of coding DNA nucleotide sequence from 97 human genes to their sequenced chimpanzee counterparts and to available sequenced gorilla, orangutan, and Old World monkey counterparts, and, on a more limited basis, to mouse. The nonsynonymous changes (functionally important), like synonymous changes (functionally much less important), show chimpanzees and humans to be most closely related, sharing 99.4% identity at nonsynonymous sites and 98.4% at synonymous sites. "



Mitochondrial Insertions into Primate Nuclear Genomes Suggest the Use of numts as a Tool for Phylogeny

"Moreover, numts identified in gorilla Supercontigs were used to test the human–chimp–gorilla trichotomy, yielding a high level of support for the sister relationship of human and chimpanzee."



A Molecular Phylogeny of Living Primates

"Once contentiously debated, the closest human relative of chimpanzee (Pan) within subfamily Homininae (Gorilla, Pan, Homo) is now generally undisputed. The branch forming the Homo andPanlineage apart from Gorilla is relatively short (node 73, 27 steps MP, 0 indels) compared with that of thePan genus (node 72, 91 steps MP, 2 indels) and suggests rapid speciation into the 3 genera occurred early in Homininae evolution. Based on 54 gene regions, Homo-Pan genetic distance range from 6.92 to 7.90×10−3 substitutions/site (P. paniscus and P. troglodytes, respectively), which is less than previous estimates based on large scale sequencing of specific regions such as chromosome 7[50]. "

​

Your turn.​

Yet he keeps saying there is no evidence....

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Cool assertion, yet one that seems rather arbitrary.

What's arbitrary about related species vs unrelated species?

 

[Timothy Spurlin]

I know for myself by his response to my prayers. That's where we really get into something that one person can't prove to another. The proof is in the one-on-one interactions with God. And the proof is not generally available as an up-front sort of thing where God must validate himself in advance. On the other hand, he does not require perfection of you. A sincere heart, open mind and at least little trust would be good to start with. A prayer expressing a desire to know him and grow in faith would be good.

All you have is subjective experience from your mind about god.
How do you prove your god is real?

 

[SkepticThinker]

It seems to have become fashionable among atheists to use the "it" pronoun in reference to God. I'm seeing that a lot.

Um okay. That's your response to what I said?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not sure what you want to bait me into here, but I'll bite for now -- Yes, he is just. A just judge.

Then that should answer your previous question. A just God would not condemn people where he did not make his existence clear.

ETA: You earlier claimed that you were only aware of Francis' support of the theory of evolution. I showed that it goes back to at least Pius XII. He did not openly embrace it but he said it did not conflict with Catholic belief. John Paul II was the first to fully accept it. Francis merely made it clearer. When one looks logically at the Genesis myth it portrays God as incompetent and evil if taken literally. It harms Christianity, it does not strengthen it.

Once more a link:

Catholic Church and evolution - Wikipedia

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Yet he keeps saying there is no evidence....

Do you think this stuff is conclusive enough to validate the theory?

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Um okay. That's your response to what I said?

Alright, God could present Himself in such a way, so as not to interfere with our free will. He surely could. Apparently he does on a case-by-case basis. Many people have reported having had miraculous conversion experiences, but none of them were in a state of denial at the time. None of them reported calling him an "it" at the time.

 

[Forever_Catholic]

Then that should answer your previous question. A just God would not condemn people where he did not make his existence clear.

I don't recall asking or seeing that question. But now that I know where you're coming from -- according to Catholic teaching, no one is held accountable by God for things beyond their control or knowledge. That does not mean that ignorance of God is any fault of His.