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What we mean by "there is no evidence for theism"

AlexanderG

Active Member
No... I haven't seen any answers.... what I have seen is a proposition of a possible response to your own construct and then destroying your own answer.

So... what part of this question did you not understand or I wasn't clear enough
"If you look at creation, one person can look at it and say "it is random" and another can look at it and say "It is a creation that dictates there is an author"... who can say which of the two is correct?"

Did you just not like my answer? I said, given two alternative explanatory models that are equally sufficient to explain a phenomenon, the one that can make novel testable predictions that are then confirmed is the better one. That is how you can give evidence for one explanation being more correct than the others.

If you're asking how I can show which explanation is metaphysically correct, then that's not in the scope of the discussion.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Great answer... and a correct answer to my question. (Apparently it was understandable)

But what is the hypothesis that explains it.
The hypothesis you provided was "it is random." I suppose that would be one possibility.

I would say that the reality of how the universe came to be how it is now is more complex than can be expressed in a single sentence.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Great answer... and a correct answer to my question. (Apparently it was understandable)

But what is the hypothesis that explains it.


A philosophical principle identified by 13th Century Franciscan Friar William of Ockham. Essentially, when presented with competing hypotheses, select the one with the least number of assumptions.

Yet another principle from the philosophy of science, not too well understood by many of those who quote it.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
What part of science do I ignore? You can make testable predictions that a phenomenon will occur in the future. You can also make testable predictions that, if a certain explanation for the phenomenon is X, then we will see certain results in the future if we run a certain new test. Both work just fine. Cosmic microwave background radiation is indirect evidence for the big bang, which was predicted before it was observed, and therefore supported the big bang model.

I said, to repeat, that science does not work by theory->experiment alone but often by observation->repeated observation->testable hypothesis.
 

Link

Veteran Member
Premium Member
2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists." Definitions are not evidence. They describe our thoughts about abstract ideas in our heads. This is imagination. Nothing tethers it to the actual facts of reality.

This is a misunderstanding on your part. It's not defining it that makes it so, defining just helps us recognize characteristics. If morality is from God, why wouldn't it prove him? If God is the Necessary being, why wouldn't that suffice as a proof of himself? Here, I'm saying what if. I've made many arguments over the years as to why morality is from God but I'm saying if it is, why wouldn't it be proof of him?

If we are defined in God's vision, who we are, why wouldn't the fact we are defined in his vision be a means of recalling he exists?

As for the ontological argument, it shows God can't exist in imagination or that imagination is more then what we think since it sees the real being. We exist in our own imagination, but don't say we don't exist.

Either it's impossible a Necessary being exist logically or one definitely does, but there is real no escaping that God would be a necessary being, so I don't see why it would not prove him if he is.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

The scientific method outputs evidence that can support one predictive model while excluding that model's explanatory competitors. A "model" is a conceptual framework about how some aspect of reality works. Evidence is provided when a new prediction made by a model, that no one has tested before, is subsequently tested and confirmed to be accurate. A supported model is more likely to be objectively true than the unsupported models, but note that there is no "proof" or "truth" or metaphysical certainty. It simply has demonstrated that it reflects a deeper understanding of some part of reality.

In science, a very very supported model, which has made many new and accurate predictions, becomes a "theory." While every model is imperfect and has explanatory boundaries, the fact that they can predict things we don't know yet about reality is the hallmark of science and the method guiding its discoveries about the facts of reality. This is why we have airplanes, computers, and medicine today.

So far, theism as a model, as a conceptual framework about reality, has no evidence to support its accurate correspondence to reality. It also has no supporting evidence produced by the scientific method, and so it can't be meaningfully distinguished from the infinite array of other false imaginary models that don't accurately describe or correspond to reality. It could still be true, just like any of the other imaginary models have a tiny chance to be true, but that is a useless possibility because it is functionally zero. Theism in general isn't even a predictive model, just a post hoc sufficient explanation of the things we already knew; its various forms don't typically rise to the level of a testable hypothesis.

From everything I've ever seen, forms of evidence that theists propose are unreliable and/or fallacious. A fallacy is a way of reasoning, identified by logicians, that reliably leads to false conclusions. Another way to say this is that the arguments are not valid in logical structure, or the premises are not sound because they cannot be demonstrated. Here are some common argument forms proposed as evidence by theists, which are in fact not evidence:

1. "I believe that the book is true because the book says it contains perfect truth, and says it cannot be wrong." This is circular reasoning, a fallacy. It is not evidence because any other contradictory book making similar claims is equally supported.

2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists." Definitions are not evidence. They describe our thoughts about abstract ideas in our heads. This is imagination. Nothing tethers it to the actual facts of reality.

3. "We don't have an explanation for X. I can imagine a thing G that, if it existed, would sufficiently explain X. Therefore this is evidence for G." This is not evidence, but a fallacy called the Argument from Ignorance. For any phenomenon, there are an infinite number of explanations we could propose that would sufficiently explain the phenomenon. The proposal by itself, of any one of these infinite explanations, is not evidence.

4. "I just can't imagine how life could arise without a guiding intelligence. A supernatural creator feels like the most probable explanation." This is an Argument from Incredulity, a fallacy. Your failure of imagination is not evidence, nor is your imagination evidence for reality. If you have an idea for an explanation, you need to show that it corresponds to reality with specific supporting evidence.

5. "I intuitively feel that god exists," or "I don't know how I would get out bed each morning if I didn't believe in god," or "I'm afraid of dying and god gives me hope for eternal life." Emotional appeal is not evidence that something is true. Subjective feelings are not evidence. Different people have wildly different and often contradictory emotional needs, intuitions, and hopes, depending on their culture and personality.

6. "Look at how influential religion X has been throughout history," or "look at how many people believe religion X." This is called a bandwagon fallacy. Different popular beliefs hold sway at different times, many of which are contradictory or have been proven factually wrong.

7. "I had an emotional experience at summer camp that one year, that I can't explain, and I know it was god filling me with love." Again, this is an argument from ignorance. Religious indoctrination primes people to interpret emotional feelings a certain way, but this is not evidence because nothing specifically supports this explanation over any other.

8. "We prayed and someone's cancer disappeared" or "I converted and my drug addiction went away." Anecdotes are not evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data. There is a known rate of spontaneous remission for cancer, which occurs regardless of praying or not praying, or the religion of the patient. It occurs at similar rates in animals that have cancer. Likewise, people overcome drug addition through hobbies, marriage, divorce, and many other routes. There is no data that shows religiosity affects these ailments at a higher rather than anything else.

9. "I found a published paper that says light cures cancer, or consciousness is immaterial, or the earth is flat." Every group of experts includes a fringe minority with ideas that are not accepted by the majority consensus of experts in their field. A fringe view is not evidence. Publication of a finding does not make it evidence by itself; rather, the ability of the published finding to persuade the majority consensus of experts in the field is what transforms this finding into scientific evidence. This distinction, and this appeal to the scientific consensus, is often falsely labeled as a fallacious appeal to authority. However, this is only a fallacy when the proposed authority is not an actual authority (e.g. 90% of dentists agree that the Vikings are the best football team).

10. "I just have faith." Any idea can be believed on faith, therefore faith is not a reliable tool to distinguish false ideas from true ideas. Faith in the face of good evidence to the contrary is irrational.

Ok, that's enough for now! Sorry for the long post, but I hope this can be helpful for people. There are a lot of common arguments I didn't include, but they are also fallacious, unreliable methods for distinguishing imagination from reality.

Good post, but the problem is that the people who can understand it already agree, and you can't make the rest understand it. Look at the kinds of responses you're getting. One or two like this one, and many more disagreeing but not making cogent arguments.

The problem is that only a fraction of people ever become accomplished critical thinkers. These are people trained by years of practice to be able to identify and properly interpret evidence, to make and recognize sound arguments, and to identify logical fallacies when present. It's an active form of thinking requiring discipline and effort. Nobody is born able to do it, and most never learn to do it well or at all.

Anyway, that was a nice list of common apologists' fallacies. One I see often following an incredulity argument (that cell looks too complicated to have assembled itself naturalistically, therefore it didn't) with a special pleading fallacy (and therefore God). Why isn't a god too complex to exist undesigned and uncreated? That's different [insert some nonargument such as God transcends these limitations or exists outside of time].

Another is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, wherein similarities are overemphasized and differences ignored or minimalized. These are the argument that basically say, well, the Bible anticipated science by pointing out three things the creation myths have in common with the scientific account, ignoring the four dozen differences that biblical creationism missed or got wrong.

Non sequiturs are big. Where sound thinking gets one to the idea that the universe came to be either naturalistically or supernaturalistically, the faith based thinker just drops one of those from the list of types of candidate hypotheses, converting a sound albeit undecisive conclusion to a non sequitur. Consider Craig's Kalam argument - a great example:

1. “Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.”
2. “The universe began to exist.”
3. “Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.”
4. “If the universe has a cause of its existence, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent.”
5. “Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is “beginningless,” changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent.”


Forget that 1. and 2. aren't established facts (unshared premises). The jump from 3. to 4. is a non sequitur. Wait a minute there, Bill - where did the multiverse go? Why isn't it included as a logical possibility?

And this guy is at the pinnacle of intellectual theism, the best they've got. This is the guy theists believe gives atheists fits. He's their star, their best mind, their Hitchens or Harris. But his argument is so unsound that one wonders what he really knows about the methods of critical thinking. You would never see either Hitchens or Harris make such an argument. Nor you or any of the other proficient critical thinkers here. This is how faith damages thought. Craig has a conclusion that he wants to prove enough that he lets it deform his reasoning. Here's another comment from one of their greatest thinkers. How antithetical to critical thought is this? :

"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
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
The hypothesis you provided was "it is random." I suppose that would be one possibility.

I would say that the reality of how the universe came to be how it is now is more complex than can be expressed in a single sentence.

So true. It is quite complex.

Here is where, IMV, we still deal with viewpoints and not necessarily scientifically. To me, even the words "random" and "complex" seem to be somewhat contradictory (opinion, of course).

So, as I view the same thing, this is what I find:

10 Animals That Have Been Cloned

the capacity to clone requires creativity. Purpose, identity, destiny was created... not by random effort.

Stem cells created with new reprogramming method could help blindness

Stem cell research created with purpose,

for me, and again I say for me, what happened (evolution) isn't the same as (what and what made it happen) are two different things.

Random evolution, IMV, is just a viewpoint. I don't see "randomness" creating purpose, identity and destiny (or consciousness). I see a Creator (even as we create) a more plausible and believable explanation...

But, I'm sure, others can see the same thing and come to a different conclusion.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Did you just not like my answer? I said, given two alternative explanatory models that are equally sufficient to explain a phenomenon, the one that can make novel testable predictions that are then confirmed is the better one. That is how you can give evidence for one explanation being more correct than the others.

If you're asking how I can show which explanation is metaphysically correct, then that's not in the scope of the discussion.
No... i didn't find an answer. Maybe you can rephrase it better?
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
A philosophical principle identified by 13th Century Franciscan Friar William of Ockham. Essentially, when presented with competing hypotheses, select the one with the least number of assumptions.

Yet another principle from the philosophy of science, not too well understood by many of those who quote it.
Interesting and a great reply.
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
"If you look at creation, one person can look at it and say "it is random" and another can look at it and say "It is a creation that dictates there is an author"... who can say which of the two is correct?"
Your example is kind of incorrectly formulated in my opinion, with a potential strawman thrown into it.

The simple answer to your question is that "No one can".

My objection to it, is that the comment "it is random" doesn't represent any interesting view and potentially depending on your intention with it obviously, that this might be a strawman if that is suppose to represent the scientific view, which it is not.

The correct structure of your example, if science is what you refer to would be like this:
"If you look at creation, one person can look at it and say "it is unknown" and another can look at it and say "It is a creation that dictates there is an author"... who can say which of the two is correct?"

Given that there are no evidence supporting that there is an author/creator behind the creation, the first answer is the correct one. The lack of evidence we have, makes it impossible to draw a conclusion and therefore it is unknown at the current point in time and might never be known.

If you weren't referring to science, the comment "it is random" is as correct/incorrect as someone saying that aliens did it.
 
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Nimos

Well-Known Member
Random evolution, IMV, is just a viewpoint. I don't see "randomness" creating purpose, identity and destiny (or consciousness). I see a Creator (even as we create) a more plausible and believable explanation...
Evolution is not random.

Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
At its core, this topic boils down what is meant by "evidence."

I define evidence as "Anything that lets us reliably differentiate between ideas that are merely imaginary, and ideas that accurately describe reality."

So, if you propose some method, framework, or argument as evidence, but that same framework can equally support a contradictory conclusion by replacing some nouns in your argument, then this wouldn't count as evidence. For example, you can propose an eternal necessary god as the ultimate foundation of reality, but I can propose with no more or less evidence an eternal necessary aspect of nature instead, with brute-fact mindless properties that cause it to create the world exactly as we see it.

The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

The scientific method outputs evidence that can support one predictive model while excluding that model's explanatory competitors. A "model" is a conceptual framework about how some aspect of reality works. Evidence is provided when a new prediction made by a model, that no one has tested before, is subsequently tested and confirmed to be accurate. A supported model is more likely to be objectively true than the unsupported models, but note that there is no "proof" or "truth" or metaphysical certainty. It simply has demonstrated that it reflects a deeper understanding of some part of reality.

In science, a very very supported model, which has made many new and accurate predictions, becomes a "theory." While every model is imperfect and has explanatory boundaries, the fact that they can predict things we don't know yet about reality is the hallmark of science and the method guiding its discoveries about the facts of reality. This is why we have airplanes, computers, and medicine today.

So far, theism as a model, as a conceptual framework about reality, has no evidence to support its accurate correspondence to reality. It also has no supporting evidence produced by the scientific method, and so it can't be meaningfully distinguished from the infinite array of other false imaginary models that don't accurately describe or correspond to reality. It could still be true, just like any of the other imaginary models have a tiny chance to be true, but that is a useless possibility because it is functionally zero. Theism in general isn't even a predictive model, just a post hoc sufficient explanation of the things we already knew; its various forms don't typically rise to the level of a testable hypothesis.

From everything I've ever seen, forms of evidence that theists propose are unreliable and/or fallacious. A fallacy is a way of reasoning, identified by logicians, that reliably leads to false conclusions.

1. "I believe that the book is true because the book says it contains perfect truth, and says it cannot be wrong."
2. "I define morality as coming from a god. We have morality. Therefore god exists," or "I define god as existing necessarily, therefore god exists."
3. "We don't have an explanation for X. I can imagine a thing G that, if it existed, would sufficiently explain X. Therefore this is evidence for G."
4. "I just can't imagine how life could arise without a guiding intelligence. A supernatural creator feels like the most probable explanation."
5. "I intuitively feel that god exists," or "I don't know how I would get out bed each morning if I didn't believe in god," or "I'm afraid of dying and god gives me hope for eternal life."
6. "Look at how influential religion X has been throughout history," or "look at how many people believe religion X."
7. "I had an emotional experience at summer camp that one year, that I can't explain, and I know it was god filling me with love.
8. "We prayed and someone's cancer disappeared" or "I converted and my drug addiction went away."
9. "I found a published paper that says light cures cancer, or consciousness is immaterial, or the earth is flat."
10. "I just have faith."

In every argument for or against God, substitute "Santa Claus" or "Fred Flintstone." If you have equally proven that Fred Flintstone is real, you know that your logic is faulty.

It is easy to follow Satan or the wrong God.

Satan rules by

1. Fear
(big bombs, phony orange alerts, fear that North Korea built nukes and missiles to deliver them)

2. Deception (often pretends to fight evil with the power of God...."fightin' the Axis of Evil," tells lies to get us to fight more wars (get Wilson to falsely claiming that Niger sold Iraq yellow-cake Uranium to Iraq...makes war in Iraq and Niger,,,outs Plame as punishment). You can see through deceptions that lead to war because God said "turn the other cheek" and "thou shalt not kill)." Jeb Bush said that he talked to God and God promised him that a hurricane wouldn't hit Florida while he was governor...when it hit, Jeb said that God was killing the trailer trash and leaving the fine people in their mansions (false prophet).

3. Greed (lowers taxes for the rich while ignoring the homeless....says catsup is a vegatable so kids get one less vegetable in their school lunches, fracks for oil next to people's homes with carcinigen oil, drills offshore, gets mammon for destroying God's air (pollution) and increasing global warming, etc).

GOD PUT SATAN IN CHARGE:

As punishment for Adam and Eve tasting the forbidden fruit, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and God put Satan in charge of the earth. So, if prayers of cancer victims go unanswered, it is because Satan is in charge. If you feel euphoric when praying to God, it might be Satan, not God, and if you feel as though Satan is no longer trying to take your soul, it is because you have willingly given your soul to Satan.

WHICH GOD IS THE RIGHT ONE?:

With hundreds of Gods, hundreds of religions, many bibles for each denomination, and contradictions in all of the bibles....which one is God's word? Remember...God is jealous of other Gods.

Heaven's Gate (religious group) - Wikipedia

Do we follow the Jim Jones cult that drank poison Kool Aid? Do we follow Reverend Applewhite's cult (Heaven's Gate cult) that killed themselves to have their souls ride around on the Hale-Bopp comet? (source above).

PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS PROVE THE SUPERNATURAL:

If you believe that predictions come true (and that is rather easy if first you read the prediction, then note that it came true), why not believe that there is some way to see the future and some way to store information? If that is true, maybe God's mind stores information in the same way?

Is belief in psychics the same as tampering in the dark arts? Not if the psychics were sent by God. Since the bible was written after most of the apostles died, the only ways that the author of the bible would know their statements was 1. word of mouth....or 2. psychic devine information from God. Revelation is a chapter of the bible that warns us not to attack Iraq or face God's wrath, and that was written by Saint John the Divine. So, we know that the Christian faith believes in psychics. We just have to be careful to debunk false prophets like Jeb Bush (mentioned above). No one is supposed to pretend to talk on behalf of God (that is blaslpheme) unless God really did want us to speak on his behalf.

When the Bush family (Prescott, and son G. H. W. Bush, and son, President W. Bush) were members of Skull and Bones, they practiced the dark arts. They cast evil spells, they stirred cauldrons of unspeakable filth (eye of newt...not Gingrich, toe of toad, etc). Prescott stole the skeleton of Geronimo, the famous Indian, to perform Satanic rituals with it.

When W. Bush became president, he continued his father's quest into the dark arts with Project MKULTRA (though, under W. Bush, it was in secret, just as illegallly tapping phones of all Americans was illegal (source: google Eric Snowden). It was a part of the Bush family's New World Order that they spoke about so frequently....spy on everyone, and use the dark arts.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Evolution is not random.

Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment.

When the Chixulub meteor wiped out dinosaurs, it wiped out many plants and animals. Inbreeding occurred in the limited population, and that caused mutations. Natural selection acted on those random mutations, selecting the ones that were most suited for the new environment (one devoid of dinosaurs). The result was a boom of new species (called punctuated equilibrium), which occurred must above the K-pg (formerly KT) boundary (a layer of meteor impact sediment marking the date of impact).

To some extent, the new species were random, and in other ways, they had to evolve the way they did. So, if another meteor hit the earth, don't expect exactly the same animals, but expect random variation....but expect adaptation to a new environment.

In America, we have rabbits. In Australia, they have kangaroos, wallabys, and small rodents that evolved to have large ears, very similar to rabbits. Thus, the requirements of nature guide evolution in similar ways. Birds and butterflies are not very closely related, yet both evolved to fly and both evolved to use wings to do it. This is because wings are almost the only way that a creature could fly.

Recently soap jellyfish were identified as the first multicell creatures. We already knew that man-o-war jellyfish gave birth to single-cell organisms that could link together to form a man-o-war jellyfish (each cell could specialize in certain functions....sight, stinging, movement, etc). Once formed into a large creature, the man-o-war could split back into single celled organisms again. Only those of the same birth could combine. Obviously, the jellyfish were the first multicelled creatures.

Scientists were astounded that more primative creatures (like a sponge) were not the first multicelled creatures.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
If the evidence is consistent with both views, then to figure it out conclusively, you'd need something more to choose one view over the other.

As a tentative conclusion in the meantime, Occam's Razor applies: if you have a hypothesis consistent with the evidence that doesn't require an "author," then it wouldn't be reasonable to assume an "author" must exist.

Simplest is correct. That doesn't always apply, but it is a clue.
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
Did you just not like my answer? I said, given two alternative explanatory models that are equally sufficient to explain a phenomenon, the one that can make novel testable predictions that are then confirmed is the better one. That is how you can give evidence for one

Yet people will most likely reject proof when it is given to them anyway.

Leta try this example as to a proof of God.

The only proof of God is God's Messenger and the proof of the Messenger is their own self, their life and then the Message.

So a Messenger arrives gives a Message, what testable proof would you ask for?

Regards Tony
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
The best framework for creating reliable evidence that humans have identified is the scientific method. In particular, novel testable predictions that are tested and confirmed. If you think a different method also works, just demonstrate that and it will become part of science.

That may be so for discovering the Material world, but science also has its limits.

The best framework to understand God is God's Messengers, they are the standard for all that is created.

Regards Tony
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Yet people will most likely reject proof when it is given to them anyway.

Leta try this example as to a proof of God.

The only proof of God is God's Messenger and the proof of the Messenger is their own self, their life and then the Message.

So a Messenger arrives gives a Message, what testable proof would you ask for?

Regards Tony
But you don't have a messenger. All that you have is a guy who says that he is a messenger.
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
When the Chixulub meteor wiped out dinosaurs, it wiped out many plants and animals. Inbreeding occurred in the limited population, and that caused mutations. Natural selection acted on those random mutations, selecting the ones that were most suited for the new environment (one devoid of dinosaurs). The result was a boom of new species (called punctuated equilibrium), which occurred must above the K-pg (formerly KT) boundary (a layer of meteor impact sediment marking the date of impact).

To some extent, the new species were random, and in other ways, they had to evolve the way they did. So, if another meteor hit the earth, don't expect exactly the same animals, but expect random variation....but expect adaptation to a new environment.

In America, we have rabbits. In Australia, they have kangaroos, wallabys, and small rodents that evolved to have large ears, very similar to rabbits. Thus, the requirements of nature guide evolution in similar ways. Birds and butterflies are not very closely related, yet both evolved to fly and both evolved to use wings to do it. This is because wings are almost the only way that a creature could fly.

Recently soap jellyfish were identified as the first multicell creatures. We already knew that man-o-war jellyfish gave birth to single-cell organisms that could link together to form a man-o-war jellyfish (each cell could specialize in certain functions....sight, stinging, movement, etc). Once formed into a large creature, the man-o-war could split back into single celled organisms again. Only those of the same birth could combine. Obviously, the jellyfish were the first multicelled creatures.

Scientists were astounded that more primative creatures (like a sponge) were not the first multicelled creatures.
Very informative thanks, and that jelly fish is rather impressive.

But I still think that one has to be careful with how one use the word "random" and when scientist say that it is not a random process. You are correct that stuff like changes to environment can in many cases be referred to as random. But evolution adapt to these changes in non random ways, meaning that rabbit doesn't suddenly start to develop wings out of the blue, like rolling with a couple of dice to decide what should happen next. Which seems to be what a lot of people make evolution sound out to be, when they call it random.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Your example is kind of incorrectly formulated in my opinion, with a potential strawman thrown into it.

The simple answer to your question is that "No one can".

My objection to it, is that the comment "it is random" doesn't represent any interesting view and potentially depending on your intention with it obviously, that this might be a strawman if that is suppose to represent the scientific view, which it is not.

The correct structure of your example, if science is what you refer to would be like this:
"If you look at creation, one person can look at it and say "it is unknown" and another can look at it and say "It is a creation that dictates there is an author"... who can say which of the two is correct?"

Given that there are no evidence supporting that there is an author/creator behind the creation, the first answer is the correct one. The lack of evidence we have, makes it impossible to draw a conclusion and therefore it is unknown at the current point in time and might never be known.

If you weren't referring to science, the comment "it is random" is as correct/incorrect as someone saying that aliens did it.

Could be wrongly formulated but definitely not intended to by construed as a strawman (although I still don't see one). Was simply trying to formulate a way of saying it.

Perhaps you have added a third option... "unknown"?

Maybe the word "random" wasn't a good word. Open to a better word... "chance"?
 
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