Thoughts about Darwinian evolution [Archive]

Eriol

03-31-2003, 06:54 PM

(prompted by Elendil3119)

I'm not sure whether the GOP is the right place for this... but it may be a respite from war-related matters.

Recently, in the “God, Religion, and the Burning Questions” thread, the question of Darwinian evolution and its compatibility with Christian doctrine was raised. As I feel this is subject is in a confused state basically because of the ideology of the two sides of the controversy, I decided to post some thoughts about it in the hope that it will spur discussion.

First, my stand on it: I am Christian, and I believe the Bible is the revealed Word of God. I am also a biologist, and think Darwinian Evolution is as proved as any other well-known, established scientific theory. Obviously, I don’t see any contradiction between these two statements.

I will here offer some defintions and explanations about Darwinian evolution.

Darwinian Evolution is a scientific theory. This says a lot about its epistemological status (“epistemological” means, roughly, “the study of our knowledge”, so that I am talking about the relationship between this piece of knowledge and other pieces of knowledge. This is opposed to its ontological status – “ontology” means “the study of what is”, of is-ness. Sorry about the big words).

So. A scientific theory is not a fact. On the other hand, a scientific theory is not unrelated to facts, an abstraction. A scientific theory is an explanation for the observed facts. There are three clearly different kinds of knowledge at work:

1) Abstractions – this is related to things we cannot see (by any of our bodily senses), as opposed to “concrete” things. This may sound as if abstractions were vague and lacking in existence, but they clearly are not like that. Examples of abstractions include numbers (have you ever seen “four”, as opposed to the letters that denote it, or the symbol “4”?), good/evil, etc.

2) Facts – These are, in common language, related to things that we can see. Of course we know that it is a “fact” that 2+2=4, and the technical language for the other kind of facts, facts that are seen by our senses, is “phenomenon”. But we say in common language things such as “It’s a fact that I am typing this right now”, “It’s a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow as it did today”, or “it’s a fact that Saddam Hussein is an evil man”. Note the different status of these three assertions: the first is an “existential proposition”, a fact about myself that I can apprehend immediately, without any intervening external concepts; the second is a fact about the physical world, apprehended by observation, and flawed in its explanation (for the sun does not “rise”, it is the earth that moves – this may sound as nit-picking, but it shows that a “fact” is not as clear-cut as an abstraction, as “2+2=4”); and the third is an assertion about an abstraction that is completely out of my grasp, and can only be perceived mediately, i.e., with the observation of the associated behavior – I see Hussein’s behavior, and I conclude that he is evil, but I do not “see” his evilness in any definite way... and ultimately I can be wrong, unlike “2+2=4” or “the earth is moving” or “I am here typing this”.

3) Theories – These, as said before, are explanations of facts, in terms of cause and effect. “Why does the sun appear to move around the earth once every day?” asks someone. Theory answers: “It gives that impression because the Earth is revolving around its own axis every 24 hours”. Theory, in this sense, is always provisory, and never as definite as “2+2=4”; this means theory is not liable to absolute proof. However, this does not mean that theory is useless or weak just because it can’t be proven. An apple falls (fact); will it fall again tomorrow (theory)? If it does, will it fall in the same way (acceleration, velocity, etc.) (theory)? We don’t know for sure, as we know that 2+2=4. It may well happen that the Law of Gravity changes tomorrow. This is of course the standard example of “scientific certainty”, the law of gravity – it is such a strong example that it is called “a law”. But it is only a scientific theory, explaining the processes behind the attraction of masses. It says that the moon goes around the earth because it is attracted by it. It says that the system moon-Earth goes around the Sun because it is attracted by it. And so on...

Please observe that the word “theory” is used in common language to express a lesser kind of knowledge, a provisional knowledge. If you say that the sun will rise tomorrow, no one says “That’s only a theory”, although it certainly is; This expression, “That’s only a theory”, is reserved to denote a more speculative kind of knowledge in common language, what would be technically called an hypothesis. In science, “a theory” is as strong as the Theory of Gravity. Explanations with lesser certainty are called hypotheses.

So, after this prelude (whew!), I can address Evolution proper.

Long posts are a result of my infrequent posting of late... but of course that’s just a theory :)

Darwinian Evolution is a Scientific Theory composed of two main hypotheses:

1) Populations of living beings change over time, and these changes are transmitted to their descendants. Over enormous amounts of time, this process (called Evolution) can explain ALL of the variety in the biological realm;

2) The major (though not the only one) mechanism for this Evolutionary Process is what was called by Darwin Natural Selection. This means that changes appear randomly, and that over a process akin to what breeders all over the world know in improving their stocks (dog, cattle, etc.), the best changes (meaning: those changes that lead to a greater reproductive success) will become established in the population.

This, in a nutshell, is the Darwinian Theory of Evolution. When Darwin wrote his famous book, The Origin of Species (1859), these were rightly regarded as hypotheses. What is its status today? And how does science “test” theories outside of the laboratory ? (the “scientific method” most people know about, involving experimentation, is useless in this case, as in many others)

A theory of this kind is tested by checking the evidence available and seeing if it can be contradicted by any evidence. Regarding hypotheses (1), it has survived almost 150 years of close scrutiny. Regarding hypotheses (2), it is still the strongest theory to explain the mechanisms involved. The details have been checked many times over. I will not go into them now, I will wait for your bashing :D.

But as it stands today, Evolution (1) is as proven as Tectonic Plates, or the Development of Stars, or as the neutron... it is as solidly a “scientific fact” as one could hope for. Natural Selection (2) has been observed in many occasions, and the controversy about it is mainly about the “fine-tuning” of the process, as well as about those other processes involved in genetic change over time in living populations. So Darwinian Evolution is alive and well.

Why the controversy then? Well, I alluded before to the ideology of both sides of the controversy, and I will explain it now. Most of the more outspoken defenders of Darwinism associate it with Materialism. They say that Darwinism “proves” that man is just an animal, or that it “proves” that there is no God. This is clear nonsense, as anyone who has ever read a book pf philosophy can see. The animal nature of man was always acknowledged, and the fact that we are related to animals through bloodlines is no more a “proof” of the non-existence of spirit than our relation to animals through the will of God, as was believed before Evolution became accepted.

This spurious linking of Darwinism to Materialism has happened since the first years of its popularizing (Spencer, Huxley). It is very unfortunate that it prompted an equally unwise response from religious opponents of Evolution – the claim that Darwinism is false because it refutes the Book of Genesis. This put the churches in a very precarious position, since as evidence for Evolution was gathered they were thrown into a more fundamentalist position, claiming that the Book of Genesis is an observer’s account of the Creation. Because of their (correct) opposition to the Evolutionists’ philosophy and theology, opponents of Evolution had to keep more and more to the letter of Genesis as the only clear refutation of Evolutionary theory. Fathers of the Church (Augustine, Dyonisius, Thomas Aquinas) all agreed that the Book of Genesis is an historical construct -–a book written by Moses to explain the Creation to his ignorant people, the Israelites. (Please note I assume the Book of Genesis is (a) written by Moses and (b) inspired by God). What do I mean by “an historical construct”, then? It was written so as to inspire the faith in a people prone to worshipping idols. It is as much a tool of God as a clear account of the facts. There is no falsity there, but the way in which the truth was expounded is such that the people could not find any praetexts to worship other gods.

So we have the unfortunate situation today of a clearly correct theory being bashed by clearly correct people! The defenders of Darwinism are wrong on theology and philosophy, but right on science; and their opponents are right in philosophy and theology, but wrong on science.

I think what I said above is quite controversial in itself. I will wait for your opinions, my fellow TTFer’s. (It may be a while before I post in this thread again; I want to see your opinions.)

Hadhafang

04-02-2003, 05:18 AM

Good post Eriol. I am what is commonly referred to as a compromising creationist. That is I do not belive that the Genesis account is historical fact. However, I do believe that a single God created all of the physical matter in the universe approximately 15 billion years ago. I feel the diversity of life we see on the planet today is a reult of 4.5 billion years of evolution, not 6,000 years since Genesis creation.

Gandalf White

04-02-2003, 04:34 PM

Lúthien Séregon

04-03-2003, 02:08 PM

Yes, very good post. Eriol, I'm kinda tired right now, so could you just answer this? Do you believe that entire species can change, i.e. my pet iguana to my parakeet over time. (No disrespect intended, merely humor...hehe..) I believe evolution is responsible for the different species of sparrow etc., but I think that no animal can become a different one over time, no matter how much time is given it. So are you saying that you believe everything came from a single bacteria after the 'big bang' or are you referring merely to changes withing species?

One of the key elements of the Theory of Evolution to be correct is that it is theorised that the evolution is beneficial for a species as a whole, not so much "random selection", but "natural selection" in order to ensure the survival of a species - for example, it is pointless for a gorilla to develop fins, as the nature of the gorilla does not take advantage of water, but of the nature of its life in accordance to the environment, to circumstance and other factors such as food supplies.

Therefore, there are lots of variation between species as well. The tiger has 8 subspecies ( 3 of which have sadly become extinct in the past century ), all perfectly adapted to their environment and prey. The Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, has the thickest and longest fur of the subspecies, and has developed an extra layer of fat beneath the fur for insulation in order to survive in the cold conditions of Siberia and Northern China. Also, they are the largest of tigers, as the bigger an animal is, the able they are to absorb heat.

This is beyond theory, but is a concrete fact. A lot of the Theory of Evolution is fact, but the theories and speculation occurs in the reasons for such changes in animals, and what is the driving force. Is there a God that dictates such changes, or is it all just a case of "survival of the fittest"? Personally, I think it is natural selection for the survival of the fittest.

Science and philosophy are too different for one to be right in both, particularly as no-one is right when it comes to philosophy.
:D Science is about facts and the way life works ( theory comes into this, of course, but the nature of theory in science is different to that in philosophy - in comparison, philosophy is more of a logical speculation ).

I'll write on the topic in more detail later, as I have to go now, but that's just my thoughts in a relatively short post.

Vanwalotion

04-05-2003, 10:40 PM

Genesis is not just a piece of imagery concucted by Moses and God to restore faith to the doubting people of Israel. It contains the first glimmer of the gospel called the protevangelium (I hope I spelt it right) Genesis 3-15 is when God is talking to the serpent and says how one of Eve's desendants will crush his head clearly refering to Jesus. The figure behind the serpent, satan does not become clear till the new testament and the Isralites would not have understood relavence of the serpent so Genesis was clearly not wriiten for the Iralites only.

I don't believe that we did evolve, the fact that In Luke we see Jesus' geneology traced beck to Adam emphasises the Historical value of Genesis, the new testament assumes it and argues it and if it wasn't true then there is no point in the things I have written above. I find it strange that Adam would have forgotten his own parents maybe it was a side affect of eating from the tree of knowledge.

Eriol

04-06-2003, 12:49 AM

Originally posted by Gandalf White
Yes, very good post. Eriol, I'm kinda tired right now, so could you just answer this? Do you believe that entire species can change, i.e. my pet iguana to my parakeet over time. (No disrespect intended, merely humor...hehe..) I believe evolution is responsible for the different species of sparrow etc., but I think that no animal can become a different one over time, no matter how much time is given it. So are you saying that you believe everything came from a single bacteria after the 'big bang' or are you referring merely to changes withing species?

Gandalf, you address two different questions here. The first is the difference between microevolution and macroevolution, evolution within one species and evolution between greater groups. You seem to assume that a species is an unsurmountable barrier to evolution, as if there were an innate barrier over which evolution could not pass. This is a possible interpretation of some situations, but it is (a) an unwarranted assumption if we don't have an idea of what exactly would prevent evolution from working over genera, families, or higher taxonomic groups and (b) hard to reconcile with the fossil record which shows clear intermediates between different groups in some situations, such as Archaeopteryx, the reptile-mammal transition, the land-based ancestors of whales, etc. If you find it hard to believe that an iguana-like being could breed, over the generations, a bird-like being, take a look at Archaeopteryx.

You other question is about the origin of life itself (did everything come from a single bacteria?) This is a much less clear matter, and Darwinism, strictly speaking, has no opinion on the matter, it assumes that there is biological matter already present to evolve. Whether it was the "primeval soup", something spurred by clay, or any other thing, two things may be said about it: (a) It is besides the point of Darwinism, and (b) no possible explanation can rule out God's interference. This is the great fallacy of the Materialists, they think that if they completely explain a phenomenon without God then God is not present. They never "explain completely", for starters; and even if they did, it would be a non sequitur.

Science and philosophy are too different for one to be right in both, particularly as no-one is right when it comes to philosophy.

Well, Lúthien, you are aware that this sentence is philosophy, right? And therefore it is not correct, by your own lights :D. I could not help but point it out.

Vanwalotion, welcome to the forum! You are stating your own beliefs in your post. I did not say that Genesis was written for Israelites only, I just said that some words and passages are open to interpretation. For instance, light was created on the first day but the Sun only on the fourth. This problem was explained in many different ways by the Fathers of the Church: Dionysius taught that light was created in the first day but given form, as the Sun, only on the fourth; Augustine taught that the word "light" in the first day referred to the spiritual creatures (angels); and so on. Other instances like this are common in the Genesis. Any one who imposed his own opinion in these matters would be rash (in my opinion). As for the historical accuracy of Genesis, I believe (though it is surely arguable) that it is a myth -- not meaning a lie; Tolkien fans know better than to say a myth is a lie -- a myth which teaches us a lot about ourselves, and is true in a much more important level than that of biology. Ultimately, it can't be argued that man has a biological component, and is therefore related to the animals at least in concept. Evolutionary theory says that our biological component is related to animals in reality, but says nothing about our spiritual component. Genesis is very clear that God breathed his spirit into Man, and I think this sentence shows that the appearance of man's spirit is a "discontinuity" in merely biological evolution.

Lúthien Séregon

04-06-2003, 04:02 AM

Well, Lúthien, you are aware that this sentence is philosophy, right? And therefore it is not correct, by your own lights . I could not help but point it out.

I didn't mean that philosophy is necessarily wrong, just controversial and depending on opinion, as it is often theory and not fact ( this is where science and philosophy start to become indistinguishable ).

Elendil3119

04-06-2003, 05:32 AM

Here are my wandering thoughts and beliefs on this subject:

I believe that Genesis is to be taken literally, i.e. that the universe was created by the God of the Bible in a space of 6 literal days. Genesis was given to Moses so that the revelation of man’s history might be taught to the Jewish nation, as well as the Laws of God. Today, there is growing popularity in a view of creation called Progressive creationism or Theistic evolution. These theories attempt to reconcile the Bible with current scientific knowledge. Progressive creationists believe in the creation of man by God, and the general categories of species named in Genesis 1-2. They hold to “intrakind” development in the species, where they adapt to the environment (microevolution) and for the most part reject Darwin’s theory of macroevolution. However there are those who do hold to Darwin’s theory, such as Eriol. :) Progressive creationists reject a literal 6-day creation, and instead claim that each “day” represents an age or dispensation of enormous lengths of time.

The word Day (Hebrew, Yom) is used in the Bible in both the literal and representative sense. It is used to describe a natural day, and also to describe a set period of time, such as the Day of the Lord (Yom Adonai) which will last seven years. The concept of long ages can be corrected when we see “day” used in the singular sense. God was very specific in both the sequence of days, and in the mention of “evening” and “morning”.
A quote from a treatise written on this subject:
The Jewish reckoning of a day begins in the evening with sunset. This is kept today as the Sabbath begins when 3 stars are visible. So the word Day also means a period of 24 hours, or the time from sunset to sunset. (Lev.23:32; Ex. 12:15-20; 2 Cor.11:25 where night is put before day).
And then two verses from the Bible which illustrate this point:
Exod.20:8-10: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God."
Exod. 20:11: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." (Lev.25:4 is made clear by its context. Ex.20 calls the it 7th day just as we have 7 days in the week.)
God gave Israel a specific day to remember (which was the same day that He rested). He did not give them 1000 years, but one 24-hour day at the end of the week that they might rest in Him.
Exod. 31:15 'Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. ... 'It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.'"
Ah well, I will probably write more on this subject at a later date. Any comments/questions are welcome. :)

faila

04-06-2003, 05:49 AM

for me straight evolution is too implausible. Random genetic changes working just right to create in a sense the order that we have. The improbobility of the missing links servival.

I see a possibility of theistic evolution using the gap or day age theory. But in the end i take it literally. without God their is no way that everything was created so precisely to work.

Im a literalist all the way in genesis 1.

Vanwalotion

04-06-2003, 03:18 PM

I agree that evolution seems too implausable.

Why do Christians need an answer of how we were created when we have a perfectly good one in Genesis. If we can't take the creation story literaly then what else do we have to assume is myth?

legolasismine

04-06-2003, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by Hadhafang
However, I do believe that a single God created all of the physical matter in the universe approximately 15 billion years ago.

Alright I'm a christian aswell and I went to a Christian school and at my school it says that the world is infact not 15 billion years old its not even 15 million years old,the earth is very young infact and its stated in the bible that its young,but I have been taught not to believe in Darwinism its the most false theroy any person has ever made up, since I have some facts of my own about Darwinism I thought I might aswell share:

This one of the quotes out of a history book I found:
During the 1920s,some people in the United States began listening to the arguments of unbelieveing preachers and teachers,many from Germany. These men were called modernists or liberals. Many of the modernist ideas began with teachings of Charles Darwin(1809-1888),a British naturlist who rejected the Scriptures and said that man evolved from animals. Bible-beliveing Christians all over the country banded together to affirm the fundamentalists teachings of Chritianity.

William Jennings Bryan,a lawyer and statesman defended the Bible in a famous court case against a teacher who was illegaly teaching evolution in the classroom. This case was called the Scopes trial, or the "Monket Trial". William Jennings bryan won the case against evolution.

Now these are just my thoughts and the books thoughts on Evolution and I believe them, because in the Bible God didn't say anything about humans evolving from animals, and I'm sorry if affended anyone but I just had to post what I believe is the truth.

Beorn

04-06-2003, 08:00 PM

Eriol

04-06-2003, 08:16 PM

Originally posted by Vanwalotion
I agree that evolution seems too implausable.

Why do Christians need an answer of how we were created when we have a perfectly good one in Genesis. If we can't take the creation story literaly then what else do we have to assume is myth?

I think this is a general indictment on science. (I hope I'm wrong). Now if we are to ban all science and study only the Bible we are in fact denying our inheritance as sons of God. The study of nature is one of the ways in which we praise God, when we increase our understanding we approach God. At the far end of this road lies the statement of the Caliph who burned the Library of Alexandria: "If these books reaffirm what is said in the Q'uran, they are superfluous, and if they contradict them, they are blasphemous. So let's burn them".

I'm not saying you agree with that, I only point the end of the road... But I am saying that observing and studying nature in no way diminishes or contradicts our worshipping of God. Of course, our ability to reach truth is very small and finite, but we must do our best. If we find a contradiction between our observations and the Word of God, we try to solve it, not to dismiss it out-of-hand -- perhaps the error lies not in our observation and speculations, but in our interpretation of the revealed knowledge, since "our little ability to reach truth" cuts both ways, when we are studying nature and when we're reading the Bible.

Regarding the implausibility of evolution: the history of the biological realm is just as implausible as the history of mankind, the concepts of plausibility and probability are useless when we have only one sample, one observation. If you told someone in the mid-18th century, the so-called Age of Enlightenment, that in the 20th century more than 100 million people would be killed by their own governments (I'm not talking about war), surely you would be regarded as a lunatic. What is the probability of a Napoleon? Caesar? and ultimately, Christ? To think about history in terms of probability is a dead end. And on the other hand, if we assume God's Providence is guiding the history of mankind, what is to prevent us from assuming the same was happening in the biological realm?

Evolutionary theory does not attempt to predict changes, but to explain them as they happened in the past. Are we to doubt History as well as Evolution?

Finally, legolasismine, do you think that the study of nature is more or less reliable than a book written by men (which excludes the Bible, by the way -- as I said, I agree the Bible is inspired by God) as a clue to what God is? Unfortunately, your 'facts about Darwinism' are opinions of other men, not really 'facts'. I addressed the difference in my first post on this thread. Someone said the world is young, another one said that it is 4 billions years old. (not 15 -- this was referring to the Universe, not to Earth). Who should we trust? The Christian writer? But is Christianism an index of infallible truth, does a Christian never err?

We have two "standards" to judge matters of this sort, the Bible and Nature. We should try to make them agree, and not choose one or the other. God is the Author of Nature, as well as of the Bible.

The quote you provided showed the process I alluded to in my first post, how Materialists appropriated Darwinism to further their ideas. Historically true -- but it has no bearing on whether Darwinism is right or not. I think they were wrong regarding philosophy and theology, but right in their biology. This should be at least explored as a possibility, as opposed to simply dismissed. Only if we study the evidence, Nature, can we come to a decision about this. History books can't help on that, I can give you a number of quotes describing exactly the same events in a completely different light, as well as the two "Inherit the Wind" movies.

Saying that Darwin "rejected the Scriptures" is the same as saying that Copernicus "rejected the Scriptures" when he speculated that the Earth was moving and the Sun stationary, for the Bible says quite clearly that "the Sun stopped" when Senacherib was attacking. But we can make the two agree when we accept that this passage was reflecting on the perception of the viewers -- God made the Sun stop, for the benefit of the israelites, and the mechanism is not important. Did he stop the Earth from turning? Imagine the physical consequences of this, as inertia would make everything on earth be projected to space. But God surely could stop inertia as well. He could also inspire a collective hallucination. The mechanism is really secondary, the fact that the Sun stopped for those people is what matters. The Bible does not say: "The earth is flat, and the sun revolves around it", or the contradiction could not be solved. (I suppose we would have to assume that our reason is not equipped to understand the universe then, since our observations clearly show that the earth revolves around the Sun -- we would have to take the Bible on faith and dismiss science completely. But this is not the case). Likewise, the Bible does not say: "Man has not evolved from animals, and the earth is 7000 years old", or I would have to abandon my stance.

We should be careful when trusting the opinions of other men -- including their interpretations of the bible. Who knows, they may be wrong -- we must trust rather our own reason, and yield to faith only when our reason does not see a way out of the conundrum.

Vanwalotion

04-06-2003, 11:32 PM

Don't worry my statement wasn't a general indicitment on science I was just mearly expressing my fustration with the subject after being forced to study it for eight years. I don't really like the subject but I can see how it can be used to benefit people and how it has benefitted us. I would however, think it would be really great if we lived in a world of faith where we didn't need answers and all healing was done through prayer with no need for medicines and such but I am day dreaming and of course science is an important factor in this world.

But I am saying that observing and studying nature in no way diminishes or contradicts our worshipping of God

I think I can agree with you here we can see the amazing beauty of God and his creation by studying nature. Yet we have seen a great sift of opinions over hundreds of years on nature. Medieval philosophers used nature and its wonders to prove the existance of God yet now scientists (I am refering to non-christian scientists here) try to use nature and science to deny the fact that God exists although I understand that almost all don't intentially do that.

We can try to link science to the bible in a vain atempt make it rational yet the bible is not rational God is not rational so we have to have faith and believe it.
(sorry I haven't got time to write any more but I will reply to the rest in due course)

Hadhafang

04-07-2003, 12:25 AM

the world is infact not 15 billion years old its not even 15 million years old,the earth is very young infact and its stated in the bible that its youngI don't think that God is deceptive. I don't think that God would have antiqued the Earth to fool us. The Earth is also not 15 billion years old. It is 4.5 billion years old. The universe itself is 15 billion. The ideaology of Judeo/Christian creationism requires a leap of faith. There is no physical evidence to support the genesis account. One can't use the bible as evidence for its own validity. It is the validity of the creation account that is in question.

jallan

04-07-2003, 04:28 AM

For pro-Creationism see Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia (http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Index.htm) and The True Origin Archive (http://www.trueorigin.org).

For Evolutionary arguments against Christian Creationism, see Answers in Science (http://answersinscience.org/age.html) or Evolution vs. Creationism (http://www.phy.syr.edu/courses/modules/ORIGINS/origins.html).

These sites contain many links and are just beginnings. Test your logical abilities. Who is lying and who is telling the truth and who is able to reason and who can’t reason?

For accounts by anti-Creationists of their conflicts with Christian Creationists see Creationism Pages (http://www.holysmoke.org/cretins/cre.htm).

This site is pro-evolution but gives a lot of links to both sides: National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=12).

Galileo was burned to death for disobeying church authorities by promulgating the theory that the earth revolves around the sun in contradiction to the firm statement in the Bible that the earth does not move.

See Psalm 96:10:
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”
The world is fully established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the people with equity.From Psalm 104:5:
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.For continued support for the geocentric theory, see: Geocentrism (http://users2.ev1.net/~origins/menu-helio.htm)

For information on a group who even more fully insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible, see information about The International Flat Earth Society which was devoted to upholding the truth of the Biblical revelations that the earth is flat: Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity, and the Flat Earth (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm) and The International Flat Earth Society (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flatearth.html). For the reasoning behind this kind of belief see The Bible and Cosmology (http://www.religioustolerance.org/cosmo_bibl2.htm)

There is also a joke Flat-Earth Society (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm).

Legolasismine posted:This case was called the Scopes trial, or the "Monket Trial". William Jennings bryan won the case against evolution.Check out The "Monkey Trial" (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm) or The Scopes 'Monkey Trial' (http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/scopes.htm) and see why Scopes lost this case, and then won it, and how evolution itself was was not the legal issue.

The case was intended by Scopes and his attorney Darrow as a test case for publicity purposes.

Darrow requested that the jury find his own client guilty to allow for an appeal with even more publicity in the Tennessee supreme court. The jury complied.

The idea was to kick up as much fuss as possible to show up the absurdity of Tennessee law.

But the Tennessee supreme court reversed the requested verdict on a technicality (presumably as a clever way to avoid fuss without making any decision on freedom of speech issues and freedom of religion issues).

So in the end Scopes won the trial (though he later admitted that he did not actually remember whether he had taught anything about evolution during his substitute teacher stint!)

The Tennessee statute against teaching evolution was repealed in 1967.

See further at ]History of Evolution in Tennessee (
[url=http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/essays/history[/url)

Vawalotion posted:Medieval philosophers used nature and its wonders to prove the existance of God yet now scientists (I am refering to non-christian scientists here) try to use nature and science to deny the fact that God exists although I understand that almost all don't intentially do that. Any medieval philosophers in “Christian” countries who disagreed with church pronouncments of their day ran the risk of being tortured and burned as heretics.

But which medieval philosopher, indeed which philosopher of any time, has logically proved the existance of God from the natural world?

There is certainly no generally known “logical proof of God” or “scientific proof of God”.

For general medieval scientific knowldge, of zoology at least, see The Bestiary (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/bestiary.hti). This is far from accurate biologically and is mostly interesting for its often delightful oddities and sensationalism and superstitions.

It delights in using Christian religion to explain animal behavior and animal behavior to explain Christian symbolism and as a living allegory and sign of the truth of Christian belief.

But its certainly not the result of investigative science.

Hadhafang

04-07-2003, 06:16 AM

Thanks for all of the informative sites Jallan.
Jallan posted:There is certainly no generally known “logical proof of God” or “scientific proof of God”.
I will go a step further to say that there is no real proof of anything except for what can be believed by an individual perciever. My graduate advisor once asked, "If ten people are standing in a room, and only one claims that they can see a dancing tiger amongst them. Which person is the crazy one?" From the scientists standpoint it is the one who can see the tiger. Unfortunately, in the scientific community, you are only as correct as your colleages 'believe' you to be. From another standpoint...perhaps none of the them are crazy. Perhaps the person that sees the dancing tiger has the ability to percieve in other energies/dimensions not yet percievable to most humans. Who is to say they are crazy simply because most people can't percieve it.
The point is that many people have personal knowledge of Gods existence. It is impossible for any scientist to say they are right or wrong. Saying that God does/does not exist is an essence, a scientific statment. However, any scientist should be careful in making either of these statements. Once made, the 'burden of proof' is on the the scientist expressing their view.
But which medieval philosopher, indeed which philosopher of any time, has logically proved the existance of God from the natural world?St. Thomas Aquinas developed some logical 'proofs' of God's existence in Summa Theologia and Summan contra Gentiles. Both of these works were written in the thirteenth century.

Vanwalotion

04-07-2003, 05:07 PM

I think you might have misunderstood me slightly. Medieval philosophers were intrested in metaphtsics they were not concerened with the scientific questions and natural phenomena but the relationship between the natural and supernatural. In that way they looked at nature to come up with ideas on the existance of God.

I will go a step further to say that there is no real proof of anything except for what can be believed by an individual perciever.

I agree I don't think that anyone will ever be able to prove the existance of God or prove that he doesn't exist until we all see him in heaven, but until then we have to rely on faith or of course our own personal encounters that prove to us though not to everyone else that Gos exists.

jallan

04-08-2003, 05:07 AM

Hadhafang postedThe point is that many people have personal knowledge of Gods existence.Many have so claimed, still do, and disagree strongly, even violently, about what God wants.

All cannot be right. With logic and mathematics there is a basis of agreement from which to work, in science less so, for divine revelation, none at all really. As you say, the tiger could really be there.

To add another wrinkle, there is the story of the lying spirit in 1 Kings 22 (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/1kg/22.html).Saying that God does/does not exist is in essence, a scientific statment. However, any scientist should be careful in making either of these statements. Once made, the 'burden of proof' is on the the scientist expressing their view.If a scientist is saying as a scientist that God exists or doesn’t exist, then the scientist should prove the probability of either case by scientific method.

So far the study of nature, which is what scientists do (when acting purely as scientists), hasn’t proceded in that direction at all. What it has done, which bothers many religious people, Christians and non-Christians, is make some of the beliefs that religious people have, such as a six-day creation of the universe for many Christians and Jews, seem very improbable.

But what burden of proof does one put on a non-scientist or non-logician prove that God exists or doesn’t exist or to prove claims made about God? None at all?St. Thomas Aquinas developed some logical 'proofs' of God's existence in Summa Theologia and Summan contra Gentiles]. Both of these works were written in the thirteenth century.The proofs are given aong with their well-known logical refutations at Thomistic Philosophy Page (http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/5ways.html).

There are logicians who still work on such problem of course (as there should be).

Vanwalotion posted:Medieval philosophers were intrested in metaphtsics they were not concerened with the scientific questions and natural phenomena but the relationship between the natural and supernatural. In that way they looked at nature to come up with ideas on the existance of God.Looking to nature really means looking to what one thinks one knows about nature.

Obviously much more is now known about nature. Or would you, for example, substitute for modern biological knowledge the theory of the four humours or modern biological knowledge for the delightful but factually lacking ramblings of the wondrful medieval Bestiary?

Also, there ceraintly are philosphers who continue to think about many of the same problems that the medieval philosphers thought about, probably far more such now than then, considering the population growth, with immensely greater knowledge of nature at their call.

Rather interestingly, the on-line Catholic Encyclopedia states in an article about this matter (at The Existence of God (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm):But so far is this from being the case that in the words of Professor Huxley -- an unsuspected witness -- "not a solitary problem presents itself to the philosophical Theist at the present day which has not existed from the time that philosophers began to think out the logical grounds and the logical consequences of Theism" (Life and Letters of Ch. Darwin by F. Darwin, II, p. 203). What has changed since medieval times is increased knowledge of nature more readily available to those who want it and an investigative spirit not so willing to follow authority in matters of belief. (Die fighting the infidel and you will gain heaven with all your sins forgiven!)

See, for example an amusing disussion of Christian opposition to lightning rods at Shocking Displeasures (http://www.tektonics.org/norods.). I cite the account on this site because the teller here somewhat debunks the blame some other sites put on Christianity, indicating that Christianity did not itself teach these beliefs.

But “Christian” people believed it did, including priests and ministers who opposed lightning rods. Putting up rods to inhibit God’s right to hurl lightning freely was impious and would obviously draw greater wrath.

They saw the tiger, knew God was against this technical abomination, needed to look no further than their belief supported by the beliefs of others.

That God should be debunked by science, or do we accept that the tiger they saw was true?

Hadhafang

04-08-2003, 06:59 AM

Good post Jallan...keen attention to detail as usual.
Many have so claimed, still do, and disagree strongly, even violently, about what God wants.Science has its share of arguments and disagreements as well. Human evolution is a prime example of this. There are two major theories of human evolution: multi-regional hypothesis and the "out of Africa" hypothesis. Scientists have argued these two theories ad nauseum. Both sides come to the debate with an enormous wealth of evidence supporting their ideas, while debunking their rivals'. We may never know which theory is actually correct. In the end there are no real winners in this debate because both sides go home thinking that they are correct.All cannot be right.I agree with this absolutely. There is an absolute truth out there. Science seeks this absolute truth. One could argue that religion does too. However I think that religion is more a cultural grasp of faith. Hence let me revise that statement and say an individual's faith seeks absolute truth.

A chemist once told me that, "every model and hypothesis we have made about the atom is 'fiction'. Yet it is fiction that seems to work". All of what we know about the physical universe is a 'leap of faith'. I am not saying that science is a religion, but it does require us to make assumptions. When we make assumptions in an empirical medium, we are more or less taking a leap of faith. As an example, the idea of uniformatarianism is a leap of faith in my opinion. It states that the physical principles of the universe at present have been consistant throughout all history. I (and no one else for that matter) have not been around for all of history to validate this. However, I believe in unifromitarianism with no evidence to support it. In a similar fashion I also believe in the existence of God. Are these two notions all that different? I say no. Saying that we evolved from apes is unfortunately fiction. However, it is fiction that seems to work.

Sador

04-08-2003, 07:39 AM

Eriol

04-08-2003, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by jallan
But what burden of proof does one put on a non-scientist or non-logician prove that God exists or doesn’t exist or to prove claims made about God? None at all?The proofs are given aong with their well-known logical refutations at Thomistic Philosophy Page (http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/5ways.html).

There are logicians who still work on such problem of course (as there should be).

Good post, as usual, jallan. I visited this page, and I sure hope logicians are still working on it, for the "well-known logical refutations" sometimes reach the ludicrous, such as "The argument for God is so long that Aristotle and Aquinas must have made a mistake somewhere". How's that for a refutation, uh?

(Seriously, I found no such thing as a refutation there. Denial of premises that are accepted by everybody -- ex nihilo nihil fit, for instance -- or accusations of "confusing terminology", such as actuality/potentiality, which was almost the "standard jargon" of that period! I would think people should make a bigger effort to understand a work written 700 years ago. A stronger case could be made by questioning the empiricist approach of both Aristotle and Aquinas, but I did not find it there.)

My point when setting up this thread was trying to show that contemporary biology (and this means Evolution) can coexist with Christianity without any logical contradiction. Being a Christian, and assuming the Christ is the Truth, I would have to give up one of the two if there were a contradiction. But it is not the case.

I am now perusing books on Intelligent Design, I will have a considered opinion about it soon.

jallan

04-09-2003, 02:47 AM

Eriol posted:The argument for God is so long that Aristotle and Aquinas must have made a mistake somewhere". How's that for a refutation, uh?

(Seriously, I found no such thing as a refutation there. Denial of premises that are accepted by everybody -- ex nihilo nihil fit, for instance -- or accusations of "confusing terminology", such as actuality/potentiality, which was almost the "standard jargon" of that period!Well, the main reasons why Aquinas’ proofs are not considered valid do appear among the statements, notably for example on the proof from motion:Because this proof is based heavily on acceptance of the first proof, he is again assuming that motion has purpose, and that purpose denotes an intelligent planner. You have to decide here, as you did in the first proof, if you believe that motion always has a purpose.Vocabulary is a problem, when not quite defined.

Whether line of argument first occurred 700 years or 5,000 years ago or yesterday doesn’t matter if one’s concern is the truth of falsity of the conclusion(s) reached and whether the reasoning is flawless (and perhaps whether the argument might be saved with some changes).

Aquinas’ argument doen’t match the strictness of something like Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorum for example, partly because it is indeed difficult to exactly pin down the meanings behind some of the vocabulary.

I understand there have been modern attempts to restate and represent these lines of arguments but have not heard that any have been convincing.

(Of course, any hypothesis wil be convincing to some.)

Eriol posted:My point when setting up this thread was trying to show that contemporary biology (and this means Evolution) can coexist with Christianity without any logical contradiction. Being a Christian, and assuming the Christ is the Truth, I would have to give up one of the two if there were a contradiction. But it is not the case.Of course this depends on one’s defintions of evolution and of Christianity.

The problem in a nutshell is that the very long history of the earth and longer history of the universe seemingly established by scientific investigation and logical analysis of its results and the history of life forms on earth as established by fossil evidence and dating of fossils conflicts with early chapters of the book of Genesis, especially the first three chapters.

(Darwinian theory, is mostly secondary problem, only an explanation for the evolutionary changes indicated by fossil records. Only in holding that Man also evolved, and evolved from an animal, does it especially shock traditional belief.)

Anyone, Christian or Jew or Samaritan (Samaritans still exist) or any person cannot logically believe literally both the early chapters of Genesis and claims of modern science.

One position is that if parts of the supposed holy writings are false, then all becomes tainted, the foundation of Christian belief is gone, Christianity (and Judaism and Samaritanism) is bogus.

There are both Christians and non-Christians who equally accept this.

An opposite position is that belief in the total literal truth of these records is false and has always been false. It should always have been known to be false because these writings contain internal contradictions (and have been known since the days of the early chuch fathers to contain internal contradictions) proving that cannot be trusted in every detail.

Why be surprised that scientific knowledge and historical knowledge occassionally shows more flaws in the writings?

Origen, for example, writing at the beginning of the 3rd century, comments on the many contradictions in scriptures. He appears to be opposing literalists of his day and his manner suggests that these contradictions were common knowledge. See The Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book X (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101510.htm).

Pope Pius II in his encyclical Humani Generis (http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P12HUMAN.HTM) seemed to almost condemn evolutionary theory and stated clearly there could only be one first man and one first woman, one Adam and one Eve, but also strongly indicated that literal and factual history was not to be found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, though it was still inspired teaching.

In
Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope John Paul (http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/message.htm) touches on this matter in very carefully vague terms but certainly accepts theories of evolution as compatible with Christianity provided a firm distinction between Man and Animal is still understood.

What does this mean for Christian belief? Well to Protestants and the Greek Orthodox Church, nothing. It also means nothing to many Roman Catholics who don’t accept the the doctine of Papal Infallibility as normally interpreted or don’t accept it at all.

(How can such call themselves members of the Roman Church? Well, there are those who have greater differences with doctrines proclaimed by the current Roman Church who still consider themselves part of the it, despite denial of the validity of their own teaching by officials of the Church. People believe what they want to believe.)

They all believe God supports them.

Hadhafang posted:There are two major theories of human evolution: multi-regional hypothesis and the "out of Africa" hypothesis. Scientists have argued these two theories ad nauseum. Both sides come to the debate with an enormous wealth of evidence supporting their ideas, while debunking their rivals'. We may never know which theory is actually correct. In the end there are no real winners in this debate because both sides go home thinking that they are correct.See The Current Debate (http://www.micro.utexas.edu/courses/mcmurry/spring98/13/hollysherard.) for a possible reconcilation between the two hypotheses.

Whether this is turns out to be valid or not, both sides will continue the search for new evidence, both will evaluate any new evidence, and both will re-evaluate old evidence. Why should there not eventually be a winner?

Part of the reason for the heat of debate is the excitement of working on a problem that looks like it may be soon solvable.

Truly futile are debates about religions truths between Moslems, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Zoroastrians, or even debates between staunch Roman Catholics and staunch Protestants about the respective truths of their religious positions.

There are conversions back and forth of course, but usually no feeling, unlike that in debate on any specific scientific problem, that eventually with greater investigation and study an answer will be achieved showing that yes, Mohammed was God’s true prophet or that renunication of all desire as taught by Gautama Buddha and attainment of absolute annihilation of self can be proven to be a goal beyond any teaching of any mere God.

Hadhafang

04-09-2003, 04:41 AM

Whether this is turns out to be valid or not, both sides will continue the search for new evidence, both will evaluate any new evidence, and both will re-evaluate old evidence. Why should there not eventually be a winner? Because noone was alive long enouh to witness it. In the scientiic community you are only as "correct" as your colleagues believe you to be. The only thing either side can do is mount more and more evidence for their idea until it is universally accepted. There is no clear, definitive criterion to determine who is right or wrong in any scientific debate. What may be considered absolutely true by 100% of the world today may prove false in the future. Unfortunately we are confined to our 6 senses and shape reality based upon our experinces with them. Who knows what is real and what is false? Science requires as much faith as belief in God all too often.

jallan

04-09-2003, 05:37 AM

Hadhafang posted:In the scientiic community you are only as "correct" as your colleagues believe you to be. The only thing either side can do is mount more and more evidence for their idea until it is universally accepted. There is no clear, definitive criterion to determine who is right or wrong in any scientific debate. What may be considered absolutely true by 100% of the world today may prove false in the future.Are suggesting there is something not right about mounting more and more evidence?

Evidence is the definitive criterion in investigative science along with theories that explain observations or produce results predictably. Yes, people must believe the evidence.

But the results are not vain.

For just one example, see Endangered species cloned in scientific first (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=c10245e99a875c6a&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1035780647953). Such things are not done without some kind of knowledge, and the total knowledge that produced them will not be reversed as 100% wrong, though undoubtedly modified as more is learned.

Here is evidence that claimed scientific knowledge about biology is at least not totally fraudulent.

Of course, there will be those who will claim such things don't happen, that the whole thing is a hoax, as there are those who believe in a flat earth, because they don't believe the evidence, who refuse to accept evidence against prior beliefs.

Just possibly the batang calves are hoaxes, this time. But if such things are done again and again and again?

One never gets universal belief, even about Galileo's proposition or the spherical shape of the earth.

But both sides in the debate about where humans originated know what kinds of evidence they are looking for, and what kinds of subproofs are necessary, according to the preponderance of evidence. Most want to find out the truth, even if it goes against what they now think, and will accept the opposing belief if presented convincingly, despite politics and particular schools of thought.

Arguments and debate are very important to the development of any technique and learning, including medieval philosophy.

Eriol

04-09-2003, 03:04 PM

Posted by jallan:

Aquinas’ argument doen’t match the strictness of something like Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorum for example, partly because it is indeed difficult to exactly pin down the meanings behind some of the vocabulary.

I understand there have been modern attempts to restate and represent these lines of arguments but have not heard that any have been convincing.

Sure, any argument derived from reality does not have the same strength as one derived simply from logic or mathematics. You need not emphasize that. There is indeed a gradation between mathematical truths and purely subjective truths (the tiger in the room), with science somewhere in the middle. But in any way the refutations in that page (at least those I have seen, listed under Criticisms) fall short of really refuting anything. The conflate several proofs into one, and pseudo-refuting one they think they refute the others, as you showed in your quote ("This proof relies heavily on acceptance of the first proof...").

About langauge and jargon. Of course it does not matter for the argument itself. But people who are refuting something should try to understand it before the actual refutation instead of complaining of confusing terminology. If it's confusing, you did not understand it. (And Aquinas is probably one of the less confusing writers of any age -- provided you are acquainted with the Aristotelian categories).

The main philosophical problem with Aquinas's proofs was just brushed upon in that page, and by a theistic philosopher by the way -- his, and Aristotle's, heavy reliance on empiricism, on the premise that we can derive good premises from observation. Take "nothing comes from nothing", ex nihilo nihil fit. Is this ontologically true? I don't know. But it sure seems like that. Nobody ever saw anything to disprove it, and we even find it hard to imagine it being false -- to imagine an atom popping out of nothing (note, without even energy to account for its mass -- from nothing). But who said our reason is equipped to deal with the universe? We may be wrong. Aquinas assumes that this can be the basis of an argument. But no one attacked empiricism there, they just stated that ex nihilo nihil fit is not proven! And they are right, of course.

The difference between Aquinas and, say, Descartes, is that Descartes says he can't prove anything besides himself (at first), and Aquinas says that he wakes up, sees the sky, sees other people, eats... In a sense it is existentialism as opposed to rationalism. And therefore Aquinas's proofs are acceptable by most non-philosophers who have that most elusive quality, common sense, while remaining "unconvincing" for some philosophers who can question even their own existence.

(Fundamentally Aquinas' stance is grounded in his prior belief in a God, and in a good God as well, who would not deceive him. But it is exactly the premise that no premise can be grounded in some belief that can be easily challenged, and which is the cornerstone of "pure" rationalism).

(Of course, any hypothesis wil be convincing to some.)

You should not smirk, jallan :D. And of course you are right, some people are even convinced that an argument can have no premises based on belief!

Finally... this was supposed to be a Darwinism thread, and most especially one who would have religious people debating whether Darwinism is compatible or not with their beliefs. (I miss the Forum's muslims here...). We can open another thread for discussing St. Thomas Aquinas, theism in general, mechanisms of science, all of these subjects being very interesting for me.

jallan

04-09-2003, 05:49 PM

Eriol posted:You should not smirk, jallan .I honestly had no intention to be facetious or to smirk with that remark, merely noting a sad truth, experienced in every area of knowledge.

I agree with you when you state:Fundamentally Aquinas' stance is grounded in his prior belief in a God, and in a good God as well, who would not deceive him.But this means Aquinas is already taking as an axiom what he intends to prove, which is indeed the problem with his proofs.

Finally... this was supposed to be a Darwinism thread, and most especially one who would have religious people debating whether Darwinism is compatible or not with their beliefs.Agreed. But the question of why one believes anything then naturally arises.

In fact, as I pointed out with my Origen link, many Christians in the past, long before Dwarwinism, have not taken everything in in the Bible literally.

However, from your original statement:It was written so as to inspire the faith in a people prone to worshipping idols. It is as much a tool of God as a clear account of the facts. There is no falsity there, but the way in which the truth was expounded is such that the people could not find any praetexts to worship other gods.One naturally tends to ask why if this account was inspired by God, why it was not inspired to be closer to the scientific truth.

This is the problem statements like this have for many thinkers.

It leads then into the discussions of how and in what areas the Christian Scriptures are trustworthy and on the nature of divine inspiration.

For many the feeling arises that if Darwinism is true and geolical findings about the age of the earth and the slow development and spread of living things on Earth, God perhaps should have been a little more honest in his inspirations and not allowed His Holy Scriptures to contain an account which so greatly differs.

Could not God at least have inspired a less concrete account of creation, something no more detailed then Psalm 104, instead of an account that is such an easy targert for non-believers and believers in some other faiths.

For a personal discussion and factual articles about Creationism and evolution and geology by a ex-Creationist who is still Christian, see Glenn Morton's Creation/Evolution Page (http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk) website, especially Personal Stories of the Creation/Evolution Struggle (http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/person.htm), including his own story of Why I left Young-earth Creationism (http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/gstory.htm).

Beleg

04-09-2003, 06:26 PM

I would like to ask a Question, How do you think this World was created? Bigbang, "Kun!" etc, I would like to here your views. Believe me, it is very much related to the topic discussed right now.

Beleg

04-09-2003, 06:55 PM

Here are so link which i found Interesting, regarding the viewpoint of Both Islam and Christianity about the Prouduction of Beings and Darwinion Evolution.

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/evolution.htm

http://www.albalagh.net/general/evolution_creation.shtml

The above thread is there to remove the misconception some Muslims (My very own Father for example) have about the Darwinion theories.

http://www.jamiat.org.za/harun/darwin1.html

Though its a bit baised, yet it provides some facts that can be pondered at.

Another Website that to me most precisely describes Darwin's theory and its problems. Remember this website just gives a nuetral overview.

http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/

And a really nice website which i got from some random searching.

It might take a while to sort out all these links (i haven't read all of them along with ones provided by jallan but they do make interesting reading.)

http://www.charles-darwin.net/Does-God-Exist.htm

Eriol

04-09-2003, 07:08 PM

:confused:

Correct me if I'm wrong, jallan, but it seems that you are attacking Bible literalism and defending Darwinism. If that is so, well, welcome to my side of the debate... For this is what I have stated from the beginning.

I am really confused now. What does bible literalism have to do with St. Thomas Proofs of God? He specifically withdrew data from revelation in those proofs. And as for assuming the conclusion in the premise, well, although his stance is grounded in the belief of a God, it is not exactly this. He is saying that effects proceed from causes. That something moving must have been set in motion. That something contingent is not necessary. These premises have nothing to do with God, they are observations of how the world works. You must challenge the observations, not God. Sure, you can place doubt in empiricism and in our power to perceive truth from sensations, but simply saying that he assumes the conclusion in the premise is not enough.

Could not God at least have inspired a less concrete account of creation, something no more detailed then Psalm 104, instead of an account that is such an easy targert for non-believers and believers in some other faiths.

Questioning God's wisdom is... shortsighted, unless we see the bigger picture. (Who can do that better than Him?) Who knows why did he inspire that book in that way? And, of course, I think it is a myth, and that the story of the Creation is true in another level... but then you are more than aware of Tolkien's speculations about myths, I need not repeat them.

As I stated somewhere, there is no such thing in the Bible as: "And the speed of light shall be 150,000 Km/s". This would imply a serious mistake somewhere, either in God, in the writer of the Bible, or in us. But myths are not like this. You can criticize God's literary style, but we are ignorant of His purpose.

But the question of why one believes anything then naturally arises.

Indeed. Why do we believe anything? Why do we believe that we are alive, breathing, hungry, typing in a computer? (me, at least). Much easier to take nothing for granted. This is the great split between the absolute skeptic and an empiricist philosopher such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Should we really enter this area? It is long and tortuous, I think everyone should follow his own path... or I could take too much disk space out of TTF :).

In questioning Aquinas or the strict logician's approach, it comes to one question (not specifically to jallan): "Why don't you believe in God?" Many answers can be offered, but when people say that it is because Darwinism has debunked God, I have to take exception. I am convinced that Darwinism is as right as any other scientific theory, but I see no grounds for this meaning that God is disproven. I set up this thread in an attempt to show that. You may not believe in God for other reasons, but this one is not the fruit of correct reasoning.

(And if you ask why I do believe in God, well, Aquinas's proofs are a good start, and we could delve more into it.).

Finally, welcome to this discussion Beleg (I think you are a muslim, right?). I'd like to hear from you whether there are any similar, scriptural problems with Darwinism in Islam. As for your question, well, check Aquinas' proofs and you'll see my answer: God , the Necessary Being, the Prime Mover, etc. created it. And I still think Darwinism is right in spite of it ;).

EDIT: I was typing this before your last post Beleg. Thanks!

Hadhafang

04-10-2003, 01:01 AM

Jallan posted:
Are suggesting there is something not right about mounting more and more evidence?
Absolutely not. I am a scientist myself and chose to believe in the big bang and evolution based on the enormous wealth of evidence offered by science. Not observing any of it myself, I am taking a lot of these ideas on faith. Once a phenomenon is widely observed it enters into our knowledge base, it doesn't necessarily require any more proof or evidence. That the earth is an oblate spheroid and that it orbits the sun are examples of that. However, science attempts to address many issues which can never truly be observed or known. using "dirty" geochemical techniques to determine things like 1) the Earth's age, 2) what the atmospheric gas concentations were during the Hadean, and 3) the Scotese paleomap project, require plenty of belief without proof.
Eriol posted:Finally... this was supposed to be a Darwinism thread, and most especially one who would have religious people debating whether Darwinism is compatible or not with their beliefs. My own personal experiences have told me that there exists a monotheistic, benevolent God. I could never provide evidence to anyone to prove this. I also believe in a divine creator for all physical matter. However, I simply can not believe that genesis provides us with a historical account of the events that occurred after this creation. That is not a knock on the Christian religion. I am an RC myself. I do think there is plenty of room for my religious faith and my scientiic beliefs to intermingle. I guess I am one of those RCs that Jallan menyioned that doesn't go along with infallability.

Eriol

04-10-2003, 06:54 PM

The quote Hadhafang highlighted is perhaps too one sided. (Yes, I know he was quoting me :o ). This thread is also an invitation for any Darwinist atheists or agnostics out there to debate on whether Darwinism really rules out God, as some have claimed. I see my position as the middle ground between atheistic Darwinists and literalistic believers -- it is quite similar to Hadhafang statement above.

(Good links Beleg).

Eriol

04-10-2003, 07:54 PM

Quote from one of Beleg's sites (the neutral one):

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: The Premise
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution states that organic life sprung from non-organic matter exclusively through a natural mechanistic process on a pre-biotic earth. That original life form then evolved into more complex life forms through a natural process of random mutations and natural selection. In a nutshell, the basic premise is that matter acting on matter for a sufficient period of time can create anything, whether organic or non-organic.

Wrong, wrong, wrong... am I the only guy who has ever read The Origin of Species? Darwin repeatedly said that the problem of origin of life was too tricky to be solved at that time, and refused to give any controversial opinion on it (in fact, in some editions it is said that the primordial soup was kindled by the Creator! That is atheistic materialism for you...).

And this is from the "neutral" site (which, by the way, is openly Christian... not a criticism, as I see myself as neutral :D)

This is a good example of how both sides of the controversy are setting up straw men and attacking them. The description above fits Richard Dawkins, not Darwin.

Let me state it again: Darwinism presupposes life. It explains the observed changes in the living organisms through time. Just that. It has no bearing on the Universe, and no predictive power. Darwinism cannot predict what will happen to the biological realm in so many million years. It explains, and does it quite well, how did the observed changes take place. The emphasis is on the "observed". The fossil record shows many changes in living beings. You can either say it is the will of God that caused the changes (and you will be right -- but outside science) or attempt to explain it with a mechanism. That's what Darwin did... just that. To say that the "basic premise" of Darwinism is that life began by accident in an inorganic pool is ludicrous. Darwin devoted one or two noncommittal sentences in his writings to this question.

I will address "chance" now. The main argument against Darwinism from a theistic point of view is that it invokes "chance" as the moving power behind the changes, with the side conclusion that if Darwinism is true then human beings appeared by "chance". The concept of chance is really vague. Some possible definitions are: a) an event who could not be predicted in any way before it happened (like a throw of a fair die) and b) any event that we don't know about (this is especially true of complex events. People say that investing in stocks is "gambling"-- they are using the second assumption).

Now, definition (a) is equivalent to "random event". (b) is more like "ignorance". We do not think that the evolution of stock prices is "random" -- extremely complex phenomena are involved, all of them non-random. But to accurately predict it is completely beyond our power. Since we can't predict it at all, we call it "gambling".

In what category does Darwinism fall? Clearly, on (b). When we say that "man evolved by chance", we do not mean that there was a gigantic wheel-of-fortune that could just as well result in nothingness for the human species. We mean that there are so many events (none of them "random") involved in the evolution of humans, and that we know so little about them, that it is as if it happened by chance. Some events are: The appearance of the Rift Valley (tectonic geeks invited to explain it ;) ); a draught that took place about 7 millions years ago in East Africa as an Ice Age was beginning to establish itself; and many others (I could go on until the Big Bang in this fashion).

For sure, if any of these things had not happened the human species would not have followed the same history (which is not to say it would not have evolved, by the way). And people conclude from this that human evolution was the product of "chance". But this very misleading word is as wrong here as it would be in the description of stock prices, or human history in itself. A nice tidbit of history: did you know that a single bad commander could have turned the tide in Waterloo in Napoleon's favor? Now, do we think that this was "chance", as in a random event?

Fortunately we have a better word to describe unique, complex events. We call them "contingent events", as opposed to "necessary events". For instance, we deem it "necessary" that an apple fall when it breaks from the branch, but the breaking of the branch (and even the position of the apple in the tree, or of the tree itself...) is not "necessary". It is contingent. Could you predict that an apple would fall at that time if you were at the beginning of the Universe studying it? No, the calculations would be way beyond our power. You could not even be sure that an Earth would eventually form, let alone an apple fall!

Contingent effects are not forced results -- they can, in our imagination, have different results. The apple might not have fallen. The Earth need not be formed. Humans might not have evolved. But this is an aspect of our imagination. Studying the history of biological life on Earth we see several scenarios in which humans do not evolve. We ascribe the same "probability value" for each scenario and conclude that the "odds" against humans were huge. But this is flawed probabilities. We have a sample of one, there can be no probabilities with an individual sample.

Christians believe in Providence regarding History. Why would not Providence govern the History of the Universe? The laws of physics have no bearing on whether Napoleon wins or not the battle. Why do the laws of biological change have any bearing on whether humans are here or not? Napoleon lost; We are here.

The fact is: we are here. No biological theory has denied the possibility of human evolution (hehe). So why not accept the conclusions of biology, since they are in agreement with reality as we see it?

Final considerations... I would have thought that this thread would develop in a more "technical", less "philosophical" route (which shows how much I know :D). No one has denied Darwinism in technical grounds, so far, although I have heard a lot of arguments in real life about it: the absence of intermediary forms in the fossil records, the "complex organs" argument, etc. Does the silence on these matters mean that most people around here agree with conventional wisdom (Darwinism) on these questions?

jallan

04-13-2003, 04:18 AM

Are you suggesting, Eriol, that something like current human beings might have evolved anyway if the dinosaurs had not become extinct, that is an intelligent dinosauric species, who then would have been “humans”.

Not impossible at all as far as can be shown, but who knows?

Would God have cared?

Who knows?

Each individual human (and animal) is the result of chance of one single sperm of many fertilizing an egg.

Would there still have been someone like Adolf Hitler, or Abraham Lincoln, or (to the ridiculous) Groucho Marx if things had been a very little different and those exact individuals had not been conceived?

Probably not.

So far, if God is there in these chances, he is still quite successfully hiding himself from scientific investigation.

“Providence” or Fate is accordingly very hard to identify.

Eriol

04-13-2003, 04:46 AM

:confused:

Did I suggest that? "Dinosauric humans"? Sorry then.

I said simply that what happened happened. Probabilities cannot be derived from a sample of one. Is it unlikely that humans would evolve if the comet who sparked dinosaur extinction did not crash? Surely. But it did crash. So to say "hey, we were lucky" is a tautology. The chance involved is implied in the word "we" -- there is a human saying that. It is as if I had written "I am writing this sentence".

Every human is the result of chance fertilizing of sperm and egg. This leads me to conclude that it was extremely unlikely that someone like me would be typing these words if someone had looked at the Universe 30 years ago, not to mention 3 billion years ago.

Yet I'm here. Why would the result of contingent events disprove Darwinism?

I don't understand your objection, jallan. I am saying simply that the "improbability" of human evolution, which is a big argument of people who reject Darwinism, is not a proper reason for doing that, since it is a construct of our imagination -- we can't calculate probabilities from history.

Yet it seems that you understood me as saying that God was directing evolution from the start. Sure I can believe that. (I'm not sure, Darwin's comments about the Ichneumonidae are still very cogent -- I think God would be content with letting some things run by themselves. But I'm not sure, as I said). But I did not say that.

I just said that it is not a proper argument against Darwinism -- and that religious people can interpret biological history in this way, since they already interpret human history like this.

jallan

04-13-2003, 11:15 PM

Eriol posted:I don't understand your objection, jallan.Probably because I am not objecting to it, just taking parts of it somewhat further, indicating that the part chance seemingly plays in evolution is no more or less than it plays in everything else, so far as can be observed.

A religious person can see design in evolution, an intent of God, not just chance. Jerry Farwell and Pat Robertson saw design in the destruction of the Two Towers: a punishment by God for the sins of America, not only a chance of history produced by the interaction of various people who chanced to be born and chanced to be shaped by the world in various ways.

Free will is usually brought into the arguments about good and evil, but it also has its place in considering the development of the universe and of life on earth and of human history, though when applied to things that apparently have no will, we must call it chance instead.

That is, God lets things happen as they freely happen, mostly, as far as can be generally observed.

James Branch Cabell remarks ironically on the apparent inability of science or history or rational investigation to find the supernatural occurences of religion and legend and claims for psychic occurrences in his The Cream of the Jest, chapter 40 (http://www.uwm.edu/~mrdunn/cream.frames/cream40.html):I thought from the first there would prove to be supernal double-dealing back of all this. The Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, I suspect—windows which face on other worlds than ours: and They permit this-or-that man to peer out fleetingly, perhaps, just for the joke’s sake; since always They humorously contrive matters so this man shall never be able to convince his fellows of what he has seen or of the fact that he was granted any peep at all. The Wardens without fail arrange what we call—gravely, too—“some natural explanation.”Also, I certainly, myself, see no problems with intelligent dinosaurs having been a possible outcome of God’s plan, presuming there is a God and God has a plan.

Some have suggested that eventual evolution of life to human intelligence and perhaps eventually greater is natural everywhere that life as we know it can flourish. By God’s will it may be that if it is stopped by disaster one way it will often come to fruition in another.

Eriol

05-09-2003, 10:21 PM

Intelligent Design is (or was) the major hope of the theistic camp of debunking Darwinian evolution. I have just finished a major book about it, called "Mere Creation". I recommend it to everyone, evolutionists and non-evolutionists alike. Many beautiful and interesting insights are seen there. However, as far as I can see, Darwinism is unbudged by it. Why? Well, there are two main lines of argument running through the book. One is very strong and persuasive, but inherently flawed; another is weak in itself. Most importantly, more than half of the book is devoted to refuting materialism, and not Darwinism. Only Michael Behe really confronts Darwinism (the book is composed of contributions by several authors), and his is the second line of attack -- the argument from ignorance. Let us see these two lines of argument:

1) The anthropic principle. Simply put, this argument states that the fine-tuning of the Universe is so perfect that the odds on it having been created "by chance" in just this way are astonishingly low. And any "tinkering" with fundamental constants such as the Planck number, the gravitational constant, the amount of mass in the Universe, etc. etc. would lead to a completely different Universe, in which life could not appear. From this the argument infers that there must have been a Creator to account for this fine-tuning of the Universe.

This reasoning is very appealing, a re-hashing of Paley's "watchmaker" argument for intelligent design in biological organisms. That argument (Paley's) runs like this: Imagine if you found, lying by the road, a watch. Upon closer examination you would find that it is a very complex mechanism, with intricate parts well coordinated (even if you had never seen a watch you would be able to detect that). And you would -- naturally -- infer that this object could not have appeared by chance, since the delicate synchronization involved is completely apart from what is the usual result of "chance" processes as, say, an avalanche. Now a living organism is much (MUCH! more about it when we discuss the second argument) more complicated than a watch, and therefore the argument applies with much more force. It could not have appeared by chance. So there must have been a creator (just as in the case of watch we could infer a watchmaker).

I won't discuss the watchmaker argument right now, I am bringing it up to show its resemblance to the argument of the anthropic principle. But the problem with the anthropic principle, and the reason why we can't really apply this kind of reasoning, is that we are talking about The Universe, not peebles by the roadside. It is really a problem of the definition of probabilities. We can't calculate probabilities with a sample of one, and in the case of the Universe that's what we have - just one Universe. It makes no sense to talk about 'odds' in such a case. One of the authors in that book calculates the 'odds' against the universe, and he reaches this number:

0,000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000001

(that's 69 zeros)

What is the meaning of this? This all comes from estimates like "the chances of gravity being exactly what it is = 0,1). This is, quite clearly, nonsense. Another way to explain it is that the odds on, say, a person like myself typing these words, if calculated at the beginning of the Universe, would be MUCH smaller than that number. So what? I'm here; I'm doing it. Talk of 'odds' can only be misleading with a sample of one.

So much for the anthropic principle.

2) The argument from ignorance

Recall the watchmaker argument. One of the most potent reasons for its persuasiveness is that, when it was formulated (late 18th century), there was no other possible explanation for the existence of living beings. It was either a creator or a mystical force, akin to evolution, in which some atheists believed -- but they could not explain it and it was really a way of believing in God but changing His name (a common trick among atheists). Instead of saying "God did it", they said "It happened in some unknown way -- but NOT God". Not very satisfactory -- they worshipped an "unknown way".

Then came Darwin. Natural selection as the main force driving evolution was the first, and so far the only, explanation fo how could a bird appear without invoking God. (Note, that does not rule out God, just as saying that, say, the workings of TTF could be explained by Beorn without invoking God ;) ).

The watchmaker argument was employed against Darwinism in the form of "complex organs". How could the mammal eye, a very intricate machine, be formed by chance, by natural selection?

(by the way, equating chance with natural selection is a common rhetoric trick. It's a fallacy, but I won't get into it right now).

Darwin's answer (this controversy was still in his lifetime) was that a series of eyes, ranging from a very slight sensitivity to the full mammal/bird eye, would be functional and useful. He was not really sure how it could happen, but latter reserach on several animals found out this gradation of eyes in living animals (I'm not talking about fossil evidence), and the fact that they are used by living, functional animals is more than clear evidence of the possibility that the ancestors of mammals and birds had eyes like that.

So, the main form of the argument from ignorance, recycled by Michael Behe, is: "We don't know how natural selection could have done that. This means that it could not have done that. Therefore, God did it."

Just as the 19th century theists said that an eye could not be formed by intermediate stages, Behe says that proteic structures (such as the bacterial flagellum) could not be formed by intermediate stages. And from this he falsifies Darwinism and establishes the existence of God. Now this last step is a clear fallacy -- even if Darwinism is false some other explanation could be correct.

The point, however, lies elsewhere. Arguing from ignorance is, first of all, presumptuous -- it assumes that we know everything there is to be known. But even more important, while it does not offer a second theory, explaining how these proteic structures could be formed, it will never be accepted by science. Science, like nature, abhors a vacuum. There can't be a theoretical gap in it.

It is within the realm of possibility that God wished the first cell into being. But remember, Darwinism deals with cells, not with molecules -- that would be materialism.

jallan

05-10-2003, 03:46 AM

Very good discussion Eriol.,

Only one caveat. You wrote:Not very satisfactory -- they worshipped an "unknown way".

“Worshipped” I find odd.

Was anyone worshipping what they felt was a yet unexplained process or yet unexplained processes of nature?

Feanorian

05-10-2003, 04:51 AM

Do any of you believe in a process called Theistic Evolution, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about I will give a brief introduction. Theistic evolution is the idea that God created the world in the beginning and then let it take its course with evolution though not going as far to say humans to apes. In this theory God is not very active in creation or development only intervening at crucial points.

Now I for one do not believe this, I believe the account in Genisis because I am a Christian with those convictions(not saying other Christians cant have other convictions:rolleyes: ). However if i were to chose a theory on evolution I would go with this one, it makes good sense to me. Any other ideas on this thoery?

Eriol

05-10-2003, 07:14 AM

Perhaps the word 'worship' is misplaced. It would not be so in Portuguese. What I mean is that those people considered an absolute, impersonal force to be responsible for the process -- and shut off investigation of other alternatives. This I find akin to worshipping, and opposed to scientific belief.

Analogies would be: Hegel's "worship" of the State; Marxists's "worship" of dialectic materialism; and even, ironically, some scientists's "worship" of the scientific method!

And as for Theistic Evolution, it is really the belief in miracles, clothed in a nice name. I have no theoretical beef either with miracles or with Theistic Evolution. It would be the same as saying that I believe that the density of water is less than the density of a man -- and believing that, once, due to God's intervention, someone (and more than one, Jesus and Peter) walked on water.

The point is: Theistic Evolution ultimately agrees with Darwinism, while claiming the right to declare "miracles" whenever some transition is really "too hard to believe". I have yet to see one of these. Not even the vaunted transition from ape to man could qualify as doubtful. Considering the extreme fragility of hominid fossils, and how there never were big populations until modern humans arrived, it is amazing to see how many information we have about this transition.

Remember, man is both biological (material) and spiritual according to Christianism. Darwinism addresses only the biological side of that... according to Christianism. So I think you can be a Christian and believe in Darwinism (obviously, since I do precisely that).

jallan

05-11-2003, 07:01 AM

Eriol posted:Perhaps the word 'worship' is misplaced. It would not be so in Portuguese. What I mean is that those people considered an absolute, impersonal force to be responsible for the process -- and shut off investigation of other alternatives. This I find akin to worshipping, and opposed to scientific belief.Reasonably explained.

Except, there is a tendency for theists, Christian or otherwise, to continually push scientists to say clearly that God is involved, that God is the cause of this or that.

The reaction, especially when one can’t find any special demonstrable intervention of God separate from the seemingly impersonal forces of nature, is to push off the unscientific pressure.

“Yes, if you believe in God, then, yes, all this is in some degree God ’s work, probably, maybe, but we are studying nature. ”

To some degree it is like someone suggesting twenty years ago that a scientist should admit that God killed off the dinosaurs. Well, God obviously allowed it to happen at least. One must say that even today, assuming there is a God. But that’s not what scientific investigation of nature is about.

One would certainly not at all mind suddenly discovering proof of God’s intervention outside the impersonal laws of nature or within the laws of nature (which would then not be impersonal).

But pending that, a scientist should keep examining nature, not turn to the God of the Gaps as an explanation, e.g. the earth spins because God spins it, animals evolve because God evolves them.

That is true enough taking a total view, assuming there is a God, but not the kind of answer a scientist is looking for.

Eriol

07-26-2003, 05:47 AM

Bringing this back to the top...

I still want to talk about Darwinism if people feel like it, of course; but regarding jallan's last point, of how theists want to "push" God into science, he is of course correct. Science does not work well when philosophical assumptions are instilled into it "by the back door", whether they are right or wrong in themselves; the great strength of Science is its focus, the mobilization of human ingenuity to solve a very precisely defined problem, or to answer a very precisely defined question. I'm all for Philosophy, but we must acknowledge the tremendous power and usefulness of Science, and to investigate the characteristics that give Science this power. I'm convinced that focus -- the absence of complicating metaphysical assumptions -- is among the most important.

faila

07-28-2003, 04:23 AM

Originally posted by Hadhafang
I don't think that God is deceptive. I don't think that God would have antiqued the Earth to fool us. The Earth is also not 15 billion years old. It is 4.5 billion years old. The universe itself is 15 billion. The ideaology of Judeo/Christian creationism requires a leap of faith. There is no physical evidence to support the genesis account. One can't use the bible as evidence for its own validity. It is the validity of the creation account that is in question. It in essence has nothing to do with deception. First of all outside of this world all dates are almost completely guess work. (They assume that it took so long for a star to form, they assume because no one has ever seen a star form so they dont really know how long it takes.) His so called "biblical" dating also means nothing. I have no Idea how old the earth truly is, since many of the problems with evolutionary dating is that they assume things have happeend at the same rate for ever, which is falible(sp?)

The earth in essence is not proof, but it is physical evidence of both theories."{In the begining God created the heaven and the Earth." ) In essence (boy I like that word) The Earth is just intepreted in different ways by different opposing groups. For instance, me as a creationist see and extinct creature that is quite similair to a modern day creature. I say that it is iether micro evolution (random genetic changes within a species) or that they have a common link not in acenstors but in a creator, evolutions interprete the same information in a different manner.

Tell me, biological evolution makes a bit of sense, because of observed micro evolution. (I have yet to see substantion evidence of macro evolution but for the sake of illustration lets say that its is there). How did something go from no life to life? How did something go from unbiological to biological? Am I saying God worked through evolution?No, Im just pointing out a flaw in the evolutionary theory. If your smart youll admit you dont know how it when from no life to life, and say we dont know, but that it did happen and we will findout later, thats what most scientist would say.

In conclusion this debate will get no where. Life is here, this is what we know. WE have the evidence around us but to many different contradicting ways to interpret and categorize this information. I personally believe that a GOd created this earth, it is illogical but in essence so are parts of evolution. There is no true "Logical" explanation for the universe.