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Evolution vs Intelligent Design
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Tsk...that video itself makes a mistake. The plates do not rest on magma - they rest on rock that is solid, but not rigid. Rock with a consistency like plasticine or pitch. The rock has that consistency because it's hot but not molten - metal and glass become flexible near their melting point in the same way.
Two mistakes. X and gamma rays are NOT affected by Earth's magnetic field. What are affected are charged particles, mainly electrons (beta rays) and protons. But the atmosphere would stop those particles anyway.
I suppose it's a variant on Murphy's Law - those debunking errors will themselves make errors.
Two mistakes. X and gamma rays are NOT affected by Earth's magnetic field. What are affected are charged particles, mainly electrons (beta rays) and protons. But the atmosphere would stop those particles anyway.
I suppose it's a variant on Murphy's Law - those debunking errors will themselves make errors.
Wow, hadn't even caught the X-ray thing. I'm not surprised the video made a mistake considering it's nearly an hour.
Also, take note that almost nothing in Hovind's alternative theory was based on testable and proven, valid fact other than "the Bible said there was water in the air." Like I said, the guy doesn't know what he is talking about scientifically (there was water below, on, and above the earth's crust?). Basically, in order to disprove evolution while staying strictly in the word of the Bible, these sorts of fantastic but unrealistic claims must be first proven and credible. Without reading directly from the book, ID is sort of pointless altogether since those who don't conform to 2,000 year old writings realize that the idea is useless and impractical and doesn't explain much in biology, making ID counterproductive to science. This is why ID, or at least the Hovind Theory is nothing more than creationism in disguise, and I hope that anyone who watches the video sees that his ludicrous ideas are just blind extrapolation- going out on a limb made of yarn.
Back on topic-- scanning through the thread the only person who opposed evolution was J-Man. I'd love to get discussion going so if anyone else has a point against evolution or for ID, I encourage them to post it. If anyone knows of anyone else who is/was big in the ID movement, please post it.
Also, take note that almost nothing in Hovind's alternative theory was based on testable and proven, valid fact other than "the Bible said there was water in the air." Like I said, the guy doesn't know what he is talking about scientifically (there was water below, on, and above the earth's crust?). Basically, in order to disprove evolution while staying strictly in the word of the Bible, these sorts of fantastic but unrealistic claims must be first proven and credible. Without reading directly from the book, ID is sort of pointless altogether since those who don't conform to 2,000 year old writings realize that the idea is useless and impractical and doesn't explain much in biology, making ID counterproductive to science. This is why ID, or at least the Hovind Theory is nothing more than creationism in disguise, and I hope that anyone who watches the video sees that his ludicrous ideas are just blind extrapolation- going out on a limb made of yarn.
Back on topic-- scanning through the thread the only person who opposed evolution was J-Man. I'd love to get discussion going so if anyone else has a point against evolution or for ID, I encourage them to post it. If anyone knows of anyone else who is/was big in the ID movement, please post it.
I'm just popping in here because I like expressing my opinion. Let me start by saying that, yes, I'm a Christian. Yes, I don't fully understand the theory of Evolution. Those things aside, I like it's a bit silly to be comparing Evolution to Intelligent Design in the first place. Why? The basis of science is universalism (Not sure if I spelled that right), the belief that all thing happen, and have been happening, at the same rate and in the same way. Intelligent Design basically takes that concept and throws it out the window. According to Intelligent Design, the way things happen change, depending on what the Creator (God) lets happen. Because of this, I admit, Intelligent Design isn't a viable scientific theory because it isn't science. That's not to say I don't believe it, or that I don't believe in science. The Bible says that God reveals himself through his creation. I think that science is the revelation of God's order.
Also, I'd like to address the people who believe that God created the world through Intelligent Design. Straight off the bat, I'm going to say that a lot of this is paraphrased from an excellent book/pamphlet that I read entitled "5 Reasons to Believe in Recent Creation." (I'd recommend it to anyone. It doesn't address Evolution directly, it addresses the aforementioned people.) The main point I'm going to make is that God is absolutely and utterly perfect. There is no flaw in him. He is omniscient and omnipotent. This leads us to the conclusion that nothing about God can be random. Randomness could lead to flaws or mistakes, which God can't make. As previously mentioned, God says that his creation reflects the image of himself. Following this line of reasoning, how could God possibly make his creation random. Even if you assume that God fully controlled Evolution, you're still opposed by Genesis 1:20-26 (link) If you read that verse, you will see the emphasis of the phrase "according to their kind", implying that God produced each animal to produce it's own kind. If you want to read the King James Version (Easy conversion tool on that site), it goes as far to mention whales and cattle specifically "after their kind." These thing lead me to the conclusion that God wouldn't use Evolution as a tool to create the earth. You can probably poke holes in my argument all day, but that's what I believe.
The third and final thing that I'd like to talk about is actually a question. Different animals have different numbers of chromosomes or genomes or something, right? Why then, would it make sense that there are so many different numbers of chromosomes? Wouldn't it seem infinitely more probably that there would only be 1-2 different numbers of chromosomes or something? Great Apes have 48 chromosomes, while Humans have 46. IIRC, there can be mutated sperm and ovaries where two chromosomes combine into one; however, you have to add the fact that two of these mutations would have to occur with the following requirements: Same lifespan of male and female, in the same geographic area, the two Apes wold actually have to mate, out of the millions of sperm cell and multiple eggs, the correct two would have to meet, the change would actually have to produce something useful and not crippling as we commonly see today (This is the biggest one for me), and the offspring couldn't be sterile, as well as having something to mate with. This seems too unlikely to occur multiple times, let alone so many times that we can have such a variety or chromosomes (Wiki "Chromosome" to see what I'm talking about).
I lied, I have one more short paragraph of "disclaimers", if you will. Just to clear things up, I'm not trying to disprove Evolution. I don't think that's possible. Why? This is just my theory, I don't claim to know what God is thinking, but it's my understanding, as well as most other Christians, that God wants belief in him to come from faith. Evolution won't be disproven simply because God doesn't force himself on anyone. If Evolution ever loses its spot as the main-stream theory, it won't be to Intelligent Design, but rather another theory. Also, just to make sure, I'm not trying to pass judgment on anyone. That's not my place. I'm merely stating what I believe. Also, sorry for the quality of the latter half of my third paragraph and this paragraph. I'm getting pretty tired. Also, I enjoy discussion about the Flood, so I'll probably present my belief on that sometime. Anyways, thanks for reading this far. If you can answer my question, please do.
Also, I'd like to address the people who believe that God created the world through Intelligent Design. Straight off the bat, I'm going to say that a lot of this is paraphrased from an excellent book/pamphlet that I read entitled "5 Reasons to Believe in Recent Creation." (I'd recommend it to anyone. It doesn't address Evolution directly, it addresses the aforementioned people.) The main point I'm going to make is that God is absolutely and utterly perfect. There is no flaw in him. He is omniscient and omnipotent. This leads us to the conclusion that nothing about God can be random. Randomness could lead to flaws or mistakes, which God can't make. As previously mentioned, God says that his creation reflects the image of himself. Following this line of reasoning, how could God possibly make his creation random. Even if you assume that God fully controlled Evolution, you're still opposed by Genesis 1:20-26 (link) If you read that verse, you will see the emphasis of the phrase "according to their kind", implying that God produced each animal to produce it's own kind. If you want to read the King James Version (Easy conversion tool on that site), it goes as far to mention whales and cattle specifically "after their kind." These thing lead me to the conclusion that God wouldn't use Evolution as a tool to create the earth. You can probably poke holes in my argument all day, but that's what I believe.
The third and final thing that I'd like to talk about is actually a question. Different animals have different numbers of chromosomes or genomes or something, right? Why then, would it make sense that there are so many different numbers of chromosomes? Wouldn't it seem infinitely more probably that there would only be 1-2 different numbers of chromosomes or something? Great Apes have 48 chromosomes, while Humans have 46. IIRC, there can be mutated sperm and ovaries where two chromosomes combine into one; however, you have to add the fact that two of these mutations would have to occur with the following requirements: Same lifespan of male and female, in the same geographic area, the two Apes wold actually have to mate, out of the millions of sperm cell and multiple eggs, the correct two would have to meet, the change would actually have to produce something useful and not crippling as we commonly see today (This is the biggest one for me), and the offspring couldn't be sterile, as well as having something to mate with. This seems too unlikely to occur multiple times, let alone so many times that we can have such a variety or chromosomes (Wiki "Chromosome" to see what I'm talking about).
I lied, I have one more short paragraph of "disclaimers", if you will. Just to clear things up, I'm not trying to disprove Evolution. I don't think that's possible. Why? This is just my theory, I don't claim to know what God is thinking, but it's my understanding, as well as most other Christians, that God wants belief in him to come from faith. Evolution won't be disproven simply because God doesn't force himself on anyone. If Evolution ever loses its spot as the main-stream theory, it won't be to Intelligent Design, but rather another theory. Also, just to make sure, I'm not trying to pass judgment on anyone. That's not my place. I'm merely stating what I believe. Also, sorry for the quality of the latter half of my third paragraph and this paragraph. I'm getting pretty tired. Also, I enjoy discussion about the Flood, so I'll probably present my belief on that sometime. Anyways, thanks for reading this far. If you can answer my question, please do.
This is a good question. I'm not a biologist or even out of high school but here's a shot.
Your question is why is there a large variation in the number of chromosomes (a genome is a list of all the genes, not a chromosome). My best guess is that the answer lies in the mechanisms of sexual reproduction on the cellular level. Sexual reproduction is most commonly believed to exist for the purpose of sharing genetic information and increasing the overlaps in the gene pool of a population, ie, make it easier for beneficial mutations to dominate a population and help it survive. When you look at the process of meiosis, how sex cells form in humans and other animals, you notice that after the genetic information condenses into the chromosomes, they split down the middle and part of each one goes into the daughter sex cells. This allows for the chromosomes to recombine in the new baby organism with a completely random set of genes from each parent. To think about how it makes the possible sets of combinations bigger, think of two decks of cards combining . If each deck has 4 cards, a black and red ace and a black and red 2 and when the decks both halved and half of each are put together the aces and 2s pair up, there are 16 (I think) possible combinations if we divide each in two and put them together (black ace-black ace + black 2-black 2, black ace-black ace + black 2-red 2, black ace-black ace + red 2-black 2, etc.). If each one has a full set of 52 cards (26 pairs of 2), there is a hell of a lot more diversity in the possible combinations. So that may be why there is a large number of chromosomes.
The various numbers of chromosomes between species my be because some genes work. Actually a lot of genes work. A species or population does not inherently "wish" to evolve and gain genetic information. Natural Selection has only one simple goal- survive. If a population is doing fine they will not feel a push toward adapting as they already have. So if a species lives in an environment where they don't need a huge diversity of genes they may, over time streamline their genome by getting rid of unnecessary or vestigial chromosomes. This could happen by a random mutation of some genes getting attached onto another chromosome, which I believe is known to happen, and the other chromosome can still function or does not need to function with the genes it lost and the individual can still reproduce. The Kingfisher is known to have 132 genes while fruit flies have 8.
A much simpler possibility is that one species of animal or plant can't or didn't fit all of its genetic information onto a smaller number of chromosomes while others did. Or an animal has so much information, vestigial or otherwise, that it has to fit them all onto a large number of chromosomes. Some might ask, "if we're higher animals than other great apes, why do we have fewer chromosomes?" Of course, we are not necessarily "higher" than apes because we think, and we don't know if thinking or larger brains in general is that complicated genetically. And also note that we did not descend from chimps, but share a common ancestor, according to the theory of evolution, so we didn't "add" information from the apes; it's possible that they simply gained a few more chromosomes when we split.
I hope I answered your question with my guesswork. If I made a mistake someone please tell me.
It has been suggested that this could occur through interbreeding. ie if a brother and sister mated that had the same genetic defect/difference. The parents could also of had slight defects in their genomes which made it more likely for their offspring to have one less chromosome pair (of whatever the difference was in each case). Changes in the chromosome number were probably not because one pair just vanished, but because two pairs merged, meaning that all the genetic material was still there. My father has a balanced translocation(the ends of two chromosomes have switch places, but is still able to reproduce (bad mental image lol). And remember that just because it is unlikey to occur, doesn't mean that it won't/hasn't. Life has had millions of years to reach the diversity it has now (as well as the times where the majority of life was wiped out and such).
Upside:
The main point I'm going to make is that God is absolutely and utterly perfect. There is no flaw in him.
But what does "perfect" mean? God can be perfectly good, he can be perfectly evil, but he can't be both. Does God being perfect mean that, for instance, he is a perfect liar? Or do you prefer to believe (baselessly) that a perfect entity would never lie? You cannot just define God as perfect, you need to give a sensible definition of perfection, convince us that it's a good definition, and then show that God matches it. "Absolute perfection" is a nonsense concept. At most, by saying that God is absolutely and utterly perfect, you are saying that God is exactly what you want him to be.
He is omniscient and omnipotent. This leads us to the conclusion that nothing about God can be random.
Many options might be equally "perfect". Randomness is a completely valid tool for a "perfect" entity to choose between them. For instance, is God going to get pizza or sushi for lunch? If he deems them both are equally perfect, there is nothing wrong with flipping a coin.
Randomness could lead to flaws or mistakes, which God can't make.
What if God wanted flaws or mistakes? Complete perfection is rather boring and flaws can give characterization. Just like the perfect movie isn't necessarily one that depicts a happy life, perhaps the perfect creation is a "flawed" one.
As previously mentioned, God says that his creation reflects the image of himself.
No. You think God says that his creation reflects the image of himself, and you trust that what you think God says is not a lie. Needless to say, there are many ways this could go wrong.
Following this line of reasoning, how could God possibly make his creation random. Even if you assume that God fully controlled Evolution, you're still opposed by Genesis 1:20-26 (link) If you read that verse, you will see the emphasis of the phrase "according to their kind", implying that God produced each animal to produce it's own kind. If you want to read the King James Version (Easy conversion tool on that site), it goes as far to mention whales and cattle specifically "after their kind." These thing lead me to the conclusion that God wouldn't use Evolution as a tool to create the earth. You can probably poke holes in my argument all day, but that's what I believe.
Given that there is an incredible amount of evidence in favor of evolution occurring (only someone ignorant and/or stupid can deny this), and that the Christian God, as per your analysis, could never use evolution, the conclusion should be crystal clear: the Christian God does not exist. It is simple logic. Now, of course, I don't see anything wrong with God using evolution as its "design" process, but if you do, you should at least be logical about it.
Why then, would it make sense that there are so many different numbers of chromosomes? Wouldn't it seem infinitely more probably that there would only be 1-2 different numbers of chromosomes or something?
If God created all living species, yes, it would. It seems the number of chromosomes is largely irrelevant to the actual functioning of an organism, so although it can occur randomly through evolution and lead to some speciation, to design organisms that way would seem really odd.
Great Apes have 48 chromosomes, while Humans have 46. IIRC, there can be mutated sperm and ovaries where two chromosomes combine into one; however, you have to add the fact that two of these mutations would have to occur with the following requirements: Same lifespan of male and female, in the same geographic area, the two Apes wold actually have to mate, out of the millions of sperm cell and multiple eggs, the correct two would have to meet, the change would actually have to produce something useful and not crippling as we commonly see today (This is the biggest one for me), and the offspring couldn't be fertile, as well as having something to mate with. This seems too unlikely to occur multiple times, let alone so many times that we can have such a variety or chromosomes (Wiki "Chromosome" to see what I'm talking about).
For a given species, these things have millions of years to occur through trillions of instances of sexual intercourse, the probabilities are not so low that you would never expect them to occur. Also, a simple search that you could have done led me to this interesting article:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/basics_how_can_chromosome_numb.php
In a nutshell, the number of chromosomes doesn't really matter much at all. Accidentally, some of them will split and this will cause reduced fertility, but that's about it. Importantly, though, the genes causing the split can still spread, leading to an interesting situation: some organisms have N chromosomes, some others have N+1. There is no reduced fertility within organisms with N chromosomes and no reduced fertility within organisms with N+1 chromosomes either. The reduction in fertility only occurs between organisms that have different numbers. Eventually, this can lead both groups to drift off and become two different species with different numbers of chromosomes. While it might not happen often, it happens. Imagine that a particularly well adapted organism gets one more chromosome (or one less) - this could offset some fertility problems and give some grounds for the change to survive and perhaps even thrive.
This is just my theory, I don't claim to know what God is thinking, but it's my understanding, as well as most other Christians, that God wants belief in him to come from faith.
Then the least of things would be to make sure the Bible is maximally compatible with science, so that it does not become an obstacle to belief.
You also have faith in much more than God: you have faith God exists, you have faith that he is also perfect, you have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and you have faith that somehow you will be rewarded for it. Essentially, you have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as you want him to be. But if the God of Irony exists, and there is literally no reason and no evidence to think he does not, you're actually on a one way ticket to hell :(
Evolution won't be disproven simply because God doesn't force himself on anyone.
Evolution won't be disproven because it is accurate and corroborated by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. If evolution is false, God would have to be one hell of a deceitful son of a bitch for "designing" things that are completely consistent with it.
The main point I'm going to make is that God is absolutely and utterly perfect. There is no flaw in him.
But what does "perfect" mean? God can be perfectly good, he can be perfectly evil, but he can't be both. Does God being perfect mean that, for instance, he is a perfect liar? Or do you prefer to believe (baselessly) that a perfect entity would never lie? You cannot just define God as perfect, you need to give a sensible definition of perfection, convince us that it's a good definition, and then show that God matches it. "Absolute perfection" is a nonsense concept. At most, by saying that God is absolutely and utterly perfect, you are saying that God is exactly what you want him to be.
He is omniscient and omnipotent. This leads us to the conclusion that nothing about God can be random.
Many options might be equally "perfect". Randomness is a completely valid tool for a "perfect" entity to choose between them. For instance, is God going to get pizza or sushi for lunch? If he deems them both are equally perfect, there is nothing wrong with flipping a coin.
Randomness could lead to flaws or mistakes, which God can't make.
What if God wanted flaws or mistakes? Complete perfection is rather boring and flaws can give characterization. Just like the perfect movie isn't necessarily one that depicts a happy life, perhaps the perfect creation is a "flawed" one.
As previously mentioned, God says that his creation reflects the image of himself.
No. You think God says that his creation reflects the image of himself, and you trust that what you think God says is not a lie. Needless to say, there are many ways this could go wrong.
Following this line of reasoning, how could God possibly make his creation random. Even if you assume that God fully controlled Evolution, you're still opposed by Genesis 1:20-26 (link) If you read that verse, you will see the emphasis of the phrase "according to their kind", implying that God produced each animal to produce it's own kind. If you want to read the King James Version (Easy conversion tool on that site), it goes as far to mention whales and cattle specifically "after their kind." These thing lead me to the conclusion that God wouldn't use Evolution as a tool to create the earth. You can probably poke holes in my argument all day, but that's what I believe.
Given that there is an incredible amount of evidence in favor of evolution occurring (only someone ignorant and/or stupid can deny this), and that the Christian God, as per your analysis, could never use evolution, the conclusion should be crystal clear: the Christian God does not exist. It is simple logic. Now, of course, I don't see anything wrong with God using evolution as its "design" process, but if you do, you should at least be logical about it.
Why then, would it make sense that there are so many different numbers of chromosomes? Wouldn't it seem infinitely more probably that there would only be 1-2 different numbers of chromosomes or something?
If God created all living species, yes, it would. It seems the number of chromosomes is largely irrelevant to the actual functioning of an organism, so although it can occur randomly through evolution and lead to some speciation, to design organisms that way would seem really odd.
Great Apes have 48 chromosomes, while Humans have 46. IIRC, there can be mutated sperm and ovaries where two chromosomes combine into one; however, you have to add the fact that two of these mutations would have to occur with the following requirements: Same lifespan of male and female, in the same geographic area, the two Apes wold actually have to mate, out of the millions of sperm cell and multiple eggs, the correct two would have to meet, the change would actually have to produce something useful and not crippling as we commonly see today (This is the biggest one for me), and the offspring couldn't be fertile, as well as having something to mate with. This seems too unlikely to occur multiple times, let alone so many times that we can have such a variety or chromosomes (Wiki "Chromosome" to see what I'm talking about).
For a given species, these things have millions of years to occur through trillions of instances of sexual intercourse, the probabilities are not so low that you would never expect them to occur. Also, a simple search that you could have done led me to this interesting article:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/basics_how_can_chromosome_numb.php
In a nutshell, the number of chromosomes doesn't really matter much at all. Accidentally, some of them will split and this will cause reduced fertility, but that's about it. Importantly, though, the genes causing the split can still spread, leading to an interesting situation: some organisms have N chromosomes, some others have N+1. There is no reduced fertility within organisms with N chromosomes and no reduced fertility within organisms with N+1 chromosomes either. The reduction in fertility only occurs between organisms that have different numbers. Eventually, this can lead both groups to drift off and become two different species with different numbers of chromosomes. While it might not happen often, it happens. Imagine that a particularly well adapted organism gets one more chromosome (or one less) - this could offset some fertility problems and give some grounds for the change to survive and perhaps even thrive.
This is just my theory, I don't claim to know what God is thinking, but it's my understanding, as well as most other Christians, that God wants belief in him to come from faith.
Then the least of things would be to make sure the Bible is maximally compatible with science, so that it does not become an obstacle to belief.
You also have faith in much more than God: you have faith God exists, you have faith that he is also perfect, you have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and you have faith that somehow you will be rewarded for it. Essentially, you have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as you want him to be. But if the God of Irony exists, and there is literally no reason and no evidence to think he does not, you're actually on a one way ticket to hell :(
Evolution won't be disproven simply because God doesn't force himself on anyone.
Evolution won't be disproven because it is accurate and corroborated by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. If evolution is false, God would have to be one hell of a deceitful son of a bitch for "designing" things that are completely consistent with it.
Basically it all amounts to Russell's Teapot. The nature of a God or higher deity is nothing more than speculation. He/They could conduct the creation of the Universe and life at least a billion different ways, you don't know how. However, this kind of "in the event that it was oddly specific enough to..." theorizing is ultimately useless because the only conclusion that can really be drawn is "alright, add that possibility to the list." A God that matches exactly what Upside says is as possible as one anyone else can contrive and therefore opposite ideas cancel out. A "perfect" God could be argued to possess the power to be both contradictory and non-contradictory simultaneously to avoid any logic contradictions, but then again so could a giant teapot.
So I've thought about and come across the argument Upisde is giving many times and ultimately found it scientifically and logically pointless. Brain, your statement that there cannot be the Christian God is actually unprovable, once again by Russell's Teapot. However, if incorporating it into science (as opposed to ignoring and molding it to fit an old book), it's as I've said before useless. The argument is that everything ultimately came from God, and conversely, nothing exists without God. "He made evolution, the Big Bang, Quantum Theory, and everything else." Basically it's this viewpoint:
Observation ---> naturalistic process . . . > GOD
As we can see, in scientific or naturalism, for the point of learning how the world works, only the first link is necessary. In fact, it is the only link that can be used for anything furthering knowledge. The last part is inherently supernatural and/or unproven, and therefore can be truncated.
Observation ---> naturalistic process with some logical means ---> that's it, that's all we can say.
This is exactly the scientific process. No magic life-making gnomes involved.
Really? That's interesting. I thought about this but I didn't know if it was possible. You said the organisms have reduced fertility. How reduced is this? Since the chromosomes don't look identical anymore, how do they match up in an offspring? Does the offspring just inherit an extra chromosome? How does a chromosome spontaneously break apart and form a whole new chromosome, ie, how is it classified as a new chromosome rather than two broken halves? Can two organisms identical in genetic information and allele frequencies be separated as separate species by the N+1 chromosome?
sonickid:
A God that matches exactly what Upside says is as possible as one anyone else can contrive and therefore opposite ideas cancel out.
A God can't really match exactly what Upside says because what he says is not specific enough to be readily intelligible. It is not clear that what he means to himself, when he thinks about it, is truly intelligible either.
A "perfect" God could be argued to possess the power to be both contradictory and non-contradictory simultaneously to avoid any logic contradictions, but then again so could a giant teapot.
Logic describes reality, not the other way around. Logical contradictions are essentially unintelligible propositions. Since they do not mean anything, they can't obtain any more than schplaf or wagazoo can obtain. Said in another way, regardless of what God is, he cannot be described in a logically inconsistent way.
Brain, your statement that there cannot be the Christian God is actually unprovable, once again by Russell's Teapot.
I made no such statement. What I said is that if the Christian God implies that evolution is false, as Upside seemed to argue, considering the massive evidence that evolution does happen, the logical conclusion would be that God does not exist. I do not think this implication is reasonable.
Observation ---> naturalistic process . . . > GOD
As we can see, in scientific or naturalism, for the point of learning how the world works, only the first link is necessary. In fact, it is the only link that can be used for anything furthering knowledge. The last part is inherently supernatural and/or unproven, and therefore can be truncated.
Yeah, Occam's razor, pretty much :)
Really? That's interesting. I thought about this but I didn't know if it was possible. You said the organisms have reduced fertility. How reduced is this?
I don't know exactly, my knowledge of the issue (and of genetics in general, so anybody feel free to correct any mistakes I might make!) is very cursory. I can reason it, in part: suppose that you have an AB chromosome with two genes in it (A and B), and it is paired with an ab chromosome. When gametes are formed, AB and ab are copied and are dispatched to two gametes, one gets AB, the other gets ab.
If AB is split in two, the organism ends up with three chromosomes: A, B and ab. This is not harmful: A and B still line up with ab, they just happen to be split rather than whole. However, when A, B and ab are copied and must be distributed in two gametes, the cell doesn't really know how to do that. If it puts A, B in one and ab in the other, everything is perfectly fine, and if a children gets A, B the condition will simply be transmitted. However, the cell might fuck up and put A only in a gamete and B and ab in the other, or A and ab in one and B in the other. These gametes will fail to yield a viable child, usually leading to miscarriages, sometimes to conditions like Down's syndrome.
Infertility here would depend on how often the chromosomes are badly distributed in the situation I just mentioned. I suspect that it doesn't happen very often, but I really have no idea.
Since the chromosomes don't look identical anymore, how do they match up in an offspring?
They look identical. They match up fine, they are just broken up.
Does the offspring just inherit an extra chromosome? How does a chromosome spontaneously break apart and form a whole new chromosome, ie, how is it classified as a new chromosome rather than two broken halves?
It isn't. But when the chromosome's twin is also broken up, you can't really tell that they used to be together. Same for when they are fused. You just have one more, or one less.
Can two organisms identical in genetic information and allele frequencies be separated as separate species by the N+1 chromosome?
Not immediately, of course. What happens is that there will be a lower fertility rate between a group with N chromosomes and one with N+1. This infertility creates a sort of "barrier" to gene transfer between the two groups, which can only become stronger with time. The two groups become "desynchronized", the innovations within one group not being picked up by the other, and vice versa. It is only after a while that they would become different enough to be classified as different species. I am not saying this is necessarily how species are formed, but it can be a way.
A God that matches exactly what Upside says is as possible as one anyone else can contrive and therefore opposite ideas cancel out.
A God can't really match exactly what Upside says because what he says is not specific enough to be readily intelligible. It is not clear that what he means to himself, when he thinks about it, is truly intelligible either.
A "perfect" God could be argued to possess the power to be both contradictory and non-contradictory simultaneously to avoid any logic contradictions, but then again so could a giant teapot.
Logic describes reality, not the other way around. Logical contradictions are essentially unintelligible propositions. Since they do not mean anything, they can't obtain any more than schplaf or wagazoo can obtain. Said in another way, regardless of what God is, he cannot be described in a logically inconsistent way.
Brain, your statement that there cannot be the Christian God is actually unprovable, once again by Russell's Teapot.
I made no such statement. What I said is that if the Christian God implies that evolution is false, as Upside seemed to argue, considering the massive evidence that evolution does happen, the logical conclusion would be that God does not exist. I do not think this implication is reasonable.
Observation ---> naturalistic process . . . > GOD
As we can see, in scientific or naturalism, for the point of learning how the world works, only the first link is necessary. In fact, it is the only link that can be used for anything furthering knowledge. The last part is inherently supernatural and/or unproven, and therefore can be truncated.
Yeah, Occam's razor, pretty much :)
Really? That's interesting. I thought about this but I didn't know if it was possible. You said the organisms have reduced fertility. How reduced is this?
I don't know exactly, my knowledge of the issue (and of genetics in general, so anybody feel free to correct any mistakes I might make!) is very cursory. I can reason it, in part: suppose that you have an AB chromosome with two genes in it (A and B), and it is paired with an ab chromosome. When gametes are formed, AB and ab are copied and are dispatched to two gametes, one gets AB, the other gets ab.
If AB is split in two, the organism ends up with three chromosomes: A, B and ab. This is not harmful: A and B still line up with ab, they just happen to be split rather than whole. However, when A, B and ab are copied and must be distributed in two gametes, the cell doesn't really know how to do that. If it puts A, B in one and ab in the other, everything is perfectly fine, and if a children gets A, B the condition will simply be transmitted. However, the cell might fuck up and put A only in a gamete and B and ab in the other, or A and ab in one and B in the other. These gametes will fail to yield a viable child, usually leading to miscarriages, sometimes to conditions like Down's syndrome.
Infertility here would depend on how often the chromosomes are badly distributed in the situation I just mentioned. I suspect that it doesn't happen very often, but I really have no idea.
Since the chromosomes don't look identical anymore, how do they match up in an offspring?
They look identical. They match up fine, they are just broken up.
Does the offspring just inherit an extra chromosome? How does a chromosome spontaneously break apart and form a whole new chromosome, ie, how is it classified as a new chromosome rather than two broken halves?
It isn't. But when the chromosome's twin is also broken up, you can't really tell that they used to be together. Same for when they are fused. You just have one more, or one less.
Can two organisms identical in genetic information and allele frequencies be separated as separate species by the N+1 chromosome?
Not immediately, of course. What happens is that there will be a lower fertility rate between a group with N chromosomes and one with N+1. This infertility creates a sort of "barrier" to gene transfer between the two groups, which can only become stronger with time. The two groups become "desynchronized", the innovations within one group not being picked up by the other, and vice versa. It is only after a while that they would become different enough to be classified as different species. I am not saying this is necessarily how species are formed, but it can be a way.
Wrong. Science normally assumes that the laws governing events - or to take a positivist view, the equations describing events - are the same everywhere. That does not mean the events themselves are the same.
Maybe he didn't. The only true randomness is in quantum mechanics, and quantum mechanics is not a complete theory of physics. The current state of physics is "Quantisation, Relativity, Gravity - pick any two". Maybe a unified theory will get rid of the quantum randomness.
But what is a 'kind'? It's just as, if not more, troublesome to define than 'species'. But biologists admit the conecpt of species isn't always clear-cut. Are ring species like the gulls that live around the Arctic ocean one 'kind', or many?
These statements appear to contradict each other. The evidence from observation is that evolution is correct.
I think this can be accounted for by translocation. Genes move from one chromosome to another, without impairing their function. (Chromosomes can also fuse). Translocations do not always result in terminal disease , and I think they do not always prevent viable offspring being formed by reproduction with an individual who did not undergo the translocation. The existence of 'extra' chromosomes also provides a mechanism for change in number of chromosomes, if one of these 'extras' becomes required.
Brain: I think I answer your questions out of order. If it's a huge problem, I'll go through and re-order them for you.
But what does "perfect" mean? God can be perfectly good, he can be perfectly evil, but he can't be both. Does God being perfect mean that, for instance, he is a perfect liar? Or do you prefer to believe (baselessly) that a perfect entity would never lie? You cannot just define God as perfect, you need to give a sensible definition of perfection, convince us that it's a good definition, and then show that God matches it. "Absolute perfection" is a nonsense concept. At most, by saying that God is absolutely and utterly perfect, you are saying that God is exactly what you want him to be.
I figured this was coming. Admittedly, you are right. I don't know what "perfection" is. Why? Because everyone, myself included, is flawed; however, we have a great picture of the nature of God through Jesus, who was God in human form. I do realize that most of the basis of my arguments comes from a belief in God, so it really comes down to your opinion on the Bible's credibility, which I assume from your standpoint, is not very high. Following the same line of reasoning, Psalm 19:1-6 and Romans 1:20 show, rather poetically in the case of Psalms, that God' creation does, in fact, give us a glimpse into his nature.
Then the least of things would be to make sure the Bible is maximally compatible with science, so that it does not become an obstacle to belief.
God and his ways surpass all human knowledge and understanding (I'll find a verse if you want me to, but I'm too lazy to do it at the moment.), thus, his Word, his letter to all humanity that demonstrates nearly everything we know about God, isn't guaranteed to co-operate with human logic and science. As well as my initial fact that belief in God is on a completely different playing field than science and Evolution.
If God created all living species, yes, it would. It seems the number of chromosomes is largely irrelevant to the actual functioning of an organism, so although it can occur randomly through evolution and lead to some speciation, to design organisms that way would seem really odd.
Dang, beaten by own words :/. Thanks for explaining how it the chromosome thing works, I still don't fully understand it, nor do I have any way of verifying your information (Noticed on my second read-through that most of that info was probably from the article, so I assume it's pretty legit), but it seems like our current understanding doesn't conflict with Evolution. The numbers still seem too improbably for me (It seems that a mutation to produce something useful, which I personally haven't heard about happening, would be extremely improbable), but to each his own. On the God side of things, (And again, I don't claim to "know" what God is thinking. This is what I can understand from my reading of the Bible) I'm absolutely positive that each differing number of chromosomes has a purpose. It could simply be that, as you said, God wanted a little bit of variety and delights in that. Note, variety is different from randomness. Variety has a purpose. Or maybe there is a reason for those specific chromosomes that we haven't discovered yet.
What if God wanted flaws or mistakes? Complete perfection is rather boring and flaws can give characterization. Just like the perfect movie isn't necessarily one that depicts a happy life, perhaps the perfect creation is a "flawed" one.
First of all, your analogy is flawed. If the purpose of a movie is to depict a happy life, then yes, a movie depicting a happy life would be relatively perfect; however, that's not the purpose of a movie. The purpose of a movie is to entertain, in which case, a movie with twists, surprises, action, and other thing we deem "entertaining" is perfect. This doesn't answer your question though, that being, "Why wouldn't God use flaws to give his creation character?" My answer to this gets rather theological, which I'm not very adapt at, so I'll do my best to answer it. According to the Bible, God doesn't make mistakes. It deems him "holy." I'm sure the literal translation of the Hebrew word could provide more insight into this (Found it: link). I have to admit it threw me for a loop. Regardless, it still accurately describes God; however, it fails to make my point. Anyways, the Bible tells us that Jesus didn't make mistakes (I'll find a verse if you really want me to) and since Jesus is one of our ways of seeing God, we can know that God doesn't make mistakes as well. Because of this, I can conclude that if God did design a "flaw", it would be for a specific purpose, and therefore, not a mistake (Or a flaw for that matter).
Evolution won't be disproven because it is accurate and corroborated by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. If evolution is false, God would have to be one hell of a deceitful son of a bitch for "designing" things that are completely consistent with it.
This is a whole other debate, as I would argue that things like a young earth, the fact that we haven't seen any fossils of "transition" animals, and other things that I'm sure have been brought up multiple times in this topic aren't consistent with the Evolutionary theory, but they weren't resolved then, and I doubt I can resolve them now, especially because of the fact that Brain is a spectacular debater. I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of his post.
You also have faith in much more than God: you have faith God exists, you have faith that he is also perfect, you have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and you have faith that somehow you will be rewarded for it. Essentially, you have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as you want him to be. But if the God of Irony exists, and there is literally no reason and no evidence to think he does not, you're actually on a one way ticket to hell :(
Ok, I have faith in more than God. I have faith he exists, I have faith that he is also perfect, I have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and I have faith that somehow I will be rewarded for it. Essentially, I have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as (This is the only part I don't agree with) the Bible describes him.
So, yea. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed, so I'll leave you with two philosophical questions that someone proposed to me and as I'm not very philosophical, I couldn't really wrap my head around.
1. Logically, everything that occurs should have a purpose. What was the purpose of Evolution and how did that purpose come to be?
2. Where did our morals of "right and wrong" come from? Is there any distinct advantage that would cause Evolution to develop such a conscience.
But what does "perfect" mean? God can be perfectly good, he can be perfectly evil, but he can't be both. Does God being perfect mean that, for instance, he is a perfect liar? Or do you prefer to believe (baselessly) that a perfect entity would never lie? You cannot just define God as perfect, you need to give a sensible definition of perfection, convince us that it's a good definition, and then show that God matches it. "Absolute perfection" is a nonsense concept. At most, by saying that God is absolutely and utterly perfect, you are saying that God is exactly what you want him to be.
I figured this was coming. Admittedly, you are right. I don't know what "perfection" is. Why? Because everyone, myself included, is flawed; however, we have a great picture of the nature of God through Jesus, who was God in human form. I do realize that most of the basis of my arguments comes from a belief in God, so it really comes down to your opinion on the Bible's credibility, which I assume from your standpoint, is not very high. Following the same line of reasoning, Psalm 19:1-6 and Romans 1:20 show, rather poetically in the case of Psalms, that God' creation does, in fact, give us a glimpse into his nature.
Then the least of things would be to make sure the Bible is maximally compatible with science, so that it does not become an obstacle to belief.
God and his ways surpass all human knowledge and understanding (I'll find a verse if you want me to, but I'm too lazy to do it at the moment.), thus, his Word, his letter to all humanity that demonstrates nearly everything we know about God, isn't guaranteed to co-operate with human logic and science. As well as my initial fact that belief in God is on a completely different playing field than science and Evolution.
If God created all living species, yes, it would. It seems the number of chromosomes is largely irrelevant to the actual functioning of an organism, so although it can occur randomly through evolution and lead to some speciation, to design organisms that way would seem really odd.
Dang, beaten by own words :/. Thanks for explaining how it the chromosome thing works, I still don't fully understand it, nor do I have any way of verifying your information (Noticed on my second read-through that most of that info was probably from the article, so I assume it's pretty legit), but it seems like our current understanding doesn't conflict with Evolution. The numbers still seem too improbably for me (It seems that a mutation to produce something useful, which I personally haven't heard about happening, would be extremely improbable), but to each his own. On the God side of things, (And again, I don't claim to "know" what God is thinking. This is what I can understand from my reading of the Bible) I'm absolutely positive that each differing number of chromosomes has a purpose. It could simply be that, as you said, God wanted a little bit of variety and delights in that. Note, variety is different from randomness. Variety has a purpose. Or maybe there is a reason for those specific chromosomes that we haven't discovered yet.
What if God wanted flaws or mistakes? Complete perfection is rather boring and flaws can give characterization. Just like the perfect movie isn't necessarily one that depicts a happy life, perhaps the perfect creation is a "flawed" one.
First of all, your analogy is flawed. If the purpose of a movie is to depict a happy life, then yes, a movie depicting a happy life would be relatively perfect; however, that's not the purpose of a movie. The purpose of a movie is to entertain, in which case, a movie with twists, surprises, action, and other thing we deem "entertaining" is perfect. This doesn't answer your question though, that being, "Why wouldn't God use flaws to give his creation character?" My answer to this gets rather theological, which I'm not very adapt at, so I'll do my best to answer it. According to the Bible, God doesn't make mistakes. It deems him "holy." I'm sure the literal translation of the Hebrew word could provide more insight into this (Found it: link). I have to admit it threw me for a loop. Regardless, it still accurately describes God; however, it fails to make my point. Anyways, the Bible tells us that Jesus didn't make mistakes (I'll find a verse if you really want me to) and since Jesus is one of our ways of seeing God, we can know that God doesn't make mistakes as well. Because of this, I can conclude that if God did design a "flaw", it would be for a specific purpose, and therefore, not a mistake (Or a flaw for that matter).
Evolution won't be disproven because it is accurate and corroborated by evidence beyond all reasonable doubt. If evolution is false, God would have to be one hell of a deceitful son of a bitch for "designing" things that are completely consistent with it.
This is a whole other debate, as I would argue that things like a young earth, the fact that we haven't seen any fossils of "transition" animals, and other things that I'm sure have been brought up multiple times in this topic aren't consistent with the Evolutionary theory, but they weren't resolved then, and I doubt I can resolve them now, especially because of the fact that Brain is a spectacular debater. I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of his post.
You also have faith in much more than God: you have faith God exists, you have faith that he is also perfect, you have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and you have faith that somehow you will be rewarded for it. Essentially, you have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as you want him to be. But if the God of Irony exists, and there is literally no reason and no evidence to think he does not, you're actually on a one way ticket to hell :(
Ok, I have faith in more than God. I have faith he exists, I have faith that he is also perfect, I have faith he wants you to believe in him, and that it has to be done through faith, and I have faith that somehow I will be rewarded for it. Essentially, I have faith that God not only exists, but is exactly as (This is the only part I don't agree with) the Bible describes him.
So, yea. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed, so I'll leave you with two philosophical questions that someone proposed to me and as I'm not very philosophical, I couldn't really wrap my head around.
1. Logically, everything that occurs should have a purpose. What was the purpose of Evolution and how did that purpose come to be?
2. Where did our morals of "right and wrong" come from? Is there any distinct advantage that would cause Evolution to develop such a conscience.
Relating to what I pointed out in the other thread, but I hopefully will explain it better this time: God lies outside our experience of reality. To extend the same logic that describes our Universe to God thus may not always be justified. If you are going to apply logic that works in our Universe to God, you need to provide a good reason for doing so.
Indeed, with what he coined a "Virus Theory of Religion", Dawkins posited that the reason people are inclined to take things on faith because someone they respect told them so is an unfortunate side-effect of the evolutionary psychology benefit of childhood obedience (i.e. listening to commands of "Don't swim in the water, there may be crocodiles"), in the same way a computer is perfectly obedient to bad instructions (a computer virus).
The Bible only gives evidence of what people around the era of it's writing and compilation believed. It's not evidence of God's existence or nature. The Bible's value in terms of evidence is circular: We believe the Bible because it is the word of God, and we know it's the word of God because the Bible says it is. This is logically invalid; you are assuming your conclusion and using it to justify itself.
Again, citing Bible proves nothing about the reality of the situation. You can't say the Bible accurately described something that can't be independantly verified, but that's not really the problem here. You're also misunderstanding the words 'flaw' and 'mistake'. They are not the same thing. A mistake is an action that has unintended and unwanted consequences. Even if God cannot make mistakes, that means he can't do something that has an outcome he did not intend or anticipate. He could intentionally create flaws in his creation. He could intentionally do something and blind himself to the outcome, leaving it to be observed and not foreseen (indeed, for free will to exist, this sort of process has to be the case). Then it is a question of guessing at his motives for doing so.
Well, actually, it isn't another debate; it is the direct debate of this thread. It's everything else that is another debate.
ORLY? This is probably way off topic but Jesus' fallibility is somewhat subjective. If I'm right, according to the Bible Jesus once got angry with a tree for not bearing fruit when he came along. Not quite a mistake but by your logic we can also see that God clearly hates unripened plants as well. Actually, God is rather angry in general with people in the Old Testament.
More relevant, you're assuming that anything with a divine purpose cannot be a flaw. However, if you follow your argument that a God can be perfect, then he could easily create something that He deems a flaw for whatever reason or lack of reason. Essentially it amounts to what I was saying before about the naturalistic line of thinking and Brain so brilliantly reminded me was called Occam's Razor (I'd forgotten it even had a name, thanks!).
As MrIndigo said, that is this debate. :P
You want fossils? Check. Note the animals like Tiktaalik, which are the first fishies with legs. Pedopenna also looks fairly cool, a mix between dinasaur-like features and bird-like ones.
You want a Young Earth? Common claims are debunked here in this 5 or 6 part series. I don't know how correct all the claims are, we can probably open that discussion in a different thread since young-earth-creationism is a little ways off from evolution.
And as for your last statements, I totally agree. brain you are my hero
1. The ambiguity in this question lies in the definition of "purpose." My dictionary reads, "the reason for which something was done or created or for which something exists." So it's a reason, but the word "reason" is vague. Your statement could be interpreted as "everything must have an intelligent reason," or "everything must have a cause or reason by which it occurs." I'm not good at explaining things, but there's a slight difference in meaning there; the former sentence kind of implies the object in question having a goal or objective, while the latter more relates to its origin or how it came about. Therefore, I think you may be committing the fallacy of equivocation, taking two senses of a word and interchanging them. To answer your question, the higher-order purpose of evolution is that there really is none, as life does not care how diverse it is, it only wants to survive. Evolution's "purpose" is to fit organisms to adapt to their environment and stay alive. That purpose arose when natural selection arose and organisms better adapted began to outlive the others.
2. To know where a trait within species come from you must think, "does this provide a benefit in smaller steps?" (Alternatively if something is totally neutral to survival then that can happen but is less likely). So let's look at pirhannas. The fish are some of the most vicious in the world, able to strip a cow to bones in five or ten minutes in a group. Now why do these animals rarely cannibalize? The answer is that there is no need to. If there's food around, eating your friends is useless, and the breeds that live "amorally," ie, do cannibalize, will die out from reduced population and gene pool. If there is 0 bits of food around they may turn on their friends so that some can live, rather than everyone starving. So the question of morality is "does this help to survive?' Stealing food from another individual in a species is looked down upon because if the other member got the food, it probably had some trait that allowed it to get more than others. Starving that member would rob the gene pool of a good food-finding gene. Sharing, conversely, gives animals that can't find food well but have other useful genes the opportunity to stay alive. It also strengthens social bonds and increases incentive to cooperate. Looking at morals in this view, then a moral can be questioned by asking "will it help us?"
I hope I answered your questions, Upside
The Bible only gives evidence of what people around the era of it's writing and compilation believed. It's not evidence of God's existence or nature. The Bible's value in terms of evidence is circular: We believe the Bible because it is the word of God, and we know it's the word of God because the Bible says it is. This is logically invalid; you are assuming your conclusion and using it to justify itself.
It was my understanding that Brain and I were discussing the Christian God, in which case, the Bible is a shining example of what God is like. In fact, the Bible says (Perhaps metaphorically), that God is the Bible. It's in John 1. It's rather lengthy. Primarily the first verse, although it mentions it later. Also, I realize my reasoning is circular, and a touched on it in a sentence.
Again, citing Bible proves nothing about the reality of the situation. You can't say the Bible accurately described something that can't be independantly verified, but that's not really the problem here. You're also misunderstanding the words 'flaw' and 'mistake'. They are not the same thing. A mistake is an action that has unintended and unwanted consequences. Even if God cannot make mistakes, that means he can't do something that has an outcome he did not intend or anticipate. He could intentionally create flaws in his creation. He could intentionally do something and blind himself to the outcome, leaving it to be observed and not foreseen (indeed, for free will to exist, this sort of process has to be the case). Then it is a question of guessing at his motives for doing so.
He could. He definitely could. He is, after all, omnipotent. It's a debate as to whether he would. From what I can understand from the Bible (If you're still going to address the "circular reasoning" argument, I'll go from what God has shown me through experience; however, you have no way of verifying that, so I doubt you'd want that as an argument.), God had specifically mapped-out everything about us and everything that would happen to us before we even came to be (I'll find the verse later, not exactly sure where this one is). Because of this, I don't believe that God would intentionally "blind himself" to the outcome of anything. Not a very strong argument, but that's the best I can do. Free will has its own topic, and I'll put a post in there if you request.
And the next post...
ORLY? This is probably way off topic but Jesus' fallibility is somewhat subjective. If I'm right, according to the Bible Jesus once got angry with a tree for not bearing fruit when he came along. Not quite a mistake but by your logic we can also see that God clearly hates unripened plants as well. Actually, God is rather angry in general with people in the Old Testament.
That is definitely in the Bible; however, Jesus doesn't simply curse the plant because it doesn't give him fruit. Plenty of times in the Bible, Jesus describes people who follow him as "bearing fruit" (I'll get a verse upon request), and says that those who do not bear fruit will be cut away and thrown out. I believe that Jesus is using the fig tree as an example, as the many people following him would have undoubtedly recognized the connection between the two and gotten the message. Also, you have to understand that the Old Testament is vastly different from the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there was no permanent redemption. You could temporarily redeem yourself by offering a sacrifice, but once you sinned again, you weren't clean. God still loved us; however, we weren't perfect in his eyes, and he was indignant (Righteous anger) with most of Israel.
More relevant, you're assuming that anything with a divine purpose cannot be a flaw. However, if you follow your argument that a God can be perfect, then he could easily create something that He deems a flaw for whatever reason or lack of reason. Essentially it amounts to what I was saying before about the naturalistic line of thinking and Brain so brilliantly reminded me was called Occam's Razor (I'd forgotten it even had a name, thanks!).
If this is the case, then I was wrong to use the word flaw in my initial argument. Perhaps, as we mentioned, mistake would have been a better word. Either way, I'm failing to see how a flaw, if intended, would actually be a flaw. I think I'm thinking of a flaw and a mistake as too closely related.
Definitions (Taken from dictionary.com)
Mistake: an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.
Flaw: a feature that mars the perfection of something; defect; fault
I was going to look up "Perfection", but most of the definitions that are relevant to this debate use the word "Perfect", so I look that up instead.
Perfect: conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type
By these definitions, and what I've argued so far, it doesn't seem to me that God could make either of those; however, this again comes down to the fact that how I defined perfect was rather vague. I hope I cleared that up, if I didn't, feel free to bring it up. I'll do my best to help you out.
You want fossils? Check. Note the animals like Tiktaalik, which are the first fishies with legs. Pedopenna also looks fairly cool, a mix between dinasaur-like features and bird-like ones.
You want a Young Earth? Common claims are debunked here in this 5 or 6 part series. I don't know how correct all the claims are, we can probably open that discussion in a different thread since young-earth-creationism is a little ways off from evolution.
And as for your last statements, I totally agree. brain you are my hero
I didn't end up watching the video, but I have to admit, those fossils are rather intriguing. I only looked at a few, but what I was rather surprised me. Perhaps someone with a better background in science, or with access to the actual bones, could find flaws in that theory, but I can't, and I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to. Thanks for showing that to me. I'm going to look into it a little bit more with some people I know.
Thank you for answering my questions as well. Unfortunately, they aren't my questions, so I can't really define some of the words better for you.
As I was typing, I recalled something that I found fascinating, and I figured you guys might want to take a look at it. It's called Bible Numerics and was originally discovered by Ivan Panin. I googled a short article on it, and some of the numbers aren't really the result of math, but the math part of it is absolutely amazing. I'm sure there's a better article somewhere or potentially a book, and if someone could find those, I'd be very grateful. Article
It was my understanding that Brain and I were discussing the Christian God, in which case, the Bible is a shining example of what God is like. In fact, the Bible says (Perhaps metaphorically), that God is the Bible. It's in John 1. It's rather lengthy. Primarily the first verse, although it mentions it later. Also, I realize my reasoning is circular, and a touched on it in a sentence.
Again, citing Bible proves nothing about the reality of the situation. You can't say the Bible accurately described something that can't be independantly verified, but that's not really the problem here. You're also misunderstanding the words 'flaw' and 'mistake'. They are not the same thing. A mistake is an action that has unintended and unwanted consequences. Even if God cannot make mistakes, that means he can't do something that has an outcome he did not intend or anticipate. He could intentionally create flaws in his creation. He could intentionally do something and blind himself to the outcome, leaving it to be observed and not foreseen (indeed, for free will to exist, this sort of process has to be the case). Then it is a question of guessing at his motives for doing so.
He could. He definitely could. He is, after all, omnipotent. It's a debate as to whether he would. From what I can understand from the Bible (If you're still going to address the "circular reasoning" argument, I'll go from what God has shown me through experience; however, you have no way of verifying that, so I doubt you'd want that as an argument.), God had specifically mapped-out everything about us and everything that would happen to us before we even came to be (I'll find the verse later, not exactly sure where this one is). Because of this, I don't believe that God would intentionally "blind himself" to the outcome of anything. Not a very strong argument, but that's the best I can do. Free will has its own topic, and I'll put a post in there if you request.
And the next post...
ORLY? This is probably way off topic but Jesus' fallibility is somewhat subjective. If I'm right, according to the Bible Jesus once got angry with a tree for not bearing fruit when he came along. Not quite a mistake but by your logic we can also see that God clearly hates unripened plants as well. Actually, God is rather angry in general with people in the Old Testament.
That is definitely in the Bible; however, Jesus doesn't simply curse the plant because it doesn't give him fruit. Plenty of times in the Bible, Jesus describes people who follow him as "bearing fruit" (I'll get a verse upon request), and says that those who do not bear fruit will be cut away and thrown out. I believe that Jesus is using the fig tree as an example, as the many people following him would have undoubtedly recognized the connection between the two and gotten the message. Also, you have to understand that the Old Testament is vastly different from the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there was no permanent redemption. You could temporarily redeem yourself by offering a sacrifice, but once you sinned again, you weren't clean. God still loved us; however, we weren't perfect in his eyes, and he was indignant (Righteous anger) with most of Israel.
More relevant, you're assuming that anything with a divine purpose cannot be a flaw. However, if you follow your argument that a God can be perfect, then he could easily create something that He deems a flaw for whatever reason or lack of reason. Essentially it amounts to what I was saying before about the naturalistic line of thinking and Brain so brilliantly reminded me was called Occam's Razor (I'd forgotten it even had a name, thanks!).
If this is the case, then I was wrong to use the word flaw in my initial argument. Perhaps, as we mentioned, mistake would have been a better word. Either way, I'm failing to see how a flaw, if intended, would actually be a flaw. I think I'm thinking of a flaw and a mistake as too closely related.
Definitions (Taken from dictionary.com)
Mistake: an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.
Flaw: a feature that mars the perfection of something; defect; fault
I was going to look up "Perfection", but most of the definitions that are relevant to this debate use the word "Perfect", so I look that up instead.
Perfect: conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type
By these definitions, and what I've argued so far, it doesn't seem to me that God could make either of those; however, this again comes down to the fact that how I defined perfect was rather vague. I hope I cleared that up, if I didn't, feel free to bring it up. I'll do my best to help you out.
You want fossils? Check. Note the animals like Tiktaalik, which are the first fishies with legs. Pedopenna also looks fairly cool, a mix between dinasaur-like features and bird-like ones.
You want a Young Earth? Common claims are debunked here in this 5 or 6 part series. I don't know how correct all the claims are, we can probably open that discussion in a different thread since young-earth-creationism is a little ways off from evolution.
And as for your last statements, I totally agree. brain you are my hero
I didn't end up watching the video, but I have to admit, those fossils are rather intriguing. I only looked at a few, but what I was rather surprised me. Perhaps someone with a better background in science, or with access to the actual bones, could find flaws in that theory, but I can't, and I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to. Thanks for showing that to me. I'm going to look into it a little bit more with some people I know.
Thank you for answering my questions as well. Unfortunately, they aren't my questions, so I can't really define some of the words better for you.
As I was typing, I recalled something that I found fascinating, and I figured you guys might want to take a look at it. It's called Bible Numerics and was originally discovered by Ivan Panin. I googled a short article on it, and some of the numbers aren't really the result of math, but the math part of it is absolutely amazing. I'm sure there's a better article somewhere or potentially a book, and if someone could find those, I'd be very grateful. Article
That article seems to be a case of looking for something but not knowing what you are looking for and then overestimating the value of what you have found. Given any sufficiently large set of data you will be able to find seemingly unlikely coincidences. Suppose you had a random number generator print out a list of 100 2-digit numbers, and you looked at the list and said "wow, 17 of these numbers start with 1 and 17 is the atomic number of chlorine and 7 of them start with 2 and 7 is the number of days in a week and 21 of them start with 3 and 21 is the number of days in 3 weeks and 6 of them start with 4 and 6 is one third part of 666 the number of the beast, and oh look exactly 14 of them are multiples of 7 and 14 is a multiple of 7, the probability of all this happening by chance is tiny, it must be a message from god I have to figure this out." but really such a list would mean nothing and you are putting too much merit in random inconsequential bits of data.
Are you saying we shouldn't believe the BIBLE CODE!?!
Seriously, if you accept that a million things happen to you every four months, then you should have three miracles (1 in a million) every year.
Basically this sums it up. Any patterns with numbers of this kind in the Bible is most likely coincidence. I scanned through the article and concluded that Panin was very dedicated but misled by his work. However, I am not a mathematician or an expert of any kind in the field. I think the article was biased when they said that four people who Panin dared to refute his work made "lame excuses," and he was probably told that all the numbers were coincidence. But this is far from Evolution vs. Intelligent Design.
So basically he changed his mind and the rules. The question is why would He do this if He was omnipotent and omniscient?
Perfect is inherently a vague word to describe so it's not completely your fault. You're saying that, assuming ID is correct (?!), a flaw in an organism's design is equal to a mistake on the part of an intelligent designer. My point is that if he wants he can make something imperfect which is totally conceivable and he is known to do. The Christian God is said to have created humans, which are fallible. So a flaw does not equal a mistake, which is an unintentional action or consequence of an action. Therefore a mistake is impossible for an omniscient God, but a flaw, if God is quite certain he wishes for the flaw to exist, for reasons of his own as Brain and MrIndigo said, can certainly create a flawed organism.
And anyway, your conception of God actually validates the theory of evolution. A perfect (meaning infallible) God would not, by your logic, create a detrimental flaw in a created life, and therefore, flaws that exist actually support the theory of evolution. The blind spot in the eye, vestigial organs that are halfway reduced in function, Flareon without Flare Blitz, etc, are examples of imperfection. The only way for one to account for these imperfect organisms and organs while keeping the concept of a creator is that the creator wished them to be flawed.
You're very welcome. The fossils are really cool to watch- it's like a stop motion animation. Frankly I'm surprised that you're surprised. I didn't know that people were not aware that the fossil record was not hidden among the scientists and there are actually transitions.
If you ask people you know about it, I'd love to hear what you find. If you can post some of the stuff they say, that'd be great.
They aren't your questions? I dunno if you're saying that I didn't do a good job answering the questions or if someone told you the questions. If it's the former, then I can try again.
Two websites on Panin:
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin.html
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin_mark.html
You can find similar "patterns" in almost any given text.
The Bible Codes are separate from Biblical numerics. Bible Codes are generally based on the idea of "equidistant letter sequences" that supposedly predict certain events.
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin.html
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin_mark.html
You can find similar "patterns" in almost any given text.
The Bible Codes are separate from Biblical numerics. Bible Codes are generally based on the idea of "equidistant letter sequences" that supposedly predict certain events.
Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy and doesn't actually support an argument. You can use the Bible being true as an assumption, and then derive properties from that in a logical fashion (e.g. "The Bible says X, and from the observation Y we observe, we can deduce the conclusion Z.), but you can't say "We know what the Bible says God is like is true because we assume the Bible was written by God and therefore he told the truth."
Also, justification for taking the assumption that the Bible is true is worthy of debate too. If, as Brain has done earlier in the thread and elsewhere, someone points out an inconsistency with the Bible and observations of reality, you can't fall back on "The Bible is true as an assumption", you have to give a reason why the Bible is actually consistent with observation.
The problem is if you take as read that God would not intentionally prevent himself from foreseeing the outcome of something, you run into inconsistencies. First, there can be no free will. You seem to have accepted this, and this is valid; you can logically believe there is no free will. However, it also means that parts of the Bible are incorrect; God could not have tested Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge, because he would have known the outcome of the test before he set it, which means that he would have not created the trees in the first place, or would have created Adam and Eve differently, and that way he would not have been unhappy with the result.
All of your arguments are illogical, because they're structured around the fallacy of appeal to incredulity. "I believe X, .: I believe it." Faith without reason is valid, but faith in the face of reason is not; If you believe that 1+1=3, it is not simply a matter of personal opinion, you are factually wrong.
In your case, you are basically justifying every aspect of your worldview with "I believe it to be true, so it is." This is a problem because there are contradictions within your source material itself, let alone between observation and the source material; for this reason, Bible Literalism is not practiced by any of the mainstream Christian churches, and instead heuretics are debated.
The reason that religious parties are often (but not always) the 'bad' parties in these sorts of debates is because they will accept no alternative to their personal worldview regardless of the illogic of their beliefs or the evidence presented against them; they are not willing to critically examine their own worldview when presented with contrary evidence, and science is. Indeed, that is one of the fundamental components of the scientific method.
An inconsistency; you said above that God made us perfect (indeed, he made us in his own image, and his own image was perfect and his ability to create was perfect), and yet we weren't perfect in his eyes?
It's a matter of semantics here, I think. Most people define flaw and mistake different to each other, as I posted above. A mistake is something nonintentional, whereas God could choose to make something less than perfect (i.e. flawed). Indeed, he must have done so, since Adam and Eve failed the test of the Garden of Eden; humans are not perfect. This leaves only the options that God intentionally made humans imperfect, or he is not capable of doing otherwise.
Bible Numerics is a sham, and is considered so by most mainstream religious groups. It defines a pattern in such a way to generate a desired outcome. It predicts outcomes after the fact (i.e. after you get outcome X, you show how it predicted outcome X), rather than prior, so it can't be tested.
EDIT: Here's a question for you. Why do you choose the sources you follow? You pick obscure and unsupported sources as truth, and do not follow those that have monstrous amounts of evidence to back them up? I'm not really looking for an answer here, it's more of a philosophical reflection I think you should do; why do you believe what you do and why don't you believe what you don't? How do you choose what sources to follow and which to reject?
God probably does not experience the same time that we do, so to speak of him 'changing' his mind and the rules is wrong. Rather, the Bible indicates God created a world in which the rules before Jesus were different to the rules after it. One may object that that seems unfair, but it does not mean that God at any point deviated from an initial plan.
Well, thanks for the discussion. I enjoyed it, and I hoped you guys did too. At this point, I'm a little bit..."overwhelmed" for lack of a better word. I'm clearly losing the debate at this point, and I start Driver's Ed tomorrow, which will probably eat away most of my free time, so I doubt I could continue the debate anyways. Again, I hope you enjoyed the discussion, and if you didn't, I'm sorry for wasting you time. Maybe I'll manage to find some free time in a few weeks and continue the discussion, but I doubt it, as once I get my license, I'm gonna be gone most of the time. Later!