One didn’t evolve from the other, rather we share common ancestry. That is, depending on what you call a “plant”. There were creatures that used photosynthesis in our biological family tree. But you shouldn’t call them plants, but rather bacteria.
Modern plants and animals (and fungi and protists) belong to the same domain, the domain called the eukaryotes.
Animalia split off from the rest of the eukaryotes about 900 million years ago, which is pretty recent in earth’s history. There was about three billion years of life on earth before our last common ancestor with the kumquat. For more than three-quarters of the history of life on earth, there was no distinction between plant and animal.
It can help someone get their brain around picturing a world with 1000 foot high tides, and a churning worldwide sea full of microscopic life deriving their energy not from sunlight, but from breaking apart the chemical bonds found in the environment.. much like rust!
Seas of life changing the environment of the earth, which fluctuates wildly between a snowball world and a greenhouse world over millions and millions and millions of years.
It takes a wild mental leap to picture timelines that long. We humans just aren’t built to be able to picture truely deep time. We’re good with minutes and hours, a little less good with years, but horrible with timescales that number in the millions and we can all forget about truely grasping what billions of years means. If it helps to imagine it, we can imagine it as being infinite time ago.
It also requires us not to picture plants as they are now with leaves and stalks and flowers and fruit, but cyanobacteria evolving into colonial algae. So we aren’t talking about a tree giving birth to a flatworm. We’re talking about two different populations of bacteria spreading out and producing different lines of decendants.
We humans just aren’t built to be able to picture truely deep time. We’re good with minutes and hours, a little less good with years, but horrible with timescales that number in the millions and we can all forget about truely grasping what billions of years means.
One of the things that I have come to appreciate, in the course of the myriad of conversations here about creation/evolution is this.
How could we expect ancient people to put their minds around the origins of the universe, life, and human life, given the trouble we have today? I have always loved the Biblical creation stories, but I have an even deeper appreciation for the way the story-tellers grasped and conveyed so much truth, given the limitations that human beings have in understanding very vast, complicated events, that we are not able to see taking place within the space of our lives as we live them (such as evolution). What they were able to do (with the help of God, IMO) was so much more than a historical retelling, so much better than an ancient science text. When we limit our understanding of what they did to that, I think we are doing them a disservice.
Siamang, I did start looking at the wikipedia entries on abiogenesis and The Origin of Life, but to tell the truth, I didn’t get very far before I had to leave. But this is a question I’ve never heard asked, so I asked it.
Your initial response to the question, though, makes it sound like one must have come from the other … sort of. You said,
One didn’t evolve from the other, rather we share common ancestry.
You’re a bit ahead of me … I need to do some reading and look at your answer more carefully, but upon first reading, it sounds like you’re saying “Plants and animals as we know them today (which was the intent of my question) sprang from a common ancester.” Right? I’m not trying to pick it apart, I’m trying to understand it.
I hate Linnean ranks, because they’re not really in agreement with evolution, but I think that at least the largest groups, Domains, are relevant. These three are eukaryotes, eubacteria, and archaeans.
Eukaryotes are unique because they are symbiotic organisms, even when just consisting of one individual cell. Sometime, maybe 2.5 billion years ago, several different organisms, for whatever reason, decided to live as one. Why this happened and exactly how this happened will forever be a mystery to us. But, we know it happened. Why am I so sure? (since, as is often said towards evolution accepters, “I wasn’t there”)
Because of mitochondria. These organelles that we have in the vast majority of our cells have distinct DNA. They replicate on their own timer with their own “machinery”. They are symbiotic organisms which are present in all eukaryotic life, from a simple amoeba to a giant redwood to the mushroom on a pizza.
This sort of basic eukaryote, as a single-celled organism, is still present today. We collectively call them “Protista” but such a grouping is not reflective of true evolutionary relation. They are simply eukaryotes which have not (once again, for reasons unknown) become multi-cellular organisms.
These protists lead to the three more recognizable “Kingdoms” of plant, animal, and fungi. Each of which, as mentioned above, has a distinct evolutionary lineage, probably tracing back nearly a billion years. Animals and plants evolved independently of each other, but when push comes to shove of “who came first” I don’t think the fossil record can really give a definitive answer.
Think of life like a big family tree. We do think that all life on earth had a common ancestor.
You wrote:
“Plants and animals as we know them today (which was the intent of my question) sprang from a common ancester.”
I would agree with the small change “decended” rather than sprang. Sprang sounds too fast. We the exception of algae, nothing shortly after the branching point would resemble anything you might recognize as plants and animals today.
It’s just single-celled stuff for the first 300 million years or so after the branch point between plants and animals.
Here’s one of my favorite diagrams of the Tree of Life.
Homo sapiens is at about the 2 O’Clock position on that chart. Our fellow eukaryotes, including plants are all in the pink. Archaea are green and the blue are bacteria.
Bacteria are by far the dominant creatures on this earth. They have genetic variation far more wide ranging than any other creatures. They far outnumber all other creatures combined. They lived long, long, long before us, and they’ll dominate the world long after it can no longer support us.
There are around five million trillion trillion bacteria in the world. They live in every environment in the world. They can live frozen solid, they can live boiling in volcanic vents. They can live in our bodies, and in the soil, and in the water. They can live deep under the ground, and high on the mountaintops. They are the world’s most resourceful inhabitants.
Your body has ten times more bacteria cells living in it than human cells. Read that one again. You are more bacteria than you are you!
Way back in history some smaller bacteria were co-opted into our cells, and became our mitocondria. You have mitochondria in your cells, converting food into energy. They’re kind of like a symbiotic creature that became part of the host.
They are simply eukaryotes which have not (once again, for reasons unknown) become multi-cellular organisms.
This phrasing seems wrong to me, but maybe I’m reading it wrong.
There’s no manifest destiny toward multicellular life that eukaryotes are pulled toward. They “stayed” single-cell because nothing killed them off. (I’m looking at you, bacteria!)
Anyway, if I read it wrong, I apologize. But it sounded like there should be a reason protists didn’t join the multicellular party. No reason, just success as single cells.
Animals and plants evolved independently of each other, but when push comes to shove of “who came first” I don’t think the fossil record can really give a definitive answer.
I’d clarify that point just to eliminate a possible misunderstanding. When you say “evolved independently of each other” I’d say “evolved independently from a common ancestor.”
That’s implied, but if your reader is trying to learn this stuff it’s better to have it out there than risk the misapprehension that plants and animals are the result of two different abiogenesis events.
I wrote my bit in way too quick of a time. And didn’t edit it. So, to correct myself
a) There is no manifest destiny in the random walk that is evolution. When one looks at the great big tree of life, the vast majority of organisms are unicellular. Multicellularity is interesting to us (because we have it) but it’s not the pathway that the majority of life has followed.
(on this topic, the vast majority of mammals aren’t primates, the vast majority of vertebrates aren’t mammals, the vast majority of animals aren’t vertebrates… Over and over again we are shown as being a member of a rather tiny branch on the tree of life.
b) My phraseology Siamang quotes in comment #8 is me explaining why the “Kingdom Protista” was ever made. As an evobio student I try not to recognize paraphyletic taxa, of which “Protista” is a huge example. It is a wastebasket taxon, it’s just a taxonomic group that we invented so that we could refer to all eukaryotes that aren’t plants, animals, or fungi. That’s an evolutionary uninformative definition. It’s just like referring to apes without including humans. Or referring to dinosaurs without including birds. …or etc etc etc.
3) And yeah Siamang is totally right in comment #9. Evolution is all about the idea of common descent. I don’t think that we can ever solidly say that all life, ever, on this planet came from one origin. It is totally possible that life evolved several times, independently, on this planet, and that what is existant now is just the winner of a Pre-Cambrian grudge match. :)
The eukaryote condition; eg, having organelles, and even more importantly, having a huge amount of DNA inside of a distinct nucleus. That is something that is so amazingly complex that it probably only happened once. And, so, yeah, plants and animals evolved independently from some common ancestor.
Yes, it’s a surprising statement, but not controversial. I’ve seen the number 20 times, but I used the more conservative… let’s assume you have a smaller gut!
I’ve started looking at the timeline of evolution you referred to in #1. It seems pretty far-fetched to me but I’m still looking into it. Is there any evidence to support, for example, that Earth collided with Theia 4.1 billion years ago causing a ring of debris that eventually coalesced to form the moon? Or is that just a theoretical possibility? Is there any evidence to support the idea that the oceans boiled away multiple times in in teh 3.9 billion years ago range, or is that just theorized based on other assumptions?
I still have a lot of study to do, but I will say this … I can see now how looking at creation as a non-believer must look … evolution doesn’t even seem plausible to me, and this is probably how creation must look to you.
Mike, one difference is creation is magic. You can study it from here to eternity and it will remain magic. It will remain a magic story and never lead to any future discoveries or understanding. Evolution is not magic but is rather built on observation and evidence. You can study evolution, understand it, and experiment with it and use it. Nearly all fields of science as well as many practical fields have progressed greatly because of it and will likely continue to do so. I don’t understand much of the above stuff Siamang is talking about as it’s not my field. But I do understand evolution as a concept and as a software engineer and I’ve used evolution with natural selection in my coding.
You might do better to examine evolution from a basic level first (say by reading some basic primer like The Blind Watchmaker) than trying to jump into advanced theoretical biology stuff like the above.
Is there any evidence to support, for example, that Earth collided with Theia 4.1 billion years ago causing a ring of debris that eventually coalesced to form the moon?
Yes, there’s a lot of evidence. A big one comes from the rocks Neil Armstrong brought back from the moon. A lot of different types of rocks brought back from the multiple Apollo missions point along multiple independent lines of evidence to having been part of the earth. This is the current best scientific explaination we have for the origin of the moon. This is not to say that it has absolutely been explained. There are still some questions and problems with this explaination, and there may ultimately be a different explaination for the moon. I don’t expect so, but there may be a better explaination for the evidence we see.
But if you ask NASA or Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin or Harrison Schmidt or any of the men who’ve been to the moon, collected the samples and if you ask the people who’ve analyzed these samples, they’ll say that this is the most likely answer.
There’s only four possibilities for the origin of the moon. Number one is that it got captured by the earth as it floated by, number two is that it formed at the same time as the earth, number three is that it spun off from the earth due to fast rotation, and number four is that it got splashed due to an impact with something else.
The physics of the moon and earth’s current motion point to the impact. The elements found on the moon also point to the impact. The size of the heavy metal core of the moon also points to the impact. There’s probably a hundred other things, very technical, that only a geologist could explain that also point to it.
The evidence also points solidly away from the other possibilities. I think each of the other possibilities have evidence overwhelmingly against them.
But the correctness of our understanding of the origin of the moon bears little on the evolution of life on earth. The origin of the moon is still a living question somewhat. That’s because we don’t have the millions and millions of seperately confirming independent lines of evidence that we have for evolution.
Is there any evidence to support the idea that the oceans boiled away multiple times in in teh 3.9 billion years ago range, or is that just theorized based on other assumptions?
The evidence for that one is on the moon. We can see very old, very deep craters on the moon, formed by asteroid impacts. We know how many and how large and when those asteroids hit. From that, we know what kind of things were flying around back then, and we can calculate what it would take to increase the surface temperature of the earth to boiling. A 400km diameter asteroid would vaporize all the oceans of the world.
There’s also a lot of evidence in various rocks on earth that point to very high temperatures in the ancient past.
I appreciate your looking at this stuff.
I want to point out that this isn’t wacky crackpot fringe stuff. This is what they’re teaching at Harvard, at Stanford, at Oxford and Cambridge. It’s what students all over the world are discovering as they all do experiments. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask these questions of President Bush’s science advisor, John H. Marburger. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask these questions at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, or if you ask them at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask every single one of the Nobel prize winners in science. It’s what they’ll answer at the Field Museum in Chicago, or the Hayden Planetarium in New York.
And it’s based on many, many, many multiple independent lines of evidence that are being confirmed and reconfirmed every day in science labs in every university and every technology company on the planet.
Mike O., the article that you’re referencing is heavily footnoted. Click the links that accompany the footnotes (some of them are broken, but it looks like most are working) and they will take you to summaries of the scientific research and/or the papers themselves that are used to derive the timeline.
Certainly there has been research done that provides evidence for these various points. It’s not like scientists who study this stuff make it up out of whole cloth as they go along (though creationists would probably like you to believe that). If they didn’t do good experiments and defend their results vigorously (or concede they are mistaken), they wouldn’t keep their jobs for very long! ;-)
David S (#13) - It’s hard for me, coming from a completely different mindset to accept the higher level concepts. The way my brain works, I do better with smaller pieces and building up from there. Think of it like this … if one doesn’t believe the higher premise, then looking at general concepts make some sense, but they don’t prove anything. I need data. Also, I’m not coming into this as an attack on evolution … I’ve put a LOT of thought into this and a lot of study (not as much as someone who actually believes it, but …). I really need to look at the supporting evidence. Think of it from your perspective … what would I have to do to prove creation to you (which isn’t my point here, but hypothetically)? I would have to show you real, hard data. That’s what I’m after here. Honestly, I’m not arguing for creation, I’m trying to understand evolution, and why it’s more than just a theory … to me, it’s just a theory (maybe I’m wrong, but that’s where I am with it.)
Siamang (#14) Thanks for the information re: the formation of the moon. As a creationist (which isn’t the point I’m agruing here, it’s just the perspective from which I’m coming), I trust that of the four possibilities you listed, the one cited is most likely. I don’t need to “prove it,” it’s enough for me at this point to know that there is at least real data supporting it. It still doesn’t “prove” that’s what happened, but at least there’s support for it. Looking at that timeline it didn’t say anyting about that. It just says that it happened with no explanation (even in the footnote, but I didn’t actually examine the source cited.)
Same thing with the oceans boiling away.
And I don’t mean to imply that this is wacky, fringe stuff. It’s brand new to me, though. I am looking into this stuff not because I wonder if it’s true so much as I want to see why so many people believe it. For too long, creationists have called evolutionists names, and evolutionists have called creationists names and I’m personally tiring of it. I really want to understand why so many people believe in evolution. Either there’s data that supports it or there’s not. Either it’s a theory or it’s science or it’s a mix (I think it’s a mix). But for me, I just want to understand it, where the data is, where the holes are, where the “leaps of faith” (for lack of a better word) are, etc.
If you’re wondering why I don’t look deeper into other sources for myself, the answer is this … how much effort would a reasonable person put into studying something they don’t believe? I’m not going to spend my life trying to prove/disprove evolution. But I’ve found here a good connection with people who have done that research. If I can ask my questions to you, I can get my answers and at the same time it will help you to unerstand why evolution isn’t the slam-dunk you think it is to a person who has believed in creation their whole life. I’m not saying it isn’t true. I’m just saying I have lots of questions about it … too many right now for me to accept it, but hey, at least I’m asking instead of just blowing it off.
My point in bringing up those two examples is because they were stated as what happened, but there was no supporting evidence. I’m actually looking through the timeline right now looking for the time where it gives the first evidence. For example, I jumped to the end and started working backwards and I see phisical evidence cited 20,000 years ago of hand prints, oil lamps, bone needles, etc.
Karen (#15) I just haven’t gotten to the footnotes yet. There’s a TON of information right here in the timeline.
You said,
Certainly there has been research done that provides evidence for these various points. It’s not like scientists who study this stuff make it up out of whole cloth as they go along (though creationists would probably like you to believe that). If they didn’t do good experiments and defend their results vigorously (or concede they are mistaken), they wouldn’t keep their jobs for very long!
You’re right about the “creationists would probably like you to believe that” comment. I mean, when you are so sure you are right about something, it’s easy to just say “they’re making it up” when people have some other explanation. Hmmmm, kind of like y’all do with creationists??? Look, I don’t expect anyone to just change their mind on this stuff. But at least acknowledge that there are a lot of brilliant people on BOTH sides of the argument. The big difference is that creationists add the element of the supernatural. That doesn’t make them (us) stupid or foolish, we just accept inputs (real or not - that’s not my point) that evolutionists don’t accept. But yes, creationists do think evolution is science PLUS a measure of whole cloth … at least that’s where I’m at with it today. Back to David’s comment back in #13, that’s why I need to dive into the evidence and see data. With out actual evidence, it looks like whole cloth to me. That’s not a knock on evolution, that’s just what it looks like to someone who has thought something else for his whole life. I’m just being honest.
NCxian (#16)
And in the standard course of study for six-graders in North Carolina. At least the moon stuff! (That’s as far as we’ve gotten).
That may be, but creationists reject it out of hand, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not defending it, I’m just saying the fact that it’s there doesn’t mean creationists are listening … or care. I do now.
That may be, but creationists reject it out of hand, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not defending it, I’m just saying the fact that it’s there doesn’t mean creationists are listening … or care. I do now.
Oh, I wasn’t really making any kind of point, Mike. It’s just been funny (literally) how much I didn’t know about this stuff until I learned it from my 6th grader. :) I guess we knew a lot less about it 35 years ago when I was in school, and since then, I haven’t pursued it too much. I’ve been totally relearning how to figure out percentage word problems too, and I’m sure we knew how to do that back then! This learning old/new stuff is one of my favorite things about being a parent.
But back to the topic, the thing that I can’t get past with young-earth creationism is that one has to believe that God has intentionally misled us. ALL of the evidence points to a very old earth. I wonder why in the world he would fabricate that evidence. I don’t get that picture of God from my reading of the Bible. BICBW.
Let me add here that I REALLY appreciate this! In case you’re wondering, I am not wondering if creation is true or not … I believe in God and I believe he had a hand in it, evolution or not. But what I AM doing is pulling back the covers to see if, in fact, there is any merit to it. As Karen said in #15, creationists think y’all are making a lot of this up out of whole cloth. To be honest, I’m still on that page. But the more data I uncover, the less whole cloth. That’s my perspective. I believe evolutionists are smart people. I believe that there are a lot of people who believe in evolution but don’t understand it, just as there are a lot of creationists who believe in creation but don’t understand it.
We’ve gotten away from the plants/animals question, however. So far I’ve learned that plants and animals as we know them today did descend from a common ancester. How? I don’t know. It seems to me that evolution is based on this line of thinking: Here we are. Here is a pile of evidence. We don’t think we were created. I wonder if the evidence supports that.
And it seems that it does. I can’t dispute that we have evidence. What I don’t know is the origin of the evidence (I’m not talking creation here, I’m just talking if we’re looking at the evidence for the right thing). We have plants. We have animals. We have amino acids. But what we don’t have is the flow from one to the next. What we have is a theory. “Given that we have plants and animals, and given that we evolved, how must that have happened?” And then we work the puzzle backwards to a plausible origin given the data. But it’s the working backward that I have some issue with. Yes, going backwards we can come up with a path to the beginning. But from the beginning, how realistic is it that the things required to occur actually could?
Here’s an example of what I think is skewed evidence. On the timeline at the 4000 ma mark (4 billion years ago), it says this: “At this time, the atmosphere does not contain any free oxygen.” That’s stated as a fact. But in this wikipedia article on the origin of life, it says,
until 1936 when Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin demonstrated that it was the presence of atmospheric oxygen and other more sophisticated life-forms that prevented the chain of events that would lead to the evolution of life.
So given the fact that oxygen prevents evolution AND the “fact” that evolution occurred, we “know” that the atmosphere 4 billion years ago did not contain any oxygen. Do you see how the data seems to support evolution in this case, but really the evidence was assumed based on the fact that it had to be true for the premise to be true?
Getting back to the plants/animals question … I’m back to looking at the timeline again. I’ve just gotten to the part (3500 ma) where it says, “Lifetime of the last universal ancestor; the split between the bacteria and the archaea occurs.” I’m assuming this is the split between plant and animal, right? My big question is, why? If things were working, why did they evolve into two different things? Maybe “why” isn’t the right question to ask … maybe the right question is, “what caused it?” Something must have caused the extenction of the universal ancestor and the appearance of the first plants/animals.
NOTE - It says here again that the first photosynthesis did not produce Oxygen. Again, this is an assumption based on the fact that o2 would halt evolution. Therefore the assumption is being made that there was no o2 because there was evolution … an assumption.
Mike O #18
“I’m trying to understand evolution, and why it’s more than just a theory … to me, it’s just a theory (maybe I’m wrong, but that’s where I am with it.)”
A theory is not a bad thing. A theory, in science, is an explanation of how a process or an event occurs or occurred. The idea that “evolution is just a theory” is a bad idea to cling to, and all the reading about cosmology and biology you can fit into your schedule is for naught if you think that theories are somehow bad.
“I really want to understand why so many people believe in evolution.”
Ditto with this kind of statement. I no more “believe” in evolution than I “believe” that smoking increases your probability of getting lung cancer. If you believe that evolution is a false worldview, that’s your thang. But thinking that it is something to be “believed” in is not going to be conducive to higher understanding. As a scientist, I accept what evidence points towards. I have some biases, as we all do, but I think that data speaks louder than our opinions.
“Either it’s a theory or it’s science or it’s a mix (I think it’s a mix).”
I don’t understand this at all. If something is a theory it must have science. So something can’t be a mix of “theory” and “science” as if they are separate things.
“at the same time it will help you to unerstand why evolution isn’t the slam-dunk you think it is to a person who has believed in creation their whole life.”
(shrug) Science education isn’t really this country’s strong suit. Particularly in the field of evolutionary biology, which tens of millions of Americans believe is a lie because it attacks their personal version of faith. It’s not very difficult to understand how creationists can exist in a country where science isn’t taught well.
Or, more to the point in our modern consumer culture, advertised well. Creationism doesn’t have questions, all it has is answers. Science, by having questions, is therefore an “inferior product.”
“So far I’ve learned that plants and animals as we know them today did descend from a common ancester. How? I don’t know. ”
The scary bit is (cover your eyes children) no one knows. These events that happened billions and millions of years ago are not things that we can ever be completely sure happened. The best we can do is come up with a theory that interprets the evidence in the most logical and parsimonious manner.
This divide between organisms which led to animals and organisms which led to plants is something that happened:
a) at least a billion years ago
b) among single-celled life forms
c) which probably looked fairly similar
With data and evidence supporting all of those statements. (should i be citing all my sources here?) This trio of factors makes my favorite inanimate object in the world, the fossil record, rather impotent in giving us any further clues as to what caused one lineage to split.
A possible reason for “why plants?” is that another endosymbiotic event occurred. Some protist already reaping the benefits of having mitochondria also started a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria. These cyanobacteria, in time, became dependent upon the cells they now lived in, and became organelles (termed chloroplasts) in plant and proto-plant organisms.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory for some of this and more about the wacky, wild world we apparently live in)
“So given the fact that oxygen prevents evolution AND the “fact” that evolution occurred, we “know” that the atmosphere 4 billion years ago did not contain any oxygen. Do you see how the data seems to support evolution in this case, but really the evidence was assumed based on the fact that it had to be true for the premise to be true?”
We (or to be more specific, people who study the Hadean) actually aren’t sure on whether the atmosphere contained any free oxygen 4 billion years ago. The “assumption” is either “no” or “very low” for two main reasons
First, atmospheric oxygen on our planet is made by two processes. One of which is photolysis, in which H20 and N20 are hit by photons and oxygen is released. This doesn’t create much oxygen. Where the majority occurs is in photosynthesis. Which can’t happen without life, and we have no evidence that life existed 4 billion years ago, so we have no reason to think photosynthesis was occurring. Even more directly, it’s a fairly certain statement to say that there was no life on land at such a time, and thus even if photosynthetic organisms did exist, they woulda been in the water.
Secondly, oxygen is reactive. It feeds fires. We use it to dump electrons (and get lots of ATP!) but free radicals hurt us in exchange. Metals get bonded to by it, as the famous example of rust shows us.
This second point and the first point come together in an odd way. When oxygen did get produced by photosynthetic organisms, this happened in the water. When this oxygen was released into the water, it made the oceans more and more oxygen-rich over time. This process can be seen in the rock record. Banded iron formations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation) are rock sequences in which stacks of iron oxides are sandwiched between more normal marine sediments like shales and cherts. These iron oxides show a time when free oxygen was bonding to iron that was in the oceans. They start appearing 3 billion years ago and stop appearing roughly 1.8 billion years ago. Their start seems to be indicative of a time when the oceans started to be filled with oxygen. Their stop seems to be indicative of a time wherein the oceans could not be saturated with oxygen anymore, and they began putting excess oxygen to a new reservoir: the atmosphere.
Also I realized I have been totally not using block quotes. That’s not very helpful. My main point in going on and on about oxygen above was to try to show how the following
Do you see how the data seems to support evolution in this case, but really the evidence was assumed based on the fact that it had to be true for the premise to be true?
Is not completely accurate. A common charge against evolution and deep time is that both of them rely heavily on circular reasoning. (or as one of my profs refers to it, no loose ends) For instance:
a) this fossil is 30 million years old
b) i know that because this rock is 30 million years old
c) and i know that because this fossil is 30 million years old
Such a sequence of events do happen on occasion (and when it does it usually leads to someone having to eat a lot of crow because they didn’t do enough research). But for the most part, science is all about using independent means to test and challenge old ideas. Sometimes this causes them to be strengthened. Sometimes this causes them to be torn apart.
The way that Mike O talks about atmospheric O2 4 billion years ago sounds to me like:
a) scientists in 1936 who worked on abiogenesis experiments said life couldn’t have evolved if there was free oxygen
b) scientists say life evolved
c) thus there must not have been oxygen
Which ignores:
a) atmospheric oxygen is mainly made by life, so thus before life there shouldn’t have been much of it
b) geological evidence says that there was no oxygen
c) distinctive geological evidence says that there was oxygen later
d) this all might not even matter since who knows if life formed in or out of the water?
I mean it is entirely possible that all of these latter points mean nothing. After all, radioisometric dating of rocks “assumes” that the universe is not just thousands of years old. And it “assumes” that atomic processes have been happening at an approximately similar rate for the vast majority of the Universe’s lifetime. In a young Universe with the amount of cataclysmic and sudden change that I presume Mike O thinks exists, these assumptions are invalid to make. To me, they are not.
Getting back to the plants/animals question … I’m back to looking at the timeline again. I’ve just gotten to the part (3500 ma) where it says, “Lifetime of the last universal ancestor; the split between the bacteria and the archaea occurs.” I’m assuming this is the split between plant and animal, right?
No, the archaea/eubacteria split is something more ancient than plants and animals. And if you don’t know what an archaean is, that’s totally not at all a bad thing. Saying as how bacteria and archaea are both microscopic, I don’t think they mind being highly confused for each other.
My big question is, why? If things were working, why did they evolve into two different things? Maybe “why” isn’t the right question to ask … maybe the right question is, “what caused it?”
This right here is one of the great questions that evobio can only ponder and …probably never make any good strides towards answering. Our planet is covered by millions of species which all do slightly different things. Why? Why not just have one species which can “do everything” (to be a little bit more scientific, occupy all niches and use all potential resources) that carpets the planet?
…your answer is as good as Richard Dawkins’s.
Something must have caused the extenction of the universal ancestor and the appearance of the first plants/animals.
It’s not entirely useful to think that universal ancestors have to go extinct in order for new species to evolve. My cousins and I are all independent evolutionary lineages, but our common ancestors are still around.
But, yeah, good question on why are there plants and animals. As I said above in #22, science is full of questions. This is one of them.
Some people (e.g. politicans) hear that science is full of questions and think of these questions as holes which make science less useful than it should be. I for one think that science without questions isn’t science, it’s dogma.
Evolution educational promoters in this country are stuck in a tough place: if they admit that science has questions, they appear weak, and lose support. On the other hand, if they act like it’s dumb to question science, they appear haughty, and lose support. Your homework assignments for this weekend are to figure out a good way to craft up a plan for how educators can not lose support. And…go.
Mike O., I’ve got to give you credit for taking on the fairly large task of educating yourself on issues that you may not always feel comfortable about. There appear to be a lot of well qualified people here who are pretty good at providing explanations but I’d like to add another resource for your consideration. That is the TalkOrigins archive at talk origins. If you browse through the FAQs at that site you are likely to find many of your questions have been asked before. The best thing about the TalkOrigins archives is that they usually contain good cites to supporting data and literature. They also include links to creation based sites, such as Answers in Genesis. The one “problem” with the site is that the volume of information can seem overwhelming. So I would suggest you just browse the materials for issues that you consider most important for your understanding.
One barrier that many creationist believers have when they review these materials at TalkOrigins, or anywhere else, is that the vocabulary used by scientists often has meanings quite different from the same words when used by creationists or by people in casual conversation. If you feel as if you are hitting a stone wall, sometimes it may simply be that you are struggling with a “familiar” term that has a meaning different from what you have previously understood. The classic example is the very different meaning of the word “theory” when used by scientists vs just about everyone else!
Yikes, I had a link that didn’t show up as a link in may above message. The markup seemed to turn the rest of the message “bold.” Sorry about that. The TalkOrigins url is http://www.talkorigins.org/
But back to the topic, the thing that I can’t get past with young-earth creationism is that one has to believe that God has intentionally misled us. ALL of the evidence points to a very old earth. I wonder why in the world he would fabricate that evidence. I don’t get that picture of God from my reading of the Bible. BICBW.
Good point. That’s actually a big part of why I’m looking into this so intently. I keep hearing how all the evidence supports evolution, so OK. I’m looking at/for the evidence.
cautiousmaniac (#27)
Some people (e.g. politicans) hear that science is full of questions and think of these questions as holes which make science less useful than it should be. I for one think that science without questions isn’t science, it’s dogma.
Admittedly, I’m on that page. While I agree that science without questions isn’t science (a bit of a brain twister), science that doesn’t pursue answers through analysis/data/facts isn’t science, either. To me, “the study of evolution” is science, but “evolution” is theory. So much of what we hear lately is whether or not evolution, creation or both should be taught in our schools. I hear “evolution is science, creation is not.” But really I think perhaps “the study of evolution” is science and so is “the study of creation.” I’m not making a statement here for the teaching of creation in schools, I’m just saying if “the study of” something (having questions) makes it science, which it does, why wouldn’t we want to let our kids see “the study of creation?” Maybe I’ve stumbled across a big political misconception - having “creation taught” or “evolution taught” in our schools is offensive to those who hold to the opposing view. But having “the study of evolution” or “the study of creation” taught, to me, would be OK. Semantics?? Perhaps.
Cautiousmaniac (#24)
A theory is not a bad thing. A theory, in science, is an explanation of how a process or an event occurs or occurred. The idea that “evolution is just a theory” is a bad idea to cling to, and all the reading about cosmology and biology you can fit into your schedule is for naught if you think that theories are somehow bad.
Agreed. But let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s not call something fact when it’s theory. I see all the time in the Christian world preachers who build some case using their understanding of scripture, and they start off by saying “if this verse really means this (theory), and this verse really means this (theory), then we know (fact) this. The fact really isn’t fact in this case, but it’s taught as if it were.
I see that same pattern here in the study of evolution. I see “If this happened (theory) and then this happened (theory), then we know this (fact).” It’s a thought pattern that makes me cautious of the results.
MTran (#28), thanks for that. I’ll bookmark that link.
One barrier that many creationist believers have when they review these materials at TalkOrigins, or anywhere else, is that the vocabulary used by scientists often has meanings quite different from the same words when used by creationists or by people in casual conversation
Yes, I think that’s part of it. I ran into one a couple weeks ago, the term “argument from ignorance.” I took offense to it because I thought the writer had taken to name-calling, calling me ignorant, when really it’s just an errant line of reasoning.
The classic example is the very different meaning of the word “theory” when used by scientists vs just about everyone else!
I think I’ve run into that here. What exactly is theory in the scientific community? And I wonder if that misunderstanding, if there is one, carries over into the general public when scientists say “theory“, what does the public hear? Just a rhetorical question.
Good point. That’s actually a big part of why I’m looking into this so intently. I keep hearing how all the evidence supports evolution, so OK. I’m looking at/for the evidence.
And I’m glad you are. This conversation is fun to watch!
Just to clarify, it is really the overwhelming evidence of a very old earth I was pointing to, not necessarily the evidence regarding evolution. I am not history-of-life savvy enough to interact much on that topic.
Or, more to the point in our modern consumer culture, advertised well. Creationism doesn’t have questions, all it has is answers. Science, by having questions, is therefore an “inferior product.”
I’ve been thinking about this as I go about my weekend chores around the home. There is no more honor in having questions without answers (evolutionists in this context) than there is in having answers you can’t support (creationists in this context). Do I still believe in creation? Yes. Old or new earth? Used to be new, now I’m not sure. Could evolution be a part of that? Used to say no, but now I’m not sure.
I’ve just come to the point where the fact that creation is all I’ve ever been taught is not a good enough reason to reject evolution. I still reject it because I still personally have a lot of questions and the explanations I see seem implausible. But with that said, I won’t ignore the evidence. If there’s evidence to support evolution, I want it.
Also, could it be that it’s a mix of creation and evolution? Could it be that a god (whether or not it’s the one I happen to believe is right) is the thing that fills the gaps … that makes the “whole cloth” (to steal a phrase from Karen) of evolution work?
Could it be that a god (whether or not it’s the one I happen to believe is right) is the thing that fills the gaps … that makes the “whole cloth” (to steal a phrase from Karen) of evolution work?
I am thinking that most Christians (and perhaps adherents to other deistic religions) who are not strict-creationists believe some version of this. And I imagine that those points of view vary along a continuum where at one end is a God who sets into motion the “Big Bang” (or whatever) and establishes the rules of physics and such, and then steps back and watches, to the other end, where God has intervened and continues to intervene in the natural order of things. BICBW.
And there certainly could be other variables that I haven’t thought of.
mike o #31 asked these rhetorically but they are two questions that should be answered.
What exactly is theory in the scientific community?
To which I’ll just copy and paste my previous answer. A theory, in science, is an explanation of how a process or an event occurs or occurred. To expand on that more, a theory is, in its purest sense, a rational, logical, scientific manner of interpreting and explaining whatever data we have.
This inherently means that theories have two possible weaknesses:
a) interpretations and explanations are based on human reasoning and thus there’s all the potential faults that we as humans can have
b) more data can be found that contradicts or makes necessary new parts of a theory
These “weaknesses” are, in all actuality, good. As I said above, when a scientific theory cannot be questioned, it stops living in the realm of science. However, this same weakness is interpreted as bad by the general public, which gets to the second question:
And I wonder if that misunderstanding, if there is one, carries over into the general public when scientists say “theory”, what does the public hear?
The public hears “guess”. Or they think that there is a scientific hierarchy which runs from hypothesis -> theory -> law -> fact and thus say odd things like “evolution is just a theory”. Or they think that a scientific theory is the same general thing as a “conspiracy theory”, when the former relies on facts to make a conclusion, whereas the latter makes a conclusion and then finds facts to support it.
Can I use a popular science example here? Sure.
Fact: Non-avian dinosaurs (I’ll just say “dinosaurs” to be less wordy) are not with us anymore.
Fact: the fossil record shows that dinosaurs stop appearing in the fossil record at the end of a geological age called the Cretaceous.
From the time that scientists knew dinosaurs existed once, but not anymore, theories have come up to explain why. For the vast majority of this time (until the early 1980s), these theories had very little in the way of facts and data to explain this extinction event, and so a lot of competing theories were around.
Theory: mammals ate all the dinosaur eggs
Theory: a local supernova went off which sent large doses of radiation to Earth, killing the dinosaurs
Theory: temperatures changed so much that gender ratios of dinosaurs were dramatically skewed and thus dinosaurs died off because they couldn’t find mates
etc. etc. etc. The vast majority of these theories were squashed when a new datum point came into play:
Fact: the Cretaceous - Tertiary boundary, in nearly every rock record that shows it, has an iridium spike
Iridium in such high doses is only found in extraterrestrial rocks (aka asteroids) or rocks brought up from the mantle (aka volcanoes), so therefore two theories, which had been suggested before but were not well supported, now became the two best-supported ideas.
Theory: volcanism (particularly in the Deccan plains of modern India) brought about a slow, but gradual multi-million year period of climatic change which, over time, led to the die-off of dinosaurs.
Theory: a big giant space rock hit the planet which caused similar climatic change but over a hundred thousand years tops.
When an additional datum point was found,
Fact: an asteroid crater about 65.5 million years old exists on the NW edge of the Yucatan Peninsula
That really pushed both the scientific and public’s mind toward the asteroid-impact theory as being the sole reason for dinosaur extinction.
However, since that time questions and new data do enter into the discussion. The impact theory, however robust, is questioned. And the entire point is that questioning is good.
Hmm, I ended up spending a bit longer than I wanted to on this dinosaur thing. I’m gonna quit talking on this for now and say somethin shorter.
Actually I forgot the shorter thing I was going to say, so I’ll say this instead.
I believe in a world (a universe, to be less specific) without supernatural influences, so the conflict between Genesis and data which conflicts with its rather simple, young, and short creation sequence to me is rather simple: data wins.
But, obviously, for Christians, this question is more difficult to answer. They are forced to try to mix faith in Genesis as the divinely-inspired Word of God with facts that disagree with Genesis’s beginning. There’s, IMHO, two main difficulties with trying to accomodate both data and Genesis:
a) Data says there’s been violence, death, and suffering for as long as there has been life that can die. Genesis says that this never happened before Adam and Eve.
b) Data says that all life is the product of common descent. Genesis says that all life, and particularly we humans, are products of “uncommon descent” from God.
I’m no theologian and so therefore I don’t have good ideas on how to resolve these conflicts. I’ve read things which think that the “tree of knowledge” spoken of in Genesis is parable for our sapience, our intelligence, our self-awareness, and that the “breathe of life” which God blew into the dust that He had formed Adam from was also this gift of intelligence which we have. Is being “kicked out of Eden” a parable for realizing that we, in our intelligence and in our recognition of our own mortality, are alone in the natural world, and thus we must faith in our benevolent Creator who assures us, in spite of the brutality of nature, that everything will be ok?
(shrug) These questions of theology are up to those that believe in theos.
Mike O., I’ve got to give you credit for taking on the fairly large task of educating yourself on issues that you may not always feel comfortable about.
Ditto. I love seeing the way you are open to considering possibilities that you haven’t before, Mike O., and admire you for taking considerable time to do the research for yourself.
From my B.A. in English, it took quite a lot of “doing” to polish up my old analytical skills when I decided I was interested in learning more about science as a hobby. But I’m really glad I did it - it’s become a real fascination for me.
Or they think that a scientific theory is the same general thing as a “conspiracy theory”, when the former relies on facts to make a conclusion, whereas the latter makes a conclusion and then finds facts to support it.
Hmmmm…. I guess I would disagree with that. Sure, evolution is a theory based on facts and conspiracy isn’t, but I would say both are conclusions which then had facts found to support it. That doesn’t mean evolution is wrong, it just means the theory was there first, and now we’re finding the facts to support it … at least that’s the chronology of the development of evolutionary theory.
But with that said, I really like the way you laid out the fact/theory explanation.
Darwin had facts before he had a theory. He was a naturalist (and a theist, actually had a mind to go into the parsonage). He travelled all over the south pacific and collected the data that brought him to his startling theory.
His theory didn’t preceed the facts. It flows from them. You can read his book, “On the Origin of Species.” It’s available online for free. You can read it and see the facts that brought him to it.
As others have said, the word “theory” means something very different in science than it means in general use. The non-scientific definition is something like “a guess or a supposition.” But in science, the definition is very much more meaningful and solid. In science a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable and has never been falsified.
So in lay language, someone might say “Is that a fact, or is it only a theory?” But in science, a theory is much much more powerful than a fact, because any hypothesis that has stood the test to be called a theory is something that explains many, many facts, and can predict future testable facts.
To say it again, Darwin was a believer in God, he had attended the seminary and was planning on being a parson. He didn’t have a theory and then travel the world to find facts. He travelled the world and studied animals, brought back tons of specimens, analized them, worked on them for decades before developing his theory. Since Darwin’s time, we’ve had tons and tons of confirmation, and no evidence has come to light to shake the foundation of what he formulated to understand it
Also, could it be that it’s a mix of creation and evolution? Could it be that a god (whether or not it’s the one I happen to believe is right) is the thing that fills the gaps … that makes the “whole cloth” (to steal a phrase from Karen) of evolution work?
Listen, God could be behind the whole thing. I can’t say for sure that his isn’t or that he is.
But if He did create the living world, He created it using biology. He built us out of chemistry, and genetics and cells.
We could say that we were zapped into life, or formed from dust or mud and breathed into… but let’s face it, that’s not how we’re built. We aren’t made of mud, we’re made of protein. We’re made of biology. If we want to find out how we were made, we have to study biology.
But here’s something that Gallieo wrote about that issue.
“Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. ”
God does not make living things out of gold and quicksilver, even though He certainly could. No, God makes things that use biological processes.
To make my daughter, I didn’t take a rib, and my wife didn’t breathe into her. No, on this earth, life continues, is sustained and reproduces using chemistry and biology.
If chemistry and biology were good enough in God’s eyes, for the sustaining of life and the reproduction of life, it is only logical that these were God’s method of creating it in the first place.
That doesn’t mean evolution is wrong, it just means the theory was there first, and now we’re finding the facts to support it … at least that’s the chronology of the development of evolutionary theory.
I think that the idea that life had evolved was certainly present in some peoples/scientists minds, but it wasn’t until Lamarck came around that anyone tried to put forward an evolutionary theory, based on observable facts. One of the issues with his theory of organic progression is that it claimed that extinction did not happen, something we now know is horribly wrong. Facts, which he did not know when he came up with his theory, proved his theory of how evolution worked wrong.
Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, on the other hand, inarguably collected up data before being presented as a theory. There were 28 years between when Chuck D got on the HMS Beagle and when he published Origin. During this time he thought about his observations and read all the books he could get his hands on and eventually…well, to quote him in his own words:
“I have reached the conclusion that species are after all (it is like confessing a murder!) mutable”
And in turn, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, while insightful, did not know all the facts involved with how life functions. Primarily, genetics as a science did not exist yet. Darwin’s theory has been modified, greatly, due to facts that have been discovered since his time.
Now, of course, as evolution does deal with the past, there are predictions/theories that are made on scant evidence which, in time, are either proved wrong or right when more evidence comes in. But I do not think that it is a fair statement to say that evolutionary theory was thought up and then data has been collected to support it.
Certainly, with more and more data, evolution and some of the tricky routes it has employed (like making whales from hoofed mammals, wow) are further supported. But evolutionary biology, the science dealing with facts and theories of evolution, basically did not exist until Lamarck, and did not really take off until Darwin. The ideas of common descent and changeable species are certainly older, but the theories didn’t come about until facts had been collected.
…bugger I need to refresh to see what Siamang said before I say the same thing.
Reading the Origin of the Species might not be your cup of tea. Besides assigned readings from it, I haven’t tried to read it. While he was a smart cookie, he lacked a lot of the astounding knowledge we now have about the natural world, and it shows in his writing. It’s not his fault that he didn’t know about genes, but he’s trying really hard to explain a process without knowing how it works. It’s almost like explaining how a car works without ever popping open the hood.
I do, on the other hand, totally recommend visiting, either in person or via the internets (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/) the Darwin exhibit at the AMNH. The sights there are rather impressive, like for example, Darwin’s pistol. Or what could possibly be the world’s first evolutionary tree. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Re: “…the theory was there first, and now we’re finding the facts to support it”
You are not the only person to make this type of assertion, but it’s completely backwards, as far as scientific theories are concerned. Scientific theories are formed only after a sufficient body of adequately verified data (aka evidence) have been successfully subjected to experimental testing of relevant hypotheses.
The theory is the “explanation” that ties together all the known, verified data into a framework that provides a reliably predictive framework with which to further analyze data and which further provides methods by which the theory itself can be proven false.
Scientists don’t attempt to “prove” that their theories are “true”or “correct.” (”Proof” is a technical concept that applies only in math and law.) They instead attempt to determine the extent to which a theory has consistent and continuing predictive value. They do this by devising tests and experiments that attempt to prove that the theory is “wrong” or false. That’s what falsifiability is largely about.
All of this is fairly counter-intuitive to most people’s understanding of what the words “proof” and “theory” mean in casual conversation and is the cause of many misunderstandings between the science types and the non-science majority of the population.
Re: “I think that the idea that life had evolved was certainly present in some peoples/scientists minds, but it wasn’t until Lamarck came around that anyone tried to put forward an evolutionary theory, based on observable facts.”
The idea of “evolution” was around for centuries before Darwin appeared on the scene. The “fact” of evolution, in the common meaning of the change in the appearance and existence of species over time, was observed regularly throughout history. Early peoples made all sorts of attempts at explaining the observation of evolution (e.g., sea shell fossils found in the mountains of Italy) and many of those early explanations were religious ones. Some speculated that species were destroyed in a global flood, or that the gods subdued ancient monsters so that humans and useful creatures could live and properly serve the gods.
During the age of the Enlightenment, scholars (nearly all of them theists) began looking at nature with the intent of better understanding “God’s world” and the mechanisms he used to shape it. Enter Darwin, who proposed that most evolution was the result of incremental changes through time, or “descent with modification”, caused by “natural selection”
If you want to understand Darwin, I would suggest that you ignore his “Origins of Species” and read, instead, the much more accessible “Voyage of the Beagle,” where Darwin recounts his life changing voyage and the profound impact his observations had on his understanding of god, man, and nature. This book is available on many sites, you might want to try the Gutenberg Project. It was a book that gave me tremendous insights into the importance of observation and the nature of evidence when I read it in high school.
You all are going to love this! Here is the etymology of the word “theory” from Wikipedia. Since there are no sources cited, I think it is safe to assume that this etymology is a “theory”! (Tee-hee . . . )
The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theorein’, which means ‘to look at’. The term ‘theoria’ (a noun) was already used by the scholars of ancient Greece.
Theorein is built upon ‘to theion’ (the divine) or ‘to theia’ (divine things) ‘orao’ (I see), ie ‘contemplate the divine’. ‘Divine’ was understood as harmony and order (or logos) permeating the real world surrounding us.
You may recall that the gospel-writer John refers to Jesus as “logos”. (Cue the the theme from Twilight Zone)
The “fact” of evolution, in the common meaning of the change in the appearance and existence of species over time, was observed regularly throughout history.
I don’t necessarily think this is true. Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts about nature included two things which were highly anti-evolutionary:
a) species are fixed
b) variations (aka “sports” in Darwin’s time or “mutants” in ours) are always bad
This thinking dominated studies of the natural world until circa the 1850s. The fact that AR Wallace came up with natural selection as the driving force of evolution independently of Chuck shows that it took until then for the intellectual climate to change to one accepting of evolution.
As far as originating species, it is true that people looking at the fossil record noted that species appeared to be created at various times. But the key word there is created, evolution via natural means was rarely implied. Lamarck came up with an evolutionary theory, but he believed that life was always being created from organic materials, which over time evolved into more and more advanced lifeforms, with humans being the oldest and most advanced evolutionary line around. When creationists say that evolution says “frogs change into lizards change into rats which turn into monkeys which become people”, they are correct…if they’re referring to Lamarckian evolution.
Also important to note is that extinction, a concept which we are all too familiar with now that we are causing it on a global scale, was not believed to be a valid idea until less than 200 years ago. Without the death of species, there was no need to think that new species were being made. Even after extinction was accepted, the majority of scientists (eg Cuvier) believed that cycles of extinction were followed by new periods of divine creation.
Darwin’s theory of evolution succeeded where earlier ones had failed because it, unlike previous theories, incorporated three important facts: that species die off, that resources will always be limited (cue Malthus), and that the Earth is much older than Genesis says. But more importantly, the scientific world had also accepted these facts, and Darwin’s book was thus able to speak to people at the same level of basic comprehension.
Cautiousmaniac said:
“…I don’t necessarily think this is true. Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts about nature included two things which were highly anti-evolutionary”
I did not mean to imply, and I don’t think I even said, that everyone throughout history consistently noted a pattern of extinguishing and arising species. But there is plenty of evidence that people have always speculated about the reasons for the appearance of different species. We wouldn’t have the abundance of creation myths that exist if people did not regularly pose the question about how life-forms came to be. ;-)
During ancient Greek and Roman history, there is evidence of a regular fascination with fossils. So much so that certain temples, some govermental offices, and leading citizens made a point of collecting and displaying the bones of “giants”, “titans”, “cyclopses”, “centaurs”, and other types of extinct creatures. The ancient explanations for these fossils and the absence of the continued existence of such creatures was that they were destroyed by the gods or that they were killed during the wars between the gods and the titans.
Adrienne Mayor has recently (2000)published a few highly readable books that address this issue. You may want to check out “The First Fossil Hunters,” from Princeton University Press. This is written for the general, non-specialist reader.
But you are right that there was a very strong current of thought that considered “species” to be a fixed condition.
And speaking of etymology… if I recall correctly, the word “evolution” derives from the Latin word meaning “to roll out” or “unfold.” For those of a poetic bent, one could view evolution as god’s method of assuring that life on earth is “unfolding as it should.”
NCxian said: “So, etymologically, the “Theory of Evolution” is the contemplation of God’s unfolding harmony of life.”
This is pretty much the attitude that informed the ethos of science studies by Christians and other theists or deists during the Enlightenment era. I think it’s a shame that this attitude has been rejected by so many “literalist” believers. It remains as the approach to science taken by most non-fundamentalist Christians, as far as I can tell. I’ve heard numerous theist researchers (many of them Jesuits) echo the statements of Enlightenment scientists, saying that their work of studying nature makes them feel closer to their god.
I’m an atheist and I can say that the awe-instilling thrill I get from quantum mechanics and molecular biology is a very spiritual experience. If I beleved in a god, I would likely attribute much of that feeling to the majesty of the deity. I just can’t see a conflict between studying and understanding nature and believing in a(non-literalist) religion.
Great discussion, everyone. Mike O, I second (third?) the kudos previously expressed that you are looking into evolution.
David S in #14 above wrote:
You might do better to examine evolution from a basic level first (say by reading some basic primer like The Blind Watchmaker) than trying to jump into advanced theoretical biology stuff like the above.
I found “The Blind Watchmaker” fascinating, but also a pretty difficult read; Dawkins writes clearly, but he also delves right away into the gritty details of evolution. I’m not sure it’s the best place to start.
I haven’t read Kenneth Miller’s book “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution”, but it might be a good place to start. He seems to be able to organize and explain this stuff clearly, and that book might take on questions that come up for you, Mike O, better than one of Dawkins’ books (since Dawkins doesn’t believe in God, but Miller does).
Darwin’s “Origin of Species” is a good way to go right to the horse’s mouth if you want to know what he actually wrote, and see how he presented this shocking idea to people who had no reason to believe Genesis might not be literally true. Darwin gets portrayed as an evil influence, it seems - or, that’s how it came across in one of the classes in this conservative Lutheran course I’m taking. But reading his book, it’s interesting (wrenching, imo) how he apologizes for what he’s writing, explaining that he wouldn’t be claiming evolution occurred if he didn’t feel forced into it by the evidence he saw in the natural world. He’s really quite humble about it. It’s also amazing to see how he put these clues together without having any idea how it happened - genetics was unknown then. So, that book would be background, or an introduction, but not a complete description of evolution by any means.
My big question is, why? If things were working, why did they evolve into two different things? Maybe “why” isn’t the right question to ask … maybe the right question is, “what caused it?” Something must have caused the extenction of the universal ancestor and the appearance of the first plants/animals.
cautiousmaniac in #27 responded:
This right here is one of the great questions that evobio can only ponder and …probably never make any good strides towards answering. Our planet is covered by millions of species which all do slightly different things. Why? Why not just have one species which can “do everything” (to be a little bit more scientific, occupy all niches and use all potential resources) that carpets the planet?
…your answer is as good as Richard Dawkins’s.
Dawkins discusses this in one section of the “The Blind Watchmaker” (not the “why” so much as the “how”).
1) A group of organisms of one species gets divided geographically; the new subgroups are exposed to different environments. (For example, for one type of primordial organism in the sea, maybe some of them drifted to the bottom of the ocean, and some drifted to the top.)
2) Differences in the environments of the subgroups might include whether sunlight exposure, ambient temperature, availability of food/components/etc, competition (from others like themselves, and eventually - as different species evolved - from predators), etc. Thus, the subgroups are under different threats to survival.
3) Separated subgroups can even have different mutation rates (for example, organisms higher in the ocean would be exposed to more UV radiation - including sunlight - and more cosmic radiation).
4) Thus, over time, the separated subgroups from the original group of organisms (which started off the same) mutate in different ways and at different rates, experience different survival pressures from different environmental factors, and so evolve into species which might appear quite different and/or have very different characteristics. For example, organisms exposed to sunlight would benefit from being able to harness energy from the sun (photosynthesis), whereas that ability would be worthless to organisms which don’t get exposure to sunlight. Or, later organisms would benefit from being able to ingest the organisms which can harness the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, thus they wouldn’t need to be able to perform that trick themselves. And so on.
I did not mean to imply, and I don’t think I even said, that everyone throughout history consistently noted a pattern of extinguishing and arising species.
I wasn’t totally sure on what you had said, but re-reading it (with a few more hours of being awake) shows that you didn’t say that. So I’m glad that I caused confusion for no reason…
It is interesting to note that Greeks and Romans both dug up fossils and tried to explain them with the understanding of the world that they had: since they were bones of large creatures, they must be the bones of the titans and giants. Chinese civilization considered fossils to be dragon bones, that could be ground up and taken medicinally. …which oddly enough still happens today.
At around the same time that Leonardo da Vinci was looking at fossils in mountain sediments in Italy and thinking they were remains of dead animals, someone…in China, I can’t find out who, (I knew I shoulda written this down) came to the same conclusion. In 1668 came the first published text which solidly put forth the theory that fossils were once-living animals, Steno’s De Solido Intra Solidium Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. Despite that it still took another century for the idea that fossils = dead organisms to really ground itself into the scientific mindset.
Not to mention the popular mindset, of which some % of Americans still think that fossils are made up by God or Satan (or both?) to trick us. Which I guess makes me either a divine or infernal collaborator.
I hope I’m not coming off as defensive … I don’t mean to be. I’m just responding to what people say.
Siamang (#40) said,
If chemistry and biology were good enough in God’s eyes, for the sustaining of life and the reproduction of life, it is only logical that these were God’s method of creating it in the first place.
Evolution takes it one step further, from reproduction and sustaining, to the generation of new life.
Several people commented that the facts preceded the theory, so OK. I was thinking of new findings being used to support evolution, and got it a little mixed up. I stand corrected.
MTran (#46) uses the word “myth,” and further up in #14 the word “magic” is used in conjuntion with creation. Creation is just as much a theory as evolution. MTran said in #43 …
Scientists don’t attempt to “prove” that their theories are “true”or “correct.” (”Proof” is a technical concept that applies only in math and law.) They instead attempt to determine the extent to which a theory has consistent and continuing predictive value. They do this by devising tests and experiments that attempt to prove that the theory is “wrong” or false. That’s what falsifiability is largely about.
If we’re going to call evolution a “theory,” let’s call both of them theories. After all, the theory of creation passes the falsifiability test, too. BTW, I’ve started another discussion on the DB about this. It wasn’t planned to tie in to this one, but perhaps it does. If there’s no concrete evidence against creation, and the data points also support (don’t contradict?) it, it’s a valid theory. Sure, you can disbelieve it, but one of the strengths of theory is that they are constantly under threat of being found false, right? So until it is found false, Creation is a theory, not a myth and not magic.
NCxian (#47) said …
So, etymologically, the “Theory of Evolution” is the contemplation of God’s unfolding harmony of life. Works for me! How about you, Mike O.?
Hey, works for me! I suspect when I get to heaven, God is going to sit me down and say, “Here, Mike look at this! You had it all wrong. Here’s how it really went down …”
Oops, I forgot the link to the DB. It’s called Knockout Punch, and without thinking about this when I started it yesterday, it’s actually looking to falsify Christianity. Can Christianity pass the falsifiability test?
I’m sure the “creation is a theory” statement will be questioned/disagreed with by another few people shortly. So I don’t think I’m gonna be unique at all in what I have to say, so lemme try a slightly different approach and we’ll see if I’m in any way not repetitive.
Evolution is a natural process. In the same way that planets revolve around the sun, that electrons orbit nuclei, that acids and bases neutralize each other, biological processes at biochemical (mutations and their subsequent effect on genetics), population (genetic drift, sexual selection), community (natural selection) and biospheric (plate tectonics, atmosphere-ocean interactions) levels all affect species, in a cumulative fashion that we term evolution.
When we learn about these first three processes (orbital physics, subatomic physics, and chemical reactions) in science class, teachers are never hesitant about saying that they are natural processes. Why is it that they have to be careful about saying that evolution is?
It seems to me that biology is one of the last places that religious folk believe that God is “hiding.” We no longer think that planets are gods and demons in the sky but people desperately grasp onto either the concept that:
a) faith-based ideas for why we are here are scientific AND/OR
b) scientific theories for why we are here are faith-based
If one wants to label creation a theory than I demand the right to do the same for astrology, alchemy, and numerology. And as long as I’m being ludicrous I also want to call Mozart a no-talent hack and Michelangelo a lousy artist.
If we’re going to call evolution a “theory,” let’s call both of them theories. After all, the theory of creation passes the falsifiability test, too.
Well, let’s check. Here’s the definition of theory in science:
A systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable and has never been falsified.
Okay, so here’s the list.
A systemized and formal expression of all previous observations.
Predictive- that means it can be used to make predictions we can test.
Logical - it is consistant.
Testable.
Never been falsified.
Well, I think literal 6-day creationism has failed every one of them.
It doesn’t take into account past observations. It can’t even harmonize with the existence of dinosaurs let alone their extinction. It can’t account for the apparant deep age of the earth.
Predictive - it is not accurately predictive. If all creatures on this earth started life within days of each other, strict creationism should predict that oil shale deposits from the carboniferous period would have fossils of grass or flowers with their ferns. But they don’t. If all creatures are the same age, strict 6-day creationism predicts we should find dinosaur bones in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. But we don’t. If each creature on the earth were seperately created and not related, their DNA shouldn’t include shared scars of ancient viruses in analogous places in their genome. But they do!
So it fails as a predictor.
Logical, is it consistant? That depends on the subsequent claims. Some people claim that dinosaurs and sharks were vegetarian before the fall. Makes me wonder what those big sharp teeth were for! As an extended explaination, it’s not self-consistant. As soon as people start explaining how you can fit two of every animal on the planet on a boat, they start talking about “kinds” but they won’t tell you what a “kind” is. Is there a dog kind? Then what’s a civet? Is it a dog or a cat, or a weasel, or a squirrel, or a shrew, or a……. They seem to accept limited evolution as a function of inhereted variation… but only post flood very very rapidly for a very short time (from two beetles to all of the between 5 and 8 million different species in only a hundred or so generations, but no fossils of that happening… and then evolution slowed down or all but stopped so it doesn’t happen anymore? WHA!!?!?! Not internally consistant if you ask me.
Testable… well, yes it is testable. Sadly that brings us to the last requirement.
Has never been falsified.
Sadly, yes, literal six-day creation has been falsified. It’s falsified every single day in about a billion ways. Look up at the stars. The Great Galaxy in Andromeda is the farthest object you can see with the unaided eye (on a very clear night away from a city.) It is 2.5 million light-years away. The light coming from the great galaxy in Andromeda left it 2.5 million years ago. The photons striking your retina have been travelling for 2.5 million years. That’s 416 times longer than, according to creationists, light itself has existed.
There are only 3 possible explainations. The most obvious one is, “the universe is older than 6000 years.”
The other two are: God made it just LOOK like what we observe. Which we have dealt with with the idea of a trickster God. If God is indeed a trickster, I will live believing the world he has made for us. If God uses a trick to make the universe look 14 billion years old, I have faith that in some real way it really is 14 billion years old. If God wants me to believe the universe is that old, I’ll play along.
The other option, one that is so crazy I hesitate to mention it, is that some creationists argue that the speed of light is slowing down.
Well, the first accurate measurements of the speed of light were in 1850. It’s roughly 600 million miles an hour. 150 years later, it hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down. So there’s another failed prediction of strict creationism.
But let’s calculate how much light must be slowing down for a strict 6000 year history to be true. And it’s fun!
The andromeda galaxy was first observed and charted and described in the year 905 AD by the Persian astronomer ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi. Which on the 6-dayer’s calendar is about the time the universe is 4,909 years old. So according to the six-day creationist, the light leaving andromeda on Day One must be able to travel 2.5 million light-years in about 5000 years. So apparantly light used to travel 500 times faster than it did now, at least up to about 1000 years ago. And yet somehow it stopped slowing down and has remained constant these last 150 years.
So apparantly light was travelling AT LEAST 3,000,000,000,000 (three trillion) miles an hour for the first 5/6ths of the history of the universe, and then it slowed down to 1/5000th of that speed from the year 905 to the year 1850, and has remained constant since.
Feel free to check my math on that one. But all I can say is, that is an outrageous claim…the claim that the speed of light slowed down by that much. And it’s a claim strict 6-dayers make without a shred of evidence, when the simple answer is just that the universe is older than 6000 years.
Oops, I checked my math and I added an extra zero!
Let’s try again:
So apparantly light was travelling AT LEAST 300,000,000,000 (three hundred billion) miles an hour for the first 5/6ths of the history of the universe, and then it slowed down to 1/500th of that speed from the year 905 to the year 1850, and has remained constant since.
Mike O. said: “If we’re going to call evolution a “theory,” let’s call both of them theories. After all, the theory of creation passes the falsifiability test, too.”
Mike, I believe you are trying to make sense of these issues in good faith but there is no “theory of creation.” If you think you’ve got one, then you’re the first and you’d better let the Discovery Institute in on it because they are so desperate to find an actual theory of their own, I’m sure they would be happy to adopt yours. They may even put you on staff with a nice salary. Or you could get a nifty grant from the Templeton Foundation. ;-)
You might “want” to call the creationist version of origins a “theory” but you have no basis to do so. Please indulge me a moment here. There is an old saying attributed (probably erroneously) to Abraham Lincoln. It goes like this;
Q: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs deos a dog have?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.
“Creationism” is religion, pure and simple; it is not science and it is certainly not a theory. It makes no predictions. It does not account for all known data or for even a small portion of it. In its Young Earth variation, it has been thoroughly falsified. In its Intelligent Design variation it makes no predictions and is thus not capable of falsification. When a conjecture or speculation cannot be “falsified,” that does not mean it is “true” or “valid.” It means it is useless, as far as science is concerned.
But that does not mean it has no value in spheres other than science. It seems that you are perhaps unhappy with the use of the word “myth” to describe religious origin stories. But my use of the word myth is in it’s technical sense, not its colloquial sense. Myth does not mean “falsehood,” or “lie.” Myth is a religiously significant description of the supernatural origins of the cosmos, the earth, life, or accounts of the acts and lives of deities and (sometimes)(ancient) heroes.
I would expect that the Biblical creation account is religiously or spiritually significant to a billion or more people. It is about ultimate origins and the acts of a deity. This makes it, by any standard definintion, a myth. This does not mean it is a lie. It means that whatever truth it contains is a religious and cultural one, not a natural or scientific one.
I suppose it’s up to you as to whether it is important that the Biblical creation stories are scientifically accurate, though I have difficulty understanding why a believer would want to invoke science to validate their faith.
You may have meant that you subscribe to a “scientific” creationsim that exists outside of the Biblical accounts. But there is no creationist “theory” other than religious ones.
(Sheesh, looks like I’m pulling another all nighter, I’d better log off before I burn up my cable.)
Mike, one difference is creation is magic. You can study it from here to eternity and it will remain magic. It will remain a magic story and never lead to any future discoveries or understanding.
Sorry I haven’t read all the comments to this post but I got as far as this and had to comment. Apologies if I end up repeating something already covered.
David in making this statement you are clearly showing naivety when it comes to the key differences between creation and evolution. In terms of the application of the scientific method there is virtually no difference. The evidence used by evolutionists is the same used by creationists. So many seem to miss this point. The same rocks, fossils, starlight etc. Creationists do not have some secondary set of imaginary evidence. Secondly the study of the evidence is also conducted in a secondary sense when it comes to c&e. It’s often said of astronomy (my own background) that we can look but not touch - and the same can be said of evo-biology/geology/paleo. etc. While the evidence itself can be touched the process that brought us the evidence can’t be - thus assuptions have to be made (uniformitarian in the case of evo. & divine creation in the case of creationists). How a creationist who is a scientist conducts science is the same for an evolutionist. I do a presentation in public high schools on the philosophy of science which more clearly explains this I’ll try and upload it and post a link if you are interested. If we aee going to have intelligent conversation on this subject it’s important we do away with the strawmen.
Welcome aboard, Andrew. I think that intelligent conversation is important, and so far Mike O has shown an amazing ability to inspect his beliefs. I find it interesting to note that while he is certainly more open to science, evidence, and evolution now than, say, a week ago, he still runs plays from the creationist playbook. I think that your post does the same thing, and I want to just note on sentence:
Creationists do not have some secondary set of imaginary evidence.
Now, firstly, I want to say that I am confused when someone says they’re a creationist. There are many many many shades that such a statement can mean, from thinking there must be a Creator (eg Discovery Institute), to the Young-Earth Creationism/scientific creationism movement (eg Answers in Genesis). These two thoughts are very very different: there are decent numbers of scientists who believe in a personal deity, but there are only a handful who think the Earth is only thousands of years old and that evolution is a Satanically-inspired lie.
Secondly…you do have a secondary set of imaginary evidence. What really makes a creationist doubt evolution and an old Earth? Is it geological/paleontological/cosmological data? Or…is it faith?
You can make the claim that uniformitarianism is an assumption, as is divine creation. But one of these processes is natural. The other is …supernatural. Sorta big difference.
there are decent numbers of scientists who believe in a personal deity, but there are only a handful who think the Earth is only thousands of years old and that evolution is a Satanically-inspired lie.
And what’s your definition of a “handful”? I personally know, am aquainted with or am friends with at least 100 qualified scientists (I am also married to one) who do not accept evolution.
Secondly…you do have a secondary set of imaginary evidence. What really makes a creationist doubt evolution and an old Earth? Is it geological/paleontological/cosmological data? Or…is it faith?
What is the imaginary evidence? As I said before all the creationist I know who are active in scientific fields look at the same rocks, the same fossils etc. etc. etc. What extra, imaginary evidence do creationist have?
You can make the claim that uniformitarianism is an assumption, as is divine creation. But one of these processes is natural. The other is …supernatural. Sorta big difference.
Well - maybe - natural in interpretation but not in observation - at the end of the day, both are assumptions. No one observed God create, no one observed the “natural” processes of evolution/uniformitarianism. 6 of one and half a dozen of the other in my book.
I personally know, am aquainted with or am friends with at least 100 qualified scientists (I am also married to one) who do not accept evolution.
How many are biologists?
Even if I grant that you know personally a large number of creationists (hey, maybe you’re president of a club), you do realize that creationists number a very, very, very small number of biologists worldwide?
I might know a hundred pro baseball players. It doesn’t mean that they’re plentiful in the population at-large.
I’m a little concerned that this forum might be taking a turn that can quickly deteriorate to name calling if we are not careful. I’m new to this discussion page but I truly value the opportunity to observe, and even participate, in a forum where all parties make a real attempt not to fly off the handle.
Mike O. is making a tremendous effort to examine issues that he may have either avoided in the past or simply discounted. That is not an easy thing to do. And I don’t find it surprising at all that he would misapply scientific terms even after they have been “explained” to him by those of us who think we have a better understanding of science. Language barriers are quite real, and doubly so when the competing languages often correlate with highly divergent ways of comprehending the world. These competing views aren’t suddenly changed by the introduction of new or specialized definitions.
That said, I’m also reluctant to engage in a “I know more scientists than you do.” Personal anecdotes may well give us some insights into each other’s concerns or attitudes but our arguments must stand on their own, without relying on our assertion of authority. Especially in the blogoverse where it is not possible to verify most peoples claims of expertise.
With that caveat in mind, I’d like to address one of Andrew’s statements when he said: “No one observed God create, no one observed the “natural” processes of evolution…”
This is simply erroneous. Evolution of new species, in a relatively brief period of time, has been observed both in the lab and in nature. If you are not aware of this, yet are making assertions as a “scientist”, then you need to educate yourself about this before you go any further. And I’m not referring to bacterial resistance to anti-biotics. I’m talking about novel plant species ( Evening Primrose - Oenothera gigas), insects (Drosophila paulistorum), invertebrates (Lab Rat Worm - Nereis acuminata), algae (Chlorella vulgaris changing from Chlorella to the genus Coelosphaerium) and numerous others. That’s not even considering ring species. I couldn’t recall the names of these or other observed instances of speciation off the top of my head so I did a quick web search.
As to “qualified scientists” who accept “creation” or who reject “evolution,” well they are vanishingly small in number. Sheesh, back in 1998, scarcely 7% of scientists believed in a personal god. ( See Nature Magazine, 23Jul 1998: “Leading Scientists Still Reject God” by Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham) The numbers are even lower for those who are in the biological sciences. Given this rejection of theism, where in the world can we find room among these people for any significant, or even noticeable, level of rejection of naturalistic evolution?
“The truth is out there” as they say. But so are a lot of lies, so we must take care when we make or accept assertions. I know I’ve made plenty of errors, and have even passed on some through inadvertence. I will continue to make errors. But I try.
Thank you, Siamang, for the thumbs up on Andrew’s identity.
It’s really sad when someone invokes the authority of “science” in order to pass on utter lies for consumption by people seeking genuine knowledge. I found Andrew’s tone rather hostile and close minded — and incredibly similar to the tripe served up at AiG. You outed him just as I entered my previous comment.
It’s been a while since I looked at Answers in Genesis, so I went back to see if it had changed.
Nope.
Here are the concluding statements from 3 of the many discussions in AiG:
The Bible’s account of the true history of the world makes it clear that no fossil can be more than a few thousand years old. Dinosaur bones give evidence strongly consistent with this.
Underpinning the search for water and life in outer space is the search for meaning. A humanity that has rejected the Word of God and the real history of the universe contained in the Bible will continue to seek answers in all the wrong places. But the Bible, and in particular the book of origins, Genesis, does provide answers to the hard questions.
Contrary to the impression that we are given, radiometric dating does not prove that the Earth is millions of years old. The vast age has simply been assumed. The calculated radiometric ‘ages’ depend on the assumptions that are made. The results are only accepted if they agree with what is already believed. The only foolproof method for determining the age of something is based on eyewitness reports and a written record. We have both in the Bible.
For emphasis, let me repeat two lines:
The results are only accepted if they agree with what is already believed.
This was said about “evolutionist” geologists, but actually applies more accurately to creationists; see the next line.
…Creationists use the historical evidence in the Bible to constrain their interpretations of the [physical] evidence.
Well, I had no desire to have it turn out that way.
Andrew, you are welcome to continue this discussion. I’d like everyone to be aware that I in no way outed Andrew or used any information about his identity other than what I found by following his homepage link from his signature name and googling from there.
As someone who blogs semi-anonymously here, I try to be very considerate of people who might wish to similarly blog anonymously.
Andrew, you are welcome to continue this discussion, although I would like to suggest that if things trend off the plants and animals question too far that we bring it to the discussion board.
I didn’t mean to cause anyone to feel unwelcome here. But curiosity gets the better of me sometimes, and you know, I just HAD to follow the link.
Andrew, of course should feel free to continue this discussion. If you desire anonymity, perhaps you’ll decide to rejoin the discussion in the future. We benefit from a multitude of voices here.
You didn’t actually “out” Andrew, even though I used that phrase myself. Andrew identified himself rather obviously through his web link. I take that to indicate that he was not trying to hide behind some sort of anonymity, as I tend to do. :-)
I use pseudonyms that are recognizable to my friends but are not readily linkable to my professional life because I’m a realist about how the real world works, not because I am a “coward.” You might be surprised at the number of executive level decision makers who consider web conversations to be indicative of something perverse. Really. All my clients and employers eventually learn about my atheism. Most of them share that position. But web posting!? Now that’s a bit too much for some of them.
But back to the topic:
I was actually surprised that Andrew “buggered off” so quickly. I expected him to at least attempt to address some of the comments. But someone who claims to have a “science” degree from a Bible college really shouldn’t be able to get away with claiming to be some sort of authority on evolution or science at all. If his arguments hold up to scrutiny, I don’t care what his academic credentials are. In this instance, he has not demonstrated any useful or viable arguments.
Who knows, though, he may take a breather and come back with his thoughts more carefully considered. Unlikely, I know, but possible.
My science degree is not from a Bible college. I am buggering off because I have no desire to hang around be abused.
So far MTran has spoken out against mudslinging and proceeded on two occaisions to do just that. I believe he called me a liar and is now calling into question my qualifications. Do I reallyl care? No, but I have better things to do with my time than subject myself to this.
Siamang - no problem at all, not at all concerned about your post of my identity. For the record I haven’t written anything for AiG for at least 2 years and now distance myself from them. But there’s no point hiding from the past.
Eliza posted a quote from AiG:
“The only foolproof method for determining the age of something is based on eyewitness reports and a written record. We have both in the Bible.”
Now, I want to be clear that Eliza did not endorse this statement, quite the contrary. But for the benefit of those who don’t understand why the assertion is not just problematic but clearly wrong, I’d like to make a few observations.
First of all, any attorney will tell you that eyewitness accounts are the least relaible forms of evidence. Popular tv shows might make one believe that eyewitness testimony is better than “mere” circumstantial evidence but without circumstantial evidence (which is largely physical evidence) it’s just about impossible to initiate a case, net alone successfully prosecute one.
Eyewitnesses are obviously subject to error, forgetfulness, incompleteness, bias, perjury, manipulation, well. the list just goes on and on. Physical evidence, though subject to loss and tamperinig, is much more readily subjected to testing and thus forms the basis of most decisions to prosecute an action.
As te written records, documentary evidence is always subject to challenge as to its prevenance and just because something is “written down” does not mean that it is “foolproof” or even admissable in a court of law. There are sound reasons to question any written piece of evidennce, but especially documentary evidence that is nothing more than a recounting of a (questionably reliable) witness. Because not only does the document carry with it problems of authentication of the physical document itsolf, it also is subject to the same challenges posed by the supposed “witness” or transcriber.
My examples here are legalistic in nature, but rules as to the acceptability of evidence are equally important, perhaps even more so, in science.
The foregoing are just a few reasons as to why the rather narrow views propounded by AiG are roundly rejected and sometimes ridiculed by scientists. The rejection has nothing to do with a failure to respect religion but with the failure of such standards to be useful for any investigatory or analytical purpose at all.
No need to bugger off, Andrew. I think that YEC’s ideas are very interesting, even if they are not scientific. You yourself said that strawmen are bad, so I think it will be a much more productive conversation now that I know that when you say “creation” you mean a very very recent one, with all the implications that has for how you view science.
Above you asked:
What extra, imaginary evidence do creationist have?
To which, now that I’ve read some of your works, I feel I can more adequately reply to. At Young galaxies too old for the Big Bang you talk about a large-scale (more than 300 megalight-years long!) structure found 10.8 gigalight-years away. As the age of the Universe is something to the order of 13 gigalight-years old, that means this structure formed relatively soon after the Big Bang.
In normal science, this new fact would spark new theories as to how stellar and galactic evolution could make such a hugggge structure so early in history. How did you choose to refer to this new opportunity of science to expand on itself?
Naturalistic cosmologists will undoubtedly find a way to fit this new evidence into the atheistic big bang model.
To which my first reaction is “what the $&@%?” Since when is the Big Bang atheistic? Since when is any scientific idea in any way related to the presence of absence of gods? That’s like saying string theory is atheistic, Andrew. I don’t see how you can say it with a straight face. You say you distance yourself from AiG so maybe that’s just something you had to say to make them happy. I certainly hope so.
The existence of such large, mature galaxies lined up in a beautiful filament makes more sense when interpreted within the biblical belief system. That is, God rapidly and supernaturally created fully-formed stars and galaxies on Day 4 of Creation Week.
So the Big Bang is bad science because it’s atheistic, but creationism is good science because it’s based on the Bible? That’s not at all how science works. Obediance to religious doctrine is not what makes a theory good, the ability to explain facts is.
To get back to your original question: “What extra, imaginary evidence do creationists have?” It’s very simple, Andrew. They think that their interpretation of the Bible is evidence that trumps all other evidence. Somehow any dating method which makes the Earth older than a few thousand years is broken. Somehow all signs of molecular relationship between species is just smoke and mirrors. Somehow a geological record which shows dynamic interplay between various sediment layers was mainly formed by one global sedimentary event. So was a fossil record which shows distinct fossil assemblages, those are somehow exhibiting different animals’ abilities to survive the Flood.
This is not about looking at the world scientifically through different lenses, Andrew. Science is the lens, and creationists stopped using that lens 160 years ago when they decided to rely on their faith instead.
I don’t think that abusing you is a productive activity, and I’m not trying to. But I am working on becoming a scientist. I am not wracking up student loan debt to attend school and take classes so that I can sit idly by while people confuse science with faith and faith with science.
I don’t recall calling you a liar. If it sounded as if I did then I regret that. You are the one who asserted your science background as the basis of authority for your arguments and assertions. At least, that is how it came across to me. You may have not intended that at all.
As I’ve said, it’s the quality of one’s arguments that should persuade us or not. Credentials are secondary to argument and evidence in most of these forums. But anyone who constrains their scientific analysis of evidence to comport with a literal reading of the Bible is not going to be taken seriously by the scientific community or most well educated people. You may not believe you have constrained your critical faculties in this manner, but that is the impression (perhaps wrong) that I am getting.
I have too much experience working closely with strongly committed believers to think that a belief in god is incompatible with intelligence, education, honesty, integrity, or scientific competency. But I have found no evidence of any of those qualities being expressed in the arguments from AiG.
I regret if any of my comments were the cause of the “death” of this conversation. But, hey, I guess these things can happen.
I’m actually glad you posted that link because a lot of people have heard about the DI survey and might find it persuasive. Of course, the survey from the Discovery Institute did not ask whether anyone supported Inteligent Design. It asked respondents whether they believed that random mutations and natural selection accounted for the diversity of life on earth and whether evolution theory should be approached with skepticism. Well, scientists tend to approach all issues with skepticism. And mutations and natural selection may well be very important concepts, but they are not the full story in evolutionary theory. Cross-over events, genetic drift, and many other considerations are players as well.
I recall a number of the scientists subjected to this survey were later horrified to find that their professional skepticism was used as fodder to the media by the Discovery Institute.
When Kenneth Chan of the New York Times reported on the “survey,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/sciencespecial2/21peti.html?ex=1298178000&en=de5bd718715864a0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) he noted that those scientists who continued to support the DI statement when he interviewed them were primarily evangelical Christians who were not qualified in biology. Apparently at least some of them told Chan that they even changed their scientific, professional view in order to comport with their religious view. In short, they did not base their views on science.
Another problem with the underlying assumption of the survey is that science is not based on some sort of “authority,” rather it is based on evidence. A person’s science “credentials,” though valuable, do not “prove” anything. What counts is evidence and soundness of argument. In other words, scientific “truth” grows from the ground of factual observations upward. It is not something that is pronounced from an authority at the top and enforced downwards, which tends to be the case with religion.
Anyhow, if you want to get a better idea as to the strength of the support naturalistic evolution theory has among scientists, you may want to check out the Project Steve at the NCSE. In that project, more practicing PhD scientists who were named “Steve” signed a statement of support for evolution theory within a few weeks than the Discovery Institute was able to gather after years of effort.
MTran - I doubt you “caused the death” of this thread. This thread simply evolved to this point and is now nearly extinct. A few topical mutations along the way, some beneficial, some neutral and some negative along the way, but all ends well. In fact, the natural selection of topical mutations on this thread allowed it to live to the ripe old age of 78 posts and counting - centuries in human years! :)
I hate when life dictates that I slip away for a few days, but I love to come back and see how things developed in the meantime.
And MTran, I concur with Siamang — I love the way you write and lay out your thoughts! What follows is not meant to be a rip on you, I’m just using your “circumstantial evidence” comment as a starting point, OK?
MTran (#73) …
[...] any attorney will tell you that eyewitness accounts are the least relaible forms of evidence … but without circumstantial evidence (which is largely physical evidence) it’s just about impossible to initiate a case, net alone successfully prosecute one.
Eyewitnesses are obviously subject to error, forgetfulness, incompleteness, bias, perjury, manipulation, well. the list just goes on and on. Physical evidence, though subject to loss and tamperinig, is much more readily subjected to testing and thus forms the basis of most decisions to prosecute an action.
As the written records, documentary evidence is always subject to challenge as to its prevenance and just because something is “written down” does not mean that it is “foolproof” or even admissable in a court of law. There are sound reasons to question any written piece of evidence, but especially documentary evidence that is nothing more than a recounting of a (questionably reliable) witness. Because not only does the document carry with it problems of authentication of the physical document itsolf, it also is subject to the same challenges posed by the supposed “witness” or transcriber.
To me, some of the best evidence as to the validity of the Bible, or at least that the followers of Jesus believed that he was God, is circumstantial today. Jesus followers gave up everything, some of them successful careers (Luke was a doctor), to follow him? Why did they do that, and why did they stay for three years?
The proported miracles that he performed were supposedly witnessed by thousands. Where is the dispute by his contemporaries that could have easily outed him?
The Bible makes it clear that the disciples thought Jesus would rise to power (misunderstood fulfillment of prophecy) even though he never said he would. And when he was executed, his mission here had obviously failed. And truthfully, many probably did fall away because of this (not the 12 disciples, but others). But if he never rose again, why did 11 of the 12 disciples die a martyrs death for a man who had stolen 3 1/2 years of their lives with no payoff? They lost everything, yet continued to stand by him even after his death. Why?
Who stole the body?? It was buried with the full knowledge of the Roman guard (they were guarding the tomb for just such a purpose - people believed he would rise from the dead, so they guarded the tomb to prevent the propogation of this “myth” via bodysnatching). Why would the Romans steal the body of their defeated foe? Why would the disciples, on the very weekend that it happened, beak through the military ranks in a smoke-and-mirrors mission to propagate something they now knew was a myth and had cost them great embarassment? (I am speaking as if Jesus never rose from the dead.)
Did Jesus swoon? OK, now who’s ignoring the data … they hung him on a cross and stabbed him in the heart. They HATED him and would never risk falling short of their goal now that they had him. He was dead, no question about it.
Circumstantial evidence surrounding the validity of the writers abounds. Even if it were possible that some would stick by him even though they had obviously been deceived, ALL of these events circumstantially proves (I use the term loosely here) that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, that his disciples did in fact believe what they wrote (doesn’t prove they were right, but proves they beleived it) and that Christianity is perhaps not the myth y’all proport it to be.
But anyone who constrains their scientific analysis of evidence to comport with a literal reading of the Bible is not going to be taken seriously by the scientific community or most well educated people. You may not believe you have constrained your critical faculties in this manner, but that is the impression (perhaps wrong) that I am getting.
Christians would say that atheists have also constrained their critical faculties to accept things that support their theories, and even reject the circumstantial evidence we do have because of a predisposition against it. I’m not saying you have or haven’t, but as you said, that is the impression (perhaps I am wrong) that I get.
I know what follows will read as accusatory and I don’t mean it to. But based on things I’ve heard in other threads and just my general impressions of atheists so far, I don’t believe an atheist would believe in the supernatural if it jumped up and bit them on the butt.
If an atheists saw someone rise from the dead, or saw something happen that broke the laws of nature/phyics like a limb regrowing or an axehead floating (this is recorded in the Old Testament), most atheists would still not acknowledge the supernatural - they would try to come up with a natural explanation.
WIth that said (and I know it came out wrong, I just hope you know my motives are good), I’d also like to say that I concur IN SPADES with what you said here:
I have too much experience working closely with strongly committed believers to think that a belief in god is incompatible with intelligence, education, honesty, integrity, or scientific competency.
That has been my experience here! I have so enjoyed the rhobust dialogue here! I think this of non-Christians as well and have even taken this type of thinking back to my Christian friends (that atheists CAN make a good case!). I’m just glad to finally hear it said here of Christians as well. Thanks for that!
I know this conversation is dead, but if you ever wanted to know if you have any local scientists who are ID supporters, this list is useful. Like did you know that two science professors at Caltech don’t accept evolution? Oddly enough, they’re both physics professors…
I reread what I said in 79 … my intent was not to make an accusation, but rather to speak to the idea of “constrained analysis” that I suspect atheists would tend to do in the face of supernatural evidence. I meant nothing more than that. Sorry if it came out wrong.
MTran - I doubt you “caused the death” of this thread. This thread simply evolved to this point and is now nearly extinct.
What Mike says is true, MTran. I used to get kind of paranoid when the last comment on a thread was mine. After a while, you realize that, if you post with any regularity, you’ll get your share of “last words”.
But so you don’t feel like you’ve killed this thread . . .
First of all, any attorney will tell you that eyewitness accounts are the least relaible forms of evidence. Popular tv shows might make one believe that eyewitness testimony is better than “mere” circumstantial evidence but without circumstantial evidence (which is largely physical evidence) it’s just about impossible to initiate a case, net alone successfully prosecute one. . . .
This assertion about eyewitnesses in court has been surfacing for about the last month. I have not responded to it because I think most people realize that we are really talking about ancient textual analysis so the comparison has limited usefulness. But while we are on the topic, I would say this assertion is wrong for two reasons.
(1) The entire system of law in the U.S., and most anyplace else where the English system is the basis, is founded on eyewitness testimony.
(2) Gzillions of cases are tried every year with nothing but eyewitness testimony.
I realize that this is not always evident on tv, where all the cases are criminal cases, and where opposing counsel conveniently forgets to object when the star of the show is doing his thing to advance the story line.
As to my objection #1, every shred of evidence that is submitted to the court/jury is done with a witness on the stand. That witness must “lay the foundation” for the submission of that evidence and that foundation is always “eyewitness”. If it is his own testimony of something he saw, then a foundation must be laid that he was in a position to see it, and so on. If it is a document, then the witness must say that “that is my signature”, or “that is my bosses signature, I see it 50 times a day” or something like that. If this doesn’t happen, opposing counsel (in real life) will say “Objection, failure to lay a foundation” and the judge will say “sustained” (if he or she is not an idiot). If a police officer gets on the stand, and an attorney holds up a gun and says, “is this the gun you found at the scene”, the judge is going to call the attorneys to the bench and tell the prosecuter to get his/her butt out of his courtroom until he/she learns to “lay a foundation with the [eye]witness”.
As to my objection #2, (in addition to the fact that all evidence is, at its foundation, dependent on eyewitness testimony) there are tons of cases tried every day with ONLY what eyewitness testimony. (And even more tried with only eyewitness and documentary evidence from witnesses). Many civil cases are “my word against yours”–who ran the red light, how fast were the cars going, what was the condition of the floor when you fell down, what did you promise to do in return for the money you were paid. Many criminal cases involve no physical evidence at all. The typical domestic assault case goes like this “He hit me, the neighbors heard the fight, they saw me coming out with blood streaming out of my nose”; then 6 neighbors get on the stand and say, “yeah, what she said”. Then the scumbag husband goes to jail. (Then he gets out shortly and hits her again, but that is another issue).
Even a criminal case that you would think would be all about “physical” evidence is really “eyewitness” evidence. For example, a rape victim testifies she was raped and points to the defendant. A doctor gets on the stand and says, “yes, she came to me immediately as she says and I saw these three signs of forcible sex.” The doctor does not produce semen samples in the courtroom, or pictures of the woman, typically. Sometimes the doctor may produce the medical notes. But even if these things come into evidence, they are allowed into evidence ONLY because they support the eyewitness testimony of the doctor. Without the doctor as an eyewitness, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE.
Like I said, the court of law analysis is so far removed from the analysis of ancient text that my diatribe may be beside the point. However, I kind of had to get it out! I could go on for a few more feet, but I’ll rest my case.
NCxian, thanks for that. That was very insightful to those of us (me!) not familiar with how many things really work.
Let me see if I get this right … even though eyewitness testimony is often faulty (is what MTran said true?), the verdict is still always based on eyewitness testimony (laying the foundation), whether fallacious or corroborated, plus circumstantial evidence that would never be admitted without first laying the groundwork with eyewitnesses? Interesting. And useful!
If an atheists saw someone rise from the dead, or saw something happen that broke the laws of nature/phyics like a limb regrowing or an axehead floating (this is recorded in the Old Testament), most atheists would still not acknowledge the supernatural - they would try to come up with a natural explanation.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this argument.
I feel like it’s an accusation of incredible intellectual bad faith. “Even if you saw Jesus with your own eyes, rising up into heaven, you wouldn’t believe it.”
First off, I’d shout ‘nonsense’. If you have evidence, please show it. But this is really an argument of “well, even if I had rock solid, the dead coming back to life right before your own eyes evidence, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
What a cop out. To accuse us of being closed minded to even perfect evidence.
Do I do that with you? Do I remotely say, ‘well even if I had a time machine and took you back in time and showed you apes becoming humans, you wouldn’t believe it.’
Heck no. It’s insulting. And it’s counter-productive. It’s not persuasion, it’s giving up on presenting evidence and laying all blame on the person unconvinced. Nobody, I mean nobody is ever ever persuaded by “well, you’re just closed-minded and you don’t want to know what I have to say anyway.”
Listen. In this thread I have presented evidence of a non-supernatural event. I have not presented evidence of a supernatural event. I have not presented “evidence” that God does not exist.
I have presented evidence of a law of nature. That’s all. Nothing gigantic or cosmological. Nothing beyond the scope of understanding of Man. All I’m laying out is the science they teach at Harvard and Yale, at Notre Dame and Texas Christian University and even Caltech.
I am not attempting to make a case against God in my arguments for evolution. I don’t believe that evolution provides ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against the existence of God.
Next to the question of “does God exist?” “Did evolution occur?” is a SIMPLE one. A mind-boggling simple question. The proof is in every science museum on the planet. It’s in every cell in your body. It’s in every DNA molecule on earth.
It is not intuitively obvious, however. It takes study and explaination and a desire to learn and an honest sense of curiosity. I do not assume that you don’t have those qualities. In fact, it does me very well to assume that you do, for then I have a desire to satisfy that curiosity.
The evidence for evolution is spelled out in trees and rocks, in fossils and bones, in viruses and bacteria, in animals and plants and protists and fungi and archea.
I do not invoke faith. Nor do I invoke witnesses who are no longer available for cross-examination. I merely ask you to look at tangible physical evidence and see if you conclude, as do 99% of scientists, that evolution did indeed occur.
Heck, this’ll take an hour: Go to your local Natural History Museum. Look at the skeleton of the whale if they have one. Check out the rear hip bones. They’re still in the whale from when they evolved from land animals. They’re shrinking, and eventually (if whales survive our impact) they’ll completely disappear. So that takes one hour, plus the drive. You physically can see the remnants of evolution, in physical tangible evidence… vestigial hind-limbs on whales. Hind limbs useless to whales. They don’t do anything. They’ve been completely replaced by the fluke, which used to be a tail. They just hang there. They are bigger in ancient fossil whales.
So there it is. One small piece of real physical evidence, right in front of your eyes. Ask any scientist at the museum what those bones are… they’ll tell you exactly what I just did. Some whales have just a pelvis. Some have a pelvis and femurs, and at least one species has the pelvis, femurs and tibias.
I’ll remind you that (I’m pretty sure) every atheist here, myself included DID believe in the supernatural. So how does that square with “oh, they wouldn’t believe the supernatural anyway even if they saw it with their own eyes?” We believed it back when we didn’t see it. We just subsequently changed our minds over whether we should believe it.
As I said, next to the question of God’s existence, evolution is a simple one. It either did or didn’t happen, and the only evidence for either is physical objects and processes.
There is overwhelming evidence that it did. Billions and trillions of independent pieces of mutually-supporting, rock-solid (literally!) evidence. Evidence that is accepted in every major intellectual and scientific institution in the world. Evidence accepted by every major scientific body in the world.
Evidence in probably the best-supported theory in all of science. Evidence in the fundamental organizing principle undergirding all of biology.
I don’t say “If I HAD evidence, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.” I say, I’ll present the evidence and I trust that you will believe it. If I didn’t have that trust, I wouldn’t be here writing this to you.
the verdict is still always based on eyewitness testimony (laying the foundation), whether fallacious or corroborated
Yes. The “trier of fact” (the judge or jury, depending on the case) decides whether the evidence is credible or not.
One thing I forgot to point out (because I’m afraid the above really was an early morning rant) is that a big reason you have to have an eyewitness is because the opposing party, in our legal system, has the right to “cross examine”. You can’t cross-examine a gun, or a semen sample, or a skid mark, or whatever physical evidence you might have, so those things, by themselves, are not admitted into evidence.
I reread what I said in 79 … my intent was not to make an accusation, but rather to speak to the idea of “constrained analysis” that I suspect atheists would tend to do in the face of supernatural evidence. I meant nothing more than that. Sorry if it came out wrong.
When I reread what I wrote, it saw that it didn’t come out at all like I intended, and I take responsibility for not being careful enough … I try to be. But like I said in #81, I was tryng to make the point that everyone, creationists, IDers and evolutionists alike, all use constrained analysis to some degree.
For a little background, what I said came partly from an old discussion on the DB where I asked the question, “IF (BIG IF) evolution could be proven false, would that prove Creation was true?” My thinking was that if it didn’t evolve, everything we have today had to have been created. I was surprised when that answer came back as a resounding “NO.” I was told there was a thousand other ways that things could have come about naturally that we just don’t understand yet. It left the taste that, regardless of what we find, there will always be some othere avenue we could pursue besides creation or ID. And when all other possibilities have been vanquished, then we’ll think about creation. How is that not constrained analysis? Atheists have a predisposition towards evolution, creationists have a predisposition towards creation. I’m just acknowledging reality.
The funny thing is, I’m not arguing for creation, or against evolution. I dont think I’ve attempted to rebut anything I’ve been taught here. I’m learning about evolution. I’m not trying to figure out if it’s correct or not. I’m trying to understand why so many people believe it. And I’m learning that there’s good reason to believe it.
One thing you said, though, that I agree with 100% -
I don’t believe that evolution provides ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against the existence of God.
You’re right, they’re two completely different things.
One thing you said, though, that I agree with 100% -
I don’t believe that evolution provides ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against the existence of God.
You’re right, they’re two completely different things.
Hurray! :-) I’m so glad this now resonates with you, Mike. I hate it when Christians are given the (totally false) information that they can’t be good believers and also be scientifically literate, educated people. When they believe that, our entire society is so much the poorer for it. It’s nice to see someone analyze the facts and reject that kind of terrible position.
Sorry, I missed that post before. But hey, it’s a discussion!
For a little background, what I said came partly from an old discussion on the DB where I asked the question, “IF (BIG IF) evolution could be proven false, would that prove Creation was true?” My thinking was that if it didn’t evolve, everything we have today had to have been created. I was surprised when that answer came back as a resounding “NO.” I was told there was a thousand other ways that things could have come about naturally that we just don’t understand yet. It left the taste that, regardless of what we find, there will always be some othere avenue we could pursue besides creation or ID. And when all other possibilities have been vanquished, then we’ll think about creation. How is that not constrained analysis?
It’s not. Your question in that old thread was, “If we disprove evolution, is Creation therefore automatically true?”
My response is, “No, Creation has to prove itself. It doesn’t get a free ride because something else is disproven.”
That’s very different from “let’s exhaust all other possibilities before we look at creationism.”
I’ll remind you that creationism was the dominant “theory” for thousands of years. It was the FIRST possibility we looked at, until the very literal form of it was disproven.
What would “prove” creationism? Proving creationism. If the fossil record had all life appearing simultaneously, that would be a big start. If our DNA didn’t have markers clearly showing common ancestry, that would be a good start. If the world showed evidence of a massive global flood recently, one that wiped out 99.9999999% of all life on earth, and then populations exploded beyond all possible imagination over a few thousand years, that would be some big proof.
Heck, if they found dinosaur bones in the La Brea Tar Pits, I’d be mighty stumped. It’s exactly what a young earth hypothesis should predict, but they’ve pulled out millions and millions of bones, and not a dinosaur in the lot of them!
Anyway, I’m glad you’re learning about evolution. I’m glad to answer your questions about it. But remember, I accepted evolution during my Christian part of my life too! In my mind, they are two very different things.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems to me that when I was younger, creationist belief was much more “fringey”, and I had a hard time finding Christians who believed in it.
If I was still a Christian, I’d be very worried that creationism is a danger to Christianity. I think it turns some people away from the religion, because of it. I do think it is a danger to Christianity now, but I have a better opinion of people’s ability to shift their beliefs in peripheral parts of their faith, while holding true to the important things.
And I’m not as concerned about people not becoming Christians because of the evolution thing. When i was a christian I was worried about people not becoming christian. Now I don’t.
Mike O. said: Let me see if I get this right … even though eyewitness testimony is often faulty (is what MTran said true?), the verdict is still always based on eyewitness testimony (laying the foundation), whether fallacious or corroborated, plus circumstantial evidence that would never be admitted without first laying the groundwork with eyewitnesses? Interesting. And useful!
This sounds like a decent synthesis to me, Mike O.!
As to whether my comment regarding the “faulty” quality of eyewitness testimony, well about 5 years ago yet another blue ribbon panel of law professors, jurists, litigators, and cognitive psychologists urged the Federal Judicial Center to prohibit or greatly restrict the use of witnesses in certain matters and for certain purposes precisely because such testimony, though highly fallible, is eagerly accepted by too many juries. I can’t see a wide-spread prohibition on such testimony any time soon, or at all, nor would I support it. But the use of testimony is highly regulated in order to assure, as far as possible, that judges and juries get the information they need as reliably as possible. And the trend is to more highly restrict (or regulate) testimony, at least in the federal courts.
NCxian said: Like I said, the court of law analysis is so far removed from the analysis of ancient text that my diatribe may be beside the point. However, I kind of had to get it out!
NCxian, I didn’t read your comments as a rant or diatribe at all. You sounded to me as someone who wanted to make sure that the comments I had made weren’t taken to the extreme and applied further than they should. (And you are right when you say that this legal evidence discussion is fairly tangential to the rest of the discussion.)
Of course testimonial evidence is essential in courts of law. Without an initial allegation, there is really no way to start a case. Documents need to be authenticated and chains of custody for all evidence needs to be established. But people can say anything.
I’m not nearly as informed about the history of legal systems as I should be, but the use of testimony has shrunken considerably from the days of early English law (and ancient Greek and Roman law) when the testimony of professional witnesses often determined the outcome of disputes. This is perhaps understandable from the point of view of small village and early agrarian societies, where there was almost always “someone” in town who “knew” everything that happened in the village. Sort of like the school or office buddy who is totally connected to the social “grapevine” and to whom everyone turns to when they want to know if a bit of gossip is “real.”
But consider, if someone says “that man killed his sister” and there is no body, no weapons, no signs of struggle, no other piece of circumstantial evidence indicative of a death or homicide, that statement is not going to go very far. Except, perhaps, to civil court in the form of a libel suit. (Of course, truth is a good defense to libel claims.)
My point, in initially discussing the value of circumstantial evidence, is to compare it with testimonial evidence when it comes to analyzing scientific findings. The physical evidence and data are what form the basis of any scientific theory. Even the most respected scientist is constrained by the physical evidence.
There has been increasing attention to “evidence based teaching” in academia for some years now. And not just in the sciences. I think this is healthy and makes for a better experience for the students. Experts may very well be correct, but it is the evidence that shows whether they are or not.
Anyhow, NCxian, if you are really into evidence issues, you may want to keep an ear open for the public hearings and comment period for the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence. I believe that the comment period is up in February. The Federal Judicial Center and related commissions takes comments by law practitioners and the general public rather seriously. The Evidence Rules have been developed in parallel with the new rules of civil procedure that went into effect on December first.
I don’t believe an atheist would believe in the supernatural if it jumped up and bit them on the butt.
If an atheists saw someone rise from the dead, or saw something happen that broke the laws of nature/phyics like a limb regrowing or an axehead floating (this is recorded in the Old Testament), most atheists would still not acknowledge the supernatural - they would try to come up with a natural explanation.
Well…on the few occasions I went into the gross anatomy lab in medical school when noone else (alive) was there, I got scared that one of the bodies would arise from the dead…does that count? ;-)
Mike O - in my experience, and the experiences of most people I know (and read about), the most likely explanation is natural. It just may not be obvious at first glance. Is there anything wrong with being a little skeptical, with checking things out in some detail to see if there is a natural explanation?
James Randi is an amazing example, imo, of someone who examines amazing claims of supernatural powers (psychics, water dowsers, etc). His newsletter and the discussions on his website are fascinating, imo. But my point is that his job is to investigate amazing claims, and so far he has found a “natural” explanation for all of them.
It would take an event that, on inspection, did not have a natural explanation, to make me move “supernatural” up from the bottom of the list of likely explanations.
Let me correct myself before NCxian does! My above comment should more properly read “slander” rather than “libel,” unless the statment was committed to some sort of record.
Mike O. said: MTran - I doubt you “caused the death” of this thread.
Thanks for the kind words. It is very easy for people to be misunderstood on-line just by the nature of the medium. I’d rather not contribute to misunderstandings of intentions. On the other hand, I’m not easily offended on-line or off. Still, I usually avoid posting on-line because I have some serious health issues that can overwhelm me suddenly and unpredictably. Then it’s easy to appear as if I’m just a non-responsive jerk when I’m really just a debilitated one. ;-)
You raised a number of questions about evidence that supports either Christianity or specific Biblical reports. I’m not particularly well versed in Biblical history so I may not be the best person to respond to such questions. Though I’ve still got some opinions or observations, of course.
I would suggest, however, that if you want to have a discussion about evidence in support of any specific aspect of Christianity, or of theism in general, that you start a new comment page. (Assuming there isn’t already one like it.)
MTran - I’m glad that you’ve been posting on this discussion, and sorry to hear that you have serious health issues.
If you have a chance, you might want to check out the Discussion Board at http://off-the-map.org/ebayatheist/ - you may have to create a login account to get to it, but it’s quick & there are no strings attached. There has been a bunch of discussion there over the past ~8 months about a number of topics, including evolution and ID/creationism, the Bible, etc etc etc.
Eliza at #95: Thank you for the invitation. I will take a look at the Discussion Board.
Mike O. said: #79 But based on things I’ve heard in other threads and just my general impressions of atheists so far, I don’t believe an atheist would believe in the supernatural if it jumped up and bit them on the butt.
How do you recognize that something is, in “fact”, supernatural?
I can give you at least two responses to your question, one more direct than the other.
Response 1: I really don’t know what evidence it would take to convince me that there was either a god or something other than a naturalistic universe. However, if there is actually an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity, such as that in the traditional Judeo Christian religions, then that god knows precisely what it would take to convince anyone, including me, that its existence was undeniable.
That it has done so for some people (you, for example), and not for others (me, for example), demonstrates that either god plays favorites, (a morally bankrupt position, if you ask me), that god does not actually care about being acknowledged (so my ignorance of the deity is immaterial), or that the Judeo Christian interpretation of the evidences of god are in error.
I’m not the first person to come up with the foregoing response or something quite similar.
Response 2: I think I need to first address the underlying assumption that there is an ability to “recognize” a supernatural event. Most atheists (nearly every single one) was raised in a family with some sort of religious belief. So, as far as being able to recognize categories of “supernatural,” well my guess is that most atheists are as capable of as believers in the ability to recognize when certain events would fall within the traditional “supernatural” labels.
But beyond that, I think that when at least some believers make statements like this, part of the issue arises from the assumption that atheists somehow are lacking an important “Sense” such as a visual sense for photons or an auditory sense by which to recognize sound waves. Atheists would seem, perhaps, to lack the sensory ability that recognizes the presence of the supernatural.
It may well be that some atheists simply lack a sense of wonder, awe or astonishment (or whatever you want to call it) in the face of the inexplicable. But my experience, and what I have heard from other atheists, is that whatever overpowering spiritual experiences they encountered while still believers continued even after they ceased to believe. The exact same sense of a spiritual experience can be evoked by any number of sources.
For me, art, nature, and music can elicit these feelings with some regularity. For some it comes from psychoactive substances, fasting, or meditation. But the most intense spiritual sensations, for me, arise from contemplating and attempting to understand and solve quantum mechanics problems (at my own utterly inadequate level of understanding.) I can’t tell you how many particle physicists I have talked to who, in hushed tones, blurt out that they just got back from the lab and… and… it was a moving spiritual experience. Again. Particle physics is nearly incomprehensible. It reveals so much, yet intimates that there is much, much more. It opens the possibility of understanding something incredible yet the real answers remain tantalizingly over the next hurdle.
Hey, I’m no physicist but this stuff really gets to me. Feels kinda metaphysical.
Well…on the few occasions I went into the gross anatomy lab in medical school when noone else (alive) was there, I got scared that one of the bodies would arise from the dead…does that count? ;-)
I agree with Eliza here, if the cadavers in the classroom I teach in were to sit up or walk around, I would probably leap to a metaphysical solution first.
Siamang’s points above (whales with legs and no dinos in La Brea) are both great valid points showing easy ways in which evolution and an old earth are ideas that are fairly easily supported. Whales should not have hindlimbs unless they were once terrestrial, and La Brea should have dinosaur bones if all sediments were created in one great big flood event.
Heck, so should the Mammoth Site near Hot Springs SD. That’s a great big pit in the ground which trapped a whole lot of Pleistocene mammals but somehow no dinosaurs. …it’s almost as if dinosaurs died off millions of years before this locality began collecting fossils.
Also I’m paying 70 bucks a month for an internet connection that’s been gorram broken for the last few days. Bah.
Well…on the few occasions I went into the gross anatomy lab in medical school when noone else (alive) was there, I got scared that one of the bodies would arise from the dead…does that count?
I agree with Eliza here, if the cadavers in the classroom I teach in were to sit up or walk around, I would probably leap to a metaphysical solution first.
When I was 7 or 8, somebody thoughtfully informed me that sometimes dead bodies moved involuntarily after death. I had already seen froglegs jumping around in a frying pan, so I took them quiet literally. Every time I heard of somebody nearby dying, I was afraid to look out the window for fear that some”body” would be twitching its way down the road to my house! I can still see in my mind the vision of one particular person coming that I had at that time. (What a waste of brain cells! Why can’t you choose what to get rid of up there?)
No, I knew. My best friend lived next door to the cemetary, and our moms were having coffee and we weren’t supposed to be out there, but we were screwing around by the graves and I fell in.
Comment by: Siamang
1One didn’t evolve from the other, rather we share common ancestry. That is, depending on what you call a “plant”. There were creatures that used photosynthesis in our biological family tree. But you shouldn’t call them plants, but rather bacteria.
Modern plants and animals (and fungi and protists) belong to the same domain, the domain called the eukaryotes.
Animalia split off from the rest of the eukaryotes about 900 million years ago, which is pretty recent in earth’s history. There was about three billion years of life on earth before our last common ancestor with the kumquat. For more than three-quarters of the history of life on earth, there was no distinction between plant and animal.
Comment by: Siamang
2Mike
Here’s a great timeline for evolution on earth, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution
It can help someone get their brain around picturing a world with 1000 foot high tides, and a churning worldwide sea full of microscopic life deriving their energy not from sunlight, but from breaking apart the chemical bonds found in the environment.. much like rust!
Seas of life changing the environment of the earth, which fluctuates wildly between a snowball world and a greenhouse world over millions and millions and millions of years.
It takes a wild mental leap to picture timelines that long. We humans just aren’t built to be able to picture truely deep time. We’re good with minutes and hours, a little less good with years, but horrible with timescales that number in the millions and we can all forget about truely grasping what billions of years means. If it helps to imagine it, we can imagine it as being infinite time ago.
It also requires us not to picture plants as they are now with leaves and stalks and flowers and fruit, but cyanobacteria evolving into colonial algae. So we aren’t talking about a tree giving birth to a flatworm. We’re talking about two different populations of bacteria spreading out and producing different lines of decendants.
Comment by: NCxian
3One of the things that I have come to appreciate, in the course of the myriad of conversations here about creation/evolution is this.
How could we expect ancient people to put their minds around the origins of the universe, life, and human life, given the trouble we have today? I have always loved the Biblical creation stories, but I have an even deeper appreciation for the way the story-tellers grasped and conveyed so much truth, given the limitations that human beings have in understanding very vast, complicated events, that we are not able to see taking place within the space of our lives as we live them (such as evolution). What they were able to do (with the help of God, IMO) was so much more than a historical retelling, so much better than an ancient science text. When we limit our understanding of what they did to that, I think we are doing them a disservice.
Comment by: Siamang
4Who was it here who recently layed out that exquisitely beautiful reading of Genesis that I think was in Brian McLaren’s book?
Anyway, when I hear someone saying like you did NC that a literal reading of Genesis is a limited reading of it, I’m reminded of that.
I think there’s a lot more to Genesis than a literal surface reading brings. It’s a beautiful story and carries a great deal of wisdom.
Comment by: Mike O
5Siamang, I did start looking at the wikipedia entries on abiogenesis and The Origin of Life, but to tell the truth, I didn’t get very far before I had to leave. But this is a question I’ve never heard asked, so I asked it.
Your initial response to the question, though, makes it sound like one must have come from the other … sort of. You said,
You’re a bit ahead of me … I need to do some reading and look at your answer more carefully, but upon first reading, it sounds like you’re saying “Plants and animals as we know them today (which was the intent of my question) sprang from a common ancester.” Right? I’m not trying to pick it apart, I’m trying to understand it.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
6I hate Linnean ranks, because they’re not really in agreement with evolution, but I think that at least the largest groups, Domains, are relevant. These three are eukaryotes, eubacteria, and archaeans.
Eukaryotes are unique because they are symbiotic organisms, even when just consisting of one individual cell. Sometime, maybe 2.5 billion years ago, several different organisms, for whatever reason, decided to live as one. Why this happened and exactly how this happened will forever be a mystery to us. But, we know it happened. Why am I so sure? (since, as is often said towards evolution accepters, “I wasn’t there”)
Because of mitochondria. These organelles that we have in the vast majority of our cells have distinct DNA. They replicate on their own timer with their own “machinery”. They are symbiotic organisms which are present in all eukaryotic life, from a simple amoeba to a giant redwood to the mushroom on a pizza.
This sort of basic eukaryote, as a single-celled organism, is still present today. We collectively call them “Protista” but such a grouping is not reflective of true evolutionary relation. They are simply eukaryotes which have not (once again, for reasons unknown) become multi-cellular organisms.
These protists lead to the three more recognizable “Kingdoms” of plant, animal, and fungi. Each of which, as mentioned above, has a distinct evolutionary lineage, probably tracing back nearly a billion years. Animals and plants evolved independently of each other, but when push comes to shove of “who came first” I don’t think the fossil record can really give a definitive answer.
Comment by: Siamang
7Yes, that’s correct. We share a common ancestor.
Think of life like a big family tree. We do think that all life on earth had a common ancestor.
You wrote:
I would agree with the small change “decended” rather than sprang. Sprang sounds too fast. We the exception of algae, nothing shortly after the branching point would resemble anything you might recognize as plants and animals today.
It’s just single-celled stuff for the first 300 million years or so after the branch point between plants and animals.
Here’s one of my favorite diagrams of the Tree of Life.
http://www.embl.org/aboutus/news/press/2006/02mar06/press02mar06pic.jpg
Homo sapiens is at about the 2 O’Clock position on that chart. Our fellow eukaryotes, including plants are all in the pink. Archaea are green and the blue are bacteria.
Bacteria are by far the dominant creatures on this earth. They have genetic variation far more wide ranging than any other creatures. They far outnumber all other creatures combined. They lived long, long, long before us, and they’ll dominate the world long after it can no longer support us.
There are around five million trillion trillion bacteria in the world. They live in every environment in the world. They can live frozen solid, they can live boiling in volcanic vents. They can live in our bodies, and in the soil, and in the water. They can live deep under the ground, and high on the mountaintops. They are the world’s most resourceful inhabitants.
Your body has ten times more bacteria cells living in it than human cells. Read that one again. You are more bacteria than you are you!
Way back in history some smaller bacteria were co-opted into our cells, and became our mitocondria. You have mitochondria in your cells, converting food into energy. They’re kind of like a symbiotic creature that became part of the host.
Amazing!
Comment by: Siamang
8Cautious, you wrote:
This phrasing seems wrong to me, but maybe I’m reading it wrong.
There’s no manifest destiny toward multicellular life that eukaryotes are pulled toward. They “stayed” single-cell because nothing killed them off. (I’m looking at you, bacteria!)
Anyway, if I read it wrong, I apologize. But it sounded like there should be a reason protists didn’t join the multicellular party. No reason, just success as single cells.
Comment by: Siamang
9Cautious wrote:
I’d clarify that point just to eliminate a possible misunderstanding. When you say “evolved independently of each other” I’d say “evolved independently from a common ancestor.”
That’s implied, but if your reader is trying to learn this stuff it’s better to have it out there than risk the misapprehension that plants and animals are the result of two different abiogenesis events.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
10I wrote my bit in way too quick of a time. And didn’t edit it. So, to correct myself
a) There is no manifest destiny in the random walk that is evolution. When one looks at the great big tree of life, the vast majority of organisms are unicellular. Multicellularity is interesting to us (because we have it) but it’s not the pathway that the majority of life has followed.
(on this topic, the vast majority of mammals aren’t primates, the vast majority of vertebrates aren’t mammals, the vast majority of animals aren’t vertebrates… Over and over again we are shown as being a member of a rather tiny branch on the tree of life.
b) My phraseology Siamang quotes in comment #8 is me explaining why the “Kingdom Protista” was ever made. As an evobio student I try not to recognize paraphyletic taxa, of which “Protista” is a huge example. It is a wastebasket taxon, it’s just a taxonomic group that we invented so that we could refer to all eukaryotes that aren’t plants, animals, or fungi. That’s an evolutionary uninformative definition. It’s just like referring to apes without including humans. Or referring to dinosaurs without including birds. …or etc etc etc.
3) And yeah Siamang is totally right in comment #9. Evolution is all about the idea of common descent. I don’t think that we can ever solidly say that all life, ever, on this planet came from one origin. It is totally possible that life evolved several times, independently, on this planet, and that what is existant now is just the winner of a Pre-Cambrian grudge match. :)
The eukaryote condition; eg, having organelles, and even more importantly, having a huge amount of DNA inside of a distinct nucleus. That is something that is so amazingly complex that it probably only happened once. And, so, yeah, plants and animals evolved independently from some common ancestor.
Comment by: David S
11I find this surprising. Do you have a reference?
Comment by: Siamang
12Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterium
Yes, it’s a surprising statement, but not controversial. I’ve seen the number 20 times, but I used the more conservative… let’s assume you have a smaller gut!
Here’s an NPR story on it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5527426
About one kilogram of your body weight is bacteria (mostly in your gut).
Comment by: Mike O
13I’ve started looking at the timeline of evolution you referred to in #1. It seems pretty far-fetched to me but I’m still looking into it. Is there any evidence to support, for example, that Earth collided with Theia 4.1 billion years ago causing a ring of debris that eventually coalesced to form the moon? Or is that just a theoretical possibility? Is there any evidence to support the idea that the oceans boiled away multiple times in in teh 3.9 billion years ago range, or is that just theorized based on other assumptions?
I still have a lot of study to do, but I will say this … I can see now how looking at creation as a non-believer must look … evolution doesn’t even seem plausible to me, and this is probably how creation must look to you.
Comment by: David S
14Mike, one difference is creation is magic. You can study it from here to eternity and it will remain magic. It will remain a magic story and never lead to any future discoveries or understanding. Evolution is not magic but is rather built on observation and evidence. You can study evolution, understand it, and experiment with it and use it. Nearly all fields of science as well as many practical fields have progressed greatly because of it and will likely continue to do so. I don’t understand much of the above stuff Siamang is talking about as it’s not my field. But I do understand evolution as a concept and as a software engineer and I’ve used evolution with natural selection in my coding.
You might do better to examine evolution from a basic level first (say by reading some basic primer like The Blind Watchmaker) than trying to jump into advanced theoretical biology stuff like the above.
Comment by: Siamang
15Yes, there’s a lot of evidence. A big one comes from the rocks Neil Armstrong brought back from the moon. A lot of different types of rocks brought back from the multiple Apollo missions point along multiple independent lines of evidence to having been part of the earth. This is the current best scientific explaination we have for the origin of the moon. This is not to say that it has absolutely been explained. There are still some questions and problems with this explaination, and there may ultimately be a different explaination for the moon. I don’t expect so, but there may be a better explaination for the evidence we see.
But if you ask NASA or Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin or Harrison Schmidt or any of the men who’ve been to the moon, collected the samples and if you ask the people who’ve analyzed these samples, they’ll say that this is the most likely answer.
There’s only four possibilities for the origin of the moon. Number one is that it got captured by the earth as it floated by, number two is that it formed at the same time as the earth, number three is that it spun off from the earth due to fast rotation, and number four is that it got splashed due to an impact with something else.
The physics of the moon and earth’s current motion point to the impact. The elements found on the moon also point to the impact. The size of the heavy metal core of the moon also points to the impact. There’s probably a hundred other things, very technical, that only a geologist could explain that also point to it.
The evidence also points solidly away from the other possibilities. I think each of the other possibilities have evidence overwhelmingly against them.
But the correctness of our understanding of the origin of the moon bears little on the evolution of life on earth. The origin of the moon is still a living question somewhat. That’s because we don’t have the millions and millions of seperately confirming independent lines of evidence that we have for evolution.
The evidence for that one is on the moon. We can see very old, very deep craters on the moon, formed by asteroid impacts. We know how many and how large and when those asteroids hit. From that, we know what kind of things were flying around back then, and we can calculate what it would take to increase the surface temperature of the earth to boiling. A 400km diameter asteroid would vaporize all the oceans of the world.
Here’s an article from NASA describing it:
http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/news_stories/news_print.cfm?ID=379
There’s also a lot of evidence in various rocks on earth that point to very high temperatures in the ancient past.
I appreciate your looking at this stuff.
I want to point out that this isn’t wacky crackpot fringe stuff. This is what they’re teaching at Harvard, at Stanford, at Oxford and Cambridge. It’s what students all over the world are discovering as they all do experiments. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask these questions of President Bush’s science advisor, John H. Marburger. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask these questions at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, or if you ask them at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. These are the answers you’ll get if you ask every single one of the Nobel prize winners in science. It’s what they’ll answer at the Field Museum in Chicago, or the Hayden Planetarium in New York.
And it’s based on many, many, many multiple independent lines of evidence that are being confirmed and reconfirmed every day in science labs in every university and every technology company on the planet.
Comment by: Karen
16Mike O., the article that you’re referencing is heavily footnoted. Click the links that accompany the footnotes (some of them are broken, but it looks like most are working) and they will take you to summaries of the scientific research and/or the papers themselves that are used to derive the timeline.
Certainly there has been research done that provides evidence for these various points. It’s not like scientists who study this stuff make it up out of whole cloth as they go along (though creationists would probably like you to believe that). If they didn’t do good experiments and defend their results vigorously (or concede they are mistaken), they wouldn’t keep their jobs for very long! ;-)
Comment by: NCxian
17And in the standard course of study for six-graders in North Carolina. At least the moon stuff! (That’s as far as we’ve gotten). :)
Comment by: Siamang
18Sorry, Smithsonian Institution.
Comment by: Mike O
19David S (#13) - It’s hard for me, coming from a completely different mindset to accept the higher level concepts. The way my brain works, I do better with smaller pieces and building up from there. Think of it like this … if one doesn’t believe the higher premise, then looking at general concepts make some sense, but they don’t prove anything. I need data. Also, I’m not coming into this as an attack on evolution … I’ve put a LOT of thought into this and a lot of study (not as much as someone who actually believes it, but …). I really need to look at the supporting evidence. Think of it from your perspective … what would I have to do to prove creation to you (which isn’t my point here, but hypothetically)? I would have to show you real, hard data. That’s what I’m after here. Honestly, I’m not arguing for creation, I’m trying to understand evolution, and why it’s more than just a theory … to me, it’s just a theory (maybe I’m wrong, but that’s where I am with it.)
Siamang (#14) Thanks for the information re: the formation of the moon. As a creationist (which isn’t the point I’m agruing here, it’s just the perspective from which I’m coming), I trust that of the four possibilities you listed, the one cited is most likely. I don’t need to “prove it,” it’s enough for me at this point to know that there is at least real data supporting it. It still doesn’t “prove” that’s what happened, but at least there’s support for it. Looking at that timeline it didn’t say anyting about that. It just says that it happened with no explanation (even in the footnote, but I didn’t actually examine the source cited.)
Same thing with the oceans boiling away.
And I don’t mean to imply that this is wacky, fringe stuff. It’s brand new to me, though. I am looking into this stuff not because I wonder if it’s true so much as I want to see why so many people believe it. For too long, creationists have called evolutionists names, and evolutionists have called creationists names and I’m personally tiring of it. I really want to understand why so many people believe in evolution. Either there’s data that supports it or there’s not. Either it’s a theory or it’s science or it’s a mix (I think it’s a mix). But for me, I just want to understand it, where the data is, where the holes are, where the “leaps of faith” (for lack of a better word) are, etc.
If you’re wondering why I don’t look deeper into other sources for myself, the answer is this … how much effort would a reasonable person put into studying something they don’t believe? I’m not going to spend my life trying to prove/disprove evolution. But I’ve found here a good connection with people who have done that research. If I can ask my questions to you, I can get my answers and at the same time it will help you to unerstand why evolution isn’t the slam-dunk you think it is to a person who has believed in creation their whole life. I’m not saying it isn’t true. I’m just saying I have lots of questions about it … too many right now for me to accept it, but hey, at least I’m asking instead of just blowing it off.
My point in bringing up those two examples is because they were stated as what happened, but there was no supporting evidence. I’m actually looking through the timeline right now looking for the time where it gives the first evidence. For example, I jumped to the end and started working backwards and I see phisical evidence cited 20,000 years ago of hand prints, oil lamps, bone needles, etc.
Comment by: Mike O
20Karen (#15) I just haven’t gotten to the footnotes yet. There’s a TON of information right here in the timeline.
You said,
You’re right about the “creationists would probably like you to believe that” comment. I mean, when you are so sure you are right about something, it’s easy to just say “they’re making it up” when people have some other explanation. Hmmmm, kind of like y’all do with creationists??? Look, I don’t expect anyone to just change their mind on this stuff. But at least acknowledge that there are a lot of brilliant people on BOTH sides of the argument. The big difference is that creationists add the element of the supernatural. That doesn’t make them (us) stupid or foolish, we just accept inputs (real or not - that’s not my point) that evolutionists don’t accept. But yes, creationists do think evolution is science PLUS a measure of whole cloth … at least that’s where I’m at with it today. Back to David’s comment back in #13, that’s why I need to dive into the evidence and see data. With out actual evidence, it looks like whole cloth to me. That’s not a knock on evolution, that’s just what it looks like to someone who has thought something else for his whole life. I’m just being honest.
NCxian (#16)
That may be, but creationists reject it out of hand, so it doesn’t matter. I’m not defending it, I’m just saying the fact that it’s there doesn’t mean creationists are listening … or care. I do now.
Comment by: NCxian
21Oh, I wasn’t really making any kind of point, Mike. It’s just been funny (literally) how much I didn’t know about this stuff until I learned it from my 6th grader. :) I guess we knew a lot less about it 35 years ago when I was in school, and since then, I haven’t pursued it too much. I’ve been totally relearning how to figure out percentage word problems too, and I’m sure we knew how to do that back then! This learning old/new stuff is one of my favorite things about being a parent.
But back to the topic, the thing that I can’t get past with young-earth creationism is that one has to believe that God has intentionally misled us. ALL of the evidence points to a very old earth. I wonder why in the world he would fabricate that evidence. I don’t get that picture of God from my reading of the Bible. BICBW.
Comment by: Mike O
22Let me add here that I REALLY appreciate this! In case you’re wondering, I am not wondering if creation is true or not … I believe in God and I believe he had a hand in it, evolution or not. But what I AM doing is pulling back the covers to see if, in fact, there is any merit to it. As Karen said in #15, creationists think y’all are making a lot of this up out of whole cloth. To be honest, I’m still on that page. But the more data I uncover, the less whole cloth. That’s my perspective. I believe evolutionists are smart people. I believe that there are a lot of people who believe in evolution but don’t understand it, just as there are a lot of creationists who believe in creation but don’t understand it.
We’ve gotten away from the plants/animals question, however. So far I’ve learned that plants and animals as we know them today did descend from a common ancester. How? I don’t know. It seems to me that evolution is based on this line of thinking: Here we are. Here is a pile of evidence. We don’t think we were created. I wonder if the evidence supports that.
And it seems that it does. I can’t dispute that we have evidence. What I don’t know is the origin of the evidence (I’m not talking creation here, I’m just talking if we’re looking at the evidence for the right thing). We have plants. We have animals. We have amino acids. But what we don’t have is the flow from one to the next. What we have is a theory. “Given that we have plants and animals, and given that we evolved, how must that have happened?” And then we work the puzzle backwards to a plausible origin given the data. But it’s the working backward that I have some issue with. Yes, going backwards we can come up with a path to the beginning. But from the beginning, how realistic is it that the things required to occur actually could?
Here’s an example of what I think is skewed evidence. On the timeline at the 4000 ma mark (4 billion years ago), it says this: “At this time, the atmosphere does not contain any free oxygen.” That’s stated as a fact. But in this wikipedia article on the origin of life, it says,
So given the fact that oxygen prevents evolution AND the “fact” that evolution occurred, we “know” that the atmosphere 4 billion years ago did not contain any oxygen. Do you see how the data seems to support evolution in this case, but really the evidence was assumed based on the fact that it had to be true for the premise to be true?
Comment by: Mike O
23Getting back to the plants/animals question … I’m back to looking at the timeline again. I’ve just gotten to the part (3500 ma) where it says, “Lifetime of the last universal ancestor; the split between the bacteria and the archaea occurs.” I’m assuming this is the split between plant and animal, right? My big question is, why? If things were working, why did they evolve into two different things? Maybe “why” isn’t the right question to ask … maybe the right question is, “what caused it?” Something must have caused the extenction of the universal ancestor and the appearance of the first plants/animals.
NOTE - It says here again that the first photosynthesis did not produce Oxygen. Again, this is an assumption based on the fact that o2 would halt evolution. Therefore the assumption is being made that there was no o2 because there was evolution … an assumption.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
24Mike O #18
“I’m trying to understand evolution, and why it’s more than just a theory … to me, it’s just a theory (maybe I’m wrong, but that’s where I am with it.)”
A theory is not a bad thing. A theory, in science, is an explanation of how a process or an event occurs or occurred. The idea that “evolution is just a theory” is a bad idea to cling to, and all the reading about cosmology and biology you can fit into your schedule is for naught if you think that theories are somehow bad.
“I really want to understand why so many people believe in evolution.”
Ditto with this kind of statement. I no more “believe” in evolution than I “believe” that smoking increases your probability of getting lung cancer. If you believe that evolution is a false worldview, that’s your thang. But thinking that it is something to be “believed” in is not going to be conducive to higher understanding. As a scientist, I accept what evidence points towards. I have some biases, as we all do, but I think that data speaks louder than our opinions.
“Either it’s a theory or it’s science or it’s a mix (I think it’s a mix).”
I don’t understand this at all. If something is a theory it must have science. So something can’t be a mix of “theory” and “science” as if they are separate things.
“at the same time it will help you to unerstand why evolution isn’t the slam-dunk you think it is to a person who has believed in creation their whole life.”
(shrug) Science education isn’t really this country’s strong suit. Particularly in the field of evolutionary biology, which tens of millions of Americans believe is a lie because it attacks their personal version of faith. It’s not very difficult to understand how creationists can exist in a country where science isn’t taught well.
Or, more to the point in our modern consumer culture, advertised well. Creationism doesn’t have questions, all it has is answers. Science, by having questions, is therefore an “inferior product.”
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
25Mike O #19
“So far I’ve learned that plants and animals as we know them today did descend from a common ancester. How? I don’t know. ”
The scary bit is (cover your eyes children) no one knows. These events that happened billions and millions of years ago are not things that we can ever be completely sure happened. The best we can do is come up with a theory that interprets the evidence in the most logical and parsimonious manner.
This divide between organisms which led to animals and organisms which led to plants is something that happened:
a) at least a billion years ago
b) among single-celled life forms
c) which probably looked fairly similar
With data and evidence supporting all of those statements. (should i be citing all my sources here?) This trio of factors makes my favorite inanimate object in the world, the fossil record, rather impotent in giving us any further clues as to what caused one lineage to split.
A possible reason for “why plants?” is that another endosymbiotic event occurred. Some protist already reaping the benefits of having mitochondria also started a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria. These cyanobacteria, in time, became dependent upon the cells they now lived in, and became organelles (termed chloroplasts) in plant and proto-plant organisms.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory for some of this and more about the wacky, wild world we apparently live in)
“So given the fact that oxygen prevents evolution AND the “fact” that evolution occurred, we “know” that the atmosphere 4 billion years ago did not contain any oxygen. Do you see how the data seems to support evolution in this case, but really the evidence was assumed based on the fact that it had to be true for the premise to be true?”
We (or to be more specific, people who study the Hadean) actually aren’t sure on whether the atmosphere contained any free oxygen 4 billion years ago. The “assumption” is either “no” or “very low” for two main reasons
First, atmospheric oxygen on our planet is made by two processes. One of which is photolysis, in which H20 and N20 are hit by photons and oxygen is released. This doesn’t create much oxygen. Where the majority occurs is in photosynthesis. Which can’t happen without life, and we have no evidence that life existed 4 billion years ago, so we have no reason to think photosynthesis was occurring. Even more directly, it’s a fairly certain statement to say that there was no life on land at such a time, and thus even if photosynthetic organisms did exist, they woulda been in the water.
Secondly, oxygen is reactive. It feeds fires. We use it to dump electrons (and get lots of ATP!) but free radicals hurt us in exchange. Metals get bonded to by it, as the famous example of rust shows us.
This second point and the first point come together in an odd way. When oxygen did get produced by photosynthetic organisms, this happened in the water. When this oxygen was released into the water, it made the oceans more and more oxygen-rich over time. This process can be seen in the rock record. Banded iron formations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation) are rock sequences in which stacks of iron oxides are sandwiched between more normal marine sediments like shales and cherts. These iron oxides show a time when free oxygen was bonding to iron that was in the oceans. They start appearing 3 billion years ago and stop appearing roughly 1.8 billion years ago. Their start seems to be indicative of a time when the oceans started to be filled with oxygen. Their stop seems to be indicative of a time wherein the oceans could not be saturated with oxygen anymore, and they began putting excess oxygen to a new reservoir: the atmosphere.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
26Also I realized I have been totally not using block quotes. That’s not very helpful. My main point in going on and on about oxygen above was to try to show how the following
Is not completely accurate. A common charge against evolution and deep time is that both of them rely heavily on circular reasoning. (or as one of my profs refers to it, no loose ends) For instance:
a) this fossil is 30 million years old
b) i know that because this rock is 30 million years old
c) and i know that because this fossil is 30 million years old
Such a sequence of events do happen on occasion (and when it does it usually leads to someone having to eat a lot of crow because they didn’t do enough research). But for the most part, science is all about using independent means to test and challenge old ideas. Sometimes this causes them to be strengthened. Sometimes this causes them to be torn apart.
The way that Mike O talks about atmospheric O2 4 billion years ago sounds to me like:
a) scientists in 1936 who worked on abiogenesis experiments said life couldn’t have evolved if there was free oxygen
b) scientists say life evolved
c) thus there must not have been oxygen
Which ignores:
a) atmospheric oxygen is mainly made by life, so thus before life there shouldn’t have been much of it
b) geological evidence says that there was no oxygen
c) distinctive geological evidence says that there was oxygen later
d) this all might not even matter since who knows if life formed in or out of the water?
I mean it is entirely possible that all of these latter points mean nothing. After all, radioisometric dating of rocks “assumes” that the universe is not just thousands of years old. And it “assumes” that atomic processes have been happening at an approximately similar rate for the vast majority of the Universe’s lifetime. In a young Universe with the amount of cataclysmic and sudden change that I presume Mike O thinks exists, these assumptions are invalid to make. To me, they are not.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
27And to finish up for the night, Mike O # 21
No, the archaea/eubacteria split is something more ancient than plants and animals. And if you don’t know what an archaean is, that’s totally not at all a bad thing. Saying as how bacteria and archaea are both microscopic, I don’t think they mind being highly confused for each other.
This right here is one of the great questions that evobio can only ponder and …probably never make any good strides towards answering. Our planet is covered by millions of species which all do slightly different things. Why? Why not just have one species which can “do everything” (to be a little bit more scientific, occupy all niches and use all potential resources) that carpets the planet?
…your answer is as good as Richard Dawkins’s.
It’s not entirely useful to think that universal ancestors have to go extinct in order for new species to evolve. My cousins and I are all independent evolutionary lineages, but our common ancestors are still around.
But, yeah, good question on why are there plants and animals. As I said above in #22, science is full of questions. This is one of them.
Some people (e.g. politicans) hear that science is full of questions and think of these questions as holes which make science less useful than it should be. I for one think that science without questions isn’t science, it’s dogma.
Evolution educational promoters in this country are stuck in a tough place: if they admit that science has questions, they appear weak, and lose support. On the other hand, if they act like it’s dumb to question science, they appear haughty, and lose support. Your homework assignments for this weekend are to figure out a good way to craft up a plan for how educators can not lose support. And…go.
Comment by: MTran
28Mike O., I’ve got to give you credit for taking on the fairly large task of educating yourself on issues that you may not always feel comfortable about. There appear to be a lot of well qualified people here who are pretty good at providing explanations but I’d like to add another resource for your consideration. That is the TalkOrigins archive at talk origins. If you browse through the FAQs at that site you are likely to find many of your questions have been asked before. The best thing about the TalkOrigins archives is that they usually contain good cites to supporting data and literature. They also include links to creation based sites, such as Answers in Genesis. The one “problem” with the site is that the volume of information can seem overwhelming. So I would suggest you just browse the materials for issues that you consider most important for your understanding.
One barrier that many creationist believers have when they review these materials at TalkOrigins, or anywhere else, is that the vocabulary used by scientists often has meanings quite different from the same words when used by creationists or by people in casual conversation. If you feel as if you are hitting a stone wall, sometimes it may simply be that you are struggling with a “familiar” term that has a meaning different from what you have previously understood. The classic example is the very different meaning of the word “theory” when used by scientists vs just about everyone else!
edited to fix the link
Comment by: MTran
29Yikes, I had a link that didn’t show up as a link in may above message. The markup seemed to turn the rest of the message “bold.” Sorry about that. The TalkOrigins url is http://www.talkorigins.org/
Comment by: Mike O
30NCxian (#21)
Good point. That’s actually a big part of why I’m looking into this so intently. I keep hearing how all the evidence supports evolution, so OK. I’m looking at/for the evidence.
cautiousmaniac (#27)
Admittedly, I’m on that page. While I agree that science without questions isn’t science (a bit of a brain twister), science that doesn’t pursue answers through analysis/data/facts isn’t science, either. To me, “the study of evolution” is science, but “evolution” is theory. So much of what we hear lately is whether or not evolution, creation or both should be taught in our schools. I hear “evolution is science, creation is not.” But really I think perhaps “the study of evolution” is science and so is “the study of creation.” I’m not making a statement here for the teaching of creation in schools, I’m just saying if “the study of” something (having questions) makes it science, which it does, why wouldn’t we want to let our kids see “the study of creation?” Maybe I’ve stumbled across a big political misconception - having “creation taught” or “evolution taught” in our schools is offensive to those who hold to the opposing view. But having “the study of evolution” or “the study of creation” taught, to me, would be OK. Semantics?? Perhaps.
Cautiousmaniac (#24)
Agreed. But let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s not call something fact when it’s theory. I see all the time in the Christian world preachers who build some case using their understanding of scripture, and they start off by saying “if this verse really means this (theory), and this verse really means this (theory), then we know (fact) this. The fact really isn’t fact in this case, but it’s taught as if it were.
I see that same pattern here in the study of evolution. I see “If this happened (theory) and then this happened (theory), then we know this (fact).” It’s a thought pattern that makes me cautious of the results.
Comment by: Mike O
31MTran (#28), thanks for that. I’ll bookmark that link.
Yes, I think that’s part of it. I ran into one a couple weeks ago, the term “argument from ignorance.” I took offense to it because I thought the writer had taken to name-calling, calling me ignorant, when really it’s just an errant line of reasoning.
I think I’ve run into that here. What exactly is theory in the scientific community? And I wonder if that misunderstanding, if there is one, carries over into the general public when scientists say “theory“, what does the public hear? Just a rhetorical question.
Comment by: NCxian
32And I’m glad you are. This conversation is fun to watch!
Just to clarify, it is really the overwhelming evidence of a very old earth I was pointing to, not necessarily the evidence regarding evolution. I am not history-of-life savvy enough to interact much on that topic.
Comment by: Mike O
33cautiousmaniac (#24)
I’ve been thinking about this as I go about my weekend chores around the home. There is no more honor in having questions without answers (evolutionists in this context) than there is in having answers you can’t support (creationists in this context). Do I still believe in creation? Yes. Old or new earth? Used to be new, now I’m not sure. Could evolution be a part of that? Used to say no, but now I’m not sure.
I’ve just come to the point where the fact that creation is all I’ve ever been taught is not a good enough reason to reject evolution. I still reject it because I still personally have a lot of questions and the explanations I see seem implausible. But with that said, I won’t ignore the evidence. If there’s evidence to support evolution, I want it.
Comment by: Mike O
34Also, could it be that it’s a mix of creation and evolution? Could it be that a god (whether or not it’s the one I happen to believe is right) is the thing that fills the gaps … that makes the “whole cloth” (to steal a phrase from Karen) of evolution work?
Comment by: NCxian
35I am thinking that most Christians (and perhaps adherents to other deistic religions) who are not strict-creationists believe some version of this. And I imagine that those points of view vary along a continuum where at one end is a God who sets into motion the “Big Bang” (or whatever) and establishes the rules of physics and such, and then steps back and watches, to the other end, where God has intervened and continues to intervene in the natural order of things. BICBW.
And there certainly could be other variables that I haven’t thought of.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
36mike o #31 asked these rhetorically but they are two questions that should be answered.
To which I’ll just copy and paste my previous answer. A theory, in science, is an explanation of how a process or an event occurs or occurred. To expand on that more, a theory is, in its purest sense, a rational, logical, scientific manner of interpreting and explaining whatever data we have.
This inherently means that theories have two possible weaknesses:
a) interpretations and explanations are based on human reasoning and thus there’s all the potential faults that we as humans can have
b) more data can be found that contradicts or makes necessary new parts of a theory
These “weaknesses” are, in all actuality, good. As I said above, when a scientific theory cannot be questioned, it stops living in the realm of science. However, this same weakness is interpreted as bad by the general public, which gets to the second question:
The public hears “guess”. Or they think that there is a scientific hierarchy which runs from hypothesis -> theory -> law -> fact and thus say odd things like “evolution is just a theory”. Or they think that a scientific theory is the same general thing as a “conspiracy theory”, when the former relies on facts to make a conclusion, whereas the latter makes a conclusion and then finds facts to support it.
Can I use a popular science example here? Sure.
Fact: Non-avian dinosaurs (I’ll just say “dinosaurs” to be less wordy) are not with us anymore.
Fact: the fossil record shows that dinosaurs stop appearing in the fossil record at the end of a geological age called the Cretaceous.
From the time that scientists knew dinosaurs existed once, but not anymore, theories have come up to explain why. For the vast majority of this time (until the early 1980s), these theories had very little in the way of facts and data to explain this extinction event, and so a lot of competing theories were around.
Theory: mammals ate all the dinosaur eggs
Theory: a local supernova went off which sent large doses of radiation to Earth, killing the dinosaurs
Theory: temperatures changed so much that gender ratios of dinosaurs were dramatically skewed and thus dinosaurs died off because they couldn’t find mates
etc. etc. etc. The vast majority of these theories were squashed when a new datum point came into play:
Fact: the Cretaceous - Tertiary boundary, in nearly every rock record that shows it, has an iridium spike
Iridium in such high doses is only found in extraterrestrial rocks (aka asteroids) or rocks brought up from the mantle (aka volcanoes), so therefore two theories, which had been suggested before but were not well supported, now became the two best-supported ideas.
Theory: volcanism (particularly in the Deccan plains of modern India) brought about a slow, but gradual multi-million year period of climatic change which, over time, led to the die-off of dinosaurs.
Theory: a big giant space rock hit the planet which caused similar climatic change but over a hundred thousand years tops.
When an additional datum point was found,
Fact: an asteroid crater about 65.5 million years old exists on the NW edge of the Yucatan Peninsula
That really pushed both the scientific and public’s mind toward the asteroid-impact theory as being the sole reason for dinosaur extinction.
However, since that time questions and new data do enter into the discussion. The impact theory, however robust, is questioned. And the entire point is that questioning is good.
Hmm, I ended up spending a bit longer than I wanted to on this dinosaur thing. I’m gonna quit talking on this for now and say somethin shorter.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
37Actually I forgot the shorter thing I was going to say, so I’ll say this instead.
I believe in a world (a universe, to be less specific) without supernatural influences, so the conflict between Genesis and data which conflicts with its rather simple, young, and short creation sequence to me is rather simple: data wins.
But, obviously, for Christians, this question is more difficult to answer. They are forced to try to mix faith in Genesis as the divinely-inspired Word of God with facts that disagree with Genesis’s beginning. There’s, IMHO, two main difficulties with trying to accomodate both data and Genesis:
a) Data says there’s been violence, death, and suffering for as long as there has been life that can die. Genesis says that this never happened before Adam and Eve.
b) Data says that all life is the product of common descent. Genesis says that all life, and particularly we humans, are products of “uncommon descent” from God.
I’m no theologian and so therefore I don’t have good ideas on how to resolve these conflicts. I’ve read things which think that the “tree of knowledge” spoken of in Genesis is parable for our sapience, our intelligence, our self-awareness, and that the “breathe of life” which God blew into the dust that He had formed Adam from was also this gift of intelligence which we have. Is being “kicked out of Eden” a parable for realizing that we, in our intelligence and in our recognition of our own mortality, are alone in the natural world, and thus we must faith in our benevolent Creator who assures us, in spite of the brutality of nature, that everything will be ok?
(shrug) These questions of theology are up to those that believe in theos.
Comment by: Karen
38Ditto. I love seeing the way you are open to considering possibilities that you haven’t before, Mike O., and admire you for taking considerable time to do the research for yourself.
From my B.A. in English, it took quite a lot of “doing” to polish up my old analytical skills when I decided I was interested in learning more about science as a hobby. But I’m really glad I did it - it’s become a real fascination for me.
Comment by: Mike O
39cautiousmaniac (#36)
Hmmmm…. I guess I would disagree with that. Sure, evolution is a theory based on facts and conspiracy isn’t, but I would say both are conclusions which then had facts found to support it. That doesn’t mean evolution is wrong, it just means the theory was there first, and now we’re finding the facts to support it … at least that’s the chronology of the development of evolutionary theory.
But with that said, I really like the way you laid out the fact/theory explanation.
Comment by: Siamang
40Darwin had facts before he had a theory. He was a naturalist (and a theist, actually had a mind to go into the parsonage). He travelled all over the south pacific and collected the data that brought him to his startling theory.
His theory didn’t preceed the facts. It flows from them. You can read his book, “On the Origin of Species.” It’s available online for free. You can read it and see the facts that brought him to it.
As others have said, the word “theory” means something very different in science than it means in general use. The non-scientific definition is something like “a guess or a supposition.” But in science, the definition is very much more meaningful and solid. In science a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable and has never been falsified.
So in lay language, someone might say “Is that a fact, or is it only a theory?” But in science, a theory is much much more powerful than a fact, because any hypothesis that has stood the test to be called a theory is something that explains many, many facts, and can predict future testable facts.
To say it again, Darwin was a believer in God, he had attended the seminary and was planning on being a parson. He didn’t have a theory and then travel the world to find facts. He travelled the world and studied animals, brought back tons of specimens, analized them, worked on them for decades before developing his theory. Since Darwin’s time, we’ve had tons and tons of confirmation, and no evidence has come to light to shake the foundation of what he formulated to understand it
Listen, God could be behind the whole thing. I can’t say for sure that his isn’t or that he is.
But if He did create the living world, He created it using biology. He built us out of chemistry, and genetics and cells.
We could say that we were zapped into life, or formed from dust or mud and breathed into… but let’s face it, that’s not how we’re built. We aren’t made of mud, we’re made of protein. We’re made of biology. If we want to find out how we were made, we have to study biology.
But here’s something that Gallieo wrote about that issue.
“Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. ”
God does not make living things out of gold and quicksilver, even though He certainly could. No, God makes things that use biological processes.
To make my daughter, I didn’t take a rib, and my wife didn’t breathe into her. No, on this earth, life continues, is sustained and reproduces using chemistry and biology.
If chemistry and biology were good enough in God’s eyes, for the sustaining of life and the reproduction of life, it is only logical that these were God’s method of creating it in the first place.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
41mike o #39
I think that the idea that life had evolved was certainly present in some peoples/scientists minds, but it wasn’t until Lamarck came around that anyone tried to put forward an evolutionary theory, based on observable facts. One of the issues with his theory of organic progression is that it claimed that extinction did not happen, something we now know is horribly wrong. Facts, which he did not know when he came up with his theory, proved his theory of how evolution worked wrong.
Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, on the other hand, inarguably collected up data before being presented as a theory. There were 28 years between when Chuck D got on the HMS Beagle and when he published Origin. During this time he thought about his observations and read all the books he could get his hands on and eventually…well, to quote him in his own words:
“I have reached the conclusion that species are after all (it is like confessing a murder!) mutable”
And in turn, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, while insightful, did not know all the facts involved with how life functions. Primarily, genetics as a science did not exist yet. Darwin’s theory has been modified, greatly, due to facts that have been discovered since his time.
Now, of course, as evolution does deal with the past, there are predictions/theories that are made on scant evidence which, in time, are either proved wrong or right when more evidence comes in. But I do not think that it is a fair statement to say that evolutionary theory was thought up and then data has been collected to support it.
Certainly, with more and more data, evolution and some of the tricky routes it has employed (like making whales from hoofed mammals, wow) are further supported. But evolutionary biology, the science dealing with facts and theories of evolution, basically did not exist until Lamarck, and did not really take off until Darwin. The ideas of common descent and changeable species are certainly older, but the theories didn’t come about until facts had been collected.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
42…bugger I need to refresh to see what Siamang said before I say the same thing.
Reading the Origin of the Species might not be your cup of tea. Besides assigned readings from it, I haven’t tried to read it. While he was a smart cookie, he lacked a lot of the astounding knowledge we now have about the natural world, and it shows in his writing. It’s not his fault that he didn’t know about genes, but he’s trying really hard to explain a process without knowing how it works. It’s almost like explaining how a car works without ever popping open the hood.
I do, on the other hand, totally recommend visiting, either in person or via the internets (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/) the Darwin exhibit at the AMNH. The sights there are rather impressive, like for example, Darwin’s pistol. Or what could possibly be the world’s first evolutionary tree. It’s pretty neat stuff.
Comment by: MTran
43Re: “…the theory was there first, and now we’re finding the facts to support it”
You are not the only person to make this type of assertion, but it’s completely backwards, as far as scientific theories are concerned. Scientific theories are formed only after a sufficient body of adequately verified data (aka evidence) have been successfully subjected to experimental testing of relevant hypotheses.
The theory is the “explanation” that ties together all the known, verified data into a framework that provides a reliably predictive framework with which to further analyze data and which further provides methods by which the theory itself can be proven false.
Scientists don’t attempt to “prove” that their theories are “true”or “correct.” (”Proof” is a technical concept that applies only in math and law.) They instead attempt to determine the extent to which a theory has consistent and continuing predictive value. They do this by devising tests and experiments that attempt to prove that the theory is “wrong” or false. That’s what falsifiability is largely about.
All of this is fairly counter-intuitive to most people’s understanding of what the words “proof” and “theory” mean in casual conversation and is the cause of many misunderstandings between the science types and the non-science majority of the population.
Re: “I think that the idea that life had evolved was certainly present in some peoples/scientists minds, but it wasn’t until Lamarck came around that anyone tried to put forward an evolutionary theory, based on observable facts.”
The idea of “evolution” was around for centuries before Darwin appeared on the scene. The “fact” of evolution, in the common meaning of the change in the appearance and existence of species over time, was observed regularly throughout history. Early peoples made all sorts of attempts at explaining the observation of evolution (e.g., sea shell fossils found in the mountains of Italy) and many of those early explanations were religious ones. Some speculated that species were destroyed in a global flood, or that the gods subdued ancient monsters so that humans and useful creatures could live and properly serve the gods.
During the age of the Enlightenment, scholars (nearly all of them theists) began looking at nature with the intent of better understanding “God’s world” and the mechanisms he used to shape it. Enter Darwin, who proposed that most evolution was the result of incremental changes through time, or “descent with modification”, caused by “natural selection”
If you want to understand Darwin, I would suggest that you ignore his “Origins of Species” and read, instead, the much more accessible “Voyage of the Beagle,” where Darwin recounts his life changing voyage and the profound impact his observations had on his understanding of god, man, and nature. This book is available on many sites, you might want to try the Gutenberg Project. It was a book that gave me tremendous insights into the importance of observation and the nature of evidence when I read it in high school.
Comment by: NCxian
44You all are going to love this! Here is the etymology of the word “theory” from Wikipedia. Since there are no sources cited, I think it is safe to assume that this etymology is a “theory”! (Tee-hee . . . )
You may recall that the gospel-writer John refers to Jesus as “logos”. (Cue the the theme from Twilight Zone)
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
45mtran #43, just augmenting some things you said…
I don’t necessarily think this is true. Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts about nature included two things which were highly anti-evolutionary:
a) species are fixed
b) variations (aka “sports” in Darwin’s time or “mutants” in ours) are always bad
This thinking dominated studies of the natural world until circa the 1850s. The fact that AR Wallace came up with natural selection as the driving force of evolution independently of Chuck shows that it took until then for the intellectual climate to change to one accepting of evolution.
As far as originating species, it is true that people looking at the fossil record noted that species appeared to be created at various times. But the key word there is created, evolution via natural means was rarely implied. Lamarck came up with an evolutionary theory, but he believed that life was always being created from organic materials, which over time evolved into more and more advanced lifeforms, with humans being the oldest and most advanced evolutionary line around. When creationists say that evolution says “frogs change into lizards change into rats which turn into monkeys which become people”, they are correct…if they’re referring to Lamarckian evolution.
Also important to note is that extinction, a concept which we are all too familiar with now that we are causing it on a global scale, was not believed to be a valid idea until less than 200 years ago. Without the death of species, there was no need to think that new species were being made. Even after extinction was accepted, the majority of scientists (eg Cuvier) believed that cycles of extinction were followed by new periods of divine creation.
Darwin’s theory of evolution succeeded where earlier ones had failed because it, unlike previous theories, incorporated three important facts: that species die off, that resources will always be limited (cue Malthus), and that the Earth is much older than Genesis says. But more importantly, the scientific world had also accepted these facts, and Darwin’s book was thus able to speak to people at the same level of basic comprehension.
Comment by: MTran
46Cautiousmaniac said:
“…I don’t necessarily think this is true. Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts about nature included two things which were highly anti-evolutionary”
I did not mean to imply, and I don’t think I even said, that everyone throughout history consistently noted a pattern of extinguishing and arising species. But there is plenty of evidence that people have always speculated about the reasons for the appearance of different species. We wouldn’t have the abundance of creation myths that exist if people did not regularly pose the question about how life-forms came to be. ;-)
During ancient Greek and Roman history, there is evidence of a regular fascination with fossils. So much so that certain temples, some govermental offices, and leading citizens made a point of collecting and displaying the bones of “giants”, “titans”, “cyclopses”, “centaurs”, and other types of extinct creatures. The ancient explanations for these fossils and the absence of the continued existence of such creatures was that they were destroyed by the gods or that they were killed during the wars between the gods and the titans.
Adrienne Mayor has recently (2000)published a few highly readable books that address this issue. You may want to check out “The First Fossil Hunters,” from Princeton University Press. This is written for the general, non-specialist reader.
But you are right that there was a very strong current of thought that considered “species” to be a fixed condition.
And speaking of etymology… if I recall correctly, the word “evolution” derives from the Latin word meaning “to roll out” or “unfold.” For those of a poetic bent, one could view evolution as god’s method of assuring that life on earth is “unfolding as it should.”
Comment by: NCxian
47So, etymologically, the “Theory of Evolution” is the contemplation of God’s unfolding harmony of life. :)
Works for me! How about you, Mike O.?
Comment by: MTran
48NCxian said: “So, etymologically, the “Theory of Evolution” is the contemplation of God’s unfolding harmony of life.”
This is pretty much the attitude that informed the ethos of science studies by Christians and other theists or deists during the Enlightenment era. I think it’s a shame that this attitude has been rejected by so many “literalist” believers. It remains as the approach to science taken by most non-fundamentalist Christians, as far as I can tell. I’ve heard numerous theist researchers (many of them Jesuits) echo the statements of Enlightenment scientists, saying that their work of studying nature makes them feel closer to their god.
I’m an atheist and I can say that the awe-instilling thrill I get from quantum mechanics and molecular biology is a very spiritual experience. If I beleved in a god, I would likely attribute much of that feeling to the majesty of the deity. I just can’t see a conflict between studying and understanding nature and believing in a(non-literalist) religion.
Comment by: Eliza
49Great discussion, everyone. Mike O, I second (third?) the kudos previously expressed that you are looking into evolution.
David S in #14 above wrote:
I found “The Blind Watchmaker” fascinating, but also a pretty difficult read; Dawkins writes clearly, but he also delves right away into the gritty details of evolution. I’m not sure it’s the best place to start.
I haven’t read Kenneth Miller’s book “Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution”, but it might be a good place to start. He seems to be able to organize and explain this stuff clearly, and that book might take on questions that come up for you, Mike O, better than one of Dawkins’ books (since Dawkins doesn’t believe in God, but Miller does).
Darwin’s “Origin of Species” is a good way to go right to the horse’s mouth if you want to know what he actually wrote, and see how he presented this shocking idea to people who had no reason to believe Genesis might not be literally true. Darwin gets portrayed as an evil influence, it seems - or, that’s how it came across in one of the classes in this conservative Lutheran course I’m taking. But reading his book, it’s interesting (wrenching, imo) how he apologizes for what he’s writing, explaining that he wouldn’t be claiming evolution occurred if he didn’t feel forced into it by the evidence he saw in the natural world. He’s really quite humble about it. It’s also amazing to see how he put these clues together without having any idea how it happened - genetics was unknown then. So, that book would be background, or an introduction, but not a complete description of evolution by any means.
Comment by: Eliza
50Mike O in #23 wrote:
cautiousmaniac in #27 responded:
Dawkins discusses this in one section of the “The Blind Watchmaker” (not the “why” so much as the “how”).
1) A group of organisms of one species gets divided geographically; the new subgroups are exposed to different environments. (For example, for one type of primordial organism in the sea, maybe some of them drifted to the bottom of the ocean, and some drifted to the top.)
2) Differences in the environments of the subgroups might include whether sunlight exposure, ambient temperature, availability of food/components/etc, competition (from others like themselves, and eventually - as different species evolved - from predators), etc. Thus, the subgroups are under different threats to survival.
3) Separated subgroups can even have different mutation rates (for example, organisms higher in the ocean would be exposed to more UV radiation - including sunlight - and more cosmic radiation).
4) Thus, over time, the separated subgroups from the original group of organisms (which started off the same) mutate in different ways and at different rates, experience different survival pressures from different environmental factors, and so evolve into species which might appear quite different and/or have very different characteristics. For example, organisms exposed to sunlight would benefit from being able to harness energy from the sun (photosynthesis), whereas that ability would be worthless to organisms which don’t get exposure to sunlight. Or, later organisms would benefit from being able to ingest the organisms which can harness the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, thus they wouldn’t need to be able to perform that trick themselves. And so on.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
51mtran #46 rightly says:
I wasn’t totally sure on what you had said, but re-reading it (with a few more hours of being awake) shows that you didn’t say that. So I’m glad that I caused confusion for no reason…
It is interesting to note that Greeks and Romans both dug up fossils and tried to explain them with the understanding of the world that they had: since they were bones of large creatures, they must be the bones of the titans and giants. Chinese civilization considered fossils to be dragon bones, that could be ground up and taken medicinally. …which oddly enough still happens today.
At around the same time that Leonardo da Vinci was looking at fossils in mountain sediments in Italy and thinking they were remains of dead animals, someone…in China, I can’t find out who, (I knew I shoulda written this down) came to the same conclusion. In 1668 came the first published text which solidly put forth the theory that fossils were once-living animals, Steno’s De Solido Intra Solidium Naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. Despite that it still took another century for the idea that fossils = dead organisms to really ground itself into the scientific mindset.
Not to mention the popular mindset, of which some % of Americans still think that fossils are made up by God or Satan (or both?) to trick us. Which I guess makes me either a divine or infernal collaborator.
Comment by: MTran
52cautiousmaniac #50 said: “I wasn’t totally sure on what you had said”
Yeah, that’s what I hear my students say often enough, so welcome to the crowd! :-)
Comment by: Mike O
53I hope I’m not coming off as defensive … I don’t mean to be. I’m just responding to what people say.
Siamang (#40) said,
Evolution takes it one step further, from reproduction and sustaining, to the generation of new life.
Several people commented that the facts preceded the theory, so OK. I was thinking of new findings being used to support evolution, and got it a little mixed up. I stand corrected.
MTran (#46) uses the word “myth,” and further up in #14 the word “magic” is used in conjuntion with creation. Creation is just as much a theory as evolution. MTran said in #43 …
If we’re going to call evolution a “theory,” let’s call both of them theories. After all, the theory of creation passes the falsifiability test, too. BTW, I’ve started another discussion on the DB about this. It wasn’t planned to tie in to this one, but perhaps it does. If there’s no concrete evidence against creation, and the data points also support (don’t contradict?) it, it’s a valid theory. Sure, you can disbelieve it, but one of the strengths of theory is that they are constantly under threat of being found false, right? So until it is found false, Creation is a theory, not a myth and not magic.
NCxian (#47) said …
Hey, works for me! I suspect when I get to heaven, God is going to sit me down and say, “Here, Mike look at this! You had it all wrong. Here’s how it really went down …”
Comment by: Mike O
54Oops, I forgot the link to the DB. It’s called Knockout Punch, and without thinking about this when I started it yesterday, it’s actually looking to falsify Christianity. Can Christianity pass the falsifiability test?
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
55I’m sure the “creation is a theory” statement will be questioned/disagreed with by another few people shortly. So I don’t think I’m gonna be unique at all in what I have to say, so lemme try a slightly different approach and we’ll see if I’m in any way not repetitive.
Evolution is a natural process. In the same way that planets revolve around the sun, that electrons orbit nuclei, that acids and bases neutralize each other, biological processes at biochemical (mutations and their subsequent effect on genetics), population (genetic drift, sexual selection), community (natural selection) and biospheric (plate tectonics, atmosphere-ocean interactions) levels all affect species, in a cumulative fashion that we term evolution.
When we learn about these first three processes (orbital physics, subatomic physics, and chemical reactions) in science class, teachers are never hesitant about saying that they are natural processes. Why is it that they have to be careful about saying that evolution is?
It seems to me that biology is one of the last places that religious folk believe that God is “hiding.” We no longer think that planets are gods and demons in the sky but people desperately grasp onto either the concept that:
a) faith-based ideas for why we are here are scientific AND/OR
b) scientific theories for why we are here are faith-based
If one wants to label creation a theory than I demand the right to do the same for astrology, alchemy, and numerology. And as long as I’m being ludicrous I also want to call Mozart a no-talent hack and Michelangelo a lousy artist.
Comment by: Siamang
56Mike O wrote:
Well, let’s check. Here’s the definition of theory in science:
A systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable and has never been falsified.
Okay, so here’s the list.
A systemized and formal expression of all previous observations.
Predictive- that means it can be used to make predictions we can test.
Logical - it is consistant.
Testable.
Never been falsified.
Well, I think literal 6-day creationism has failed every one of them.
It doesn’t take into account past observations. It can’t even harmonize with the existence of dinosaurs let alone their extinction. It can’t account for the apparant deep age of the earth.
Predictive - it is not accurately predictive. If all creatures on this earth started life within days of each other, strict creationism should predict that oil shale deposits from the carboniferous period would have fossils of grass or flowers with their ferns. But they don’t. If all creatures are the same age, strict 6-day creationism predicts we should find dinosaur bones in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. But we don’t. If each creature on the earth were seperately created and not related, their DNA shouldn’t include shared scars of ancient viruses in analogous places in their genome. But they do!
So it fails as a predictor.
Logical, is it consistant? That depends on the subsequent claims. Some people claim that dinosaurs and sharks were vegetarian before the fall. Makes me wonder what those big sharp teeth were for! As an extended explaination, it’s not self-consistant. As soon as people start explaining how you can fit two of every animal on the planet on a boat, they start talking about “kinds” but they won’t tell you what a “kind” is. Is there a dog kind? Then what’s a civet? Is it a dog or a cat, or a weasel, or a squirrel, or a shrew, or a……. They seem to accept limited evolution as a function of inhereted variation… but only post flood very very rapidly for a very short time (from two beetles to all of the between 5 and 8 million different species in only a hundred or so generations, but no fossils of that happening… and then evolution slowed down or all but stopped so it doesn’t happen anymore? WHA!!?!?! Not internally consistant if you ask me.
Testable… well, yes it is testable. Sadly that brings us to the last requirement.
Has never been falsified.
Sadly, yes, literal six-day creation has been falsified. It’s falsified every single day in about a billion ways. Look up at the stars. The Great Galaxy in Andromeda is the farthest object you can see with the unaided eye (on a very clear night away from a city.) It is 2.5 million light-years away. The light coming from the great galaxy in Andromeda left it 2.5 million years ago. The photons striking your retina have been travelling for 2.5 million years. That’s 416 times longer than, according to creationists, light itself has existed.
There are only 3 possible explainations. The most obvious one is, “the universe is older than 6000 years.”
The other two are: God made it just LOOK like what we observe. Which we have dealt with with the idea of a trickster God. If God is indeed a trickster, I will live believing the world he has made for us. If God uses a trick to make the universe look 14 billion years old, I have faith that in some real way it really is 14 billion years old. If God wants me to believe the universe is that old, I’ll play along.
The other option, one that is so crazy I hesitate to mention it, is that some creationists argue that the speed of light is slowing down.
Well, the first accurate measurements of the speed of light were in 1850. It’s roughly 600 million miles an hour. 150 years later, it hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down. So there’s another failed prediction of strict creationism.
But let’s calculate how much light must be slowing down for a strict 6000 year history to be true. And it’s fun!
The andromeda galaxy was first observed and charted and described in the year 905 AD by the Persian astronomer ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi. Which on the 6-dayer’s calendar is about the time the universe is 4,909 years old. So according to the six-day creationist, the light leaving andromeda on Day One must be able to travel 2.5 million light-years in about 5000 years. So apparantly light used to travel 500 times faster than it did now, at least up to about 1000 years ago. And yet somehow it stopped slowing down and has remained constant these last 150 years.
So apparantly light was travelling AT LEAST 3,000,000,000,000 (three trillion) miles an hour for the first 5/6ths of the history of the universe, and then it slowed down to 1/5000th of that speed from the year 905 to the year 1850, and has remained constant since.
Feel free to check my math on that one. But all I can say is, that is an outrageous claim…the claim that the speed of light slowed down by that much. And it’s a claim strict 6-dayers make without a shred of evidence, when the simple answer is just that the universe is older than 6000 years.
Comment by: Siamang
57Oops, I checked my math and I added an extra zero!
Let’s try again:
So apparantly light was travelling AT LEAST 300,000,000,000 (three hundred billion) miles an hour for the first 5/6ths of the history of the universe, and then it slowed down to 1/500th of that speed from the year 905 to the year 1850, and has remained constant since.
Comment by: MTran
58Mike O. said: “If we’re going to call evolution a “theory,” let’s call both of them theories. After all, the theory of creation passes the falsifiability test, too.”
Mike, I believe you are trying to make sense of these issues in good faith but there is no “theory of creation.” If you think you’ve got one, then you’re the first and you’d better let the Discovery Institute in on it because they are so desperate to find an actual theory of their own, I’m sure they would be happy to adopt yours. They may even put you on staff with a nice salary. Or you could get a nifty grant from the Templeton Foundation. ;-)
You might “want” to call the creationist version of origins a “theory” but you have no basis to do so. Please indulge me a moment here. There is an old saying attributed (probably erroneously) to Abraham Lincoln. It goes like this;
Q: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs deos a dog have?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.
“Creationism” is religion, pure and simple; it is not science and it is certainly not a theory. It makes no predictions. It does not account for all known data or for even a small portion of it. In its Young Earth variation, it has been thoroughly falsified. In its Intelligent Design variation it makes no predictions and is thus not capable of falsification. When a conjecture or speculation cannot be “falsified,” that does not mean it is “true” or “valid.” It means it is useless, as far as science is concerned.
But that does not mean it has no value in spheres other than science. It seems that you are perhaps unhappy with the use of the word “myth” to describe religious origin stories. But my use of the word myth is in it’s technical sense, not its colloquial sense. Myth does not mean “falsehood,” or “lie.” Myth is a religiously significant description of the supernatural origins of the cosmos, the earth, life, or accounts of the acts and lives of deities and (sometimes)(ancient) heroes.
I would expect that the Biblical creation account is religiously or spiritually significant to a billion or more people. It is about ultimate origins and the acts of a deity. This makes it, by any standard definintion, a myth. This does not mean it is a lie. It means that whatever truth it contains is a religious and cultural one, not a natural or scientific one.
I suppose it’s up to you as to whether it is important that the Biblical creation stories are scientifically accurate, though I have difficulty understanding why a believer would want to invoke science to validate their faith.
You may have meant that you subscribe to a “scientific” creationsim that exists outside of the Biblical accounts. But there is no creationist “theory” other than religious ones.
(Sheesh, looks like I’m pulling another all nighter, I’d better log off before I burn up my cable.)
Comment by: Siamang
59On the use of the word “myth”, I think MTran is invoking the word in the same way C.S. Lewis did when he referred to Christianity as “The True Myth.”
Comment by: Andrew
60Sorry I haven’t read all the comments to this post but I got as far as this and had to comment. Apologies if I end up repeating something already covered.
David in making this statement you are clearly showing naivety when it comes to the key differences between creation and evolution. In terms of the application of the scientific method there is virtually no difference. The evidence used by evolutionists is the same used by creationists. So many seem to miss this point. The same rocks, fossils, starlight etc. Creationists do not have some secondary set of imaginary evidence. Secondly the study of the evidence is also conducted in a secondary sense when it comes to c&e. It’s often said of astronomy (my own background) that we can look but not touch - and the same can be said of evo-biology/geology/paleo. etc. While the evidence itself can be touched the process that brought us the evidence can’t be - thus assuptions have to be made (uniformitarian in the case of evo. & divine creation in the case of creationists). How a creationist who is a scientist conducts science is the same for an evolutionist. I do a presentation in public high schools on the philosophy of science which more clearly explains this I’ll try and upload it and post a link if you are interested. If we aee going to have intelligent conversation on this subject it’s important we do away with the strawmen.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
61Welcome aboard, Andrew. I think that intelligent conversation is important, and so far Mike O has shown an amazing ability to inspect his beliefs. I find it interesting to note that while he is certainly more open to science, evidence, and evolution now than, say, a week ago, he still runs plays from the creationist playbook. I think that your post does the same thing, and I want to just note on sentence:
Now, firstly, I want to say that I am confused when someone says they’re a creationist. There are many many many shades that such a statement can mean, from thinking there must be a Creator (eg Discovery Institute), to the Young-Earth Creationism/scientific creationism movement (eg Answers in Genesis). These two thoughts are very very different: there are decent numbers of scientists who believe in a personal deity, but there are only a handful who think the Earth is only thousands of years old and that evolution is a Satanically-inspired lie.
Secondly…you do have a secondary set of imaginary evidence. What really makes a creationist doubt evolution and an old Earth? Is it geological/paleontological/cosmological data? Or…is it faith?
You can make the claim that uniformitarianism is an assumption, as is divine creation. But one of these processes is natural. The other is …supernatural. Sorta big difference.
Comment by: Andrew
62And what’s your definition of a “handful”? I personally know, am aquainted with or am friends with at least 100 qualified scientists (I am also married to one) who do not accept evolution.
What is the imaginary evidence? As I said before all the creationist I know who are active in scientific fields look at the same rocks, the same fossils etc. etc. etc. What extra, imaginary evidence do creationist have?
Well - maybe - natural in interpretation but not in observation - at the end of the day, both are assumptions. No one observed God create, no one observed the “natural” processes of evolution/uniformitarianism. 6 of one and half a dozen of the other in my book.
Comment by: Siamang
63Andrew,
How many are biologists?
Even if I grant that you know personally a large number of creationists (hey, maybe you’re president of a club), you do realize that creationists number a very, very, very small number of biologists worldwide?
I might know a hundred pro baseball players. It doesn’t mean that they’re plentiful in the population at-large.
Comment by: Siamang
64Hey, I googled you Andrew. You ARE president of a club!
No wonder you know so many creationists, you write articles for Answers in Genesis!
Color me bemused.
Comment by: MTran
65I’m a little concerned that this forum might be taking a turn that can quickly deteriorate to name calling if we are not careful. I’m new to this discussion page but I truly value the opportunity to observe, and even participate, in a forum where all parties make a real attempt not to fly off the handle.
Mike O. is making a tremendous effort to examine issues that he may have either avoided in the past or simply discounted. That is not an easy thing to do. And I don’t find it surprising at all that he would misapply scientific terms even after they have been “explained” to him by those of us who think we have a better understanding of science. Language barriers are quite real, and doubly so when the competing languages often correlate with highly divergent ways of comprehending the world. These competing views aren’t suddenly changed by the introduction of new or specialized definitions.
That said, I’m also reluctant to engage in a “I know more scientists than you do.” Personal anecdotes may well give us some insights into each other’s concerns or attitudes but our arguments must stand on their own, without relying on our assertion of authority. Especially in the blogoverse where it is not possible to verify most peoples claims of expertise.
With that caveat in mind, I’d like to address one of Andrew’s statements when he said: “No one observed God create, no one observed the “natural” processes of evolution…”
This is simply erroneous. Evolution of new species, in a relatively brief period of time, has been observed both in the lab and in nature. If you are not aware of this, yet are making assertions as a “scientist”, then you need to educate yourself about this before you go any further. And I’m not referring to bacterial resistance to anti-biotics. I’m talking about novel plant species ( Evening Primrose - Oenothera gigas), insects (Drosophila paulistorum), invertebrates (Lab Rat Worm - Nereis acuminata), algae (Chlorella vulgaris changing from Chlorella to the genus Coelosphaerium) and numerous others. That’s not even considering ring species. I couldn’t recall the names of these or other observed instances of speciation off the top of my head so I did a quick web search.
As to “qualified scientists” who accept “creation” or who reject “evolution,” well they are vanishingly small in number. Sheesh, back in 1998, scarcely 7% of scientists believed in a personal god. ( See Nature Magazine, 23Jul 1998: “Leading Scientists Still Reject God” by Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham) The numbers are even lower for those who are in the biological sciences. Given this rejection of theism, where in the world can we find room among these people for any significant, or even noticeable, level of rejection of naturalistic evolution?
“The truth is out there” as they say. But so are a lot of lies, so we must take care when we make or accept assertions. I know I’ve made plenty of errors, and have even passed on some through inadvertence. I will continue to make errors. But I try.
Comment by: MTran
66Thank you, Siamang, for the thumbs up on Andrew’s identity.
It’s really sad when someone invokes the authority of “science” in order to pass on utter lies for consumption by people seeking genuine knowledge. I found Andrew’s tone rather hostile and close minded — and incredibly similar to the tripe served up at AiG. You outed him just as I entered my previous comment.
Comment by: Andrew
67And this is where I bugger off!
Comment by: Eliza
68It’s been a while since I looked at Answers in Genesis, so I went back to see if it had changed.
Nope.
Here are the concluding statements from 3 of the many discussions in AiG:
For emphasis, let me repeat two lines:
This was said about “evolutionist” geologists, but actually applies more accurately to creationists; see the next line.
Yes, and this is why it doesn’t count as science.
Comment by: Siamang
69Hmmm…
Well, I had no desire to have it turn out that way.
Andrew, you are welcome to continue this discussion. I’d like everyone to be aware that I in no way outed Andrew or used any information about his identity other than what I found by following his homepage link from his signature name and googling from there.
As someone who blogs semi-anonymously here, I try to be very considerate of people who might wish to similarly blog anonymously.
Andrew, you are welcome to continue this discussion, although I would like to suggest that if things trend off the plants and animals question too far that we bring it to the discussion board.
I didn’t mean to cause anyone to feel unwelcome here. But curiosity gets the better of me sometimes, and you know, I just HAD to follow the link.
Andrew, of course should feel free to continue this discussion. If you desire anonymity, perhaps you’ll decide to rejoin the discussion in the future. We benefit from a multitude of voices here.
Comment by: MTran
70Siamang,
You didn’t actually “out” Andrew, even though I used that phrase myself. Andrew identified himself rather obviously through his web link. I take that to indicate that he was not trying to hide behind some sort of anonymity, as I tend to do. :-)
I use pseudonyms that are recognizable to my friends but are not readily linkable to my professional life because I’m a realist about how the real world works, not because I am a “coward.” You might be surprised at the number of executive level decision makers who consider web conversations to be indicative of something perverse. Really. All my clients and employers eventually learn about my atheism. Most of them share that position. But web posting!? Now that’s a bit too much for some of them.
But back to the topic:
I was actually surprised that Andrew “buggered off” so quickly. I expected him to at least attempt to address some of the comments. But someone who claims to have a “science” degree from a Bible college really shouldn’t be able to get away with claiming to be some sort of authority on evolution or science at all. If his arguments hold up to scrutiny, I don’t care what his academic credentials are. In this instance, he has not demonstrated any useful or viable arguments.
Who knows, though, he may take a breather and come back with his thoughts more carefully considered. Unlikely, I know, but possible.
Comment by: Siamang
71MTran,
Did you mention you’re a teacher? You seem to have a very methodical way of explaining things.
Anyway, I’ve been enjoying your contributions to this thread.
Comment by: Andrew
72Back - but still not hanging around.
My science degree is not from a Bible college. I am buggering off because I have no desire to hang around be abused.
So far MTran has spoken out against mudslinging and proceeded on two occaisions to do just that. I believe he called me a liar and is now calling into question my qualifications. Do I reallyl care? No, but I have better things to do with my time than subject myself to this.
Siamang - no problem at all, not at all concerned about your post of my identity. For the record I haven’t written anything for AiG for at least 2 years and now distance myself from them. But there’s no point hiding from the past.
Comment by: MTran
73Eliza posted a quote from AiG:
“The only foolproof method for determining the age of something is based on eyewitness reports and a written record. We have both in the Bible.”
Now, I want to be clear that Eliza did not endorse this statement, quite the contrary. But for the benefit of those who don’t understand why the assertion is not just problematic but clearly wrong, I’d like to make a few observations.
First of all, any attorney will tell you that eyewitness accounts are the least relaible forms of evidence. Popular tv shows might make one believe that eyewitness testimony is better than “mere” circumstantial evidence but without circumstantial evidence (which is largely physical evidence) it’s just about impossible to initiate a case, net alone successfully prosecute one.
Eyewitnesses are obviously subject to error, forgetfulness, incompleteness, bias, perjury, manipulation, well. the list just goes on and on. Physical evidence, though subject to loss and tamperinig, is much more readily subjected to testing and thus forms the basis of most decisions to prosecute an action.
As te written records, documentary evidence is always subject to challenge as to its prevenance and just because something is “written down” does not mean that it is “foolproof” or even admissable in a court of law. There are sound reasons to question any written piece of evidennce, but especially documentary evidence that is nothing more than a recounting of a (questionably reliable) witness. Because not only does the document carry with it problems of authentication of the physical document itsolf, it also is subject to the same challenges posed by the supposed “witness” or transcriber.
My examples here are legalistic in nature, but rules as to the acceptability of evidence are equally important, perhaps even more so, in science.
The foregoing are just a few reasons as to why the rather narrow views propounded by AiG are roundly rejected and sometimes ridiculed by scientists. The rejection has nothing to do with a failure to respect religion but with the failure of such standards to be useful for any investigatory or analytical purpose at all.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
74No need to bugger off, Andrew. I think that YEC’s ideas are very interesting, even if they are not scientific. You yourself said that strawmen are bad, so I think it will be a much more productive conversation now that I know that when you say “creation” you mean a very very recent one, with all the implications that has for how you view science.
Above you asked:
To which, now that I’ve read some of your works, I feel I can more adequately reply to. At Young galaxies too old for the Big Bang you talk about a large-scale (more than 300 megalight-years long!) structure found 10.8 gigalight-years away. As the age of the Universe is something to the order of 13 gigalight-years old, that means this structure formed relatively soon after the Big Bang.
In normal science, this new fact would spark new theories as to how stellar and galactic evolution could make such a hugggge structure so early in history. How did you choose to refer to this new opportunity of science to expand on itself?
To which my first reaction is “what the $&@%?” Since when is the Big Bang atheistic? Since when is any scientific idea in any way related to the presence of absence of gods? That’s like saying string theory is atheistic, Andrew. I don’t see how you can say it with a straight face. You say you distance yourself from AiG so maybe that’s just something you had to say to make them happy. I certainly hope so.
So the Big Bang is bad science because it’s atheistic, but creationism is good science because it’s based on the Bible? That’s not at all how science works. Obediance to religious doctrine is not what makes a theory good, the ability to explain facts is.
To get back to your original question: “What extra, imaginary evidence do creationists have?” It’s very simple, Andrew. They think that their interpretation of the Bible is evidence that trumps all other evidence. Somehow any dating method which makes the Earth older than a few thousand years is broken. Somehow all signs of molecular relationship between species is just smoke and mirrors. Somehow a geological record which shows dynamic interplay between various sediment layers was mainly formed by one global sedimentary event. So was a fossil record which shows distinct fossil assemblages, those are somehow exhibiting different animals’ abilities to survive the Flood.
This is not about looking at the world scientifically through different lenses, Andrew. Science is the lens, and creationists stopped using that lens 160 years ago when they decided to rely on their faith instead.
I don’t think that abusing you is a productive activity, and I’m not trying to. But I am working on becoming a scientist. I am not wracking up student loan debt to attend school and take classes so that I can sit idly by while people confuse science with faith and faith with science.
Comment by: MTran
75Andrew,
I don’t recall calling you a liar. If it sounded as if I did then I regret that. You are the one who asserted your science background as the basis of authority for your arguments and assertions. At least, that is how it came across to me. You may have not intended that at all.
As I’ve said, it’s the quality of one’s arguments that should persuade us or not. Credentials are secondary to argument and evidence in most of these forums. But anyone who constrains their scientific analysis of evidence to comport with a literal reading of the Bible is not going to be taken seriously by the scientific community or most well educated people. You may not believe you have constrained your critical faculties in this manner, but that is the impression (perhaps wrong) that I am getting.
I have too much experience working closely with strongly committed believers to think that a belief in god is incompatible with intelligence, education, honesty, integrity, or scientific competency. But I have found no evidence of any of those qualities being expressed in the arguments from AiG.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
76I know this conversation is dead, but if you ever wanted to know if you have any local scientists who are ID supporters, this list is useful.
Like did you know that two science professors at Caltech don’t accept evolution? Oddly enough, they’re both physics professors…
Comment by: MTran
77Coutiousmaniac,
I regret if any of my comments were the cause of the “death” of this conversation. But, hey, I guess these things can happen.
I’m actually glad you posted that link because a lot of people have heard about the DI survey and might find it persuasive. Of course, the survey from the Discovery Institute did not ask whether anyone supported Inteligent Design. It asked respondents whether they believed that random mutations and natural selection accounted for the diversity of life on earth and whether evolution theory should be approached with skepticism. Well, scientists tend to approach all issues with skepticism. And mutations and natural selection may well be very important concepts, but they are not the full story in evolutionary theory. Cross-over events, genetic drift, and many other considerations are players as well.
I recall a number of the scientists subjected to this survey were later horrified to find that their professional skepticism was used as fodder to the media by the Discovery Institute.
When Kenneth Chan of the New York Times reported on the “survey,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/sciencespecial2/21peti.html?ex=1298178000&en=de5bd718715864a0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) he noted that those scientists who continued to support the DI statement when he interviewed them were primarily evangelical Christians who were not qualified in biology. Apparently at least some of them told Chan that they even changed their scientific, professional view in order to comport with their religious view. In short, they did not base their views on science.
Another problem with the underlying assumption of the survey is that science is not based on some sort of “authority,” rather it is based on evidence. A person’s science “credentials,” though valuable, do not “prove” anything. What counts is evidence and soundness of argument. In other words, scientific “truth” grows from the ground of factual observations upward. It is not something that is pronounced from an authority at the top and enforced downwards, which tends to be the case with religion.
Anyhow, if you want to get a better idea as to the strength of the support naturalistic evolution theory has among scientists, you may want to check out the Project Steve at the NCSE. In that project, more practicing PhD scientists who were named “Steve” signed a statement of support for evolution theory within a few weeks than the Discovery Institute was able to gather after years of effort.
Well, good night and good luck.
Comment by: Mike O
78MTran - I doubt you “caused the death” of this thread. This thread simply evolved to this point and is now nearly extinct. A few topical mutations along the way, some beneficial, some neutral and some negative along the way, but all ends well. In fact, the natural selection of topical mutations on this thread allowed it to live to the ripe old age of 78 posts and counting - centuries in human years! :)
I hate when life dictates that I slip away for a few days, but I love to come back and see how things developed in the meantime.
And MTran, I concur with Siamang — I love the way you write and lay out your thoughts! What follows is not meant to be a rip on you, I’m just using your “circumstantial evidence” comment as a starting point, OK?
MTran (#73) …
To me, some of the best evidence as to the validity of the Bible, or at least that the followers of Jesus believed that he was God, is circumstantial today. Jesus followers gave up everything, some of them successful careers (Luke was a doctor), to follow him? Why did they do that, and why did they stay for three years?
The proported miracles that he performed were supposedly witnessed by thousands. Where is the dispute by his contemporaries that could have easily outed him?
The Bible makes it clear that the disciples thought Jesus would rise to power (misunderstood fulfillment of prophecy) even though he never said he would. And when he was executed, his mission here had obviously failed. And truthfully, many probably did fall away because of this (not the 12 disciples, but others). But if he never rose again, why did 11 of the 12 disciples die a martyrs death for a man who had stolen 3 1/2 years of their lives with no payoff? They lost everything, yet continued to stand by him even after his death. Why?
Who stole the body?? It was buried with the full knowledge of the Roman guard (they were guarding the tomb for just such a purpose - people believed he would rise from the dead, so they guarded the tomb to prevent the propogation of this “myth” via bodysnatching). Why would the Romans steal the body of their defeated foe? Why would the disciples, on the very weekend that it happened, beak through the military ranks in a smoke-and-mirrors mission to propagate something they now knew was a myth and had cost them great embarassment? (I am speaking as if Jesus never rose from the dead.)
Did Jesus swoon? OK, now who’s ignoring the data … they hung him on a cross and stabbed him in the heart. They HATED him and would never risk falling short of their goal now that they had him. He was dead, no question about it.
Circumstantial evidence surrounding the validity of the writers abounds. Even if it were possible that some would stick by him even though they had obviously been deceived, ALL of these events circumstantially proves (I use the term loosely here) that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead, that his disciples did in fact believe what they wrote (doesn’t prove they were right, but proves they beleived it) and that Christianity is perhaps not the myth y’all proport it to be.
Comment by: Mike O
79MTran (#75) …
Christians would say that atheists have also constrained their critical faculties to accept things that support their theories, and even reject the circumstantial evidence we do have because of a predisposition against it. I’m not saying you have or haven’t, but as you said, that is the impression (perhaps I am wrong) that I get.
I know what follows will read as accusatory and I don’t mean it to. But based on things I’ve heard in other threads and just my general impressions of atheists so far, I don’t believe an atheist would believe in the supernatural if it jumped up and bit them on the butt.
If an atheists saw someone rise from the dead, or saw something happen that broke the laws of nature/phyics like a limb regrowing or an axehead floating (this is recorded in the Old Testament), most atheists would still not acknowledge the supernatural - they would try to come up with a natural explanation.
WIth that said (and I know it came out wrong, I just hope you know my motives are good), I’d also like to say that I concur IN SPADES with what you said here:
That has been my experience here! I have so enjoyed the rhobust dialogue here! I think this of non-Christians as well and have even taken this type of thinking back to my Christian friends (that atheists CAN make a good case!). I’m just glad to finally hear it said here of Christians as well. Thanks for that!
Comment by: Mike O
80Cautiousmaniac (#76)
Thanks for that!
Comment by: Mike O
81I reread what I said in 79 … my intent was not to make an accusation, but rather to speak to the idea of “constrained analysis” that I suspect atheists would tend to do in the face of supernatural evidence. I meant nothing more than that. Sorry if it came out wrong.
Comment by: NCxian
82Mike O. wrote:
What Mike says is true, MTran. I used to get kind of paranoid when the last comment on a thread was mine. After a while, you realize that, if you post with any regularity, you’ll get your share of “last words”.
But so you don’t feel like you’ve killed this thread . . .
This assertion about eyewitnesses in court has been surfacing for about the last month. I have not responded to it because I think most people realize that we are really talking about ancient textual analysis so the comparison has limited usefulness. But while we are on the topic, I would say this assertion is wrong for two reasons.
(1) The entire system of law in the U.S., and most anyplace else where the English system is the basis, is founded on eyewitness testimony.
(2) Gzillions of cases are tried every year with nothing but eyewitness testimony.
I realize that this is not always evident on tv, where all the cases are criminal cases, and where opposing counsel conveniently forgets to object when the star of the show is doing his thing to advance the story line.
As to my objection #1, every shred of evidence that is submitted to the court/jury is done with a witness on the stand. That witness must “lay the foundation” for the submission of that evidence and that foundation is always “eyewitness”. If it is his own testimony of something he saw, then a foundation must be laid that he was in a position to see it, and so on. If it is a document, then the witness must say that “that is my signature”, or “that is my bosses signature, I see it 50 times a day” or something like that. If this doesn’t happen, opposing counsel (in real life) will say “Objection, failure to lay a foundation” and the judge will say “sustained” (if he or she is not an idiot). If a police officer gets on the stand, and an attorney holds up a gun and says, “is this the gun you found at the scene”, the judge is going to call the attorneys to the bench and tell the prosecuter to get his/her butt out of his courtroom until he/she learns to “lay a foundation with the [eye]witness”.
As to my objection #2, (in addition to the fact that all evidence is, at its foundation, dependent on eyewitness testimony) there are tons of cases tried every day with ONLY what eyewitness testimony. (And even more tried with only eyewitness and documentary evidence from witnesses). Many civil cases are “my word against yours”–who ran the red light, how fast were the cars going, what was the condition of the floor when you fell down, what did you promise to do in return for the money you were paid. Many criminal cases involve no physical evidence at all. The typical domestic assault case goes like this “He hit me, the neighbors heard the fight, they saw me coming out with blood streaming out of my nose”; then 6 neighbors get on the stand and say, “yeah, what she said”. Then the scumbag husband goes to jail. (Then he gets out shortly and hits her again, but that is another issue).
Even a criminal case that you would think would be all about “physical” evidence is really “eyewitness” evidence. For example, a rape victim testifies she was raped and points to the defendant. A doctor gets on the stand and says, “yes, she came to me immediately as she says and I saw these three signs of forcible sex.” The doctor does not produce semen samples in the courtroom, or pictures of the woman, typically. Sometimes the doctor may produce the medical notes. But even if these things come into evidence, they are allowed into evidence ONLY because they support the eyewitness testimony of the doctor. Without the doctor as an eyewitness, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE.
Like I said, the court of law analysis is so far removed from the analysis of ancient text that my diatribe may be beside the point. However, I kind of had to get it out! I could go on for a few more feet, but I’ll rest my case.
Comment by: Mike O
83Defense? Your witness.
NCxian, thanks for that. That was very insightful to those of us (me!) not familiar with how many things really work.
Let me see if I get this right … even though eyewitness testimony is often faulty (is what MTran said true?), the verdict is still always based on eyewitness testimony (laying the foundation), whether fallacious or corroborated, plus circumstantial evidence that would never be admitted without first laying the groundwork with eyewitnesses? Interesting. And useful!
Comment by: Siamang
84Mike O wrote:
I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this argument.
I feel like it’s an accusation of incredible intellectual bad faith. “Even if you saw Jesus with your own eyes, rising up into heaven, you wouldn’t believe it.”
First off, I’d shout ‘nonsense’. If you have evidence, please show it. But this is really an argument of “well, even if I had rock solid, the dead coming back to life right before your own eyes evidence, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
What a cop out. To accuse us of being closed minded to even perfect evidence.
Do I do that with you? Do I remotely say, ‘well even if I had a time machine and took you back in time and showed you apes becoming humans, you wouldn’t believe it.’
Heck no. It’s insulting. And it’s counter-productive. It’s not persuasion, it’s giving up on presenting evidence and laying all blame on the person unconvinced. Nobody, I mean nobody is ever ever persuaded by “well, you’re just closed-minded and you don’t want to know what I have to say anyway.”
Listen. In this thread I have presented evidence of a non-supernatural event. I have not presented evidence of a supernatural event. I have not presented “evidence” that God does not exist.
I have presented evidence of a law of nature. That’s all. Nothing gigantic or cosmological. Nothing beyond the scope of understanding of Man. All I’m laying out is the science they teach at Harvard and Yale, at Notre Dame and Texas Christian University and even Caltech.
I am not attempting to make a case against God in my arguments for evolution. I don’t believe that evolution provides ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER against the existence of God.
Next to the question of “does God exist?” “Did evolution occur?” is a SIMPLE one. A mind-boggling simple question. The proof is in every science museum on the planet. It’s in every cell in your body. It’s in every DNA molecule on earth.
It is not intuitively obvious, however. It takes study and explaination and a desire to learn and an honest sense of curiosity. I do not assume that you don’t have those qualities. In fact, it does me very well to assume that you do, for then I have a desire to satisfy that curiosity.
The evidence for evolution is spelled out in trees and rocks, in fossils and bones, in viruses and bacteria, in animals and plants and protists and fungi and archea.
I do not invoke faith. Nor do I invoke witnesses who are no longer available for cross-examination. I merely ask you to look at tangible physical evidence and see if you conclude, as do 99% of scientists, that evolution did indeed occur.
Heck, this’ll take an hour: Go to your local Natural History Museum. Look at the skeleton of the whale if they have one. Check out the rear hip bones. They’re still in the whale from when they evolved from land animals. They’re shrinking, and eventually (if whales survive our impact) they’ll completely disappear. So that takes one hour, plus the drive. You physically can see the remnants of evolution, in physical tangible evidence… vestigial hind-limbs on whales. Hind limbs useless to whales. They don’t do anything. They’ve been completely replaced by the fluke, which used to be a tail. They just hang there. They are bigger in ancient fossil whales.
So there it is. One small piece of real physical evidence, right in front of your eyes. Ask any scientist at the museum what those bones are… they’ll tell you exactly what I just did. Some whales have just a pelvis. Some have a pelvis and femurs, and at least one species has the pelvis, femurs and tibias.
I’ll remind you that (I’m pretty sure) every atheist here, myself included DID believe in the supernatural. So how does that square with “oh, they wouldn’t believe the supernatural anyway even if they saw it with their own eyes?” We believed it back when we didn’t see it. We just subsequently changed our minds over whether we should believe it.
As I said, next to the question of God’s existence, evolution is a simple one. It either did or didn’t happen, and the only evidence for either is physical objects and processes.
There is overwhelming evidence that it did. Billions and trillions of independent pieces of mutually-supporting, rock-solid (literally!) evidence. Evidence that is accepted in every major intellectual and scientific institution in the world. Evidence accepted by every major scientific body in the world.
Evidence in probably the best-supported theory in all of science. Evidence in the fundamental organizing principle undergirding all of biology.
I don’t say “If I HAD evidence, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.” I say, I’ll present the evidence and I trust that you will believe it. If I didn’t have that trust, I wouldn’t be here writing this to you.
Comment by: NCxian
85Yes. The “trier of fact” (the judge or jury, depending on the case) decides whether the evidence is credible or not.
One thing I forgot to point out (because I’m afraid the above really was an early morning rant) is that a big reason you have to have an eyewitness is because the opposing party, in our legal system, has the right to “cross examine”. You can’t cross-examine a gun, or a semen sample, or a skid mark, or whatever physical evidence you might have, so those things, by themselves, are not admitted into evidence.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
86Siamang, have a look at Mike’s comment #80 - I think he realized that the comment you picked up on didn’t come out especially well.
Comment by: Mike O
87I’ll post my sort-of-retraction here for clarity:
When I reread what I wrote, it saw that it didn’t come out at all like I intended, and I take responsibility for not being careful enough … I try to be. But like I said in #81, I was tryng to make the point that everyone, creationists, IDers and evolutionists alike, all use constrained analysis to some degree.
For a little background, what I said came partly from an old discussion on the DB where I asked the question, “IF (BIG IF) evolution could be proven false, would that prove Creation was true?” My thinking was that if it didn’t evolve, everything we have today had to have been created. I was surprised when that answer came back as a resounding “NO.” I was told there was a thousand other ways that things could have come about naturally that we just don’t understand yet. It left the taste that, regardless of what we find, there will always be some othere avenue we could pursue besides creation or ID. And when all other possibilities have been vanquished, then we’ll think about creation. How is that not constrained analysis? Atheists have a predisposition towards evolution, creationists have a predisposition towards creation. I’m just acknowledging reality.
The funny thing is, I’m not arguing for creation, or against evolution. I dont think I’ve attempted to rebut anything I’ve been taught here. I’m learning about evolution. I’m not trying to figure out if it’s correct or not. I’m trying to understand why so many people believe it. And I’m learning that there’s good reason to believe it.
One thing you said, though, that I agree with 100% -
You’re right, they’re two completely different things.
Comment by: Karen
88Hurray! :-) I’m so glad this now resonates with you, Mike. I hate it when Christians are given the (totally false) information that they can’t be good believers and also be scientifically literate, educated people. When they believe that, our entire society is so much the poorer for it. It’s nice to see someone analyze the facts and reject that kind of terrible position.
Comment by: Siamang
89Sorry, I missed that post before. But hey, it’s a discussion!
It’s not. Your question in that old thread was, “If we disprove evolution, is Creation therefore automatically true?”
My response is, “No, Creation has to prove itself. It doesn’t get a free ride because something else is disproven.”
That’s very different from “let’s exhaust all other possibilities before we look at creationism.”
I’ll remind you that creationism was the dominant “theory” for thousands of years. It was the FIRST possibility we looked at, until the very literal form of it was disproven.
What would “prove” creationism? Proving creationism. If the fossil record had all life appearing simultaneously, that would be a big start. If our DNA didn’t have markers clearly showing common ancestry, that would be a good start. If the world showed evidence of a massive global flood recently, one that wiped out 99.9999999% of all life on earth, and then populations exploded beyond all possible imagination over a few thousand years, that would be some big proof.
Heck, if they found dinosaur bones in the La Brea Tar Pits, I’d be mighty stumped. It’s exactly what a young earth hypothesis should predict, but they’ve pulled out millions and millions of bones, and not a dinosaur in the lot of them!
Anyway, I’m glad you’re learning about evolution. I’m glad to answer your questions about it. But remember, I accepted evolution during my Christian part of my life too! In my mind, they are two very different things.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems to me that when I was younger, creationist belief was much more “fringey”, and I had a hard time finding Christians who believed in it.
If I was still a Christian, I’d be very worried that creationism is a danger to Christianity. I think it turns some people away from the religion, because of it. I do think it is a danger to Christianity now, but I have a better opinion of people’s ability to shift their beliefs in peripheral parts of their faith, while holding true to the important things.
And I’m not as concerned about people not becoming Christians because of the evolution thing. When i was a christian I was worried about people not becoming christian. Now I don’t.
Comment by: MTran
90This sounds like a decent synthesis to me, Mike O.!
As to whether my comment regarding the “faulty” quality of eyewitness testimony, well about 5 years ago yet another blue ribbon panel of law professors, jurists, litigators, and cognitive psychologists urged the Federal Judicial Center to prohibit or greatly restrict the use of witnesses in certain matters and for certain purposes precisely because such testimony, though highly fallible, is eagerly accepted by too many juries. I can’t see a wide-spread prohibition on such testimony any time soon, or at all, nor would I support it. But the use of testimony is highly regulated in order to assure, as far as possible, that judges and juries get the information they need as reliably as possible. And the trend is to more highly restrict (or regulate) testimony, at least in the federal courts.
NCxian, I didn’t read your comments as a rant or diatribe at all. You sounded to me as someone who wanted to make sure that the comments I had made weren’t taken to the extreme and applied further than they should. (And you are right when you say that this legal evidence discussion is fairly tangential to the rest of the discussion.)
Of course testimonial evidence is essential in courts of law. Without an initial allegation, there is really no way to start a case. Documents need to be authenticated and chains of custody for all evidence needs to be established. But people can say anything.
I’m not nearly as informed about the history of legal systems as I should be, but the use of testimony has shrunken considerably from the days of early English law (and ancient Greek and Roman law) when the testimony of professional witnesses often determined the outcome of disputes. This is perhaps understandable from the point of view of small village and early agrarian societies, where there was almost always “someone” in town who “knew” everything that happened in the village. Sort of like the school or office buddy who is totally connected to the social “grapevine” and to whom everyone turns to when they want to know if a bit of gossip is “real.”
But consider, if someone says “that man killed his sister” and there is no body, no weapons, no signs of struggle, no other piece of circumstantial evidence indicative of a death or homicide, that statement is not going to go very far. Except, perhaps, to civil court in the form of a libel suit. (Of course, truth is a good defense to libel claims.)
My point, in initially discussing the value of circumstantial evidence, is to compare it with testimonial evidence when it comes to analyzing scientific findings. The physical evidence and data are what form the basis of any scientific theory. Even the most respected scientist is constrained by the physical evidence.
There has been increasing attention to “evidence based teaching” in academia for some years now. And not just in the sciences. I think this is healthy and makes for a better experience for the students. Experts may very well be correct, but it is the evidence that shows whether they are or not.
Anyhow, NCxian, if you are really into evidence issues, you may want to keep an ear open for the public hearings and comment period for the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence. I believe that the comment period is up in February. The Federal Judicial Center and related commissions takes comments by law practitioners and the general public rather seriously. The Evidence Rules have been developed in parallel with the new rules of civil procedure that went into effect on December first.
Comment by: Eliza
91Mike O in #79 said:
Well…on the few occasions I went into the gross anatomy lab in medical school when noone else (alive) was there, I got scared that one of the bodies would arise from the dead…does that count? ;-)
Mike O - in my experience, and the experiences of most people I know (and read about), the most likely explanation is natural. It just may not be obvious at first glance. Is there anything wrong with being a little skeptical, with checking things out in some detail to see if there is a natural explanation?
James Randi is an amazing example, imo, of someone who examines amazing claims of supernatural powers (psychics, water dowsers, etc). His newsletter and the discussions on his website are fascinating, imo. But my point is that his job is to investigate amazing claims, and so far he has found a “natural” explanation for all of them.
It would take an event that, on inspection, did not have a natural explanation, to make me move “supernatural” up from the bottom of the list of likely explanations.
Comment by: MTran
92Let me correct myself before NCxian does! My above comment should more properly read “slander” rather than “libel,” unless the statment was committed to some sort of record.
Comment by: MTran
93Thanks for the kind words. It is very easy for people to be misunderstood on-line just by the nature of the medium. I’d rather not contribute to misunderstandings of intentions. On the other hand, I’m not easily offended on-line or off. Still, I usually avoid posting on-line because I have some serious health issues that can overwhelm me suddenly and unpredictably. Then it’s easy to appear as if I’m just a non-responsive jerk when I’m really just a debilitated one. ;-)
You raised a number of questions about evidence that supports either Christianity or specific Biblical reports. I’m not particularly well versed in Biblical history so I may not be the best person to respond to such questions. Though I’ve still got some opinions or observations, of course.
I would suggest, however, that if you want to have a discussion about evidence in support of any specific aspect of Christianity, or of theism in general, that you start a new comment page. (Assuming there isn’t already one like it.)
Comment by: Mike O
94Not really. I’m happy just to keep learning everything behind the theory of evolution.
Comment by: Eliza
95MTran - I’m glad that you’ve been posting on this discussion, and sorry to hear that you have serious health issues.
If you have a chance, you might want to check out the Discussion Board at http://off-the-map.org/ebayatheist/ - you may have to create a login account to get to it, but it’s quick & there are no strings attached. There has been a bunch of discussion there over the past ~8 months about a number of topics, including evolution and ID/creationism, the Bible, etc etc etc.
Comment by: MTran
96Eliza at #95: Thank you for the invitation. I will take a look at the Discussion Board.
How do you recognize that something is, in “fact”, supernatural?
I can give you at least two responses to your question, one more direct than the other.
Response 1: I really don’t know what evidence it would take to convince me that there was either a god or something other than a naturalistic universe. However, if there is actually an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity, such as that in the traditional Judeo Christian religions, then that god knows precisely what it would take to convince anyone, including me, that its existence was undeniable.
That it has done so for some people (you, for example), and not for others (me, for example), demonstrates that either god plays favorites, (a morally bankrupt position, if you ask me), that god does not actually care about being acknowledged (so my ignorance of the deity is immaterial), or that the Judeo Christian interpretation of the evidences of god are in error.
I’m not the first person to come up with the foregoing response or something quite similar.
Response 2: I think I need to first address the underlying assumption that there is an ability to “recognize” a supernatural event. Most atheists (nearly every single one) was raised in a family with some sort of religious belief. So, as far as being able to recognize categories of “supernatural,” well my guess is that most atheists are as capable of as believers in the ability to recognize when certain events would fall within the traditional “supernatural” labels.
But beyond that, I think that when at least some believers make statements like this, part of the issue arises from the assumption that atheists somehow are lacking an important “Sense” such as a visual sense for photons or an auditory sense by which to recognize sound waves. Atheists would seem, perhaps, to lack the sensory ability that recognizes the presence of the supernatural.
It may well be that some atheists simply lack a sense of wonder, awe or astonishment (or whatever you want to call it) in the face of the inexplicable. But my experience, and what I have heard from other atheists, is that whatever overpowering spiritual experiences they encountered while still believers continued even after they ceased to believe. The exact same sense of a spiritual experience can be evoked by any number of sources.
For me, art, nature, and music can elicit these feelings with some regularity. For some it comes from psychoactive substances, fasting, or meditation. But the most intense spiritual sensations, for me, arise from contemplating and attempting to understand and solve quantum mechanics problems (at my own utterly inadequate level of understanding.) I can’t tell you how many particle physicists I have talked to who, in hushed tones, blurt out that they just got back from the lab and… and… it was a moving spiritual experience. Again. Particle physics is nearly incomprehensible. It reveals so much, yet intimates that there is much, much more. It opens the possibility of understanding something incredible yet the real answers remain tantalizingly over the next hurdle.
Hey, I’m no physicist but this stuff really gets to me. Feels kinda metaphysical.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
97I agree with Eliza here, if the cadavers in the classroom I teach in were to sit up or walk around, I would probably leap to a metaphysical solution first.
Siamang’s points above (whales with legs and no dinos in La Brea) are both great valid points showing easy ways in which evolution and an old earth are ideas that are fairly easily supported. Whales should not have hindlimbs unless they were once terrestrial, and La Brea should have dinosaur bones if all sediments were created in one great big flood event.
Heck, so should the Mammoth Site near Hot Springs SD. That’s a great big pit in the ground which trapped a whole lot of Pleistocene mammals but somehow no dinosaurs. …it’s almost as if dinosaurs died off millions of years before this locality began collecting fossils.
Also I’m paying 70 bucks a month for an internet connection that’s been gorram broken for the last few days. Bah.
Comment by: NCxian
98When I was 7 or 8, somebody thoughtfully informed me that sometimes dead bodies moved involuntarily after death. I had already seen froglegs jumping around in a frying pan, so I took them quiet literally. Every time I heard of somebody nearby dying, I was afraid to look out the window for fear that some”body” would be twitching its way down the road to my house! I can still see in my mind the vision of one particular person coming that I had at that time. (What a waste of brain cells! Why can’t you choose what to get rid of up there?)
Comment by: Mike O
99I fell into an open grave when I was 4. You know, that probably explains a LOT!
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
100Yikes Mike…did you know what it was at the time or did you just think you fell in some sort of hole?
Comment by: Mike O
101No, I knew. My best friend lived next door to the cemetary, and our moms were having coffee and we weren’t supposed to be out there, but we were screwing around by the graves and I fell in.
But I don’t think about that never no more!
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
102Mike O wrote:
I can tell ;-)