Does Darwinism Equal "No God"?

Both Wilson and Watson do appear to believe that the theory of evolution leads to the conclusion that there is no designer who directly created the first life or who interfered with life chemistry to cause evolution.

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randman writes:These guys think that the evidence suggests no Designer, but imo, their opinion is assumption-based, not fact-based, whereas Behe is more fact-based.

Faith writes:That makes no sense though. If the sun shines from one position for a much longer period than normal, the day is lengthened.

randman writes:I don't know how in the world you can think that. That's not the point I have made, nor tried to make. The point I am making is quite simple, that these guys believe evolution leads to atheism, that this is their belief, not mine.

The significance of this is evos are always denying this is part of the way evolution is viewed, but these guys make it the central and most significant aspect of evolution.

It's refreshingly honest to hear them make that claim because I think it is the fundamental logic and motive behind the formation of evolutionary theory. Of course, that makes it more philosophical than empirically based science, but some of us have known that for a long time.

Once again, I have never remotely suggested anything like that. What's going on is you have a preconceived idea about where people are coming from...

You hear someone saying Darwinism leads to atheism when the point is that Darwinists believe that.

You "hear" someone says you can't believe in evolution and be a real Christian, but in reality I have never said that...

Now, you claim to be a Christian. Frankly, I think that's BS on your part, especially since you tend to assert that fact on science threads frequently.

I suggest you look at the Great Debate thread I had with nuggins where Richardson specifies as late as 1997, that scientists did rely on Haeckel's data for the claim of a phylotypic stage. It's OT here, but that point is well-established.

Behe writes:Well, the theory of evolution is widely used in science. It is, in many aspects, well substantiated. It's used by working scientists and any well-educated student should understand it.

randman writes:I am very familiar with the history of the idea of spontaneous generation...

A larger point I wanted to move to was to consider why they think this. From their comments, it appears they believed this because of the assertion that mutations are random...

These guys think that the evidence suggests no Designer, but imo, their opinion is assumption-based, not fact-based, whereas Behe is more fact-based.

Percy writes:I'm still curious how Worldbook's entry for spontaneous generation could have undergone such a significant revision when it moved online. I wonder what I would find if I trotted over to a neighbor's house who happens to have a 1990's edition of Worldbook and looked up spontaneous generation. Would it be consistent with your claims in Message 122? Hmmm.

Worldbook1999 writes:Spontaneous generation refers to the theory that certain forms of life, such as flies, worms, and mice, can develop directly from nonliving things, such as mud and decaying flesh. This theory dates to prehistoric times and was widely accepted for thousands of years. It was challenged by scientific experiments, such as those performed by the Italian biologist Francesco Redi in 1668. Redi demonstrated that maggots (the young of flies) did not appear in meat from which adult flies were excluded. Previously, many people had believed that flies developed from decaying meat.The theory of spontaneous generation was largely abandoned in the mid-1800's. By then, improvements in microscopes and other scientific instruments had enabled scientists to see the eggs and sperm of higher animals, the ovules (eggs) and pollen of plants, and bacteria and other microorganisms. For example, in the mid-1800's, the French scientist Louis Pasteur observed reproduction and growth in microorganisms. He demonstrated that the microorganisms would grow in sterilized broth only if the broth was first exposed to air that contained their spores (reproductive cells). Pasteur's discoveries led to the development of the cell theory of the origin of living matter. The cell theory states that all life originates from preexisting living material.Today, most scientists believe that spontaneous generation took place at least once--when certain chemicals came together to form the first simple living organism more than 3 billion years ago. This process is not thought to be occurring in nature today because conditions on the earth no longer favor such chemical combinations. In addition, any simple organisms that did form in this way would almost certainly fail to compete successfully against more complex existing organisms. However, laboratory experiments since the mid-1900's have showed that many molecules found in living organisms can be synthesized (produced artificially). Most biologists believe that it will eventually be possible to produce simple forms of life in the laboratory.Contributor: Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D., Prof. of Ecology and Evolution, Univ. of Chicago.

If the sun shines from one position for a much longer period than normal, the day is lengthened.

The basic problem with evolution is it is inconsistent with the facts,

randman in Message 122 writes:Wikapedia is hardly authoritative. In my encyclopedia here at home, WorldBook for my kids from the early 90s, Jerry Coyne of the university of Chicago, the author of the article, states that abiogenesis is spontaneous generation. That's what it is.So you are wrong there.

If the sun shines from one position for a much longer period than normal, the day is lengthened.

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Did I make an overassumption when I figured you understood the basic relationship of the sun and Earth?

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The sun is already stationary. The length of the day is caused by the Earth's rotation, not by the sun actually "moving" across the sky. Stopping the sun, as was done in the Bible, would have not changed the length of the day - only stopping the Earth's rotation would have done that. Yet the Bible is quite specific that the sun was stopped, not the Earth.

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However, the Biblical account fits the pre-Copernican idea that the Earth was stationary and the sun revolved around it. If such was the case, then stopping the sun would lengthen the day - however, we know that not to be the case. Thus the Bible was incorrect on that point.Do you understand?