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Author | Topic: Is Evolution a Radical Idea? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I don't think that evolution as such leads to abiogenesis. The fact that the first known life is among the simplest known is an essential consideration.
Given the usual ideas of evolutionism it contradicts the idea that there is a God who directly intervenes in a detectable fashion in the history of life. This cannot rule out interventions at other levels - either in the creation of the universe as argued for by some (e.g. the "fine-tuning" argument), nor in human history. Consider the history of life as we know it while remaining agnostic on evolution. Either it is the sort of thing God would produce or it is not. If it is then there is no problem with God permitting evolution to bring it about. If it is not then assuming that God directly intervened in that history only makes the problem worse. I conclude then that evolutionism is a relatively minor matter. The real problem is that many visions of God are inconsistent with the world as we know it regardless of evolution. It is hard to find anyone who believes in a God-concept which is decisively refuted by evolution. Either evolution is a minor problem which can be accomodated or there are worse problems to consider.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
True, we don't need it. But the germ theory of disease meant we don't need the idea that God sends plagues. Meteorology meant that we don't need the idea that God sends rain or lightning or hurricanes. Plate tectonics means that we don't need the idea that God sends volcanic eruptions or earthquakes or tsunamis.
Really just squeezing God out of one more area is hardly a devastating blow in itself. Surely the cumulative impact of science's success in explaining the natural world in all areas is the real issue - evolution is just a part of that.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I don't see that direct creation of humans is an essential issue, any more than direct creation of plagues or earthquakes or hurricanes is an essential issue. Creation of the universe may be such an issue, but that is well beyond the scope of evolution.
The success of science is a blow against supernaturalism, and against some concepts of God. I don't think that I would call it devastating, but obviously the whole has more effect than any one part (and if God were needed to explain any of the phenomenal I mentioned, then evolution would be far less of an issue)
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Then you need cosmology as well as evolution to get to your "evolutionism". Thus the idea that evolution alone leads to evolutionism is false.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
But the Big Bang and abiogenesis both represent limits to "things turning into something else". In the case of abiogenesis the requirements for biological evolution are absent - abiogenesis requires something else.
Likewise we do not know if anything preceded the Big Bang or if it is even meaningful to say that anything preceded the Big Bang. Your evolutionism would likely be happier with a Steady State universe which requires no beginning to the universe and can just happily continue with an infinite process of "things turning into something else". Evolutionism does not lead to the Big Bang, General Relativity, the observed expansion of the Universe, the Cosmic Microwave background. These are what lead to the Big Bang. And the man who first proposed it was a Catholic Priest.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: There are two thiings to consider here. Firstly there is the direct evidence which clearly accounts for the presence of your "theme" in the Big Bang and in the evolutionary history of life. Secondly there is the fact that ordered complexity does cry out for explanation, and any answer that doesn't ultimately lead to an infinite regress or question-begging is going to begin with simplicity - or at least a relatively unordered state (and I'd put the early universe more in the latter category than the former). So this "theme" is at least partly the result of our success in finding explanations.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: So you think that it was wrong to discover the role of germs in causing disease because it excluded God ? Do you think that we should rely on prayer instead of antibiotics or vaccinations ? Aren't you the slightest bit worried that you are arguing for ignorance ?
quote: No, that is not the theme at all. You really need to consider what you are delaying with accurately.
quote: Of course the same people who beleived in the old ideas of spontaneous generation beleived in God - It is even likely that many of them may beleived that Genesis was literally true. And it is only the pursuit of knowledge that you attack that lead to the falsification of those beliefs. It seems that you would be far happier with the old false ideas, than with the newer more promising ideas.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Why is it wrong to pursue knowledge of evolution if it happens to deny God's direct intervention but acceptable to pursue knowledge of disease which happens to deny God's direct intervention ?
quote:He hasn't said so in so many words. He didn't address how complexity arose from simplicity. And if he had, he would have been wrong, because it is not proposed that order being discussed arises solely from "random accident and chance". quote: Perhaps you can support the idea that it was "common" to cite the old ideas of spontaneous generation as evidence against the existence of God. I'm not aware of any examples. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I don't see how you can say that. Either "evolutionism" has an answer or the question is outside its scope. In the first case your argument is wrong in the second it is invalid. It is also wrong to say that theism has an especially rational answer. All theism can do is treat God as a brute fact. Anything evolutionism might propose is unlikely to be any worse.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Even if your characterisation is correct (and I don't think that it is - I would say that all the cosmologies currently proposed by scientists are compatible with evolutionism) that doesn't establish that theism is better.
quote: Well you're definitely wrong about the "atheistic approach", but your "theistic approach" is still worse. Your "external designer" is still "something" and thus you haven't actually offered an explanation. Of course you could extend your approach and assert that the best explanation for the "external designer"" was yet another "external designer" - and by your criteria you actually should. Any proposed designer would have to be more exquisitely ordered than our universe. So you don't offer an answer, and if you were you ought to be proposing an infinite regress of "external designers". So I have to say that on this basis theism is even less rational than the strawman you try to contrast it with.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I didn't ask what came "before" your "designer". Any more than you asked what came "before" our universe - and by your own reasoning there is no "before" that either. So if that is relevant - and you don't offer any reason to think it is - it applies equally to our universe.
And you still fail to understand that you are not answering the question. Your designer is "something". So you can't answer the question without saying why your designer exists - and without proposing another unexplained something. You really need to understand that what you have isn't rationality - it's rationalisations. And not very good ones at that. You're just looking for excuses to say you're right without really thinking about it. Which is why you miss all the obvious problems in what you're saying - because you aren't being rational.
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