Does Darwinism Equal "No God"?

Uhhhh... isn't that what I said from my first post to you? I didn't even wait for the transcript and just assumed you were correct.Ned and I think some others did as well, and certainly Percy was doing so (I thought it was pretty obvious) once he had the transcript.Why are you making things out to be worse than they are? From my first post I went into that very subject. Among some, not all. But then that is true for many people. The next important question is what does that mean for their scientific work? And the answer is pretty much nothing.Newton had many prejudicial, unscientific thoughts. They did not interfere with some of his greatest works. It is in the way that science is conducted and NOT the background beliefs which are important.And if you disagree with that then you are disagreeing with the entire ID movement. That is one of their mantras, and it is within the transcripts by ID proponents at the Dover trial.You showed to guys saying some incorrect things on a tv program, do you have any evidence that it is within their work? If you claim you do not need to, you slit the throat of ID at the same time. It is surprising that such large figures would, but that just goes to show people can have some mistaken ideas and so one cannot make Appeals to Authority.That is why it is a Fallacy which is not part of the scientific method.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What, your delete key stopped working? In addition to my earlier suggestions that you quote what you're replying to (which you actually did in Message 82) and stay focused on the topic (which you didn't), I think I should add the suggestion that you read a post all the way through before replying. No, Randman, I was not reluctantly agreeing. I started by pointing out the error in your OP that the discussion touched on the origin of life. It did not. In this you were wrong and I said so. You were the one who said to go back to your OP, so I did, and it turned out to be inaccurate. You were also wrong here in Message 82: The word "autonomously" was not used in this part of the discussion. You have misremembered. You are wrong. This is important because there's a whole subthread in this topic where you kept asserting they used the word "autonomously", often quoting it just as I did here, when they did not use the word. Here are more errors from Message 82: You are again wrong. How existing life forms change over time is evolution. How life originally came to exist is the origin of life. Within the science of biology, this distinction has been in place at least since Darwin, whose book was titled Origin of Species, not Origin of Life. If you look at the table of contents of Darwin's book you'll see that he never addresses the subject of the origin of life.That you somehow perceived Wilson and Watson as discussing the origin of life when the transcripts reveal they were not indicates that the confusion of evolution with abiogenesis originates with you. This is not a point on which biology has ever been confused, but it is a constant confusion within the Creationist mind.And in that same paragraph you've committed another error. "Spontaneous generation" as a serious scientific theory of the origin of life was disproven ages ago by Pasteur, among others. You are confusing spontaneous generation with abiogenesis.Getting back to your Message 84 that I'm replying to: There is nothing courageous about it. The transcripts are fairly clear in revealing that Wilson and Watson believe that the theory of evolution supports the conclusion that there is no designer.I think the reluctance of others to concede your assertion is that you're the only source of information of what was said, and your history of accuracy is poor. As the transcripts show, you were wrong that the discussion touched on the origin of life, and you were wrong when you thought you recalled they used the word "autonomously", but prior to seeing the transcripts how would anyone know if you were wrong and how you were wrong. The skepticism was less about whether some people reach atheistic conclusions from evolution and more about you as a source. No, you're not wrong, but open-ended topics are discouraged here. As AdminWounded said to you in Message 4 just before he promoted the topic: In other words, this thread is not a license for you to free range over the entire field of evolution. If you have specific objections to the theory or evidence behind evolution then propose them in new threads or discuss them in existing threads. This thread is about whether evolution leads to the conclusion that there is no designer.--Percy Fix minor grammatical errors. --PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 12-18-2005 12:06 PM

I usually never read threads on the "other" side of the forum, but I did read this one, and I think that you have a P.O.T.M. reply here, Percy! I particularly like this quote:Where people get the idea that the theory of evolution is a threat (or a counter-religion) to the origin of life is beyond me! Randman, if you are reading this, know that we do not intentially attack you personally, but, rather, continually and calmly point out the flaws in your logic. Perhaps we can all pause a moment here and remember the O.P. of this topic: It appears that your original premise is that many evolutionists (or other "questionable characters") DO this. Am I right or WRONG?
Of course, I can forgive you because you also said in Post#1 This message has been edited by Phat, 12-18-2005 07:50 AM

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Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Pensées (1670)We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart.
Pensées (1670)Heb 4:12-13-- For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Holy Spirit--speaking through the Apostle Paul

No one has questioned what their stance is, it's your personal interpretation of what that means that's in question.You titled the thread Does Darwinism Equal "No God"?The answer to that is a resounding, absolute and indisputable, No! The existance of the Clergy Project is absolute proof of that.And I am still waiting for you to answer the two question (think this is the fourth or fifth time now) from Message 11In case you forgot them here they are again.How does saying there is no designer assert atheism?Please provide the quote from the transcript where they said there was no creator.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thread titles must necessarily be brief, so it's probably better to take the thread's topic from the description in the OP. What Randman wanted to explore in this thread was whether "no God" is a legitimate conclusion from the theory of evolution. I think Wilson and Watson are fairly clear that they believe evolution implies something not too far removed from a position of "no Creator" (though whether this means "no God" cannot be concluded from the interview): Their answers to Rose's question about the irreconcilability of the theory of evolution with a divine creator (see transcript in Message 79) are consistent with this. Clearly this interview cannot be construed as a concise statement of Wilson and Watson's views on God, but what they said is very consistent with equating evolution to "no God", especially from a conservative Christian's perspective. This is the key ambiguity behind what Watson and Wilson were saying, and I think this is the point you're trying to get Randman to see. We can't know, simply because the interview didn't explore this area, if Watson and Wilson believe in a God who created a universe where life and evolution was possible, but not in a God who was the direct creator of life on Earth and the guider of the process of evolution.--Percy

Correct. That is the cux.I do not doubt for a second that Aethists belive there is no God and that they could well use the TOE as one of their basic supporting arguments.But...that is their opinion. There is also a large body of Christians that do believe there is a GOD and see no conflict with the TOE.It is not Darwanism that leads to the conclusion that there is no God.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The greasy hands comment shows biased, unobjective and emotional reasoning. Furthermore, I see God's principles in nature and everything as well. I think part of the problem is you relate anything that is spiritual as some sort of magic or something when the spiritual realm operates according to certain principles and laws as well, just as in nature.Take the ministry of Jesus Christ and his teachings. He clearly laid out specific spiritual principles for affecting the real world, principles such as believing, faith, sacrifice, etc,...When Jesus cursed the fig tree and his disciples were amazed, his response to them was that anyone could do the same thing if they operated in the same principles. It was not magic, but operating within well-defined principles he understood but most people do not.So when I refer to QM relating to spiritual principles, I am not doing anything differently than claiming classical mechanics relate to natural principles. It's all part of the real universe and in that sense can be called material, spiritual or whatever. It's not a God of gaps, but laying out of specific principles.This message has been edited by randman, 12-18-2005 02:00 PM

My thesis is that it goes a long ways to explaining the decidedly unscientific nature of much of how evolution has been presented from claiming the Biogenetic Law to Neaderthals as the ape-man to peppered moths as "evolution in action", etc, etc,...

Percy, if you have the transcripts, please post where the word autonomously was used, and if you do not, I will take what you say with a grain of salt.On abiogenesis, I respectfully disgree. First, it is spontaneous generation. That's just a fact, no matter how you dress it up. Secondly, it is interwoven with the whole common descent evo dogma. To pretend otherwise is to just play semantics, something evos are good at doing instead of relying on valid science alone for their arguments. I am not the one confused. I fully realize the typical evo arguments, one of which is to deny what these guys claim, namely the significance of Darwin is to claim there is no God, and I was not confused about their referring to evolution. At the same time, I believe the context and scope of their statements, referring to life forming independently, also includes in that same mentality, abiogenesis. Sure, you can say, well, they mean everything after that point, but if they held to something other than abiogenesis, their whole claim of No Designer as the significance of Darwin would be wholly wrong. So logically, in order to make their claims fit, it has to include how the first life form arose. If not, there is a Designer. My history of accuracy is excellent. The problem is among many of the evos here, their history of honesty is horrible. This thread is also about why prominent evos would claim it does lead to claims of no designer and no Creator. That's also what the thread is about, the underlying logic within evolution.

Then, prominent evos are completely and wholly wrong to claim life arose independently; that there is no Designer. Perhaps they get it from their leading professors, such as the guys in the OP. There is no flaw in my logic here. You cannot claim Darwin showed there is no designer if abiogenesis is not true. It's implicit in that statement.You cannot claim a Creator, Designer, whatever, exists, and claim in the same breathe that Darwin's significance is to show He does not exist. It's not my logic that is at fault here. It is the logic of 2 of the greatest evolutionist scientists of the past 100 years, according to Charlie Rose, maybe an understatement, but at the least they represent mainstream evolutionism, and THEY SAID, not me, that the significance of Darwin was not advancing common descent but the concept there is no Designer. It's pretty darn explicit. That't what THEY SAID; the significance of Darwin was, to assert no designer, and in the context of the whole discussion, it was pretty clear they meant no Creator, no God, that life's formation as independent of any divine guidance.

I think it shows that they don't feel evolution was planned for. They are taking this a step further by saying "independently" and claiming evolution is not the mechanism by which God or a Designer creates, and so, imo, that fits the definition for asserting atheism, at least in terms of an omnipotent God or an involved God or a God that merely used evolution as the means to create.I don't know how you can view it any other way. Now, maybe they believe in some sort of divine force or something, but regardless, the concept of a conscious, interested Creator planning for man's creation or formation via evolution or anything else is ruled out.

I think these 2 guys are asserting exactly that the significance of Darwinism is that there is no God (Designer). I am sure others come to atheist perspectives via other routes, but it's pretty clear that they are saying evolution is not God's method of creation in the interview.

Presented where exactly? In the research? In the conclusions from the research? Or is it just in how it gets discussed by some people?Presented covers a large area.Also I have not seen you flesh out your thesis by drawing a connection between what these men have said and anything else. That they have said X does not inherently support your thesis. It certainly doesn't hurt, but it doesn't complete the job by a long shot.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Okay. What's your point? They may well believe that.Who cares?It's their belief? Fine.What does that have to do with the topic of this thread?When will you answer th questions asked in Message 11 and that have been repeated numerous times throughout this thread?Why do you keep trying to change the subject?In case you have forgotten them, here they are yet again.How does saying there is no designer assert atheism?Please provide the quote from the transcript where they said there was no creator.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, I just use it as a counterpoint to the more usual watchmaker's scratches, or artist's brushstrokes. I regard anything that is spiritual as precisely that: spiritual... not physical.I understand your position and it makes perfect sense... except for one slight problem. There is zero evidence of the universe working this way. We have theories at both ends of the length scale spectrum that measure up to observation to incredible degrees of accuracy, without having to take any account of some form of spiritual interaction. One of these theories is probably out most advanced form of QM. I just do not see the spiritual realm connecting so blatently to the physical world.This is a new God of the Gaps, trying to find room in our physical theories for a spiritual connection. You have centred upon QM as the hiding place for this conncetion, yet its presence is not shown in any experiment ever carried out, nor in any theoretical work. You are free to hope that as the precision of our experiments grows, this presence will be revealed. But don't be too surprised if you find others hard to convince and yourself alone in this hope.