Argument against evolution

[LogicalFallacy]

While discussing various subjects with a person on youtube I got hit with the following and didn't have the requisite knowledge to adequately answer so had to bow out with an I don't know.

 

The person suggests at the bottom of the argument that nothing in the geologic or fossil record debunks the the idea of common design over a series of (separate) creative events. Separate is my word as that's what they seem to be getting at. Prior to this statement they launched into a rather wordy explanation of why they didn't think the modern theory of evolution holds water. A major point is that evolution and abiogenesis are mathematical and engineering monstrosities. I have no idea what they are getting at, however we can safely leave abiogenesis out of this as evolution will stand or fall on its own regardless of a creator sparking off life, or abiogenesis occurring. Their argument below:

 

Quote

 

Adaptive radiation is observable; the Neo-Darwinian extrapolation of an branching, transmutational speciation from a common ancestry is not and cannot be observed. It's no more demonstrable than abiogenesis! Neither abiogenesis (chemical evolution) nor Neo-Darwinism proper (biological evolution) are true. They are mathematical and engineering monstrosities. Utter myths. You don't believe that the Neo-Darwinian extrapolation is true because it's observable or demonstrable. You believe it's true because you believe that the metaphysical presupposition of naturalism, your religion, is true and, thus, circularly interpret the available empirical data accordingly. It seems that your parents failed to explain the actual substance of your myth. I won't make that mistake.

Scientists beg the question as they interpret the available data per the metaphysical presupposition of methodological naturalism wherein ontological naturalism serves as a regulative principle, as opposed to those who note that abiogenesis and evolution are mathematical and engineering monstrosities, unobservable, indemonstrable, not supported by the pertinent research and the fossil record, and, therefore, do not believe that all of biological history can possibly be an unbroken chain of natural cause and effect, don't you?

There is nothing mutually exclusive about the prevailing laws of physics that govern the natural realm of being and its divine origin, including that of its various lifeforms. Matrix?! What are you talking about? The metaphysical presupposition of a methodological naturalism wherein ontological naturalism serves as a regulative principle necessarily yields a methodology for science that presupposes the indemonstrable extrapolation of Neo-Darwinism. That's your error, your self-imposed delusion. In the meantime, there is absolutely nothing about the available empirical data that overthrows a biological history of a series of creative events entailing the design of new and discrete lifeforms over geological time whose origins are that of a common design, not that of a common ancestry.

 

Thoughts?

 

(Apart from word salad)

 

[mwc]

     Someone likes to use fancy words to sound extra smart.

 

     As I read it we (everything?) is just a series of creations?  So at all the various steps along the way there was a unique set of creations who lived, populated the planet and perhaps died off.  At some critical point (as I'm imagining it...it seems whenever the last creations were in dire straights) another set of unique creations were added to the mix and so on and so on.

 

     There is no way to test for this.  There's no way to predict anything and no way to falsify it.  So it's not really a scientific theory.  But since folks don't like to accept evolution as a scientific theory then we could say it is perfectly valid.  There's no way to disprove it.  Well, I guess if we were to force a critical point so that nearly everything became extinct, including ourselves, we may actually witness a new creation event but what qualifies as a new creation event?  Does this mean the emergence of new things (or the adaptation of old things into "new" things) or the sudden and unexpected appearance of entirely new and previously unseen things?  This is a pretty radical test.

 

     It seems strange that this is what might happen in small, controlled, ecosystems, like laboratories with flies and mice for example.  I would think the researched would be surprised by the sudden creation of a species.  Although I think that this person likely allows for evolution on these scales.  Its "macro" evolution they take issue with.

 

          mwc

 

[midniterider]

8 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

While discussing various subjects with a person on youtube I got hit with the following and didn't have the requisite knowledge to adequately answer so had to bow out with an I don't know.

 

The person suggests at the bottom of the argument that nothing in the geologic or fossil record debunks the the idea of common design over a series of (separate) creative events. Separate is my word as that's what they seem to be getting at. Prior to this statement they launched into a rather wordy explanation of why they didn't think the modern theory of evolution holds water. A major point is that evolution and abiogenesis are mathematical and engineering monstrosities. I have no idea what they are getting at, however we can safely leave abiogenesis out of this as evolution will stand or fall on its own regardless of a creator sparking off life, or abiogenesis occurring. Their argument below:

 

Thoughts?

 

(Apart from word salad)

 

Reply:

 

Speaking of self-imposed delusion: Jebus Christ

Speaking of unobservable and indemonstrable: Jebus Christ

 

 

 

 

[TruthSeeker0]

Yeah, this a load of fancy words, which some people think will be effective in intimidating and silencing people. He's  basically telling you that you're biased, therefore you're wrong. I don't know anything about engineering and little about mathematics, but I'll quote you the engineering related discussion in Evolving out of Eden, where Ed Suominen, an engineer, discusses how his engineering background convinced him that evolution was true, thus setting him on a path out of the church:

[pantheory]

On 11/30/2018 at 12:21 AM, LogicalFallacy said:

While discussing various subjects with a person on youtube I got hit with the following and didn't have the requisite knowledge to adequately answer so had to bow out with an I don't know.

 

The person suggests at the bottom of the argument that nothing in the geologic or fossil record debunks the the idea of common design over a series of (separate) creative events. Separate is my word as that's what they seem to be getting at. Prior to this statement they launched into a rather wordy explanation of why they didn't think the modern theory of evolution holds water. A major point is that evolution and abiogenesis are mathematical and engineering monstrosities. I have no idea what they are getting at, however we can safely leave abiogenesis out of this as evolution will stand or fall on its own regardless of a creator sparking off life, or abiogenesis occurring. Their argument below:

 

Thoughts?

 

(Apart from word salad)

 

 

Howdy LF,

 

To your lasting credit you said I don't know. That's what smart people say when they can't think of an answer that is likely valid.

 

your quote:

"......that nothing in the geologic or fossil record debunks the the idea of common design over a series of (separate) creative events."

 

Whoever argues this is correct. There are many unclear and missing links to the theory of evolution, but there are a great many obvious, some less certain but probable, and some more speculative missing-link plant-and-animal proposals that are sometimes asserted to be more than speculation, even though that's all they really are. It is the old bogus transparent argument of the "god of the gaps." Whenever one does not have a clear explanation to explain missing parts of the puzzle etc.,  god is invoked. The god of lightning, the god of war, god of love, god of the forests and woods, god of unknown animals, god of the netherworld, the Abrahamic god, a supernatural intervening god of some kind, etc.

 

Bottom line, their argument against evolution is obviously bogus. Yes, it's possible, but scientists like me would give odds of a million to one (just to be kind), that such god proposals are solely based upon ignorance.

 

your quote:

"A major point is that evolution and abiogenesis are mathematical and engineering monstrosities."

 

You are right in that evolution does not include abiogenisis (It is a separate theory(s)), and is also unrelated. Biological evolution has no basis in mathematics or physics concerning its foundation. It is a theory of logic with mountains of evidence to back it up.  Many creationists confuse cosmology with evolution because the Big Bang model proposes cosmic evolution of some kind. Of course cosmology has nothing to do with biological evolution, natural selection, or Darwin. it is a totally separate theory about a totally different subject.

 

Hopefully this information may help

 

 

[disillusioned]

That second to last paragraph (though it pains me to call it such) is something else. I literally had no idea it was a question until I hit the end punctuation. 

 

This person is clearly trying very hard to sound smart,  and failing. I'm a big fan of allowing people their delusions. Personally,  I'd just move on. It's difficult to reason with such people. 

 

One thing I will say though: if I read it correctly,  there is the assertion that science begs the question, since it starts from the assumption of methodological naturalism. Science does employ methodological naturalism,  but there is no question-begging. Evolution is not a theory which attempts to justify methodological naturalism. It's a theory that explains the diversity of life that we see via methodological naturalism. This is an important distinction.

 

Now, we are certainly justified in asking whether methodological naturalism is a good approach to take, but that's a different question entirely. It seems fairly obvious to me that science works better than anything else we have when it comes to investigating scientific questions. As such, the assertion that its underlying assumptions are flawed requires some justifying. But set that aside. What is assumed by methodological naturalism, really? The scientist assumes that the natural world exists, and does not assume that anything beyond the natural world exists. As such,  the explanations offered by science concern only elements of the natural world. Note, though,  that the scientist does not assume that nothing beyond the natural world exists. Such things,  if they do exist, are simply not considered by science. Once this is understood,  it seems quite clear to me that this approach is reasonable. Does the natural world exist? That is literally all that is being assumed. This seems to me to render the objection that the assumptions of science are flawed rather silly.

[Wertbag]

The usual way people get to the idea that abiogenesis is a mathematical problem is failing to consider the vast length of times. Sure the single event can be incredibly rare, but if you have the potential causes of life running in parallel, in hundreds of different sites around the planet, then repeat those circumstances for 300 million years, its more akin to buying a million lotto tickets each draw. 

 

I'm also surprised by the line that the theories are not supported by the fossil record. A ordered and layered fossil record is exactly what we would expect to see and the complete opposite of what creation should show. 

[Joshpantera]

On 11/30/2018 at 12:03 PM, midniterider said:

Reply:

 

Speaking of self-imposed delusion: Jebus Christ

Speaking of unobservable and indemonstrable: Jebus Christ

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of religion: Jebus Christ

Speaking of myth: Jebus Christ

 

On 11/30/2018 at 3:21 AM, LogicalFallacy said:

You believe it's true because you believe that the metaphysical presupposition of naturalism, your religion, is true and, thus, circularly interpret the available empirical data accordingly. It seems that your parents failed to explain the actual substance of your myth. I won't make that mistake.

 

The non-scientific theory of Abio-Jebusis......

[Joshpantera]

On 11/30/2018 at 3:21 AM, LogicalFallacy said:

I have no idea what they are getting at, however we can safely leave abiogenesis out of this as evolution will stand or fall on its own regardless of a creator sparking off life, or abiogenesis occurring. Their argument below:

 

Meanwhile:

 

 

[Insightful]

I would direct this person to the website "29+ evidences for macro evolution" by Douglas Theobald, Ph.D.

 

I've got an M.S. in biochemistry (which I obtained as a believer in special creation) and I think his site is pretty irrefutable.

 

I had to read it fully twice (it's the length of a book) to wrap my head around it...

 

The most stunning sections to me were:

 

1. Endogenous retroviruses (pretty much the smoking gun)

 

2.  Redundant pseudogenes

 

3.  Similarities of phylogenic trees constructed from numerous  independent features.

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

[freshstart]

On 11/30/2018 at 12:03 PM, midniterider said:

Speaking of self-imposed delusion: Jebus Christ

Speaking of unobservable and indemonstrable: Jebus Christ 

Amen! Interesting how Christians see evolution as an outlandish theory, but they do not apply the same scrutiny to all the crazy shit in the bible. 

[Justus]

Do you mean like when the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hasten not to got down for a whole day?  

 

So where do you think the sun is located within the universe?   

 

If in the midst, or middle of the expanse which some called heaven and others call space, if  it stood still then it wouldn't be walking, so why would anyone think it moves from its place?   But then again if the two great lights, Day and Night were set in the firmament that covers the earth , then if anyone would think the  sun and the moon were in our atmosphere then maybe the crazy fecal matter isn't in the Bible but inside those who are already full of it.? 

 

But of course, it must be what a person reads that fills them full of the fecal matter, so be careful what you read since it might be some crazy shit 

 

 

[disillusioned]

Dafuq?

[R. S. Martin]

On 11/30/2018 at 3:21 AM, LogicalFallacy said:

While discussing various subjects with a person on youtube I got hit with the following and didn't have the requisite knowledge to adequately answer so had to bow out with an I don't know.

 

The person suggests at the bottom of the argument that nothing in the geologic or fossil record debunks the the idea of common design over a series of (separate) creative events. Separate is my word as that's what they seem to be getting at. Prior to this statement they launched into a rather wordy explanation of why they didn't think the modern theory of evolution holds water. A major point is that evolution and abiogenesis are mathematical and engineering monstrosities. I have no idea what they are getting at, however we can safely leave abiogenesis out of this as evolution will stand or fall on its own regardless of a creator sparking off life, or abiogenesis occurring. Their argument below:

 

Thoughts?

 

(Apart from word salad)

 

First of all, those paragraphs are not word salad as defined by Google, i.e. a "mixture of random words and phrases." They are intelligently strung together to make an argument, albeit using language normally not encountered outside doctoral dissertations and the like. It's an argument I've seen many a time when on William Lane Craig's forums. I'm guessing the author is one of those students who went on to get a PhD in science for the specific reason of debunking evolution. I know people were doing it. On Craig's forums, the argument was expressed in ordinary English. 

 

It's been quite a few years since I was on there, and it seems they have made the argument more sophisticated to sound more scientific. High brow words don't make it scientific, however, anymore than arguing in a language no one understands makes you right.

 

Others have addressed the actual argument. I tried "translating" it but it delves too deeply in ontological philosophy and Intelligent Design theory. Intelligent Design theory I can handle--or could the way it was expressed years ago, but not the Ontological Argument of philosophy. I tried learning it in a philosophy course but never could get my head around it. It seems to have something to do with proof of God's existence as it related to reality and/or being. I'll leave it alone.

[LogicalFallacy]

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 2:08 PM, R. S. Martin said:

First of all, those paragraphs are not word salad as defined by Google, i.e. a "mixture of random words and phrases." They are intelligently strung together to make an argument, albeit using language normally not encountered outside doctoral dissertations and the like. It's an argument I've seen many a time when on William Lane Craig's forums. I'm guessing the author is one of those students who went on to get a PhD in science for the specific reason of debunking evolution. I know people were doing it. On Craig's forums, the argument was expressed in ordinary English. 

 

It's been quite a few years since I was on there, and it seems they have made the argument more sophisticated to sound more scientific. High brow words don't make it scientific, however, anymore than arguing in a language no one understands makes you right.

 

Others have addressed the actual argument. I tried "translating" it but it delves too deeply in ontological philosophy and Intelligent Design theory. Intelligent Design theory I can handle--or could the way it was expressed years ago, but not the Ontological Argument of philosophy. I tried learning it in a philosophy course but never could get my head around it. It seems to have something to do with proof of God's existence as it related to reality and/or being. I'll leave it alone.

 

I meant I did not want members here to simply reply "word salad" which often hides the fact you have no decent argument against the points being made, or don't understand the argument,

 

Re your last line, you are right, it does attempt to do that using philosophy. The problem is, no matter how good a philosophical argument, if it isn't supported in reality it's nothing more than a good philosophical argument and that's where I think theists are at. Many of them don't even attempt to 'prove' gods existence, instead resorting to that god is a necessarily existent being stemming from ontological and cosmological arguments.

[R. S. Martin]

Thanks for explaining about "word salad." 

 

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I meant I did not want members here to simply reply "word salad" which often hides the fact you have no decent argument against the points being made, or don't understand the argument,

 

Thanks for explaining. That makes a lot of sense.

 

Quote

Many of them don't even attempt to 'prove' gods existence, instead resorting to that god is a necessarily existent being stemming from ontological and cosmological arguments.

 

I never thought to put it that way. I wanted to believe humans with brains and education were better than that. But what you say agrees with the arguments I've seen on William Lane Craig's forums. It's really sad.

[Myrkhoos]

Hmm this makes me want to delve deeper into this theory. I am an agnostic on this, have read some christian material though. The problems i see with it is arranging facts to fit the theory. We all have that bias so I shoul research more on the subject. Generally I do not have much attachement to big scientific theories of explanation of such large events. There can be a lot of confusion dealing with extremely complex systems. One tiny thing can change everything. Anyway, the christian author I read said change in a species was accepted and clear with the naked eye, but from to other was not. Like a fish into a bird. And that evolution this is just creative thinking. Like you see a monkey skeleton, a human one and than jump into conclusions. Actually he said, in all honesty, that science cannot prove or disprove either evolution or inteligent design, the origins of kife and the world is a matter of faith and revelation. And I repeat we all have biases. We need biases actually to navigate a complicated world. They do backfire on us but they are necessary in certain areas of life. You cannot have all of the data all of the time so you need shortcuts. Scientists are not immune to them, they can even rationalise them better. Like super intelligent people with mental ilness are harder to treat sometimes because they can make sopbisticated rationalisations for their issues.  

[LogicalFallacy]

38 minutes ago, Myrkhoos said:

Hmm this makes me want to delve deeper into this theory. I am an agnostic on this, have read some christian material though. The problems i see with it is arranging facts to fit the theory. We all have that bias so I shoul research more on the subject. Generally I do not have much attachement to big scientific theories of explanation of such large events. There can be a lot of confusion dealing with extremely complex systems. One tiny thing can change everything. Anyway, the christian author I read said change in a species was accepted and clear with the naked eye, but from to other was not. Like a fish into a bird. And that evolution this is just creative thinking. Like you see a monkey skeleton, a human one and than jump into conclusions. Actually he said, in all honesty, that science cannot prove or disprove either evolution or inteligent design, the origins of kife and the world is a matter of faith and revelation. And I repeat we all have biases. We need biases actually to navigate a complicated world. They do backfire on us but they are necessary in certain areas of life. You cannot have all of the data all of the time so you need shortcuts. Scientists are not immune to them, they can even rationalise them better. Like super intelligent people with mental ilness are harder to treat sometimes because they can make sopbisticated rationalisations for their issues.  

 

Science proves nothing and doesn't attempt to unless its in the realm of mathematical proof.

 

For example you probably have no issue with a spherical heliocentric earth or gravity and yet science hasn't "proven" them. What is does is come up with the best explanation of observed facts. Evolution is a fact. Very few people have trouble acknowledging that we can evolve animals and plants to suit our purpose in a fairly short time. We call it artificial selection, but it's simply taking evolution and directing it somewhat. However people seem to get caught up on two things: time scales and this idea of fish into bird and people think of FISH. (Full stop) and BIRD (full stop) and can't figure out how one gets from A to B. The easy way I found to think about this after listening to a lecture is to stop thinking in terms of a missing link or a 'transitional species'. Every life form on the planet is a transition between the ones before it and the ones after, often known as parents and offspring. Each individual in a population is ever so slightly different from it's predecessor. Over the millions of years these small changes add up until one day you go oh look, a bird, a fish. Well how did that happen? Think in terms of not one big change, but billions of small ones over eons. (Note I'm not an expert on this subject, this is a layman explanation I find useful. If it's wrong hopefully one of our members who are in the field can correct me.)

 

Regarding the monkey skeleton to human skeleton and 'jumping to conclusions'. You seem unaware of the vast amount of evidence there is - not just numerous fossils, but DNA as well.

 

@TheRedneckProfessor posted a link to human evolution a week or so ago. Perhaps he can link it here for your perusal?

 

Here's a couple to start you off:

 

http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution 

 

https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Evolution is not nearly as complicated as people want to make it.  Usually, the "complications" arise through people not understanding what evolution means.  Evolution does not purport to answer how life came to exist, how the universe began, or how monkeys became people.

 

Evolution simply explains the variety of species we observe in nature.  Speciation Through Natural Selection.  Descent with modification.  This, and nothing more.

 

Imagine a colony of spotted river newts living along the river in a forest area.  Against the backdrop of tree bark and pebbles, their spots provide excellent camouflage.  But the colony becomes too large, and a group of them breaks off and swims downstream.  They go over a waterfall and down some rocky rapids. 

 

Eventually, they find themselves in a lowland grassy area.  Now, the spots that provided them such excellent camouflage in the forest are particularly conspicuous against the backdrop of tall grass, allowing them to be easily seen by kestrels and other predators.  Some of the newts, though, have slightly elongated spots; and they blend in with the environment a little better.  They survive long enough to mate, and so pass on the gene for elongated spots to the next generation.  Over time, with each successive generation, the gene for elongated stripes is passed on, and enhanced through genetic variation, until, eventually, it becomes a gene for stripes.  Now we have a new species of striped river newts, related to, but distinct from, their spotted cousins.

 

That's really all evolution is.

[disillusioned]

Prof, the above is good,  and not in dispute from me.  Or, really,  from Christians,  for that matter.  But creationists will say that this is microevolution. They're still newts. Call me when you see a crockoduck, etc, etc.

 

This is, of course, a silly objection,  because small changes can, and do,  add up to big changes over time. But still, the objection is raised.

 

Here's a fantastic resource which presents and discusses evidence specifically for macroevolution, for anyone who's interested. 

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

[TheRedneckProfessor]

38 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

Call me when you see a crockoduck,

https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/11/6136443/the-largest-predatory-dinosaur-ever-was-half-duck-half-crocodile

[disillusioned]

^^^can't make this shit up^^^

[wellnamed]

Well played IMO

[TruthSeeker0]

On 1/22/2019 at 6:07 AM, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Evolution is not nearly as complicated as people want to make it.  Usually, the "complications" arise through people not understanding what evolution means.  Evolution does not purport to answer how life came to exist, how the universe began, or how monkeys became people.

 

Evolution simply explains the variety of species we observe in nature.  Speciation Through Natural Selection.  Descent with modification.  This, and nothing more.

 

Imagine a colony of spotted river newts living along the river in a forest area.  Against the backdrop of tree bark and pebbles, their spots provide excellent camouflage.  But the colony becomes too large, and a group of them breaks off and swims downstream.  They go over a waterfall and down some rocky rapids. 

 

Eventually, they find themselves in a lowland grassy area.  Now, the spots that provided them such excellent camouflage in the forest are particularly conspicuous against the backdrop of tall grass, allowing them to be easily seen by kestrels and other predators.  Some of the newts, though, have slightly elongated spots; and they blend in with the environment a little better.  They survive long enough to mate, and so pass on the gene for elongated spots to the next generation.  Over time, with each successive generation, the gene for elongated stripes is passed on, and enhanced through genetic variation, until, eventually, it becomes a gene for stripes.  Now we have a new species of striped river newts, related to, but distinct from, their spotted cousins.

 

That's really all evolution is.

All you really need is a simple example. A lizard that lives in a rock environment and is a color that blends into the rock stands a much better chance of surviving and reproducing than a lizard that stands out from the rock. Over time the number of rock colored lizards increase. And the adaption can continue in any other way, such as claws, eyes, scales, or any other feature that increases the chance of survival. If you can understand that well then in a nutshell you understand evolution- it's incremental adaptation and change.