Time to Evolve from Evolution (Saturbray)

www.brayincandy.com ^ | 2/2/13 | bray

[OneWingedShark]

>Yes... but the problem is manufactured only by a philosophy that rejects God/gods; i.e. a purely materialistic worldview.
>
I don't see the problem because I believe in a God that is capable of creating life with the ability to evolve.

He is; but to apply evolution to humanity is to call Jesus a liar: see his affirmation of the special creation of mankind.

If the problem is only manufactured by a philosophy that rejects God, and you see the problem, that means you must subscribe to that philosophy that manufactures it.

Um no, that is the that consequence of the philosophy -- materialism -- that has co-opted evolution. This is the reason that in textbooks evolution is always the result of undirected, random mutation.

Much like the far-east martial arts movies/anime/manga where a character says "that stance!" and knows (a) the mindset/thought-process of his foe and commonly (b) how to counter it; because the martial-art is interwoven with a philosophy. (Jesus observed this: every disciple/student/apprentice is like his teacher when he is fully taught.)

This may or may not have been in the theory of evolution from its inception -- I've heard reports that Darwin was an anti-thiest as well as ones that claim he was looking for explaining the process of creating life [God used], as well as the story he regretted the development of the theory on his deathbed because of the damage it had done the Church -- but it is so utterly co-opted it that when one says "I'm an evolutionist" you can be fairly safe in assuming that they are materialists, rejecting a greater/non-physical power; OR that they are brainwashed/indoctrinated* -- the latter being very possible, just look at our school-system (it does not educate, it indoctrinates).

* This state includes "the unexamined life."

So, yes philosophy is quite entwined in the theory of evolution and the problem [of biogenesis] is resultant of that philosophy... but I am no materialist, and so it is not from my philosophy that the problem arises.

[stormer]

Geologic dating and the identification of various eras was done through the nature of the fossils commonly found in various strata. In the 17th century Cardinal Nicolaus Steno developed his Principles of Superposition that allowed for the relative dating of strata. As geology became more developed as a science, it was recognized that the processes of orogeny and erosion played a role in forming landscape, and by calculating the degree of of change, the Earth’s age was estimated. Even in the 19th century is was accepted that the Earth was well over a billion years old. With the development of various radiometic dating methods, more accurate and precise measurements were achieved.

[stormer]

As far as my statement about the least inadequate - one of the fundamentals of life is death. It is what recylces nutirents and is essential to the existance of other life. The fact is, a vast majority of organisms that have ever lived, are living now, or will ever live, will not live long enough to reproduce, and in many cases that outcome is based on nothing other than dumb luck. Life is a constant struggle, red by tooth and claw, and since the clearly inadequate are removed early from the gene pool and that the ecomnomy of nature only allows organisms to gain slight advantage, I stand by my statement.

[tacticalogic]

He is; but to apply evolution to humanity is to call Jesus a liar: see his affirmation of the special creation of mankind.

I understand. An interpretation of man being created in the image of God meaning God must physically look like we do.

[tacticalogic]

Two-way transfer of DNA information is not sexual reproduction. To be truly sexual reproduction there would have to be contribution of each to a new 'instance' the species.

Then it appears you're trying to disprove a scientific theory semantically. Good luck with that.

[OneWingedShark]

>>He is; but to apply evolution to humanity is to call Jesus a liar: see his affirmation of the special creation of mankind.
>
I understand. An interpretation of man being created in the image of God meaning God must physically look like we do.

Cop out: Well, Jesus looked human because he was human; Jesus is God, therefore God looks human.

More 'semantic'-ly though, there is the literal and the figurative for "image" -- a musical piece can be an 'image of' something (e.g. Vivaldi's four seasons), though there is no physical vision involved.

But more importantly is, I think, the consequence of something Jesus said. When asked whether it was lawful to pay taxes, Jesus requested one of the coins used to pay taxes and asked whose image was on it. "Caesar's." they reply, probably wondering what that had to do with the question.... and then Jesus answered with a statement that has impacted all of American history: "then render unto God what is God's and into Caesar what is Caesar's".

The above is clearly a separation of civil from spiritual, from which our "separation of church and state" comes, but moreover the ordering indicates that God is a higher authority whose obligations take precedent over the civil authority's. -- It goes the other way too though, if the coin bearing Caesar's image gives him authority over that money (and obligation to those that use it)... how much moreso do we gain guilt by marring that which bear's God's image?

[OneWingedShark]

Then it appears you're trying to disprove a scientific theory semantically.

No, I'm rejecting the evidence offered semantically. -- Biology has a specific definition for 'sexual' which includes sexual organs -- only multi-cellular organisms can, therefore, have a sex. Moreover, the bidirectional sharing of DNA is substantially different than sexual reproduction: bidirectional goes two-way, but sexual is the creation of another via two [or more? (I still haven't looked up tri-sexual to see if it's a real observed thing)] parents, that is, one directional.

[OneWingedShark]

Geologic dating and the identification of various eras was done through the nature of the fossils commonly found in various strata. In the 17th century Cardinal Nicolaus Steno developed his Principles of Superposition that allowed for the relative dating of strata.

But aren't there fossils which pass through a stratum's delineating line? (I seem to recall fossilized trees.) If the strata is the accumulation over a gradual period of time then it should be impossible for a fossil to cross the boundary of one to another, right?

[tacticalogic]

You are entitled to your opinion.

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to discuss theological differences in the Religion forum, as theology, instead of pretending it about "science"?

[tacticalogic]

Perhaps I’ve been misinformed then. Are you a biologist?

[stormer]

Absolutely. Discontinuities are common. This may be the product of reworking (erosion and redeposition of fossil material into sediments of a younger age), infiltration into older or younger material via dike or redeposition in caverns and voids, and condensation, where the sedimentation rate is low and fossils are mingled because the biostratigraphic beds are thin.

[stormer]

And my “Absolutely” applies to your first question, not your second.

[OneWingedShark]

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to discuss theological differences in the Religion forum, as theology, instead of pretending it about "science"?

Theology is a science, just as philosophy is -- personally I find both to be enjoyable.
Please don't fall into "The MBA Boss's Fallacy" -- which is what I call the "Philosophy! *Pfah* What good is a philosophy degree!"-reaction.
Philosophy degrees are right up there with mathematics for rigorous thinking and theology and therefore aren't anything to be dismissed so lightly.

How does this have to do with theology? Simple, all theologians engage in philosophy -- thought I believe this guy sums it up very nicely:

All theologians are philosophers, specializing under the categories of Metaphysics and/or Meta-ethics. Prior to the Age of Reason metaphysics received a high level of respect. Today's secularist attempts to throw the credibility of theistic reason to the garbage heap should not dissuade clear thinking theologians from entering into solid philosophical discussions. All philosophers enter debate with some metaphysical presupposition. One's concept of God biases all other categories of philosophy (epistemology, philosophy of science, etc.).

Link

In short, to call theology a non-science is very close to striking down both philosophy and mathematics (all three share, in common, that they deal with the unseen, the ideal, and absolutes).

[OneWingedShark]

And my “Absolutely” applies to your first question, not your second.

I figured; thanks for the info BTW.
I'm not a geologist, obviously... though there is something you said that casts doubt on dating methods: "(erosion and redeposition of fossil material into sediments of a younger age), infiltration into older or younger material"; if it is the case that the parent or daughter material can move in or out of their environment, then that means that dating via radioactive decay is compromised.

[OneWingedShark]

Perhaps I’ve been misinformed then. Are you a biologist?

No, but that one's obvious.
A man and a woman don't exchange DNA between themselves when they procreate, but contribute equally to the new baby -- it is this offspring has traits of the parents, the parents do not gain traits from each-other. -- And it is like this for all [bi-]sexual reproduction.

[stormer]

This is why radiometric dating may need to be performed on both the found object and the matrix in which it is found. For example, my house was built in 1960, if I open a dresser drawer and find a coin dating from 1905, does that mean that my house is older than I thought or that the date on the coin is wrong?

[Zeneta]

So, I went to all the links you cited, and unfortunately they are abstracts. Full access to the papers require either payment or permission.

From the abstracts however I’d like to make a few observations.

Virtually all of them use one or more “qualifiers”.

When I read “MAY HAVE” and “COULD HAVE”, in a scientific paper, red flags go up. In conjunction with “reconsider” and “reinterpretation” of what we previously thought, the conclusions of many papers now come into question.

When they use evolution to prove evolution such as this:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v264/n5587/abs/264620a0.html

The rise of atmospheric oxygen occurred long before the sudden appearance of multicellular eukaryotic organisms in the later Precambrian. Oxygen was necessary but not sufficient for the evolution of multicellular eukaryotes: the rise of modern aerobic eukaryotes (fungi, animals and plants) occurred in a fully oxygenic atmosphere only after the evolution in protists of microtubule-utilising processes (mitosis and meiosis).

This is not science.

It is speculation, wishful thinking combined with story telling.

[Wpin]

But, can you find the species as they developed into the Cambrian stage. My understanding is that for the most part all of a sudden (earths timeline) fully formed animals appeared. Darwin recognized the problem and supposedly saw it as a weakness to his theory on evolution. No one would disagree about evolution per say in terms of adaptation or mutation...but, I question the link of going from a cell or few to an animal...

[Zeneta]

This is a classic example of why I don't trust much of what is passed off as "evolutionary science".

Sorry, but I can only post this as an image.

The link is from "Stormer's list"

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00927018?LI=true

If you read "Look inside", you get what can only be described as a confession of ignorance.

Nevertheless, this paper comes to "conclusions" and it is those conclusions that are used to support future conclusions by other researchers.

Much like the "Tree of Life". It "needs" to be maintained to continue the narrative. If you removed the lines you'll get a lawn of grass. But the tree concept survives, both because it must and the geologic column supposedly supports it.

I know it's dated material.(this is what Stormer linked to)

Just read it.

A confession of ignorance.

[bray]

So is he basically saying, we don’t know what happened or when it happened but we think it happened the way we said it happened except some happened before we said it happened.

Is that about it?