Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?
Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.
But not all of them.
On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”
Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.
This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.
Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.
This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.
Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.
Anybody seen allmendream?..... looks like he took a powder.
This is the 2nd time he’s done that with me. He’ll talk in generalities but when you ask specific questions he goes into the witness protection program.
If you’re out there, allmendream.... still looking for answers on Post #254.
Ignorance is a bottomless well. If I answered your argument from ignorance on this point you would no doubt move on to multi-cellular life - abiogenesis- or any other number of subjects you can make an argument from ignorance about.
Moreover your argument sets up the ludicrous straw man of a host of giraffes dropping dead.
Additionally you are engaged in the fallacy that because something might be hard to understand or difficult to accomplish that therefore by default - God must have done it. That is a “god of the gaps” argument.
An argument from ignorance. A shoddy straw man construction. And a “god of the gaps” default assumption! What a mess of illogical thinking! And you think it is MY responsibility to set you straight?
No wonder creationists are below average in educational attainment!
Who?????
Nice Bluster there, allmendream.
Good job of creating a smoke screen so you don’t have to answer the questions.
I made no such “God of the Gaps” argument.... I merely posed a few questions.....but it sure looks like you’re making a “Darwin in the Gaps” argument.
I hope the moderator doesn’t throw you out for this.... you’re too entertaining.
Still waiting for answers instead of insults.
Darwin's theory explains the mechanism whereby such adaptive features can be accomplished.
Your formulation is that if it seems difficult then it must have been some sort of miracle by God.
What mechanism do YOU think accounts for the features a giraffe has?
God?
If not God then what physical mechanism would explain it?
Still waiting for an answer instead of your pitiful attempt at appearing aggrieved.
Would the difference between a mouse and a rat be a “micro” or a “macro” change?
I came into this thread asking a question that has, hundreds of posts later, gone entirely unanswered.
What mechanism would explain the derivation of all modern species from those few species that could fit on a boat of known dimensions within the last few thousand years?
Wouldn't that be speciation and evolution at a rate many thousands of times faster than ever predicted by an evolutionary biologist?
How would such changes in species NOT be described as evolution - as defined by biologists?
Care to answer the questions? Or are you going to chicken out like every other creationist on this thread?
It seems he is right here . . . but not ready to answer the call.
Thanks mom, for the beep.
***Care to answer the questions? Or are you going to chicken out like every other creationist on this thread?***
Funny how you call all the creationists on this thread chickens for not answering questions while at the same time refusing to answer questions. If the feathers fit, wear them.
I will be most happy to answer your questions. Before I do that..... I respectfully ask for the answers to mine.
“Ultimately, a combination of natural history, embryology, and paleobiology will be needed to fully understand the unique anatomy of giraffes. This is not something which will be accomplished in a year or even ten, but will take the persistent investigations of many researchers working across a variety of scientific disciplines. For the moment, the question of “How did the giraffe get its long neck?” must be answered with “We do not yet know”, but that is as it should be. It is better to admit that we are still unraveling a mystery than to dogmatically assert that all is solved and that all the uncharted places on the evolutionary map have been filled in.”
On to your next argument from ignorance?
Before we knew of nuclear fusion there was no known mechanism for the Sun to produce the amount of energy it produces and has produced. While the creationist impulse may be to try to claim that ‘Goddidit’ based upon their argument from ignorance - the scientist only had to wait until nuclear fusion was discovered and it became clear.
That is why proposing physical means to explain physical phenomena is a productive endeavor that has produced a wealth of useful knowledge and application - while proposing supernatural means to explain physical phenomena (the creationist method) has produced nothing of use in terms of knowledge or application.
Science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
You tell us. You're the one mocking creationists as being a bunch of ignorant knuckle draggers.
You're the one continually appealing to the superior intellect and reasoning skills.
Bestow on us poor unwashed creationists your brilliant insight on the answers to these few simple questions schaef21 asked you. Tell us the mechanism by which this all came to be.
If s21 is claiming to not be making a “god of the gaps” argument - then he MUST be proposing a physical mechanism OTHER THAN a supernatural entity.
If his argument is that it was a supernatural entity that explains it - then it IS a “god of the gaps” argument.
Do you follow that? Would explaining it to you again help?
How do you know that God didn't set it up and jump start it? What ignited it in the first place? Where'd the matter come from?
What's holding the nucleus of the atom together in some cases and not others?
I think God did set it all up in the beginning. This is a matter of faith and belief - not theory and evidence.
So it is a miracle by God that determines what atoms stick together and which break apart?
Or is it an understandable and predictable application of a natural force that God set up to determine such things?
If you go by the first idea you have led yourself into the intellectual dead-end of creationism - leading nowhere - to no useful knowledge prediction or application.
If you go by the second idea (or even a more agnostic natural force that may or may not have been set up by God) you have set the groundwork to learn and discover more - leading to knowledge - and useful predictions and applications.
That is why science is of use, while creationism is useless.
How can you be so sure of the CAUSE?
Not whether the mechanism by which it operates can continue without intervention, but the actual cause of where it came from or how it started in the first place.
Presuming a *natural* cause is still presuming and is the realm of philosophy, not science. Science can maybe address the how, but not the why.
Presumptions based upon natural causation can lead to further discovery prediction and useful application.
Presumptions based upon supernatural causation lead nowhere in terms of further discovery prediction and useful application.
Science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
If you go by the second idea (or even a more agnostic natural force that may or may not have been set up by God) you have set the groundwork to learn and discover more - leading to knowledge - and useful predictions and applications.
Nice neat little system of rationalizations you have set up there. It allows you to believe on your terms and yet not put yourself in the category of those you disparage. It allows for you to mock and ridicule everyone else who doesn't agree with you.
It is an accurate summation of the progress of human scientific knowledge.
Proposing natural causes to explain physical phenomena has led to a wealth of discovery prediction and useful application.
Proposing supernatural causes to explain physical phenomena has a long long track record - and in that time it has done nothing and led nowhere in terms of discovery prediction and useful application.
Science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
It seems that regarding origins, whether reference to devine epistemology or chemical/physical episteme, that because, unlike the 'hard' sciences of chemistry, physics, and philosophical mathematics, origins, by definition fall under the category of historical science,...such as anthropology, historical geology, and archaeology. The prevalence of unobservables in such discliplines raise difficulties for those who are defenders of descent who would use unobservability as criteria to discredit the design advocates. And not only regarding origins, but regarding transitional forms, which can only be regarded as theoretical postulations which make possible evolutionary accounts of present day biological data. An unobservable designing agent could be similarly postulated as causal to explain features of life such as information and irreducible complexity. Similarly, neo-Darwinian mutational events, punctuationalisms rapid-branching events (Cambrium Period) are inherently unobservable and thus, at best, assessed inductively, not deductively, and thus you must know that it seems it makes these two inductively determined ( as opposed to methodology differentiation) could just as easily describe rational from decent or design. Each is equivalent with respect to testablility. By definition, origins theories must reconstruct unobservable causal events from present clues or evidences. But you must agree that emperic determinations are unavailable to both sides. The claim that life is the result of design created by an intelligent cause cannot be tested in the realm of science. Similarly origin determined by decent cannot be tested in the realm of science. Therefore, it is clear that neither decent nor design can be testable, as required by empirical observations. Thus it seems an equivalency is exposed when these two competing origins theories with regard to meet spedcific demarcation lines. If demand for empirical observavbility is a requirement of science, and testablility is required then which of these two, decent or design, is excluded as unscientific. If observability and testability are the sine quinon of science, then, does it not seem to you that both decent and design do not meet the requirements.
So, considering methodology, could you explain which method distinguishes science and nonscience? It seems what is important is not what whether a theory is scientific or whether it warranted truth.
Nice effort there allmendream.... but you didn’t really answer my question.
I didn’t ask you how the giraffe got it’s long neck. I asked how the giraffe could have evolved given the fact that its morphology demands that all four of the parts that I listed have to be present for the giraffe to survive. The point is that all four of the parts would have had to evolve at the exact same time.
I will however accept your answer which is apparently “we do not know yet”. I assume (since you haven’t tried to answer them) that your answer is the same for the questions I asked about sexual reproduction, chemicals learning to think and the placenta.
“I don’t know” is an acceptable answer. What is not acceptable is “I don’t know but I know you are wrong.” If you don’t know then how could you know that?
Just a few more comments for you and then I’ll answer the questions to which you demanded responses.
You said this:
***That is why proposing physical means to explain physical phenomena is a productive endeavor that has produced a wealth of useful knowledge and application - while proposing supernatural means to explain physical phenomena (the creationist method) has produced nothing of use in terms of knowledge or application.***
Since the theory of evolution wasn’t around until a little over 150 years ago and until then special creation was pretty much accepted by the scientific community....just how in the world did they produce such a wealth of useful knowledge and application?
***You are arguing that if something is difficult (i.e. the development of the adaptive features of a giraffe)then it must have been God that did it.***
I have said no such thing....I’ve not even mentioned God (although at some point I will). All I’ve done so far is to ask a few questions... believe me when I say that I can deluge you with a lot more questions for which you won’t have an answer.
***What mechanism do YOU think accounts for the features a giraffe has?****
Design.
*****Would the difference between a mouse and a rat be a “micro” or a “macro” change?****
Micro
****What mechanism would explain the derivation of all modern species from those few species that could fit on a boat of known dimensions within the last few thousand years?****
Variation was designed into each animal phylum. Way more than “a few species” can fit on a boat that has the capacity of 522 railroad cars.
****Wouldn’t that be speciation and evolution at a rate many thousands of times faster than ever predicted by an evolutionary biologist?****
Not if the variability is designed in.
****How would such changes in species NOT be described as evolution - as defined by biologists?****
That’s a canard, allmendream..... it’s pretty easy to recognize. They tell you that evolution is change... everybody can see change so they all accept evolution. Heck, by that definition I’m an evolutionist. The problem is that while they’re saying that our kids are being taught that we emerged out of a puddle of slime....that’s a little different than birds having different sized beaks.
You said this to metmom:
***I think God did set it all up in the beginning. This is a matter of faith and belief - not theory and evidence.***
Don’t you think that a God capable of “setting it all up” is also capable of design?
One last comment and one last question before you make your next ad hominem attack.....
Here’s the comment:
You need to realize at some point that you are making a circular argument. This is common among fervent believers in evolution. Belief in evolution comes first. All of the evidence is then examined in light of the fact that evolution is true. When you do that you are going to find (or invent) the answers that you want.
Here’s the question:
Why are you so angry?
Blessings allmendream..... you may now continue with your verbal abuse.
You mean “strawmanguy”?
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