Evidence for Evolution

[ken_sylvania]

Evolution doesn't imply that something is better, more developed, or improved. Simply that it is more adapted to its particular environment. Nor is there any plan or end point.

So, for example, if there is an ancestral bear species that spreads across North America you would expect those bear populations that habit the far arctic will evolve traits that make them more successful in that environment (white fur to better camouflage them when hunting seals on white ice sheets, wider paws which are better for swimming in artic seas, smaller heads which are better for penetrating seal blow holes, and longer sharper teeth as they are 100% carnivorous). Likewise, you would expect those bears that habit more temperate climates to develop (evolve) adaptations that make them more successful in those habitats (brown fur for better camouflage in mountains and forests, blunter teeth because they are more omnivorous, etc.)

Does that mean that polar bears are more evolved or more advanced or better than grizzly bears? Absolutely not. The two species have simply evolved differently in response to different selective influences. One is not better or more advanced than the other. And if we see a long period of global warming where the arctic is ice free then one would expect that polar bears will either adapt over time or be replaced by grizzly bears. Either one could happen. Likewise, if we saw a new ice age and glaciers once again covered north America then we would expect polar bears to expand and grizzly bears either adapt or be replaced.

Are humans a more advanced species than the single-celled organisms that people imagine were the first life forms to evolved from dead matter?

They are more complex. That's certainly true. But the term "advanced" is not a term you would use in this context in biology.

OK, let me reword then:

What eveolution asks us to believe, is that a random change can happen to the text of a book that will modify it in such a way that the modified version might be better suited to the taste of those who copy books. The randomly changed book will therefore be copied more often than the original. Rinse, repeat several million times, and behold, a college level textbook on treatment of traumatic brain injury (assuming that is what the copyists are finding to be the most useful book).

[Ken]

Are humans a more advanced species than the single-celled organisms that people imagine were the first life forms to evolved from dead matter?

They are more complex. That's certainly true. But the term "advanced" is not a term you would use in this context in biology.

OK, let me reword then:

What eveolution asks us to believe, is that a random change can happen to the text of a book that will modify it in such a way that the modified version might be better suited to the taste of those who copy books. The randomly changed book will therefore be copied more often than the original. Rinse, repeat several million times, and behold, a college level textbook on treatment of traumatic brain injury (assuming that is what the copyists are finding to be the most useful book).

Evolution isn't asking you to BELIEVE anything. Science isn't about belief and no scientist would actually say that they believe in evolution. What they would say is that given the constant process of change that we see all around us in the natural world, the theory of evolution by natural selection is the best and most comprehensive theory that explains the process of change. But scientists would be completely open to any new theories that BETTER explain biological change. If you were to propose a new and more powerful theory that better explains all the information we have, you'd be world famous and go down in scientific history along with Newton and Einstein.

Like I wrote upstream, the theory of evolution by natural selection is based on four propositions that work together.

1. That there is genetic variation within populations (via mutations and other mechanisms)
2. That genetic variation is inheritable
3. That there is a process of selection (natural selection or survival of the fittest) which preferences certain genetic traits over others.
4. That this process takes time (many generations) and doesn't happen to single individuals within a single or few generations.

That is the whole thing in a nutshell. If you want to challenge evolution you would start by challenging one of those four principles.

The whole process of selective breeding in agriculture or dog breeding or for any other domesticated plant or animal works exactly the same way as evolution except that it is humans who are doing the selection of traits rather than nature. In fact, selective breeding is evolution. It is just "evolution by artificial selection" rather than "evolution by natural selection"

[ken_sylvania]

They are more complex. That's certainly true. But the term "advanced" is not a term you would use in this context in biology.

OK, let me reword then:

What eveolution asks us to believe, is that a random change can happen to the text of a book that will modify it in such a way that the modified version might be better suited to the taste of those who copy books. The randomly changed book will therefore be copied more often than the original. Rinse, repeat several million times, and behold, a college level textbook on treatment of traumatic brain injury (assuming that is what the copyists are finding to be the most useful book).

Evolution isn't asking you to BELIEVE anything. Science isn't about belief and no scientist would actually say that they believe in evolution. What they would say is that given the constant process of change that we see all around us in the natural world, the theory of evolution by natural selection is the best and most comprehensive theory that explains the process of change. But scientists would be completely open to any new theories that BETTER explain biological change. If you were to propose a new and more powerful theory that better explains all the information we have, you'd be world famous and go down in scientific history along with Newton and Einstein.

Like I wrote upstream, the theory of evolution by natural selection is based on four propositions that work together.

1. That there is genetic variation within populations (via mutations and other mechanisms)
2. That genetic variation is inheritable
3. That there is a process of selection (natural selection or survival of the fittest) which preferences certain genetic traits over others.
4. That this process takes time (many generations) and doesn't happen to single individuals within a single or few generations.

That is the whole thing in a nutshell. If you want to challenge evolution you would start by challenging one of those four principles.

The whole process of selective breeding in agriculture or dog breeding or for any other domesticated plant or animal works exactly the same way as evolution except that it is humans who are doing the selection of traits rather than nature. In fact, selective breeding is evolution. It is just "evolution by artificial selection" rather than "evolution by natural selection"

What's this now? Scientists do not believe that evolution by natural selection is a cause of change in life forms? And you don't believe anything of what you've been posting?

[ken_sylvania]

Beliefe:
1. To consider to be true or honest
2. To accept the word or evidence of
3. To accept somethign as true, genuine or real
4. To hold as an opinion

[Ken]

I'm using the term "belief" as in accepting something as an article of faith. Or that implies values. Or is part of a belief structure. As in...

I believe in God
I believe in Democracy
I believe in Family
I believe in free will
I believe in right and wrong

I don't believe in evolution or any other current scientific theory (Evolution, quantum mechanics, dark matter, cell theory, homeostasis, etc.) as an article of faith or values. I certainly acknowledge that the theory of evolution is currently the most powerful theory of change in biology. But if some new theory came along that was more powerful and better explained the data we see all around us it wouldn't challenge my belief structure in the slightest. I would be highly intrigued but that is it. And I would readily accept any replacement theory for evolution provided it proved to be a better theory with more explanatory power.

Likewise if we were to find life forms that are not based on the cell (which would cause the cell theory of life to be abandoned or revised), I'd be highly intrigued, but it wouldn't change any belief structures since the cell theory isn't some article of faith that I believe in. I certainly acknowledge that it is a current fundamental theory in biology and has lots of explanatory power. But new theories are revised and replaced all the time. That is the process of science.

If I had to state an actual belief structure around science it would be that the scientific method of inquiry is the best way to acquire new scientific knowledge. But that is about it.

[ken_sylvania]

I'm using the term "belief" as in accepting something as an article of faith. Or that implies values. Or is part of a belief structure. As in...

I believe in God
I believe in Democracy
I believe in Family
I believe in free will
I believe in right and wrong

I don't believe in evolution or any other current scientific theory (Evolution, quantum mechanics, dark matter, cell theory, homeostasis, etc.) as an article of faith or values. I certainly acknowledge that the theory of evolution is currently the most powerful theory of change in biology. But if some new theory came along that was more powerful and better explained the data we see all around us it wouldn't challenge my belief structure in the slightest. I would be highly intrigued but that is it. And I would readily accept any replacement theory for evolution provided it proved to be a better theory with more explanatory power.

Likewise if we were to find life forms that are not based on the cell (which would cause the cell theory of life to be abandoned or revised), I'd be highly intrigued, but it wouldn't change any belief structures since the cell theory isn't some article of faith that I believe in. I certainly acknowledge that it is a current fundamental theory in biology and has lots of explanatory power. But new theories are revised and replaced all the time. That is the process of science.

If I had to state an actual belief structure around science it would be that the scientific method of inquiry is the best way to acquire new scientific knowledge. But that is about it.

Donald Trump likes to be creative in how he uses words, too.

[Falco Knotwise]

Theistic Evolution. I like this view the best.

C.S. Lewis and theistic evolution

So where did Lewis stand on the subject of evolution? Historian of science Ronald Numbers describes Lewis as a theistic evolutionist (Ferngren and Numbers 1996). His view seems to agree best with a type of theistic evolution espoused by B. B. Warfield in the late 19th century, which holds that “Adam’s body was the product of evolutionary development (secondary causes working alone under divine providence), and that his special creation involved the imparting of a rational soul to a highly-developed hominid” (PCA Creation Committee Report 2000). In The Problem of Pain, Lewis proposed a myth to explain how God could have created man. First, Satan corrupted the world and animals began to prey on one other. Then God made Adam’s body by evolution and gifted him with a soul. Lewis wrote,

For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself [….] Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness […] In perfect cyclic movement, being, power and joy descended from God to man in the form of gift and returned from man to God in the form of obedient love and ecstatic adoration. (Lewis, Problem 65)

Finally, Adam fell into sin which, according to Lewis, was not the mere eating of forbidden fruit, but Pride-“the movement whereby a creature (that is, an essentially dependent being […]) tries to set up on its own, to exist for itself” (63). Lewis also wrote about evolution in a series of letters to his friend Captain Bernard Acworth, a strong opponent of evolution. In one 1944 letter, Lewis wrote,

Just as my belief in my own immortal & rational soul does not oblige or qualify me to hold a particular theory of the pre-natal history of my embryo, so my belief that Men in general have immortal & rational souls does not oblige or qualify me to hold a theory of their pre-human organic history-if they have one. (Ferngren and Numbers, 1996)

To Lewis, whether or not humans are genetically distinguishable from other animals is entirely beside the point. We are made in the image of God, we fell into sin, and we are being redeemed by Christ; these, Lewis indicated, are the great lessons from Genesis 1-3.

I think in Genesis one, since the light of intelligence is first created, while the earth is still lifeless and formless all on its own, this leaves room for the theistic evolution of life in accordance with divine reason, or shall we say, in accordance with divine Providence.

Thoughts anyone??

[Falco Knotwise]

G.K. Chesterton

“Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am.” The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, “I am not; therefore I cannot think.”

You have to start by denying your existence as a unified created whole in order to come to the conclusion that you are only the sum of your parts and that reason is a mere byproduct of organic and/or inorganic matter. You have to start by denying your own lived experience.

[Falco Knotwise]

Hilaire Belloc accepted evolution in a sense, but insisted that each species was a new creation.

That remains vague and philosophical for now, but I think it’s also what Eric Voegelin argued in substance. It remains a problem for philosophy but I’m inclined to agree with this intuitively.

[AndersonD]

Hilary Belloc accepted evolution in a sense, but insisted that each species was a new creation.

That remains vague and philosophical for now, but I think it’s also what Eric Voegelin argued in substance. It remains a problem for philosophy but I’m inclined to agree with this intuitively.

I think many assumptions regarding evolution are wrong and shoddy but I am a "Creation" magazine subscriber. So, of course, that influences my views as does my background. Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites are Creationists and I appreciate that worldview.