After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

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After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered the most basic questions of theist?

Charles Hodge Systematic theology copywrite 1870.

Although Strauss greatly exaggerates when he says that men of science in our day are unanimous
in supporting the doctrine of spontaneous generation, it is undoubtedly true that a large class of
naturalists, especially on the continent of Europe, are in favour of that doctrine. Professor Huxley,
in his discourse on the “Physical Basis of Life,� lends to it the whole weight of his authority. He
does not indeed expressly teach that dead matter becomes active without being subject to the
influence of previous living matter; but his whole paper is designed to show that life is the result
of the peculiar arrangement of the molecules of matter. His doctrine is that “the matter of life is
composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are
aggregated.�2 “If the properties of water,� he says, “may be properly said to result from the nature
and disposition of its component molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say
that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.�3 In his
address before the British Association, he says that if he could look back far enough into the past
he should expect to see “the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.� And although
that address is devoted to showing that spontaneous generation, or Abiogenesis, as it is called, has
never been proved, he says, “I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to
suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis has ever taken place in the past or ever will take place
in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and
every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to
say that the conditions under which matter assumes the properties we call ‘vital,’ may not some
day be artificially brought together.�4 All this supposes that life is the product of physical causes;
that all that is requisite for its production is “to bring together� the necessary conditions.

The theist argument has not changed in 150 years.

In 1870, the full problem in the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion had still not been fully realized.

In 1870 an equation to calculate rate of beneficial mutations in organisms, which makes it impossible for the cambrian explosion to happen through naturalistic means.

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by Bust Nak »

[Replying to post 1 by EarthScienceguy]

Most basic questions as in where did life come from? Quite simply because we do not have the luxury of just making answers up due to our commitment to finding the verifiable truth. As for the theist arguments, perhaps it is time to change them? 150 years of the same old debunked arguments is getting a bit stale.

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 2 by Bust Nak]
Most basic questions as in where did life come from? Quite simply because we do not have the luxury of just making answers up due to our commitment to finding the verifiable truth. As for the theist arguments, perhaps it is time to change them? 150 years of the same old debunked arguments is getting a bit stale.
But the evolutionary argument has not debunked anything. In 150 years the theistic argument has not changed because it has not needed to. In fact the evolutionary argument has actually grown weaker over the past 150 years.

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by Divine Insight »

EarthScienceguy wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Bust Nak]
Most basic questions as in where did life come from? Quite simply because we do not have the luxury of just making answers up due to our commitment to finding the verifiable truth. As for the theist arguments, perhaps it is time to change them? 150 years of the same old debunked arguments is getting a bit stale.
But the evolutionary argument has not debunked anything. In 150 years the theistic argument has not changed because it has not needed to. In fact the evolutionary argument has actually grown weaker over the past 150 years.
You are conflating biological evolution with abiogenesis.

Why is it that theists insist on using stawman arguments in an effort to support their indefensible theology?

Even if there were problems with evolution theory, which there aren't, that wouldn't help Hebrew mythology at all.

If we every found any evidence that suggests a need for an intentional creator of life, which we haven't, Buddhism would be the most likely theology to turn to at that point anyway.

So these kinds of arguments don't help the Abrahamic religions anyway. In fact, when Abrahamic theists need to resort to these kinds of arguments it only confirms that they have given up on trying to defend their actually theology.
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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by Diagoras »

EarthScienceguy wrote:The theist argument has not changed in 150 years.
Well, give it time. Some folks are naturally just a little stubborn and slower to accept proof.

After all, a bit later on in the same chapter of Charles Hodge’s book, he says of Darwin’s theory:
It is hazarding little to say that such a hypothesis as this cannot be proved.
Which is of course, a commonly-heard refrain from Christians who cling to Bronze Age thinking. Meanwhile, scientists who investigated synapomorphies, DNA and the molecular family tree, biogeography and the ever-growing fossil record (to name but a few fields of research) all contributed to a vast, eclectic and compelling body of proof of evolution.

What proportion of Christians believed in a “young earth� back in Darwin’s day? I don’t know, but would guess somewhere around 98%. And how many modern Christians still consider themselves Young Earth Creationists? Again, I’m not sure, but I expect it to be a lot closer to 2%. After all, there’s this fellow who’s presumably read Proverbs 18:15, so I’d suggest that the ‘theist argument’ has changed - for the majority of Christians. It’s certainly no badge of honour to declare your thinking unchanged in the face of evidence sufficient to consign young earth creationism to the stuff of fairy tales.
Christianity has not changed its belief system to accommodate scientific thought.

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]
You are conflating biological evolution with abiogenesis.

Why is it that theists insist on using stawman arguments in an effort to support their indefensible theology?

Even if there were problems with evolution theory, which there aren't, that wouldn't help Hebrew mythology at all.

If we every found any evidence that suggests a need for an intentional creator of life, which we haven't, Buddhism would be the most likely theology to turn to at that point anyway.

So these kinds of arguments don't help the Abrahamic religions anyway. In fact, when Abrahamic theists need to resort to these kinds of arguments it only confirms that they have given up on trying to defend their actually theology.
You reasoned through that exactly the way Dr. Hodge said you would 150 years ago. Dr. Hodge.

Professor Tyndall deals with this subject in his lecture delivered in September, 1870, on “The
Scientific Uses of the Imagination.� He says that the question concerning the origin of life is,
Whether it is due to a creative flat, ‘Let life be!’ or to a process of evolution. Was it potentially in
matter from the beginning? or, Was it inserted at a later period? However the convictions here or
there may be influenced, he says, “the process must be slow which commends the hypothesis of
natural evolution to the public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it
naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of
9
animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite
and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself — emotion, intellect,
will, and all their phenomena — were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of
such a notion is more than a refutation. I do not think that any holder of the evolution hypothesis
would say that I overstate it or overstrain it in any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring
before you, unclothed and unvarnished, the notions by which it must stand or fall. Surely these
notions represent an absurdity too monstrous to be entertained by any sane mind.�11 Professor
Tyndall, however, as well as Professor Huxley, is on both sides of this question. Materialism, with
its doctrine of spontaneous generation, is thus monstrous and absurd, only on the assumption that
matter is matter. If you only spiritualize matter until it becomes mind, the absurdity disappears.
And so do materialism, and spontaneous generation, and the whole array of scientific doctrines. If
matter becomes mind, mind is God, and God is everything. Thus the monster Pantheism swallows
up science and its votaries. We do not forget that the naturalist, after spending his life in studying
matter, comes to the conclusion that “matter is nothing,� that the “Supreme Intelligence� is the
universe.12 Thus it is that those who overstep the limits of human knowledge, or reject the control
of primary truths, fall into the abyss of outer darkness

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by Divine Insight »

EarthScienceguy wrote: You reasoned through that exactly the way Dr. Hodge said you would 150 years ago. Dr. Hodge.
So what? His argument was wrong then, and it's still wrong today.

Evolution says nothing about abiogenesis. Evolution doesn't make any claims about how the first living cells came to be. That is the realm of chemistry not reproductive genetics.

Evolution is clearly true. Period.

So all you are doing is pouting false arguments about evolution. Arguments that have absolutely nothing at all to do with evolution.

One thing we have learned is that there is nothing in any living thing that isn't also in non-living matter. Therefore there is no reason to think that living things could not spontaneously arise from non-living matter.

Clearly life was not purposefully designed by an intelligent agent. An intelligent agent could have done a far better job at purposefully designing life. Like behaves precisely as an accident should behave. There is no indication that it was intelligently designed at all.

If you need these kinds of bogus arguments to convince yourself of ancient Hebrew folklore then I'd say that you are in pretty bad shape.

Evolution is a fact of life. If you are still having problems accepting this I suggest that you give up on reading ancient mythologies entirely and start to focus in on trying to understand the truths of science.
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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

Post #8

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote:After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered the most basic questions of theist?
Imagine for a moment that as someone that understands the Bible, someone asks you a question like this:
The Bible says that God, Jesus, and Moses are one person. Moses lived 2000 years ago, though, so how could he be the same person as Jesus?
OK, you think, that's a bit garbled, but you patiently explain that the Trinity is actually God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The theological discussions that have taken place over the last 1500 years or so are a bit more complicated and subtle than can be put into one forum post, but here's a link to a book you can read. By the way, Moses traditionally lived sometime between 3000 and 4000 years ago.
But you can't even know what the Bible says! All the existing Bibles are just translations of translations! If Christianity were true, wouldn't we expect to have at least a few of the Sumerian scrolls? There's no evidence that the Bible even existed before the 1700s.
"What? What even is that? That must be from a website or something." Sure enough, you Google "at least a few of the Sumerian" and find www.bibledebunkrs.com. Good God, how can anyone believe this stuff? They also have a homeschool curriculum. The history book must be an absolute nightmare.

Oh well. You explain that the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek and we have lots of manuscripts. There are differences between them and there has probably been some loss, but textual critics have done a pretty good job of reconstructing probable originals. Modern translations are done by experts from original language sources. Again, there are some passages that are unclear or ambiguous, but for the most part, what we're reading is at least close to what the original authors intended. By the way, we do have some Sumerian texts and though they have interesting implications for Bible studies, they aren't the Bible per se.
But what about Nostradamus saying in Revelations that there would be a nuclear war in France started by Gog, Magog, and Gorbachev?
Really? You can't be serious.

Moderator warning: please don't imply that your fellow posters aren't serious

Now multiply that by the number of atheists that have read a list of "questions for christianists" and think they have the ultimate gotcha argument. Some days you can take a breath and answer them straight. Some days, it's tongue-in-cheek. Some days, you can't deal with them at all.

Answering creationist questions is kind of like that.

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

Post #9

Post by Bust Nak »

EarthScienceguy wrote: But the evolutionary argument has not debunked anything. In 150 years the theistic argument has not changed because it has not needed to. In fact the evolutionary argument has actually grown weaker over the past 150 years.
I notice you use the singular "theistic argument" here again. What exactly did you have in mind with this when there were three arguments brought forward re: origin of life, mutation rate and Cambrian explosion? You accept that the latter two have answers and so there is just one left?

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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 5 by Diagoras]
After all, a bit later on in the same chapter of Charles Hodge’s book, he says of Darwin’s theory:
Quote:
It is hazarding little to say that such a hypothesis as this cannot be proved.

Which is of course, a commonly-heard refrain from Christians who cling to Bronze Age thinking. Meanwhile, scientists who investigated synapomorphies, DNA and the molecular family tree, biogeography and the ever-growing fossil record (to name but a few fields of research) all contributed to a vast, eclectic and compelling body of proof of evolution.
You are correct in saying that this is another argument that we still use today.

Can you give me an example in which an organism changed from one kind to another kind of organism?

Darwin's finches were still finches. The 30 year e-coli (I think they were e-coli, or some sort of bacteria) evolution experiment are still e-coli.

Evolution is a belief, it has not been observed. Dinosaurs turned into birds, and there are birds older than the types of dinosaurs they supposedly came from.

Genetic mutation mathematics describe the cambrian explosion as impossible.

Until a solution for Muller's Ratchet paradox is found the idea of evolution is absurd.

Results: Here we quantify genomic decay in this fish by using a simple model of Muller's ratchet
with the most realistic parameter combinations available employing the evolution@home global
computing system. We also describe simple extensions of the standard model of Muller's ratchet
that allow us to deal with selfing diploids, triploids and mitotic recombination. We show that
Muller's ratchet creates a threat of extinction for the Amazon molly for many biologically realistic
parameter combinations. In most cases, extinction is expected to occur within a time frame that is
less than previous estimates of the age of the species, leading to a genomic decay paradox
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 8-8-88.pdf

What proportion of Christians believed in a “young earth� back in Darwin’s day? I don’t know, but would guess somewhere around 98%. And how many modern Christians still consider themselves Young Earth Creationists? Again, I’m not sure, but I expect it to be a lot closer to 2%. After all, there’s this fellow who’s presumably read Proverbs 18:15, so I’d suggest that the ‘theist argument’ has changed - for the majority of Christians. It’s certainly no badge of honour to declare your thinking unchanged in the face of evidence sufficient to consign young earth creationism to the stuff of fairy tales.
A person has to know where to search for true knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

1 Cor 1:18-20 "18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.� Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?"

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