Evolution v Creationism: A Dead Issue

[Jose Fly]

As someone who spent a lot of time on the evolution v creationism battles over the last 20 years, I've noticed that in the last 5 years or so the issue seems to have largely gone off the radar. In the message boards that are still around (both Christian and secular) it's barely debated, if at all. Websites specifically dedicated to countering creationist talking points such as talkorigins and pandasthumb have gone silent, seemingly because there just isn't much to talk about.

Surveys have shown that younger Americans accept the reality of evolution at pretty much the same rate as the rest of the developed world. Thanks to national focus on science education by organizations like the NCSE, evolution is more widely taught than ever, even in the deep south. The Discovery Institute (the main "intelligent design" organization) stopped advocating for ID creationism to be taught in schools years ago, and they closed their alleged "research arm" last year.

On the science front, creationism remains as it has for over a century....100% scientifically irrelevant.

So for all practical intents and purposes, this debate is over. There isn't any sort of public debate over teaching creationism, nor is there any real debate about whether evolution should be taught. For sure there's still work to do in some parts of the country (mostly the south and interior west) where even though evolution is officially required, teachers don't teach it either because it's "too controversial" or they don't believe it themselves, but big picture-wise, "evolution v creationism" is in about the same state as "spherical v flat earth"....nothing more than something a handful of people argue about on the internet, but outside of that has little to no significance. And even on that front it's kinda dead....most forums where it's openly debated have a very skewed ratio where there's like 10 "evolutionists" for every 1 creationist.

Glad to see it!

[Jose Fly]

I am saying it really doesn't matter because of most of his arguments in his two previous books are still valid.

Now that's hilarious! Earlier, Denton was your preferred source and someone we all should pay attention to, but after it's shown that he's in agreement with universal common ancestry via evolution, suddenly "it really doesn't matter".

He also admits that he was never really a Christian but an agnostic. Because everyone comes to a point in which they must decide what they believe. they must decide for themselves if really is a God that created everything which would then make Him the great lawgiver. It is the lawgiver part that people do not want to accept. There is a sin in their life that they do not want to change. It has nothing to do with evidence but everything to do with the nature of man and his desire to sin.

Especially in his case because most of his arguments are still valid today. Same reason why you fine pastors clergy commit horrendous sin. Because they never really believed that there was a God. They may like the idea but they really did not believe it. In the case of scientific theory, Denton's books actually did bring some to faith.

Tesla believed a lot of weird things at the end of his life. But his electric motor still works.

Obviously for you this is first and foremost a religious issue. That's informative.

]Humans didn't evolve from chimps, they share a common ancestor that was neither chimp nor human. So your "estimates" are fundamentally flawed at the outset.

If that is the argument you are using then yes my estimates are fundamentally flawed because the starting point that you are proposing makes the time problem at least 4 times worse.

How so?

There is no answer to this problem that is why it is called Haldane's Dilemma. I actually simplified his theory to make it more understandable. Haldane actually calculated that it would take 300 generations for each codon change to become fixed in the species. This is a serious challenge to evolutionary theory.

Haldane was not or is not a Christian he was just an honest researcher that saw the current theory of evolution not possible.

Except that was resolved quite a while ago. But since this is primarily a religious issue for you I have to wonder.....why do you care about the science? Why not just say that you believe in God and the Bible's creation account and leave it at that?

[Jose Fly]

No, I am saying that the ignorant are easily manipulated by ignorant ideas.

But why? Why would "the intelligent" deliberately dupe "the ignorant" into believing evolutionary biology is a valid field of science? What's their incentive?

1st these arguments have not been debunked. There is Carbon 14 in diamond samples, and in coal samples, there is helium in zircon crystals. In regards to the carbon 14 in coal. The contamination argument has given way to the neutrons from radioactive elements nearby. I do not think anyone is saying it is contamination any longer. There is helium in zircon crystals.

Now what ever rescue device you want to employ is up to you.

Wait.....is this "6days" from ToL?

Yea, I do not like their theory. I prefer Brown's theory. Both theories do employ runaway plate tectonics.

How did they resolve the heat problem?

We are actually saying the same thing because evolution is not based on logical progression observations.

Except for that pesky little fact that we see populations evolving all the time.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #71]

Why not just say that you believe in God and the Bible's creation account and leave it at that?

If only I had a buck for every time I've asked that here! This has come up many times of course on a forum like this, and it seems there are a subset of creationists who feel it is necessary to force compatibility of their religious beliefs with science in order to legitimize them. But since many of the topics they are most sensitive to (creation story of Genesis, Noah's flood, humans are not specially created, resurrections don't happen, etc.) cannot be made compatible with science, they are forced to mutilate science instead.

People like Walt Brown, Russell Humphreys, etc. are prime examples, and two in particular one participant here often quotes and defends. The whole effort seems to be an attempt to legitimize creationist beliefs by arguing that they are compatible with science, when all they have to do is just say they believe it on faith and that is a perfectly good explanation.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Jose, as I said several times given a colony of replicating organisms with sufficient resources these are the possible long term scenarios that can arise with respect to the genome:

1. Extinction. Mutations and external environment pressure lead to a gradual degradation in the fitness for purpose, eventually the colony dies.
2. Stasis. Mutations and external environment pressure are not sufficient to lead to extinction, successive generation may differ but the genome changes little over successive generation, generation 1,000, 50,000 or 250,000 are likely indistinguishable, examination of the genome could not be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.
3. Evolution. Mutations and external environment pressure induce changes that accumulate over time, the later the generation the more the genome differs and the more sophistication the organism has. Examination of the genome can be used to infer if it was an early or late generation.

You repeatedly imply that 3. is inevitable yet all we see experimentally is 1. or 2.

What in th.......?

Again, evolution is directly and repeatedly observed reality. We see populations evolve new traits, abilities, genetic sequences, and species. You stamping your little feet and shouting "Nuh uh" over and over will never change that.

If your position really is that no population has ever evolved in the entire history of life on earth, including today, then we're in flat-earth level denialism here. Like I said before, you may as well be denying that erosion happens.

I ask for proof that given some starting state (genome) then is 3. impossible or possible? The first few billion years show that 2. was in fact the case (prokaryotic life).

So, support 3., can you? what test/experiment can you cite that offer the best example of 3.? (and please don't try to pass off a colony of flies becoming two colonies of, erm, flies - as an example).

Seriously? The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet creationists I've encountered over the years. Now it's "But they're still flies" nonsense. So I'll try yet again (you ignored this last time I asked).....

What do you mean by "sophistication"? How are you quantifying it such that if given two populations, we can tell which one has more of it?

The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet evolution police I've encountered over the years.

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #71]

Why not just say that you believe in God and the Bible's creation account and leave it at that?

If only I had a buck for every time I've asked that here! This has come up many times of course on a forum like this, and it seems there are a subset of creationists who feel it is necessary to force compatibility of their religious beliefs with science in order to legitimize them. But since many of the topics they are most sensitive to (creation story of Genesis, Noah's flood, humans are not specially created, resurrections don't happen, etc.) cannot be made compatible with science, they are forced to mutilate science instead.

People like Walt Brown, Russell Humphreys, etc. are prime examples, and two in particular one participant here often quotes and defends. The whole effort seems to be an attempt to legitimize creationist beliefs by arguing that they are compatible with science, when all they have to do is just say they believe it on faith and that is a perfectly good explanation.

Well put. My take is that we're long past the days when proclamations from the pulpit and religious figures carried much weight (outside of their own congregations). For much of the 20th century, conservative Christians could just keep things like evolution from being taught by merely declaring that it contradicted God's Word and the relevant politicians would act accordingly (e.g., TN's ban on teaching evolution that led to the Scopes trial). But then we got into a science and technology race with the Soviets, which resulted in an increased focus on science and science education. As technology advanced and the results of science became more and more prominent in our daily lives, science and scientists began to be seen as more authoritative in the public realm. We started seeing that in advertising with statements like "9 out of 10 scientists/doctors agree", and political decisions being based more on science, and some public policies being on hold "until the science is in".

Basically, science usurped Christianity's status as the predominant arbiter of reality. So if Christians wanted their beliefs about things like the age of the earth, the origin of humans, etc. to have credibility, they couldn't just declare "This is what the Word of God says" and be done. Once science became our main means of determining the truth about those things, Christians had to present their case in scientific terms. They came up with titles like "Scientific Creationism" and "Biblical Science", hoping that by appealing to science their beliefs would gain credibility. Fortunately the courts shot that down pretty quickly in the 1980's. Then of course they had their brief foray with "intelligent design", but that died a very quick death.

I firmly believe that if appealing to the Bible were persuasive in today's culture, creationists would do that. But now that we're moving to a more secular and post-Christian society, Bible quotes just don't carry the same weight they used to.

[Jose Fly]

The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet evolution police I've encountered over the years.

That's great! I'm glad that the other "evolution police" you've encountered also point out the insanity of denying observed reality.

[brunumb]

The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet evolution police I've encountered over the years.

If someone else had said that to you we would have seen you play the ad hominem card in a flash.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to alexxcJRO in post #55]

I just read through the paper and you seem unaware of what it actually says.

It assumes evolution is true - period. Then assuming that it shows that if evolution be true then common descent is a more probable cause for sequence similarity than say functional constraints.

It is contrasting common descent with other potential causes for sequence similarity.

IT DOES NOT PROVE COMMON DESCENT!

You can only claim common descent IF evolution is known to have occurred you cannot assume evolution did occur then claim common descent from that to then prove evolution did occur!

The paper is fine but your interpretation of its meaning is wrong.

See? see what happens when you grab and clutch at documents too hastily? In your eagerness to undermine me you shoot yourself in the foot.

1. For the millionth time there is no such thing as a scientific proof. Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic.
Scientific theories are neither absolutely false nor absolutely true.
The standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence.
The title of the page clearly says:” Statistical evidence for common ancestry”.

2. They tested common ancestry against
->species separate ancestry(~God creating every species).
->family separate ancestry(~God creating every family or lets say kinds as per creationists jargon)
They did so using morphological traits, molecular traits, biogeographic traits.
Combined all three in a statistical test in order to test if other explanation could account for the similarity.

The statistics they found were overwhelmingly not in favor of both species SA and family SA but overwhelmingly in support of CA.
“We have developed novel statistical approaches to test CA versus SA from aligned DNA sequences based on maximum likelihood estimation, BIC, and parametric bootstrapping of a parsimony difference test statistic. Our model treats nucleotide base probabilities separately at each site in order to account for biological constraints that limit nucleotide usage differently by site.
We find overwhelmingly strong evidence against SA in favor of CA in primates at both the subordinal and family levels. Additionally, we find common ancestry between primate orders and among primate families. We find very strong statistical evidence against a hypothesis of SA of humans from other primates, This supports the conventional view that humans are closely related to other primates rather than deriving from an independent origin event.”

I sense some equivocation going here/misrepresentations/misunderstanding in respect to the term/scientific term “evolution”.
So please explain with quotes and specific details. Don’t understand your issue.

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #53]

Sir I recommend you familiarize yourself with basic notions of the scientific evolutionary theory.
Like the fact that all great apes shared a common ancestor.
Humans did not evolve from chimps, gorillas or orangutan.

Wow, you missed the whole tenor of that argument. If you are saying that we evolved from great apes 7 million years ago then you have made the problem worse, not better. How would 400 genetic changes come together in every generation?

Sir you did not knew the scientific theory of evolution does not entails humans evolving from chimps. That will not go away. Will remain forever in annals of history.
That's pretty basic.

Metaphorical analogy:
Now you come and say something about multiple integrals when there is evidence you do not know or understand basic math.
Off course you are misrepresenting/misunderstanding something. You just think you have something.
Q: How can you come to me with a straight face and talk to me about multiple integrals when you don't know simple calculus, basic math?

[Sherlock Holmes]

The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet evolution police I've encountered over the years.

If someone else had said that to you we would have seen you play the ad hominem card in a flash.

Someone else did say it, Jose said this to me a few minutes before, so I took it and rephrased it:

The more I interact with you, the more I appreciate how you really aren't that much different than most of the other internet creationists I've encountered over the years.

See? despite one's best efforts sometimes, ad-hominem breeds more ad-hominem, that's why it's a bad thing.