After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

[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.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 15 by EarthScienceguy]

Are you trying to say that science does not have limits? If science has limits what are the limits of science?

I would think at the very least it would have to have it limits at material matter that follows the laws of this universe.

No, I didn't make any comments on that subject in my post. My point was that science has shown that things like the creation story of Genesis, Noah's flood, and similar myths are definitively wrong. There are many open problems in science that continue to be worked on, and that will probably never change, but nothing says there is a limit to how much we can learn about the natural world. Clinging to bronze age myths and trying to make them compatible with modern science will always fail. Science has moved far beyond those simple and (we now know) erroneous explanations of nature and discarded them long ago as anything to take seriously.

Nothing in the fossil record were observed. Fossils are simply snapshots of organisms that died quickly in a watery environment. The connections that are made between these snapshots are simply from man's imagination.

You're confusing imagination with deductive reasoning and the scientific method. Good thing you're not a forensic scientist (or any kind of scientist!) or a lawyer. There is far more than imagination involved in piecing together the puzzles represented by the fossil record (and genetics, which has confirmed many prior deductions made from the fossil record). Science does not work like the "creation scientists" you often reference, who start with a conclusion and then work backwards to try and formulate something that looks like science in order to fool people who don't know any better.

Along with the fact that evolution has never been observed. Only change within a kind has been observed. Darwin finches stayed finches.

Pull your head out of the sand if it isn't already too deeply implanted to extract. Evolution has been observed extensively throughout the plant and animal kingdoms, and is the prevailing theory for how life diversified on this planet precisely because it is supported by so many observations. The genetics work of the past 50 or so years has just further added to its legitimacy. Picking out an occasional anomaly (a specialty of creationists) doesn't help your cause when you ignore the overwhelming evidence on the other side (that is not anomalous) as if it didn't exist.

[Menotu]

[Replying to post 1 by EarthScienceguy]

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

Probably because (&/or):
That's not its purpose
Beliefs can't be answered with science
People don't want to believe evolution
People don't understand evolution
People don't understand their own belief system
People want to believe in the unbelievable
Believers aren't honest with themselves
Believers aren't looking for real answers

[Bust Nak]

No documentation. I see.

Sure there is. Here is one.

We are to believe this on faith. I get it.

You are welcome to believe this on faith, but I'd rather you believe based on empirical evidence.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods]

No, I didn't make any comments on that subject in my post. My point was that science has shown that things like the creation story of Genesis, Noah's flood, and similar myths are definitively wrong. There are many open problems in science that continue to be worked on, and that will probably never change, but nothing says there is a limit to how much we can learn about the natural world. Clinging to bronze age myths and trying to make them compatible with modern science will always fail. Science has moved far beyond those simple and (we now know) erroneous explanations of nature and discarded them long ago as anything to take seriously.

What are the limits of science? That is the question.

You can make all kinds of claims about what happen in the past but none of them can be tested.

Let's look at Bust Nak's "example" that he gave. The study states the following:

Analysis of these sequences supports a demographic model in which dogs and wolves diverged through a dynamic process involving population bottlenecks in both lineages and post-divergence gene flow. In dogs, the domestication bottleneck involved at least a 16-fold reduction in population size, a much more severe bottleneck than estimated previously. A sharp bottleneck in wolves occurred soon after their divergence from dogs, implying that the pool of diversity from which dogs arose was substantially larger than represented by modern wolf populations

Does anyone see a glaring assumption in their analysis? They are assuming population bottlenecks. Simply because that is what is think would be needed to produce the results that they desire. This is not based on observation but simply an inference of what is needed. What caused these needed bottlenecks? You see the same factual data could support evidence for the the Biblical flood. The flood model would have a mechanism that would cause the bottle necks needed for this change of kind.



Quote:
Nothing in the fossil record were observed. Fossils are simply snapshots of organisms that died quickly in a watery environment. The connections that are made between these snapshots are simply from man's imagination.

You're confusing imagination with deductive reasoning and the scientific method. Good thing you're not a forensic scientist (or any kind of scientist!) or a lawyer. There is far more than imagination involved in piecing together the puzzles represented by the fossil record (and genetics, which has confirmed many prior deductions made from the fossil record). Science does not work like the "creation scientists" you often reference, who start with a conclusion and then work backwards to try and formulate something that looks like science in order to fool people who don't know any better.

The scientist that Bust Nak quoted did exactly that. They started with a conclusion and then worked backwards to try to formulate something that looks like science in order to fool people.

Forensic scientist and Lawyers both have been incorrect in piecing together what happen in the past. These events happen a few days, months or years ago with eye witnesses, written material and videos and they still get it wrong at times. An equivalent scenario would be only having pictures two dead bodies maybe beside each other.

Quote:
Along with the fact that evolution has never been observed. Only change within a kind has been observed. Darwin finches stayed finches.

Pull your head out of the sand if it isn't already too deeply implanted to extract.

Wait, wait, I may have some sand in my ear. Nope, it wasn't sand it was some dinosaur soft tissue, how did that get in there.

Evolution has been observed extensively throughout the plant and animal kingdoms, and is the prevailing theory for how life diversified on this planet precisely because it is supported by so many observations.

Adaptation is observed. Evolution is theorized as the result of adaptation.

The genetics work of the past 50 or so years has just further added to its legitimacy. Picking out an occasional anomaly (a specialty of creationists) doesn't help your cause when you ignore the overwhelming evidence on the other side (that is not anomalous) as if it didn't exist.

Far from adding to the legitimacy, genetics has caused significant difficulty for evolutionary theory.

Muller's Ratchet
Irreducible complexity
Complexity of the DNA
Information theory

All have added to the problems that evolution already had.

Like a person can hear what sounds like an ocean in a sea shell. A person can hear the sound of creation in evidence like dinosoft tissue.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 23 by Bust Nak]

You are welcome to believe this on faith, but I'd rather you believe based on empirical evidence.

Creationist actually believe that wolves and dogs are related and are part of the same kind. (I should have made this distinction at the outset. I am not sure what I was thinking.)

What exactly is it? That’s the question researchers are trying to figure out after the discovery of a frozen puppy preserved in permafrost in eastern Siberia. The two-month old canine was “remarkably preserved,� with fur, nose, and teeth still intact, even after a supposed 18,000 years. According to the BBC, scientists are wondering if this puppy represents an evolutionary link between wolves and dogs, or if it’s just a wolf or what we call a dog today.

Researchers sequenced the puppy’s DNA but were unable to determine whether it was a wolf or a dog. This suggests that perhaps it came from a population that was ancestral to both wolves and dogs. As they continue to research this puppy and his DNA, researchers are hoping to discover more about evolution. But does this little frozen puppy actually tell us anything about canine evolution?

Well, we know that wolves and domesticated dogs, as well as dingoes, coyotes, foxes, and others, are all part of the same created kind. They all belong to the same family, Canidae. The biological classification of family is the equivalent (in most instances) to the biblical kind. Creationists and evolutionists both agree that today’s wolves and dogs are descendants from the same ancestral population (we just disagree on the timeline!), and there’s abundant genetic evidence to confirm this. It’s just reproduction within a kind, as we’d expect when we start with God’s Word.

This puppy lived sometime after Noah’s flood and is therefore a descendant of the two representatives of the dog kind that were on the ark. It likely lived during the ice age, a harsh time in earth’s history that followed the flood, which explains why he was found buried in permafrost. This puppy is likely closer to the representative of the dog kind that was on the ark (and gave rise to wolves) and just reflects some of the created diversity within the DNA of that particular kind.

Of course, the puppy is not 18,000 years old. That date came from radiocarbon dating of one of his ribs, but radiocarbon dating (also known as carbon-14 dating) is based on unprovable assumptions. It has been shown to be untrustworthy and inaccurate for giving absolute dates. The puppy lived just a few thousand years ago at the most , which explains how he was able to be so well-preserved—with even delicate features like his nose still in place. Remember, Noah’s Flood was about 4,300 years ago.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 22 by Menotu]

Beliefs can't be answered with science

I agree with you that beliefs cannot be answered by science. So one must understand what the limits of science are. So what are the limits of science? Maybe you will venture out and answer this question?

People don't want to believe evolution

People do not see the "evidence" of evolution as science but simply a different belief system based on materialist theology.

People don't understand evolution

I agree with you that people do not understand the belief system inherent in evolution.

Example: Muller's ratchet

People don't understand their own belief system

Yes, I agree that most people that believe in evolution do not understand that it is a belief system. Especially those that do not believe in God.

People want to believe in the unbelievable

Like the creation of life without a God to create it.

Believers aren't honest with themselves

That is correct people that believe in evolution are not honest with themselves

Believers aren't looking for real answers

Believers are not looking for real answers. If evolution is not true then their whole belief system fall apart.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 25 by EarthScienceguy]

I am not interested in what creationists actually believe, suffice you say you are wrong about having no documentations and having to believe evolution on faith.

[Diagoras]

This puppy lived sometime after Noah’s flood and is therefore a descendant of the two representatives of the dog kind that were on the ark. It likely lived during the ice age, a harsh time in earth’s history that followed the flood, which explains why he was found buried in permafrost.

I don’t remember the exact biblical verse that describes the ice age after the flood. Of course, you’ll be able to supply this evidence, won’t you?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 24 by EarthScienceguy]

What are the limits of science? That is the question.

Why do you think there are "limits" to science? Science is about learning, and if there is any limit I suppose it would be related to the mental capacity of humans to come up with new experiments, new instrumentation, new ideas, new theories, etc. so that nature can continue to be investigated and understood more comprehensively. It builds on itself now just as it always has, and doesn't have to have any particular limits, whatever that actually means. Do you think humans are somehow going to reach a point where we can't learn anymore?

You can make all kinds of claims about what happen in the past but none of them can be tested.

Nonsense. Determining what happened in the past by observing things as they are now is done all the time. Tectonic plate theory is a perfect example of this. It is a process that is happening now and that we can observe, and it explains many observations besides just the current positions of the continents (eg. why common fossils are found on both sides of the Atlantic ocean as if Europe and North America were connected at some time in the past; why the "ring of fire" exists around the Pacific rim; why earthquakes zones occur where they do; why certain mountain ranges exist where they do, and on and on).

This theory explains many observations, consistently, and as a result we can be confident that it is correct. As a result, we can make inferences on things that happened in the distant past that are highly likely to be correct (eg. the existence of the supercontinent Pangaea). This example of observation and analysis is how real science works (as opposed to "creation science"), and claims made about the past are not baseless or untested when they are consistent with a theory like this. There are many other examples such as radiometric dating, the geologic column, etc.

You see the same factual data could support evidence for the the Biblical flood.

I didn't read the wolf paper, but there is zero evidence for a global flood a measly 4,300 years ago. None. The evidence against it is just too overwhelming to even consider it as a real event. Ditto for the Genesis creation story and a 6,000 year old universe. These are bronze age myths and have been proven as such.

Forensic scientist and Lawyers both have been incorrect in piecing together what happen in the past.

Sure ... the less evidence there is, and/or the less reliable it is, the more likely there can be mistakes in the analysis. Nothing unusual about that. But when the evidence is plentiful, reliable, and overwhelming against an explanation, the more likely it is to be wrong. For this reason, we can say with a very high degree of certainty that the Earth is far older than 6,000 years, and that a global flood covering the highest mountains and killing off all but 8 humans a mere 4,300 years ago did not happen.

But, of course, creationists done't need any actual, real evidence to support their claims of these events. They are given in a perceived holy book and believed to be true purely for that reason. This has nothing to do with science. But, for some strange reason, there are people who try to argue that these myths are compatible with science rather than simply admitting they believe the stories on pure faith, and that this is sufficient (for them). That would be a perfectly acceptable explanation ... no need to try and do the impossible and attempt to justify these myths as being scientifically supported.

Far from adding to the legitimacy, genetics has caused significant difficulty for evolutionary theory.

Go find Lady Justice and put the few cherry-picked anamolies where genetics has "caused difficulty" for evolution on one side, and put the instances where it supports evolution on the other side, and see what her verdict is. While you're at it, do this for any other scientific subject with creationism on one side and naturalism on the other. Just be sure to reinforce the fulcrum so you don't break the scale from such a complete and total imbalance.

[Purple Knight]

Yes, I agree that most people that believe in evolution do not understand that it is a belief system. Especially those that do not believe in God.

I agree with you that people do not understand the belief system inherent in evolution.

Example: Muller's ratchet

Since I was the one who addressed this in the Amazon Molly, what do you think I don't understand about it?