After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

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After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answered

Post #1

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

Post #51

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 48 by DrNoGods]
What problem do you have with crustal plates being 10s of millions of years old? There is nothing inconsistent or surprising about this. Do you think the Himalayas are not 10s of millions of years old? How did they form? There is mountains of evidence (literally and figuratively) to support the currently accepted age of the Earth (4.6 billion years). A 6,000 year old Earth is nearly six full orders of magnitude out ... not some rounding error.
There is problem when the the plates are in the mantle. How can plates still be detected when they have been in the mantle for supposedly 10s or even hundreds of millions of years. At what point should we expect these plates to reach thermal equilibrium with the mantle.

These plate are cool enough and have held there form well enough that mountains can still be detected on these plates. Deep earthquakes that were at one time a mystery are not said to occur because of movement of these deep plates.

There are plates that are at the core mantle boundary. The core-mantle boundary is 2900 km in which some say takes the over 100 million years. These plates would still have to be rigid because of the density differences involved. Basalt which is what is normally subducted has a density of 2.8 g/cm3. The mantle has a density of 3.4 upper mantle and 4.4 lower mantle. For crustal plates to penetrate all the way to the lower mantle the plate would have to be rigid.



Quote:
Appeal to authority is a common type of fallacy ...


And right after that comment you proceed to do exactly the same thing and point out that someone has found a miniscule number of 50 scientists who believe in a literal 6 day creation. Admonish someone claiming an appeal to authority fallacy, then immediately do exactly the same thing! But 50 scientists compared to the entire science community is nothing, despite your appeal to authority suggesting that this is somehow convincing evidence to support a literal 6 day creation.
No, you made the comment that there was no one that taught or believed in six day creation. I was simple giving you examples of scientist that do believe in 6 day creation. I was in no way using them as evidence for 6 day creation.

I can easily find 50 people who believe that bigfoot exists, or that alien spacecraft have visited Earth, or that they were abducted by aliens themselves, that they can speak with the dead, etc., despite there being zero evidence for any of these things. 50 misguided scientists do not represent the scientific community.
You can find 50 people with doctorates in biology, physics and chemistry, that believe in bigfoot or that they were abducted by aliens really. I do not think you can.

Again I will ask ... why isn't this stuff being taught in U.S. schools (outside of "Sunday School")? It has been proven to be nothing but myth written by people who could not explain the natural world using science, so they attributed things to deities. And humans have invented thousands of such deities over time, not one of which has even been demonstrated to exist. Fortunately, science has shown that these imaginary entities are no longer necessary or useful, and no longer uses them for any explanations of the natural world.
But it is you go to Liberty university you will here all about the evidence for 6 day creation. You go to Bob Jones university you will here the same. You go to the Master's college and you will here the same. Liberty university has the same level of accreditation as Harvard and Yale.

The only reason I'd visit the ark exhibit would be to see the gigantic taxpayer ripoff in action and to laugh at the ridiculousness of the exhibits showing people coexisting with dinosaurs, and similar nonsense. They should be shut down for tax evasion.
You could see how dinosaurs were housed on the ark and he amazing inventions they could have used for watering and feeding. It is simply amazing.

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

Post #52

Post by Clownboat »

earthscienceguy wrote:You could see how dinosaurs were housed on the ark and he amazing inventions they could have used for watering and feeding. It is simply amazing.
To debate against this position would be to give it credit it doesn't deserve. The ancients obviously knew no better.

That people in this day and age are still suckered by ancient religious promotional material is the amazing thing. Especially since we know that virtually all civilizationtions throughout all time have invented god and creation events.

To decide that one is true out of them all is supreme arrogence IMO and I think the ancient Mayans, Aztecs, Jiahu and on and on and on would disagree with earthscienceguy and his assumptions.

But with faith, humans are able to believe in anything we can imagine. That some think this is a route a wise god would choose is to not be using reason IMO. A wise god would know that most humans understand the weakness of faith.
After all, faith is a mechanism that is required in order to believe a false claim.
Want to believe in Bigfoot? Faith.
Want to believe in Lochness? Faith.
Want to believe in Allah? Faith.
How about the god of the Bible? Yup, same mechanism.
How about appearing to turn water into wine? No faith, just trickery there.

What we don't see if evidence to support the mythical position. We see attacks made against known and unknown science as is being witnessed here.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.

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If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments? - brunumb

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

Post #53

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Purple Knight]
Is it an assumption that if the fish produces homozygous individuals only, evolution has a better chance to select out detrimental mutations?
Yes you are assuming a bottleneck. You are assuming selective pressures always change for the benefit of your fishy fish. Research does not say that there is no deleterious build up, but that the deleterious build up is not as high as what was expected.


Let me also ask you a question about gynogenesis. The current research would have us believe that males of closely related species mate with the Amazon Molly and don't contribute their genes, but that this mating stimulates the fish to clone herself.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that these male fish are suckered into mating pointlessly, over and over? You're Christian, and this means you think animals were created by God to be perfect. And you must have noticed that animals don't tend to be perverts, sex fiends, or chronic masturbaters (if there are a few like this, they're generally domesticated animals).

This male fish, according to science, is basically masturbating. I don't think God would make a fish that does something so sinful. (Actually, what I don't think is that a fish that wastes its energy like this would survive. I think the female Amazon Molly may have a slight chance to uptake DNA from the males of related species.)

Do you believe that the male fish does this, over and over, with no chance to reproduce? And that there will always be new suckers to help the female Amazon Molly impregnate herself? Or does this sound a bit... fishy?
The praying mantis eats her mate after mating. There are all kinds of animals that commit "homosexual" acts. So your fish is nothing new, it simply shows that humans are not animals. We are different from animals because humans have a soul and animals do not.

Humans can control there behaviors and animals cannot.

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

Post #54

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 52 by Clownboat]
To debate against this position would be to give it credit it doesn't deserve. The ancients obviously knew no better.
Well, then if it is as much make believe as what you say it is then it should be easily refuted by science. Do you have any ideas of how tectonic plates could be in the mantle for over 100 million years and not reach thermal equilibrium? How these plates could be rigid enough to still cause deep earthquakes? This makes sense if the earth is a few thousand of years old but not so much if the earth is billions of years old.
That people in this day and age are still suckered by ancient religious promotional material is the amazing thing. Especially since we know that virtually all civilizationtions throughout all time have invented god and creation events.
Just because naturalist don't want to name their god does not mean they do not have a god. Naturalist are bound to a pantheistic philosophy that the universe did what it needed to do to make life possible in this universe. I prefer to call their god their god the anthropic god. Does not seem like a very good god to me but naturalist seem to like it.

What we don't see if evidence to support the mythical position. We see attacks made against known and unknown science as is being witnessed here.
What I don't see if evidence that there is not a god. Why should anyone believe there is not a god? When how this universe and life came into existence is unknown. I understand that naturalist love there anthropic god but that does not mean that we all have to worship their god.

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

Post #55

Post by Diagoras »

EarthScienceguy wrote:Naturalist (sic) are bound to a pantheistic philosophy that the universe did what it needed to do to make life possible in this universe.
A sweeping generalisation, and your anthropomorphising of the universe shows a poor understanding of what naturalists believe. Easily refuted.
I prefer to call their god their god the anthropic god.
Preference for name-calling noted. As the author of the thread, perhaps you could have made it clearer in the OP that such childish taunting was acceptable as a substitute for reasoned debate.
Why should anyone believe there is not a god?
Addressed in isolation, this is an important and fair question. One common simple answer is: “Lack of strong evidence, and preference for verifiable evidence over faith.�
When how this universe and life came into existence is unknown.
In other words, “We don’t know, therefore God.� Widely recognised as a weak argument.
I understand that naturalist love there (sic) anthropic god but that does not mean that we all have to worship their god.
Your misunderstanding (and stereotyping) of naturalists is evident. Perhaps you should suspend your judgement for once and ask one what they believe? Perhaps make use of the ‘Questions for a particular Belief/User’ forums here, if you sincerely want to know.

Otherwise, y’know, keep your opinions to yourself.
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

Post #56

Post by Purple Knight »

EarthScienceguy wrote: [Replying to Purple Knight]
Is it an assumption that if the fish produces homozygous individuals only, evolution has a better chance to select out detrimental mutations?
Yes you are assuming a bottleneck. You are assuming selective pressures always change for the benefit of your fishy fish. Research does not say that there is no deleterious build up, but that the deleterious build up is not as high as what was expected.
What does what I asked have to do with a bottleneck? You think bad mutations that express (like one that makes a fish go 50% slower) getting selected out is an assumption?
EarthScienceguy wrote:
Let me also ask you a question about gynogenesis. The current research would have us believe that males of closely related species mate with the Amazon Molly and don't contribute their genes, but that this mating stimulates the fish to clone herself.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that these male fish are suckered into mating pointlessly, over and over? You're Christian, and this means you think animals were created by God to be perfect. And you must have noticed that animals don't tend to be perverts, sex fiends, or chronic masturbaters (if there are a few like this, they're generally domesticated animals).

This male fish, according to science, is basically masturbating. I don't think God would make a fish that does something so sinful. (Actually, what I don't think is that a fish that wastes its energy like this would survive. I think the female Amazon Molly may have a slight chance to uptake DNA from the males of related species.)

Do you believe that the male fish does this, over and over, with no chance to reproduce? And that there will always be new suckers to help the female Amazon Molly impregnate herself? Or does this sound a bit... fishy?
The praying mantis eats her mate after mating. There are all kinds of animals that commit "homosexual" acts. So your fish is nothing new, it simply shows that humans are not animals. We are different from animals because humans have a soul and animals do not.

Humans can control there behaviors and animals cannot.
I'm not asking about homosexual acts. The male praying mantis does get to pass his genes after mating and subsequently getting eaten.

I'm asking about pure masturbation: A sexual act that (presumably) gives the animal the pleasure of sex, but without the chance to pass on its genes. Do you think animals do this on a regular basis?

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

Post #57

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 51 by EarthScienceguy]
There is problem when the the plates are in the mantle. How can plates still be detected when they have been in the mantle for supposedly 10s or even hundreds of millions of years. At what point should we expect these plates to reach thermal equilibrium with the mantle.


You're ignoring the dynamic nature of plate tectonics. The mantle is constantly moving due to convection. Plates dive into the mantle at subduction zones, get moved around on the surface laterally due to convective effects in the mantle and friction against adjacent plates that are moving, and the whole process is dynamic albeit at very slow rates. You're describing it as if everything is static and the plates should "dissolve" in the mantle over time.

This sounds like just another topic you've latched onto from some creationist website as a push-back against science because you've brought it up several times. Here is an intro article on plate tectonics:

https://www.livescience.com/37706-what- ... onics.html
The core-mantle boundary is 2900 km in which some say takes the over 100 million years.


What does the depth of the core-mantle boundary (a distance) have to do with time? There are no crustal plates at the core mantle boundary, by definition, because the crustal plates are .... wait for it ... part of the Earth's crust. If there are rigid structures at the core mantle boundary they are not crustal plates.
You can find 50 people with doctorates in biology, physics and chemistry, that believe in bigfoot or that they were abducted by aliens really. I do not think you can.


I doubt I could find 50 Ph.D's with degrees in all three of those subjects (and), but might be able to find 50 with Ph.D's in one of them (or). There are lots of crazy people out there among the some 7.5 billion humans.
But it is you go to Liberty university you will here all about the evidence for 6 day creation. You go to Bob Jones university you will here the same. You go to the Master's college and you will here the same. Liberty university has the same level of accreditation as Harvard and Yale.


Of course a religious institution might believe in a literal 6 day creation just 6000 years ago, but try to find this belief in the other 99.9% of universities in this country. I'm pretty sure a creationist professor trying to get a job at Harvard or Yale, to teach creationism as legitimate historical science, would have no chance at all. The modern science community rejected this nonsense long ago, and you won't find creationism taught as legitimate science anywhere but religious colleges, just like you won't find Russell Humphreys' theory of planetary magnetic fields published in any legitimate scientific journals. This stuff isn't valid science.
You could see how dinosaurs were housed on the ark and he amazing inventions they could have used for watering and feeding. It is simply amazing.


Please! How gullible and scientifically illiterate does someone have to be to believe that humans and dinosaurs coexisted on this planet? That this ark exhibit can con people out of money to be fed that kind of nonsense, and get tax rebates, is just incredible. At least the half-man-half-fish exhibit at the traveling circus is taxed properly on their "entertainment."
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Re: After over 150 years, why has evolution still not answer

Post #58

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods]
You're ignoring the dynamic nature of plate tectonics. The mantle is constantly moving due to convection. Plates dive into the mantle at subduction zones, get moved around on the surface laterally due to convective effects in the mantle and friction against adjacent plates that are moving, and the whole process is dynamic albeit at very slow rates. You're describing it as if everything is static and the plates should "dissolve" in the mantle over time.
The tectonic plates melting in the mantle used to be the theory how the the theory described sinking plates.

From the article you cited below:

While the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, because oceanic crust is constantly recycled at subduction zones, the oldest seafloor is only about 200 million years old. The oldest ocean rocks are found in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Fragments of continental crust are much older, with large chunks at least 3.8 billion years found in Greenland.

So plates are said to be recycled at plate boundaries, or at least that is the theory.


But then there was the discovery that there were a whole graveyard of tectonic plates under the pacific and Indian oceans. The fact that the mantle is a dynamic environment does not really help your hypothesis. One would theorize that the movement of the mantle would tear the plates apart especially as plates are heated in the mantle.

The transition zone prevents large exchanges of material between the upper and lower mantle. Some geologists think that the increased density of rocks in the transition zone prevents subducted slabs from the lithosphere from falling further into the mantle. These huge pieces of tectonic plates stall in the transition zone for millions of years before mixing with other mantle rock and eventually returning to the upper mantle as part of the asthenosphere, erupting as lava, becoming part of the lithosphere, or emerging as new oceanic crust at sites of seafloor spreading.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/mantle/

This sounds like just another topic you've latched onto from some creationist website as a push-back against science because you've brought it up several times. Here is an intro article on plate tectonics:

https://www.livescience.com/37706-what- ... onics.html
Thanks I appreciate the article. I have read a few articles on how tectonic plates move already but I did enjoy this article. Because it did bring up a separate issue of why are the plates moving at all.

We don't really know when plate tectonics as it looks today got started, but we do know that we have continental crust that was likely scraped off a down-going slab [a tectonic plate in a subduction zone] that is 3.8 billion years old," Van der Elst said. "We could guess that means plate tectonics was operating, but it might have looked very different from today."

Earth is the only planet in the solar system in which there are crustal plates moving on the surface of the planet.

What does the depth of the core-mantle boundary (a distance) have to do with time? There are no crustal plates at the core mantle boundary, by definition, because the crustal plates are .... wait for it ... part of the Earth's crust. If there are rigid structures at the core mantle boundary they are not crustal plates.
But plates were found at the core mantle boundary. https://www.solid-earth.net/3/415/2012/ ... 5-2012.pdf

If you will look at page 420, you will see a series of graphs. Graph A is depth of slab tracers vs. time, graph B is lateral displacement of slab tracers vs time of subduction and graph C is lateral displacement vs. depth. th of the plates in the mantle. These graphs show that there are slab tracers that are at depths approaching 2500 km. Way into the lower mantle. How is this even possible since the lower mantle is supposedly solid.

I doubt I could find 50 Ph.D's with degrees in all three of those subjects (and), but might be able to find 50 with Ph.D's in one of them (or). There are lots of crazy people out there among the some 7.5 billion humans.
Yes, I agree with you there are some pretty crazy people out there. Can we leave it there and not go down that road?

Of course a religious institution might believe in a literal 6 day creation just 6000 years ago, but try to find this belief in the other 99.9% of universities in this country. I'm pretty sure a creationist professor trying to get a job at Harvard or Yale, to teach creationism as legitimate historical science, would have no chance at all. The modern science community rejected this nonsense long ago, and you won't find creationism taught as legitimate science anywhere but religious colleges, just like you won't find Russell Humphreys' theory of planetary magnetic fields published in any legitimate scientific journals. This stuff isn't valid science.
Why would pantheistic colleges like Harvard and Yale teach Biblical creationism? They do not teach Biblical creationism they teach there pantheistic beliefs on the creation of life and the universe. Creationist do not deny the laws of nature. How the universe and life was created is a belief. Colleges like Yale and Harvard they have a pantheistic view of creation, they believe that the universe created itself. And a very good argument could be made that they do not believe the laws of the nature apply at certain points in history, especially at that point of creation and the creation of life.
.;

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

Post #59

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 56 by Purple Knight]
What does what I asked have to do with a bottleneck? You think bad mutations that express (like one that makes a fish go 50% slower) getting selected out is an assumption?
I do not understand what your are trying to express here.
I'm asking about pure masturbation: A sexual act that (presumably) gives the animal the pleasure of sex, but without the chance to pass on its genes. Do you think animals do this on a regular basis?
My point was that it does not matter what animals do.

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

Post #60

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to post 55 by Diagoras]
A sweeping generalisation, and your anthropomorphising of the universe shows a poor understanding of what naturalists believe. Easily refuted.
I am in good company then because Dr. Hodge thought the same thing.

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

Preference for name-calling noted. As the author of the thread, perhaps you could have made it clearer in the OP that such childish taunting was acceptable as a substitute for reasoned debate.
But the anthropic principle is regularly invoked by naturalist when they are "debating". Take for example when the topic turns to creation to the fine tuning of the universe. A common naturist response is if there constants were not what they are then we would not be here to debating this. Same is true of in conversations about the creation of life. For the molly fish to exist it had be involved in a several bottlenecks at just the right time. Appeals to the anthropic god are common when debating naturalist, just like Dr. Hodge states.
Addressed in isolation, this is an important and fair question. One common simple answer is: “Lack of strong evidence, and preference for verifiable evidence over faith.�
The universe does exist. We are all individual entities in this universe. The universe is fine tuned for life. Life in all of its complexities does exist. These are not new observations all of these observations were made in Dr. Hodges day. The difference between Dr. Hodges day and today is that these problems for naturalist have only gotten worse not better. As science advances the gulf between how life and the universe was made and scientific theory grows.

Naturalist are free to believe whatever they wish, but don't get upset when Christian's call for what it it is nothing more than good old fashion pantheism.
In other words, “We don’t know, therefore God.� Widely recognised as a weak argument.
We don't know so anything anyone believes about the creation of the life and the universe is a belief. This is exactly the reason why Dr. Hodge equated belief in naturalism as pantheism.

If a naturalist does not know what created the universe but does not believe that God created the universe then the universe created the fine tuned universe that we observed, that is pantheism.

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