[__ Science __ ] Evolution Is a Scientific Law?

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

I am clueless about science and evolution, in fact I thought is was all garbage in High School.

Wikipedia says humans evolved from primates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

The question I have for Christians who believe in evolution is how do they explain we evolved from primates when the Bible teaches that we are formed from the dust of the ground and made in God's image?

Just looking for an honest answer.

Grace and peace to you.

Let me ask you a return question.
In the Scriptures, we are told that Adam and Eve's sin introduced DEATH into the world.
Imagine the CHANGE from a world of immortality (imagine here that INSECTS are immortal...your ROACHES are immortal) to MORTALITY. What would that look like? What would the world before look like and the world after look like? Well, you know what the world after looks like because you live in it. You are disgusted by roaches, right? But what if those same roaches were GLORIFIED? Would you be disgusted?
Here is the point.
What if the Fall of Man did not simply involve the concept of human death entering the world, but of death itself entering the ENTIRE UNIVERSE? And what if that meant that a PARALLEL UNIVERSE took the place of the original universe which mankind inhabited?
What sort of actual change would have to occur for that to happen? Wouldn't it be a change that defies description? what if it included a change of BODIES for Adam and Eve?
The possibilities are endless.

 

[Barbarian]

What would evidence of "conscious action in nature" look like?

Stone tools, for example. Chickens as opposed to jungle fowl. Stuff like that.

Not one bit of this makes any sense at all to what I stated.

How so?
Darwin's great discovery is that it isn't random. Natural selection is the antithesis of randomness. And the New Synthesis did not overturn that. Nor have more recent refinements of evolutionary theory.

Friend, you apparently do NOT understand the Evolutionary formulation. In it's basic formulation it is "random mutation plus natural selection equals evolution".

No. "Descent with modification by random variation and natural selection." was the basic formulation. Genetics came much later. And not all evolution is even acted upon by natural selection. Evolution is merely "descent with modification", changed to "change in allele frequencies in a population over time" after the rediscovery of genetics. It can be adaptive under natural selection, but often is not. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is one way to determine if natural selection is acting on specific alleles.

Denton's thesis is that every living thing is the product of nature and natural forces. His teleological view is that the designer uses nature to do that.

Denton's thesis was that intelligent intent can be inferred from natural phenomenon. It really seems that you do not comprehend what his thesis truly is.

Denton makes it very explicit that he sees the designer as acting within the laws of nature in producing life and it's many variations:

"it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law.

Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies."
Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny (page xvii-xviii)

This is Denton's understanding of teleology in nature.

And for a Christian even chance can be used by God to effect His will. Christian theologians have known this for a long time.

Perhaps you could explain that in detail, because I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and I am a life-long Christian theologian.

The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1)

Christ is amongst us. Now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen!

Amen.

 

[Barbarian]

In the Scriptures, we are told that Adam and Eve's sin introduced DEATH into the world.

Indeed, God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam does eat from that tree, but he lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God is truthful, then the death that He spoke of is not a physical death. Adam brought a spiritual death into the world. And so other living things weren't affected at all.

Adam was never immortal, something God mentions in Genesis 3:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

But what if those same roaches were GLORIFIED? Would you be disgusted?

I'm a biologist, so they don't actually disgust me now. But I get your point. What would a glorified roach be? My thought is that God made the world and found it to be very good as it is.

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

Stone tools, for example. Chickens as opposed to jungle fowl. Stuff like that.


How so?
Darwin's great discovery is that it isn't random. Natural selection is the antithesis of randomness. And the New Synthesis did not overturn that. Nor have more recent refinements of evolutionary theory.


No. "Descent with modification by random variation and natural selection." was the basic formulation. Genetics came much later. And not all evolution is even acted upon by natural selection. Evolution is merely "descent with modification", changed to "change in allele frequencies in a population over time" after the rediscovery of genetics. It can be adaptive under natural selection, but often is not. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is one way to determine if natural selection is acting on specific alleles.

Denton's thesis is that every living thing is the product of nature and natural forces. His teleological view is that the designer uses nature to do that.


Denton makes it very explicit that he sees the designer as acting within the laws of nature in producing life and it's many variations:

"it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law.

Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies."
Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny (page xvii-xviii)

This is Denton's understanding of teleology in nature.

And for a Christian even chance can be used by God to effect His will. Christian theologians have known this for a long time.


The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1)


Amen.

You said:

No. "Descent with modification by random variation and natural selection." was the basic formulation.

My response:
Please explain how "random variation" differs from "fundamental random mutation"?

 

[Barbarian]

My response:
Please explain how "random variation" differs from "fundamental random mutation"?

Darwin had no idea about genetics. Only after Mendel's work, did it become clear how random variation happens. In fact, it cleared up a major problem for Darwin's theory. If heredity was in blood, as was assumed, it seemed impossible for a new trait to become established. When scientists realized that it was more like sorting beads than mixing paint, the problem went away.

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

Indeed, God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam does eat from that tree, but he lives on physically for many years thereafter. If God is truthful, then the death that He spoke of is not a physical death. Adam brought a spiritual death into the world. And so other living things weren't affected at all.

Adam was never immortal, something God mentions in Genesis 3:

Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.


I'm a biologist, so they don't actually disgust me now. But I get your point. What would a glorified roach be? My thought is that God made the world and found it to be very good as it is.

I would like to answer more of your content as I think we have more in common than to the contrary. But I must know how you reconcile the ideal concerning randomness in the synthetic theory, because I have not percieved it as you are saying. The way I have understood it from the literature is that while natural selection is not random...mutation IS random.
Do you deny this?

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

Darwin had no idea about genetics. Only after Mendel's work, did it become clear how random variation happens. In fact, it cleared up a major problem for Darwin's theory. If heredity was in blood, as was assumed, it seemed impossible for a new trait to become established. When scientists realized that it was more like sorting beads than mixing paint, the problem went away.

Whatever the case may be concerning that, the fact of the matter is that the current theory posits a FUNDAMENTAL RANDOM ELEMENT.
If you deny this I feel that we need to hash this aspect of our debate out before proceeding into any other aspect of the debate, being that it is a foundational principle.

 

[KV-44-v1]

He doesn't say it took no time.

Not in those words, no.

No, that won't work.

nature
15 February 2023

An ankylosaur larynx provides insights for bird-like vocalization in non-avian dinosaurs​

Although bird-unique vocal source (syrinx) have never been reported in non-avian dinosaurs,

Non avian dinos. Thats like saying "flightless ostriches".

Pinacosaurus could have employed bird-like vocalization

COULD HAVE. No evidence it DID. We have evidence, Bible verses, that kinds produce according to kinds, not give rise to a bunch of unique novel ones.

with the bird-like large, kinetic larynx.

Common creation.

This oldest laryngeal fossil from the Cretaceous dinosaur provides the first step for understanding the vocal evolution in non-avian dinosaurs toward birds.

That's all assuming evolution. Begging the question. No better than seeing two artifacts that are similar and saying "Oh one musta came from the other" or "Oh they both emerged from the same thing." Ofc no good evidence is given that either DID evolve.

Nothing examined by the f2f Evo view better explains the evidence than the Yec truth?

The only thing that dino's fossil came from is dinos of its kind. Dino x2 = baby dino. Not "an increasing amount of chance to make a dino." And the only thing itll morph into is another similar to it. No amount of time will optimize it for birds except in simulations.

Well, at least this is what we observe.

The question I have for Christians who believe in evolution is how do they explain we evolved from primates when the Bible teaches that we are formed from the dust of the ground and made in God's image?

Just turn parts of the Bible into an allegory instead of letting the Bible shape your worldview. Nitpick at parts you think are strange, and assume that they turn the ""problematic parts"" into allegories.
Just add allegory so that the Bible does not contradict anything. Easy quick (and totally-not-risky! :D) fix for all your "Bible problems"!

Instead of working based on a Biblical framework and examining critically, just lazily slap "allegory" labels!

 

[electedbyHim]

Let me ask you a return question.
In the Scriptures, we are told that Adam and Eve's sin introduced DEATH into the world.
Imagine the CHANGE from a world of immortality (imagine here that INSECTS are immortal...your ROACHES are immortal) to MORTALITY. What would that look like? What would the world before look like and the world after look like? Well, you know what the world after looks like because you live in it. You are disgusted by roaches, right? But what if those same roaches were GLORIFIED? Would you be disgusted?
Here is the point.
What if the Fall of Man did not simply involve the concept of human death entering the world, but of death itself entering the ENTIRE UNIVERSE? And what if that meant that a PARALLEL UNIVERSE took the place of the original universe which mankind inhabited?
What sort of actual change would have to occur for that to happen? Wouldn't it be a change that defies description? what if it included a change of BODIES for Adam and Eve?
The possibilities are endless.

This has nothing to do with my question.

 

[KV-44-v1]

God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

God told them? Literally?
Did He actually tell them ( "Has God said") that they would die?
Or is He telling them an allegory for something else?

You have it wrong, it says "you will SURELY die". Ie, die later.
Whenever "SURELY die" is used, the death happens LATER.

"Dying die". Hebrew matters.

Do you believe God wastes words? (ignoring the fact that the allegorization of Genesis makes it seem like He does ) Why does God's Word include "surely"?

 

[Barbarian]

God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil God told them? Literally?

God told them? Literally?

Genesis 2:16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

Did He actually tell them ( "Has God said") that they would die?

Yep. The serpent, like you, was a biblical literalist. He knew they wouldn't die physically. And so he tells them that by eating they will be like God. By telling a part of the truth, he deceived them, hiding the fact that they would die spiritually.

God late confirms the part of the truth the serpent told them:
Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

You have it wrong, it says "you will SURELY die". Ie, die later.
Whenever "SURELY die" is used, the death happens LATER.

See above.
Genesis 2:16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.
What is your evidence that the Bible has this wrong?

Why does God's Word include "surely"?

It's in some versions. Perhaps God wanted to make it very clear that he would die that very day.

 

[Barbarian]

Not in those words, no.

He didn't say that in any words at all. That's another YE insertion to make scripture fit their own desires.

Non avian dinos.

Yep. While only maniraptoan dinosaurs (including birds) have syrinxes and could chirp, other dinosaurs have structures from which the syrinx evolved.

COULD HAVE. No evidence it DID.

No evidence that it didn't. So once again, you can't cite even one characteristic of birds that is not present in other dinosaurs.

We have evidence, Bible verses, that kinds produce according to kinds, not give rise to a bunch of unique novel ones.

But you can't present any of it here? We already know why. But even your fellow YE creationists who know the evidence admit that it is very good evidence for macroevoluitonary theory. Should I show you, again?

with the bird-like large, kinetic larynx.

Common creation.

No, that excuse won't work. You've confused analogy with homology. The structure in non-avian dinosaurs would not allow chirping. Only until it evolved into a true syrinx, could that happen. But the transitional forms show how that happened. Just one of many, many such transitions that show how new kinds evolved.

That's all assuming evolution.

Nope. As your fellow YE creationist Dr. Todd Wood freely admits, that it's very good evidence for such evolution.

Nothing examined by the f2f Evo view better explains the evidence than the Yec truth?

Your fellow YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise disagrees. He expresses confidence that someday there may be a satisfactory YE explanation, but at present, there is none. Would you like me to show you that, again?

The only thing that dino's fossil came from is dinos of its kind.

I know you want to believe that, but the evidence, as Dr. Wise points out, shows otherwise.

Just turn parts of the Bible into an allegory

Denying God's use of allegory won't really help you here. As Paul observes in Romans 1:20, his creation itself shows God's wisdom and majesty. Those "invisible things, clearly seen" by those open to His revelation make this clear.

nstead of working based on a Biblical framework and examining critically, just lazily slap "allegory" labels!

Why not just accept His word as it is? These things don't matter to your salvation,but they could help you have a closer relationship with Him.

 

[Barbarian]

Whatever the case may be concerning that, the fact of the matter is that the current theory posits a FUNDAMENTAL RANDOM ELEMENT.

Yes. Even engineers now realize that random variation plus natural selection is a more efficient way to solve very complex problems than design can be. They now copy God's evolutionary processes because of that. Everything in creation, even contingency, advances His purposes. He knows best, in spite of man's attempts to reason otherwise.

If you deny this I feel that we need to hash this aspect of our debate out before proceeding into any other aspect of the debate, being that it is a foundational principle.

Why would there be contingency in His creation, if it did not serve His purposes? He thinks of everything.

 

[Barbarian]

I would like to answer more of your content as I think we have more in common than to the contrary. But I must know how you reconcile the ideal concerning randomness in the synthetic theory, because I have not percieved it as you are saying. The way I have understood it from the literature is that while natural selection is not random...mutation IS random.
Do you deny this?

It's true that a random process, along with a non-random process, forms a non-random process.

Stephen Gould suggested that if we could reset initial conditions, evolution would again proceed, but the outcome would be entirely different. St. Thomas Aquinas and Michael Denton (coming from wildly different starting points) concluded that a creator would have set nature so that even random events would inevitably lead to the world as it is now.

I'll go with St. Tom and Denton.

BTW, not all mutations are random, but since they can be caused by a single quanta of energy, and since that can be irreducibly random, we must conclude that at least some mutation is truly random, not just apparently so.

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

This has nothing to do with my question.

It actually does. If mankind was created, initially, in a different universe than the one that man "fell" into, it makes all the difference in the world to what we are discussing.

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

Yes. Even engineers now realize that random variation plus natural selection is a more efficient way to solve very complex problems than design can be. They now copy God's evolutionary processes because of that. Everything in creation, even contingency, advances His purposes. He knows best, in spite of man's attempts to reason otherwise.



Why would there be contingency in His creation, if it did not serve His purposes? He thinks of everything.

You said:

Even engineers now realize that random variation plus natural selection is a more efficient way to solve very complex problems than design can be. They now copy God's evolutionary processes because of that.

My response:

I am not sure I understand what you are talking about. Can you give an example?
But, just to clarify, you ARE saying that mutations are fundamentally random and that they are one of the two driving forces of evolution, right?

 

[Dyonisius the Areopagite]

It's true that a random process, along with a non-random process, forms a non-random process.

Stephen Gould suggested that if we could reset initial conditions, evolution would again proceed, but the outcome would be entirely different. St. Thomas Aquinas and Michael Denton (coming from wildly different starting points) concluded that a creator would have set nature so that even random events would inevitably lead to the world as it is now.

I'll go with St. Tom and Denton.

BTW, not all mutations are random, but since they can be caused by a single quanta of energy, and since that can be irreducibly random, we must conclude that at least some mutation is truly random, not just apparently so.

My response:

If God "played dice" with the creation of man, then that means He is not directly responsible for mankind's creation. We happened by chance. He would not have even had us in mind. Is this not so?

 

[KV-44-v1]

God tells Adam that he will die the day he eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Strawman. He would SURELY die, as in he would start dying now, and die later on.
Ever heard the phrase "Slowly but Surely"?? What does "surely" mean?

God told them? Literally?

Genesis 2:16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

"The phrase “you shall surely die” can be literally translated from the Hebrew biblical text as “dying you shall die.” In the Hebrew phrase we find the imperfect form of the Hebrew verb (you shall die) with the infinitive absolute form of the same verb (dying). This presence of the infinitive absolute intensifies the meaning of the imperfect verb (hence the usual translation of “you shall surely die”). This grammatical construction is quite common in the Old Testament, not just with this verb but others also, and does indicate (or intensify) the certainty of the action. The scholarly reference work by Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Conner, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), gives many Biblical examples of this,1 and they say that “the precise nuance of intensification [of the verbal meaning] must be discovered from the broader context.”2 Clearly in the context of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve died spiritually instantly—they were separated from God and hid themselves. Their relationship with God was broken. But in Romans 5:12 we see in context that Paul is clearly speaking of physical death (Jesus’ physical death, verses 8–10, and other men’s physical death, in verse 14). We also find the same comparison of physical death and physical resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:20–22. So both spiritual death and physical death are the consequences of Adam’s fall."

Genesis 2:17—“You Shall Surely Die”

Many old-earth creationists (OEC) try to get around young-earth creationist arguments about there being no death (animal or human) before Adam sinned.

answersingenesis.org

Yep. The serpent, like you, was a biblical literalist.

In order to address this claim, I need to know what your phrase "Biblical literalist" means and what it entails.

He knew they wouldn't die physically.

Not immediately physically.

And so he tells them that by eating they will be like God. By telling a part of the truth, he deceived them, hiding the fact that they would die spiritually.

He hid both deaths from them.

God late confirms the part of the truth the serpent told them:
Genesis 3:22 And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.

Yes. I'm glad you know that is literal.

See above.
Genesis 2:16 And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat: 17 But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.
What is your evidence that the Bible has this wrong?

No, but I have evidence it is RIGHT ; such as that it is true and asserted as fact, not some vague reference to something else.

It's in some versions. Perhaps God wanted to make it very clear that he would die that very day.

Perhaps God wanted those who try to juggle the worLd and the Word to trip up and expose the logic errors.

 

[electedbyHim]

It actually does. If mankind was created, initially, in a different universe than the one that man "fell" into, it makes all the difference in the world to what we are discussing.

Let me rephrase the question.

For Christians who believe in evolution, how do you explain we evolved from primates when the Bible teaches that we are formed from the dust of the ground and made in God's image?

A simple answer will be fine.

Not looking to argue.

 

[KV-44-v1]

That's another YE insertion to make scripture fit their own desires.

Assertion not fact.
What are these "desires" you speak of and what makes you think YEC's would want to do such?
Define "insertion". What verse did they "insert" what into?

Yep. While only maniraptoan dinosaurs (including birds) have syrinxes and could chirp, other dinosaurs have structures from which the syrinx evolved.


No evidence that it didn't. So once again, you can't cite even one characteristic of birds that is not present in other dinosaurs.


But you can't present any of it here?

Genesis 1:21 "And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

See Matthew 7:17

Nowhere in Scripture is there ANY ROOM for the Kind Barrier to be breached. God created the winged bird. He did not make it from something else. God does NOT need prexisting matter to create things. ever heard of the phrase 'Ex Nihilo' ?

We already know why.

No.

But even your fellow YE creationists who know the evidence admit that it is very good evidence for macroevoluitonary theory. Should I show you, again?

Really? Why do you tout PLURAL "CreationistS", when you only have one single outlier, Kurt Wise? He is simply wrong.

with the bird-like large, kinetic larynx.

What is a kincetic larynx and whats kinetic about it?

No, that excuse won't work. You've confused analogy with homology. The structure in non-avian dinosaurs would not allow chirping. Only until it evolved into a true syrinx, could that happen. But the transitional forms show how that happened. Just one of many, many such transitions that show how new kinds evolved.



Nope. As your fellow YE creationist Dr. Todd Wood freely admits, that it's very good evidence for such evolution.


Your fellow YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise disagrees. He expresses confidence that someday there may be a satisfactory YE explanation, but at present, there is none. Would you like me to show you that, again?


I know you want to believe that, but the evidence, as Dr. Wise points out, shows otherwise.


Denying God's use of allegory won't really help you here. As Paul observes in Romans 1:20, his creation itself shows God's wisdom and majesty. Those "invisible things, clearly seen" by those open to His revelation make this clear.



Why not just accept His word as it is? These things don't matter to your salvation,but they could help you have a closer relationship with Him.