Evolution v Creationism (Part II Responses) (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, September 14, 2014, 21:58 (3721 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: I think it's important to recognize that evolution is not an atheistic theory... the theory has been hijacked by atheists, just as Intelligent Design has been hijacked by Creationists, and neither theory should be dismissed because of its distortion by extremists. 
> -I don't dismiss it because of its advocates. I dismiss it because of the evidence against it. I dismiss it because of the weaknesses in the theory, the "just so" fairy tales spun of random chance. -
>DHW: Your main objection seems to be that there's no evidence of failed experiments. I don't know how we would even recognize evidence of a failed experiment. Fossilized organs are pretty rare, and in any case something went wrong with every fossil that's ever been found, because they all died of something! -Far be it for me to require evidence for a scientific hypothesis to be accepted as fact! I don't know what I was thinking. Still, that being said, what has been found, over and over, is that the fossils that are claimed as transitional are often found to be genetically unrelated, or turn out to simple a separate and distinct species that fits neatly into a single classification without serving as an intermediary.->DHW: You say punctuated equilibrium is “needed to explain away how the facts don't fit the theory”, but all theories are an attempt to explain the facts as we know them, and they change when the facts appear to change. Even the Catholic Church has jettisoned the theory that God created all species separately 6000 years ago.-Yes, but in science, when the facts don't fit the hypothesis, you are supposed to alter the hypothesis in order to explain the facts, discarding the old hypothesis, or at least the parts that don't fit. Hypothesis - Observation - Testing - Adjustment - repeat. Punctuated Equilibrium can not be tested. Evolution says change happens over millions and billions of years. When the facts did not support this, they said, oh, Evolution happens quite rapidly....just not all the time. When challenged on the time frame, they fall back to the long time periods. When challenged on the fossils, they switch to punctuated equilibrium. It is a bait and switch. -
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> DHW:Your version is: “When they had fulfilled their purpose they were allowed to die off and the creatures needed for the next stage of development were created.” "Allow" is ambiguous. Does your God control environmental changes or not? If he does, and his purpose was to create humans to be “stewards of the earth”, why didn't he just fiddle around with the environment and with those creatures he deemed necessary for humans? If, however, he has no control, and had to wait for the environment to be right, then clearly this would put his plans at the mercy of Gouldian chance.-
You are falling back into the Houdinni Djinn line of reasoning. Physical matter obeys physical laws. What would happen to the Earth if we instantaneously raised the temperature 20°? What if we instantaneously changed the atmospheric composition to .01% Oxygen? Don't just think in terms of killing off all life, but what about the chemical composition of the Earth itself? What about other issues such as energy absorption from solar radiation? Or dangerously high levels of ambient radiation? -If it is too much to consider, then consider the simpler analogy of a cook in the kitchen. Could a cook expect to take all the ingredients for a dish and throw them directly into the oven and expect them to come out as a rich, tasty bread? Could a Master Chef do that? Or is it the case that even the master chef must prepare the oven, prepare the pan, prepare the ingredients, mix them up in proper proportions and occasionally even let them sit for a while without touching them, allowing the ingredients to do their work, before adding them to the oven? Doesn't the act of putting some ingredients, such as yeast, in the oven kill them? Doesn't the master chef KNOW how each of his ingredients behaves, what it needs, and how it will impact the overall dish? Don't they account for that when planning their meal? -
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> DHW: You seem sceptical about convergent evolution: “These creatures are NOT closely related, NOT from the same phylogenetic branch. So how could they come up with virtually identical solutions via random chance? Even intelligent cell communities can not explain this one.”
> 
> If there are similar conditions, it's perfectly feasible that organisms supplied by your God with a mechanism capable of intelligent responses will find the same solutions to cope with the same conditions...The issue is whether (theistic version) God created life with single cells which could evolve to what we now know, or he created all the different species separately.
> -I can't argue this. You can't provide a mechanism to support your claim and I can't prove it doesn't exist. All of the rational arguments against such a mechanism due to the limited functionality and mechanical nature of cells have been waved off, repeatedly, without supporting evidence.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.