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Common Descent or Common Designer


Guest Ehud

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I merely stated that we do not have any bias towards common descent as we do not have any bias towards electromagnetism. Common descent is, in my opinion, a defeater of Christianity as electromagnetism is a defeater of Zeus.

Get Real Beloved, Believe It Or Not Zeus Is A Real Idol With A Real Evil Demon Behind It

And Men Still Worship Devils And They Will Until They Can't

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. Revelation 9:20-21

And Electromagnetism Is Real Time Phenomena Susceptible To Direct Observation, Measurements And Descriptions Including Mathematical Modeling And Repeatable Experimentation And Useful Explanations And Even Young School Children Can Observe It In Action While Studying/Playing With It Using Their Homemade Apparatus.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11::3

And Common Descent (Ascent?) Is Not Directly Observable Nor Can It Be Directly Measured Nor Accurately And Mathematically Modeled Nor Is It Predictable Nor Is It Possible To Perform Repeated (Or Even One~!) Experiments. There Is No Showing Of A Life Form Descending (Ascending?) From Another Unrelated Life Form. This Mockery Of Science Has No Useful Use Except Perhaps To Dumb Down Scientific Inquiry And Waste Government Funds. Common Descent~! Even A Turnip Farmer Knows Better.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. Genesis 1:11-13

What You Have Here Dear One Is Another Attempt To Muddle Up Real Science By Mixing In A Salad Bowl Of Quirky Science Fiction Ideas Designed (IMO) To Steal One's Faith And To Turn Critical Thinking Into Useless Mush Mush. As For Your Faith.... Well, We'll Have To See About The Thinking Part :)

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To summarize the exchange of arguments thus far:

  1. Ehud asks for evidence regarding common descent.
  2. Viole presents human tails as convincing evidence.
  3. Ehud asks the following question which led us off on a bit of a rabbit trail (but hopefully it was relevant)
    If it could be shown that humans do not have the capability to grow a tail would [viole] doubt common descent?...NO. She holds the position of common descent because her mainstream worldview requires this of her.
    Well, yes you are right. But that is because I have no clue about biology, I am forced to accept the main view of biologists, since I do not hold any a-priori belief that would make me doubt them.
  4. D-9 enters and presents a source for the human tail evidence, and argues for the validity of relying on the majority expert opinion in matters such as this.
  5. Ehud argues that the scientific expert opinion is biased by atheism which necessitates a belief in common descent.
  6. Viole argues that atheism is highly represented among scientists because of their familiarity with the evidence, not the other way around.
  7. D-9 supports viole’s assessment with some additional criticisms and accusations:
    • Ehud’s analysis does not take theistic evolutionists into account.
    • Ehud’s argument misses “some important aspects of science like the peer-reviewed process and the history of scientific thought and practices.”
    • Ehud exhibits a double standard by accepting some of what mainstream science says, but not all of it.
[*]D-9 concludes by expressing willingness to examine the evidence, namely the human tail and Hox genes.

This summary is primarily for my own benefit, but I hope it will help others as well in monitoring the flow of discussion through the thread. Obviously, many side issues have not been mentioned and it is unfortunately impossible to capture the extent of each argument, but I do think it is a fair synopsis. I will make my final remarks regarding the scientific majority issue and address some of D-9’s most recent claims and accusations.

Regardless of which side of the issue you fall on, we can all safely conclude that the majority of scientists are negative atheists (a negative atheist is one who does not profess a belief in God, but does not necessarily believe there is no God; your standard, run-of-the-mill atheist falls into this category, along with agnostics[ii]). How much of a majority is still up to debate, but D-9 is welcome to post a source for his numbers (60% mentioned earlier in this thread) anytime he wishes. To viole’s argument that acceptance of common descent/familiarity with the evidence is what leads these scientists towards atheism, I present…D-9. As D-9 would say…

Evolution doesn't require atheism or anything of the sort, look up the Clergy Letter Project vs. the Creation Letter Project.

There are vast numbers of Evolutionists which are would happily argue that there is no conflict between theism and Evolution/common descent (i.e. see the National Center for Science Education[iii]). However, despite the evidence against viole’s claim, I have to agree that acceptance of Evolution‡ may predispose one to atheism:

In my case, the acceptance of evolution and common descent was the first catalyst of losing my faith, and not vice versa.

Yet, viole presented her situation as evidence that “close-up knowledge of common descent” could lead scientists to reject God. Ironically, viole accepted the evidence without having a “close-up knowledge of common descent,” as she is, by her own admission, “totally ignorant when it comes to biology.” Therefore, I think it quite possible that many of the current atheistic scientists accepted atheism when they were young, before they were experts in their field…just like viole. I fully admit that this is something we can’t know for sure, but viole’s experience supports this view. There are certainly qualified individuals who claim that their science led them to atheism (such as Richard Dawkins), but the bottom line is this; atheism does not necessarily follow from common descent, but common descent does necessarily follow from atheism.

For all that several of today's most prominent Darwinians have argued that their scientific theory throws significant doubt on Christian belief, even to the point of inviting one to embrace atheism, ultimately none of the arguments are definitive. The Christian ought to take Darwinism seriously and this may well demand modification of some of the beliefs that the Christian held before the Origin of Species was published. But, ultimately, nothing in Darwinism absolutely forbids a belief in Christianity. Perhaps indeed there are things in Darwinism which the Christian might find comforting.[iv]

In regards to the D-9’s comments:

Plus your analysis doesn't seem to take into account the many scientists who are theistic evolutionists, some of which greatly informed the modern synthesis and still others who have high standings in academia. One thing to note, which is very telling in my view, is that really the only scientists who deny ToE are religious; you get almost no atheists rejecting ToE, yet you have many theists accepting ToE.

I’m missing something in this statement, my analysis did take into account the theistic evolutionists…they were the remaining 18% in the survey; I made no attempt to sweep them under the rug. It has never been my position that Evolution is incompatible with belief in a god, but rather that you can expect to always get a majority of scientists believing in common descent because you will always have a majority of atheistic scientists who are required to believe in common descent. I am not saying that there are no theistic scientists, or that theistic scientists do not accept common descent. I will reiterate the argument any further, as it was laid out in previous posts. Also feel free to expound on why why it is it “telling" in your view that “the only scientists who deny ToE are religious; you get almost no atheists rejecting ToE…”? Isn't that what I've been saying from the start. I would be stunned if you could find a single atheistic biologist who did not support common descent (though there’s probably one out there somewhere).

I’m not even sure why D-9 went off on the peer-review process…except that it’s par for the course. “Peer-review” is a buzz word that people throw around and think that it’s an automatic stamp of validity. Far from it; I’ve explained in previous posts how modern science is a self-perpetuating system which works hard to weed out dissenting “peers”. This is nothing more than the majority argument with a different spin. A crucial misconception keeps showing up in many of D-9’s posts which will have to dealt with in the near future, but suffice to say that making statements like, “There is great incentive to disprove ToE in science…” is ridiculous; I can’t imagine anyone superficially related to real-world science making this claim.

Finally, in regards to the so-called double standard…let me be explicit. I said that “I also basically accept what I hear from mainstream science...” So if someone asked me how far away from the earth the sun was, I would say, “About 93 million miles.” If they said, “Why do you think that?” I would reply, “Well that’s what I always read in science textbooks.” Suppose they followed this up by asking, what is the evidence that these books are right? This is where our paths would part…you see, up to this point I have not presented any evidence. If I were speaking to someone who truly questioned our distance from the sun, I would go find the experiments that demonstrated it and explain this evidence as best I could. Therefore the scientific consensus is not an unreasonable starting point, but it is an unreasonable ending point; its use as a final authority is what I criticize. In other words, if the evidence didn’t support the fact that the sun was 93 million miles away, it would cast doubt on what I’ve been reading all of these years (though I don’t expect this would be the case). I would not retreat behind the walls of the scientific consensus and toss criticisms at those who were less afraid to challenge authority.

So why are we discussing common descent and not the distance to the sun? Or one might ask, why did you (Ehud) use scientific consensus as a starting point for the distance from the sun, but not for human origins? It’s because there is a fundamental difference in worldviews. The Biblical worldview (belief in the authority of God’s word) makes no claims about the distance of the earth to the sun, but it does make many claims about the origin of life as we know it. So, do my Biblical beliefs bias me against common descent? ABSOLUTELY! Just like a belief in empiricism/naturalism[v] biases against special creation for the origin of life as we know it. If I were to poll 1000 research biologists and ask them if it is scientifically plausible that a man who was biologically dead for multiple days could come back to life with no medical assistance, they would all agree that this is scientifically impossible. Then according to science, Jesus could not have risen from the dead. If you were to poll 1000 biochemists and ask them if glucose/fructose, ethyl acid, B vitamins, and numerous minerals could be made to instantaneously appear in ~140 gallons of H2O, effectively transforming it into wine what do you think you’ld get? So, it’s pretty obvious that our worldviews bias us against believing in certain things. Yes, a Greek pagan’s worldview would bias him against accepting a physical explanation of lighting, just like a naturalist/empiricist would be biased against accepting a supernatural explanation of lighting...if Greek paganism did not make these irrational claims then perhaps it would still be around. Viole’s point does illustrate the supremacy of the Biblical worldview over other religious models as Jehovah predates Zeus and is still believed on today by millions throughout the world.

This marks my final thoughts regarding the scientific consensus argument. I will still carefully read any replies, so no words will be wasted; I just will not be responding any further on this issue. Two things I would hope to see which have been lacking in this argument from the beginning are references for the claim that 99%+ scientists believe in evolution and D-9’s claim that only 60% of scientists do not believe in God.

Richard Dawkins himself says the following:

How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?

The answer to these questions is "evidence." (emphasis mine) Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling...) that something is true. Often, evidence isn't just an observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it.

[Later on]

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like "[appeal to] authority." But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want (emphasis mine).

I’ld say it’s about time to get to the evidence. D-9 has expressed his interest in looking into the evidence as well, so I agree we should start with the human tail atavism. The source for this evidence can be found here.

Here is a link that deals with human tails and they cite their sources so you know they aren't just making it up: http://www.talkorigi...ml#atavisms_ex2

From what I gather, viole considers this to be evidence for common descent because the genes which make tails in other organisms should not exist in humans which do not have a tail…is this correct? D-9, why do you believe that human tail atavism is suggestive of common descent?

Hold the Fort,

Ehud

As I use the term atheist throughout this post, this is what I am referring to.

[ii] “The exact meaning of 'atheist' varies between thinkers, and caution must always be shown to make sure that discussions of atheism are not working at cross purposes. Michael Martin, a leading atheist philosopher, defines atheism entirely in terms of belief. For him, negative atheism is simply the lack of theistic belief, positive atheism is the asserted disbelief in God, and agnosticism is the lack of either belief or disbelief in God. This suggests that negative atheism, the minimal position that all atheists share, divides neatly into agnosticism and positive atheism.” http://www.investiga...definition.html

[iii] http://ncse.com/religion/god-evolution

[iv] http://www.srhe.ucsb...t/ruseText.html

[v] The idea that everything in the world around us can be explained by empirical observations and natural laws (which is the bread and butter of science and works fabulously at explaining the present)

[*]D-9 concludes by expressing willingness to examine the evidence, namely the human tail and Hox genes.

Edited by Ehud
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Hello Viole,

Ehud seems to be quite emotionless, as I remarked when reading his article. :mgbowtie:

I was going to write my opinions about that one Joe already has quoted. But I decided to wait one day, so you can't reasonably come up with your "you are so emotional in your postings".

I'm not in the position to claim that scientists are dumb.

Hence without doing so I need to answer your questions concerning my attitude towards scientists.

Do you think that atheists have a special bias towards common descent?

You claim once again to have found a (the?) defeater for Christianity (that one Joe has quoted) without providing the tiniest bit of proof of why that should be a defeater. So, if I needed to infer from that posting from you to all of the atheists, yes, then I would call them biased.

Do you think we give precedence to the theory of common descent in comparison with, say, solar system's astronomy. If yes, why?

I have no idea.

Well, to answer your last question about emotional thinking:

could be. I think we as human being cannot abstract from our emotions.

Blessings

Thomas

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I tried clicking on the link about the tails, and it didn't work :( . But I am very interested to see where this goes! I would like to see what hardcore evidence has been found for common descent.

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Richard Dawkins himself says the following:

How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?

The answer to these questions is "evidence." (emphasis mine) Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling...) that something is true. Often, evidence isn't just an observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it.

[Later on]

Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven't seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else's word for it. I haven't, with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like "[appeal to] authority." But actually, it is much better than authority, because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want (emphasis mine).

I’d say it’s about time to get to the evidence. D-9 has expressed his interest in looking into the evidence as well, so I agree we should start with the human tail atavism. The source for this evidence can be found here.

Well Beloved, Actually We Could Start With Light Itself

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:1-5

And Continue With Light

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19

And End With Light

And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. Revelation 22:3-5

And We Could Just See

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:6-9

What Foolish And Odorous Little Boys Are We

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

~

Be Blessed

Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. Psalms 119:98-100

Beloved Of The KING

Love, Your Brother Joe

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It seems people assume this is some sort of scientific philosophical site for an open debate on a subject very few wold ever understand or have a desire to follow. Can someone put this in laymen terms so those of us who do not follow the scientific philosophical community? I am not even sure if this is even the slightest bit edifying ...

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It seems people assume this is some sort of scientific philosophical site for an open debate on a subject very few wold ever understand or have a desire to follow. Can someone put this in laymen terms so those of us who do not follow the scientific philosophical community? I am not even sure if this is even the slightest bit edifying ...

As I Hear It

God Lies

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

Science (Fiction) Is The Truth

Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? Isaiah 29:16

And Sin Is

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23

OK

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

So Drink The Poison

Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 1 Timothy 6:20

Or Little Men May Strut Onto Worthy

I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 1 John 2:14-17

And Laugh And Mock Your LORD And Savior, Jesus The Creator God

By Calling Their Suppositions And Imaginations Scientific Fact And God's Holy Word Vapor

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I notice they have one whooping tail of a story!

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I notice they have one whooping tail of a story!

Amen~!

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: Matthew 15:18-19

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OneLight already asked this to be put in layman's terms once... I'll ask directly please:

D-9,

viole, etc

A. Please identify as simply as possible what the purpose of this discussion is?

B. Please summarize the discussion in simple terms?

God bless,

GE

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