can believers accept evolution?

[alphaparticle]

 

 

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

 

"Randomness" can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

[Guest]

I believe another post pointed out that God did not say anything about evolution. . .  you are just inferring that from the text.

 

~

 

Beloved, Is This Some Fellow's Inference

 

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11

 

Or Is It God's Declaration

 

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: Ephesians 3:9

 

Of Power

 

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11

 

And Love

 

~

 

Brother, Do You Know The Jesus Of The Bible?

 

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

 

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: John 1:9-12

 

Praying~!

 

~

 

What do you support being taught in public schools?  How do you keep religion out of the equation?  Intelligent design?  That one has fallen into disrepute recently.   I don't know how you have a curriculum free of a specific view of God to be fair to everyone.

 

~

 

Idols Idols

 

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Matthew 12:30

 

Everywhere

 

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Jeremiah 7:23-24

 

But Who Will Stand For Truth

 

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Isaiah 6:5

 

~

 

Brother, Do You Know The Jesus Of The Bible?

 

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.

 

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1:1-5

 

Praying~!

[OldSchool2]

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

 

"Randomness" can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

 

 

Resulting in the formation of long, unbroken protein chains of only L-isomers?

[alphaparticle]

 

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

 

"Randomness" can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

 

 

Resulting in the formation of long, unbroken protein chains of only L-isomers?

 

Sure. there is no law of physics which prevents such a thing.

[OldSchool2]

 

 

... Second, the progression of man is an antiquated scientific notion that has fallen out of favor in the mid-20th century at the latest. A similar concept was the Great Chain of Being. Most popular conceptions of evolution as a progression can be traced to the oft-maligned and oft-misunderstood March of Progress illustration, which was published in 1965. For the very reason you stated, scientists confirmed with certainty that evolution does not work in terms of progress or direction. Modern genetics, including the randomness of mutations and the unity of life (ie. nearly universal genetic code among other aspects), make belief in evolution with a direction impossible.

 

Yet the modern human genone study I linked still claims to show a human divergence from a single branch of simian life, which sounds very directional to me.

 

And as for this claim:

 

"The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws."

 

Speaking of misconceptions, "survival of the fittest" isn't evolution, or even so-called micro-evolution, but the natural selection of life that had supposedly already evolved into a defined genus and species.

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

Branching being the operative word. Branching is the current understanding of evolution and better describes what we see than progression. For example, the common ancestor between chimps and humans branched into many other different species who became distinct populations from this common ancestor. Some likely became extinct without branching, but others branched into ancestors of further species who eventually branched into modern humans and chimps and other primate species we see. The idea of progression has at least two major flaws that do not fit what we see. First, many uses of it imply that the former ancestral species "changes into" or "becomes" or even "gives birth to" another species, thus causing the ancestral species to disappear because it has become something else. This is false.

Second, progression has the idea of a branching species being "better" or "more complex" or whatever than the ancestral species. This is also untrue if for no other reason than there is no objective standard by which to say one species is wholly better than another and evolution does not always go from complex to simpler or simpler to complex. It's all dependent on the environment and the niches that each species is competing for. In addition, an ancestral species can produce branch into multiple species, not just one. Hopefully this clears some things up. Good discussion so far.

And as far as your last couple of sentences go, I am unsure what you mean by them. Could you elaborate, please?

 

 

Elaborate on the fact that evolution isn't the same as natural selection -- although I think that Darwin assumed the latter was a corolary to evolution -- or that increasing entropy still doesn't favor the construction of long, complex molecules that only occur in nature as L-isomers (as opposed to the mix of L- and R- isomers produced in lab experiments trying to recreate earth's primordial soup of life)?

 

And a human divergence "branching" from a common ancestor between chimps and humans still suggests a progression between them that doesn't account for our close relations to other forms of life.

[OldSchool2]

 

 

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

 

"Randomness" can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

 

 

Resulting in the formation of long, unbroken protein chains of only L-isomers?

 

Sure. there is no law of physics which prevents such a thing.

 

 

"... The law of increasing entropy is an impenetrable barrier which no evolutionary mechanism yet suggested has ever been able to overcome. Evolution and entropy are opposing and mutually exclusive concepts. If the entropy principle is really a universal law, then evolution must be impossible.

 

"The very terms themselves express contradictory concepts. The word 'evolution' is of course derived from a Latin word meaning 'out-rolling'. The picture is of an outward-progressing spiral, an unrolling from an infinitesimal beginning through ever broadening circles, until finally all reality is embraced within.

 

"'Entropy,' on the other hand, means literally 'in-turning.' It is derived from the two Greek words en (meaning 'in') and trope (meaning 'turning'). The concept is of something spiraling inward upon itself, exactly the opposite concept to 'evolution.' Evolution is change outward and upward, entropy is change inward and downward ..."

 

http://www.icr.org/article/51/

[gray wolf]

Is this the argument of the 2nd law of thermodynamics violated by evolution again? http://physics.gmu.edu/~roerter/EvolutionEntropy.htm

Edited December 8, 2013 by gray wolf

[alphaparticle]

 

 

 

 

And increasing randomness in any system doesn't lend itself to the stable construction of long proteins and amino acids: the building blocks of life that must also all be L- isomers in order to function.

 

 

"Randomness" can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

 

 

Resulting in the formation of long, unbroken protein chains of only L-isomers?

 

Sure. there is no law of physics which prevents such a thing.

 

 

"... The law of increasing entropy is an impenetrable barrier which no evolutionary mechanism yet suggested has ever been able to overcome. Evolution and entropy are opposing and mutually exclusive concepts. If the entropy principle is really a universal law, then evolution must be impossible.

 

"The very terms themselves express contradictory concepts. The word 'evolution' is of course derived from a Latin word meaning 'out-rolling'. The picture is of an outward-progressing spiral, an unrolling from an infinitesimal beginning through ever broadening circles, until finally all reality is embraced within.

 

"'Entropy,' on the other hand, means literally 'in-turning.' It is derived from the two Greek words en (meaning 'in') and trope (meaning 'turning'). The concept is of something spiraling inward upon itself, exactly the opposite concept to 'evolution.' Evolution is change outward and upward, entropy is change inward and downward ..."

 

http://www.icr.org/article/51/

 

Entropy can decrease locally at the expense of the larger system.

[Guest shiloh357]

 

The Earth is said to have four corners, an ability to see the entire earth from a mountain, a circle, immobile, etc, all of which perfectly aligns with what we know about the ancient near east cosmology. Do I really need to pull out the verses that state this? The arbitrariness here is that you will claim that these verses are metaphorical or that they mean something else other than their plain meaning, yet this same measure will not be applied to those verses that you claim must be taken literally. Another example is meteorology. Meteorology cannot be true because the Bible claims that God Himself makes it rain and frost. You can claim that it is being metaphorical, but then you will have to present a measure for calling it metaphorical and then demonstrate that the verses you claim must be taken literally do not also fall into this measure.

Yes, the earth is said to have four corners.  I have read those verses.  And for the record, you have no idea what arguments I would provide.  You are trying to assign values to me so that you can have something to knock down.  It's rather amusing to watch you assume that you know what I am thinking or what I will say, when in fact, you don't know beans.

 

The Bible uses observational terminology, just like we do.  We still use expressions like "the four corners of the earth" in normal conversation.  We also use phrases like "sunrise" and "sunset."    It is observational terminology and no one is expressing a cosomology in using those terms.

 

The ancient people knew the earth was not flat.   Peoples from eastern and european cultures going back to ancient times were sailing around the world long before Columbus.  The "New World" was not new at all.

 

The ancient people were not as stupid as people like you presume.  They had, in many cultures, an advanced understanding of engineering and physics that often surprise people.who have been led to believe that ancient people were ignorant of science.  Part of our problem in figuring out how the pyramids were built, how the Romans built the Pantheon is that we have made a lot of false assumptions about what the ancient people understood about their world.  Heck, the ancient Egyptians were using the mathematical concept of pi in pyramid building thosands of years before the Greeks codified it as a mathematical concept.   And when I say "thousands" I mean that the pyramids were already  "ancient" when Abraham visited Egypt back in Genesis.

 

As for meterorlogy, I have no problem with meteorology.   And the Bible does say that God sends the rain.  Jesus said that God causes the sun and the rain to fall on the just and unjust.   Was Jesus wrong about that?   Jesus said that God clothes the fields and feeds the birds.   Jesus presented His Father as being intimately involved even in the day to day management of created order.

 

To you that is a problem, but for Jesus whom you claim to believe in, it is not a problem.  Are prepared to challenge Jesus on the fact that God sends the rain?

[HumbleThinker]

Elaborate on the fact that evolution isn't the same as natural selection -- although I think that Darwin assumed the latter was a corolary to evolution -- or that increasing entropy still doesn't favor the construction of long, complex molecules that only occur in nature as L-isomers (as opposed to the mix of L- and R- isomers produced in lab experiments trying to recreate earth's primordial soup of life)?

 

And a human divergence "branching" from a common ancestor between chimps and humans still suggests a progression between them that doesn't account for our close relations to other forms of life.

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean now. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution, so while I understand what you are saying, I'm unsure what the point of that statement is. While Darwin adopted the phrase "survival of the fittest" from another person in one of the latter editions of Origin of Species, the popular conception of it that people have is almost always mistaken, including the one I used to have. And I wouldn't be surprised if I still have some misconceptions about it even now. As for the latter, this sounds like you're talking about abiogenesis. While an interesting discussion in and of itself, this is not to be confused with evolution. Abiogenesis can be patently false, yet evolution still be true, for evolution only requires that life exist, not that life come about in one way or another.

Though I am unsure how humans and chimps, among others, branching from a common ancestor "doesn't account for our close relations to other forms of life." The common ancestor branched off from its own ancestor, and so and so on back to the universal common ancestor. Since heredity is the only way we know of for life passing on its genes to the next life form, it is the only explanation we have for the continuation of life, thus the only thing we know of that can account for the close relationship of all life. We can come up with an infinite number of possibilities of why life is connected, but the most probable one in scientific terms is that all life is related by a universal common ancestor that eventually branched into the innumerable species that we have now and have ever had.