God used Evolution to 'create' man

[Alive]

Have you read his two books?

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, just_abc said:

The english word 'God' (or rather the german word it comes from) also might have possible controversial origins or usage in ancient times.. but the english word too has been used by Christians for hundreds of years.. or even more.

Good point.  And Arabic-speaking Christians were using "Allah" for God, long before there was English, and before Mohammed was born.

[The Barbarian]

4 minutes ago, Alive said:

Have you read his two books?

I got into Darwin's Doubt, and it had so many misconceptions and even factual errors that I never finished it.   For example, Meyer thinks that the Cambrian explosion was a sudden event, when complex organisms suddenly burst upon the Earth.   In fact, it lasted about ten million years, (longer than it took to go from hominids to man) and was preceded by a very long period marked by the gradual appearance of complex organisms, including some phyla Meyer assumed to have appeared first in the Cambrian.  

His puzzling assertion that God could give life only a very limited ability to adapt, is easily refuted by numerous examples of major genetic change in evolution:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg1204

The evolution of chordates, for example:

 

[one.opinion]

49 minutes ago, Prodigal Son said:

Falsifiable evidence of macro evolution would be something like getting the genome of a chimp and successfully altering it to produce an advantageous mutation. Perhaps a chimp with feet that look a bit more like ours or has a wider vocal range of sounds or something.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

But despite the attempt from many scientists they can't do this.

Credible scientists avoid experiments like these for the obvious ethical concerns such an experiment would raise. This is research seen in the movies, but nowhere else. No, if you've been told that many scientists are attempting to do this, you've been told wrong.

Aside from that major concern, single mutations are highly unlikely to cause such a dramatic phenotypic effect. Most easily-noticeable traits in higher vertebrates are due to combinations of genes and gene products working together, not a single gene.

These major trait changes are simply not possible (at this point) to easily facilitate and scientists do indeed have to infer conclusions regarding the ToE. Yes, the direct, reproducible evidence is definitely lacking, but scientists can still be confident regarding the conclusions. Forensic scientists can extract clues from a crime scene and determine with a great deal of accuracy how unseen events must have taken place. The science of evolutionary history is very similar.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

Falsifiable evidence for the beginning of evolution would be creating a cell from nothing.

I'm not yet convinced this is possible, but there are some interesting areas of research in this regard. Scientists have substituted the genome of "normal" bacteria with a 100% artificially synthesized genome and ended up with cells able to reproduce. Other researchers have artificially generated a cell membrane. This report (click here) overstates the case, claiming that an artificial eukaryotic cell was generated, but very interesting, in any case.

The real challenge would be to generate a cell from crude organic components. Personally I find the possibility remote enough that I believe God specially designed the first cells, rather than simply setting up chemical evolution in such a way that it would lead to biological evolution. Of course, He could have done so, but specially-created cells seems the most plausible explanation to me.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

One argument is that the similarities in genes across different lifeforms proves that we came from common ancestry. It might support the theory to a person who presupposes it. But to a skeptic It doesn't prove anything and could easily be link to a common creator.

I think you missed it earlier in a reply to you, but it is more than just similarity in genes. First, there are remnants of previously inserted viral sequences that are shared by humans and other primates, particularly the chimps.

Quote

The genetic evidence is also very strong. Not only do we share a tremendous degree of similarity in our genome sequences with chimps, the chimp genome shows matches of past viral insertions into our genomes. It is highly unlikely that the same virus sequence would independently insert into both human and chimp genomes in the exact same position, considering the billions of nucleotides present in the genomes. When thousands of insertion points are shared between humans and chimps, it leads to a strong conclusion that we had a shared genomic ancestor.

Additionally, there is a tremendous amount of similarity even in non-coding regions of DNA. Since this DNA is not used by cells to make anything useful, an explanation of "common design" is significantly weakened, yet the strong similarity still stands.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

And Lucy is still the best thing we've got... Please...

Oh goodness no, far from it. I think you missed my entire post. 

Quote

 

There is considerable evidence both in the fossil record and in genomes of current organisms that modern apes and humans had a common ancestor. This first link doesn't have a huge amount of information, but it is a good hub for checking out more information using links on the upper(ish) left portion of the page. For the record, I think what the website misses is the rather clear (to me) evidence that "being human" is much more than just our biology, and ventures into non-physical features like the soul and spirit.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils

 

"Lucy" was just the beginning. A much more complete Australopithecus fossil was discovered in 2016 and described in more detail just this year.

https://www.livescience.com/nearly-complete-lucy-ancestor-skull-unearthed.html

And of course, there are thousands of more fossil examples that support the evolution of the modern Homo sapiens.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

He is a scientist but all he ever did was attack the idea of God instead of presenting scientific evidence. That's when I learnt about the decision of science to oppose religion.

Dawkins is an obvious opponent of Christianity and other religions, but he doesn't represent the rest of the scientific community well in this regard. Throughout my PhD education and 20+ years as a professor, I have never had anyone attack me for my Christian beliefs. I don't believe I'm an outlier. From many conversations I have had, non-believing peers have repeatedly expressed that professional scientific work can be done by anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or any other. Yes, there are vocal opponents like Dawkins, but the noise they make covers the fact that they are a very small proportion of the scientific community.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

The fact that over 90% of these theoretical biologists are atheists is very concerning.

This is not a fact. In a 2009 poll conducted by the Pew research center, only 41% of scientists in the US identified themselves as not believing in God or a "higher power" - ie atheists.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

How old are you guys anyway? It's usually people who are under 40yo that subscribe ToE as they are taught it in schools.

I'm closer to 50 than 40, and Barbarian is older than I am (he has stated his age in this thread, but I still feel to weird to "out" someone's age!). I attended a private Christian high school and a Baptist university for my undergraduate work.

1 hour ago, Prodigal Son said:

Yes im skeptical of the whole movement which makes me accept the arguments made by people like Stephen Meyer. He has great interviews with John Ankerberg and Ben Shapioro. But he isn't afraid to face his opponents in debates as well. I found that he actually acknowledges the theistic evolution claim

There is zero reason why Meyer should not acknowledge theistic evolution, other than the fact that it would not be in his financial best interests! When Meyer and others involved with the Discovery Institute do attack theistic evolution (see their recent near-1000 page book), it is almost always through a strawman argument.

[one.opinion]

1 hour ago, Alive said:

I suggest to any of the folks in this thread read the two books by Stephen Meyer.

The Signature in the Cell and Darwins Doubt.

I have honestly not read either, but I suspect I would agree with a lot of what Meyer has to say. Meyer is of the ID philosophy, which intrinsically believes that God's use of evolution is insufficient to bring about the living world we can observe today. I share his belief in an Intelligent Designer and his belief that God must have been involved to bring about this living world. We have subtle differences in philosophy, but it unfortunately puts is in completely different camps. I teach Cell Biology to college students routinely, and don't think I would add greatly to my understanding by reading Signature in the Cell, because our conclusions are so similar. I think the simple cell is beautiful and complex enough for me to believe that God must have brought it about. Darwin's Doubt may be a different story, but I suspect it also argues against an atheistic version of evolution, not one in which evolution is a tool in the hands of The Almighty.

[Alive]

I suspect ou would learn a great deal. I challenge you.

:-)

[one.opinion]

13 minutes ago, Alive said:

I suspect ou would learn a great deal. I challenge you.

Have you read Behe's Darwin Devolves? That one is a little higher on my reading list right now, but I'll remember Darwin's Doubt, too.

[Alive]

32 minutes ago, one.opinion said:

Have you read Behe's Darwin Devolves? That one is a little higher on my reading list right now, but I'll remember Darwin's Doubt, too.

I haven't but will check him out.

Signature in the Cell would be better. Darwin's Doubt was a rebuttal to critics of Signature.

Watch this.

 

[omega2xx]

On 12/4/2019 at 11:34 PM, The Barbarian said:

I'm just accepting it as it is, without the revisions of creationism.

You are accepting it with the revisions os evolution, which is anti-God's word.  You have to revise "after their kind" to fit it into the Bible.

That's nonsense.   If one has faith in God's word, one accepts it without revision.    Creationism accepts some of His word and rejects the rest.

Then you must accept "after their kind" without evolution's revisions.  You must also reject  common descent.  Nothing in God's word even suggest such a thing.

Me too.    Again, there are  creationists who have their own ideas of scripture, but who do not presume to project lack of faith on Christians who do not agree with them.    They are not undermining God's word, and are not seeking to sow conflict among us.   

There are also evolutionists who have their own  idea of Scripture but who do not presume to project lack of faith on Christians who do not agree with them.   It is those who reject such simple phrases as "after their kind" who are sowing conflict among us.

love, peace, joy

 

[omega2xx]

22 hours ago, one.opinion said:

The last post that involved scientific discussion was toward the bottom of page 53. This was after I provided 10 statements you made in the first 14 pages that were incorrect. You asked me to provide evidence backing up point number 3.

All in all, this study showed several heritable changes over time, thus showing evolution does indeed take place in observable time scales - constituting verifiable evidence.

The heritable changes are easily explained  by mutations, but since they remained lizards, there is no evolution.  You do realized evolution requires a change of species, right?   For all you know, they could have lived on that diet at their original  location, it just wasn't available.

I didn't include a link because you didn't bother reading other links I sent you. If you want a link with greater description, I would be happy to provide it.

I would like you to cut and paste the evidence your link offered.

Love, peace, joy