Theological Problems with God-guided Evolution

[Guest]

16 hours ago, one.opinion said:

That’s not a relevant response to the post you quoted. The OP (as well as the post) is about God-guided evolution. Evolution refers to biological change over time. It does not address abiogenesis.

My how touchy you are on the subject.  I commend @The Barbarian for answering me more straightforward.

[one.opinion]

16 minutes ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

My how touchy you are on the subject.  I commend @The Barbarian for answering me more straightforward.

Not touchy at all, just trying to keep the conversation at least kinda close to on topic.

[The Barbarian]

13 hours ago, Sparks said:

Does not matter that you taught biology when macro-evolution is not happening.  You have never observed it.

Actually, it's been observed.   Speciation and even the evolution of new genera and families has been admitted by many creationists.   AIG and ICR,for example, no longer deny the fact.   Perhaps you don't know what "macroevolution" means.   What do you think it means?

 

[AandW_Rootbeer]

22 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

You've been really misled about that.   Darwin's theory is about living populations and how they change over time.

Let's ask a YE creationist who actually knows what it is...

Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.

I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution.

https://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2009/09/truth-about-evolution.html

I don't think it's a good idea to tell God what to do.   Why not just accept it His way?

 

Ultimately, Evolution is about CHANCE and about Natural Selection [MURDER].

 

To equate CHANCE and MURDER to God's Creation, is like a BUFFOON trying to write anything comprehensible.

[Sparks]

4 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Actually, it's been observed.   Speciation and even the evolution of new genera and families has been admitted by many creationists.  

Speciation is real and observed, but by definition it's micro-evolution.  Micro-evolution happens at every birth, but never exceeds the boundaries of kinds to make new kinds.  It's generally a loss of genetic information.  It's variations within kinds.

4 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Perhaps you don't know what "macroevolution" means.   What do you think it means?

Macro-evolution is change above kinds, to make new kinds and shows an increase in genetic information that previously did not exist. Macro-evolution has never been observed.

Many scientists mistakenly accuse micro-evolution of being macro-evolution, though.  Richard Lenski is one such scientist who thinks he has witnessed macro-evolution because in his long term e. coli experiments, his e. coli started to grow on citrate; a behavior previously never seen.   Of course, in comparing the DNA between the old and new generations of e. coli, it showed no increase in genetic information, so no macro-evolution.  It was the same old e. coli with the same old genetics pool, that flipped a switch.

[B-B]

7 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Actually, it's been observed.   Speciation and even the evolution of new genera and families has been admitted by many creationists.   AIG and ICR,for example, no longer deny the fact.   Perhaps you don't know what "macroevolution" means.   What do you think it means?

 

https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection/natural-selection-and-macroevolution/
 

Hi there ?

I greatly respect the work of AiG. Ive attended a couple of their mega conferences, here in England and greatly benefited from their teaching. I found the above article on-line, and below are a couple of quotes:

Evolutionists like to refer to the sort of variation we see among individuals of a species as microevolution, implying that this is somehow related to the chance formation of fundamentally new animals by a process known as macroevolution. There is, in fact, no known relationship between so-called microevolution and macroevolution. 

The central question of the Chicago Conference was whether the mechanisms of microevolution could be extrapolated to explain the phenomenon of macroevolution. At the expense of doing violence to the positions of some people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear NO.
 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by B-B

[teddyv]

38 minutes ago, B-B said:

I greatly respect the work of AiG. Ive attended a couple of their mega conferences, here in England and greatly benefited from their teaching.

Just make sure you do not accept their teaching carte blanche, but actively look into how and why most mainstream sciences disagree with their conclusions. I've seen several articles that cherry-pick data to fit the foregone conclusion - and without a reasonable knowledge of these fields, they can easily mislead you. 

There are many fine Christian scientists who explore AiG's claims and find them wanting.

[B-B]

8 minutes ago, teddyv said:

Just make sure you do not accept their teaching carte blanche, but actively look into how and why most mainstream sciences disagree with their conclusions. I've seen several articles that cherry-pick data to fit the foregone conclusion - and without a reasonable knowledge of these fields, they can easily mislead you. 

There are many fine Christian scientists who explore AiG's claims and find them wanting.

Thank you ?

I do try to be as objective as I can be. Several of the speakers who have spoken at the AiG conferences here in England reside in England/teach at Universities here. They seem to me to be men of integrity, have good reputations…But I hear what you’re saying tho’. ?

(I have studied a little bit of science too - I have a BSc and MPharm).

Edited December 7, 2021 by B-B

[The Barbarian]

3 hours ago, B-B said:

Evolutionists like to refer to the sort of variation we see among individuals of a species as microevolution, implying that this is somehow related to the chance formation of fundamentally new animals by a process known as macroevolution.

You've missed a few things.    Darwin's big discovery was that it isn't by chance.     The evolution of new species (Macroevolution) is not fundamentally different than microevolution.    Indeed, in the case of ring species, microevolutionary change can retroactively become macroevolutionary if an intermediate population goes extinct.

3 hours ago, B-B said:

There is, in fact, no known relationship between so-called microevolution and macroevolution. 

Works exactly the same way.   Mutation and natural selection.   Would you like some examples?

The eye, for example, was cited by Darwin as a structure so intricate that it seems impossible to have evolved by successive small changes.  Nevertheless, that is what the data show.    In mollusks, for example, all steps in the process are still found in different members of that phylum, vindicating Darwin's confidence that such transitional forms would be found.   Would you like me to show you?

 

 

[The Barbarian]

6 hours ago, Sparks said:

Speciation is real and observed, but by definition it's micro-evolution. 

You've been misled there.   Microevolution is evolution within a species.  Macroevolution is the evolution of new species, genera, families, etc.  

Macroevolution

 

Definition
noun, plural: macroevolutions
Evolution happening on a large scale, e.g. at or above the level of a species, over geologic time resulting in the divergence of taxonomic groups.
Supplement
Macroevolution involves variation of allele frequencies at or above the level of a species, where an allele is a specific iteration of a given gene. It is an area of study concerned with variation in frequencies of alleles that are shared between species and with speciation events, and also includes extinction. It is contrasted with microevolution, which is mainly concerned with the small-scale patterns of evolution within a species or population.

https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/macroevolution

 

6 hours ago, Sparks said:

Micro-evolution happens at every birth, but never exceeds the boundaries of kinds to make new kinds.

"Kinds" is a religious belief, not a scientific term.    And as you might know, the definition of "kind" among creationists was first the same as "species."   Then as one macroevolutionary event after another became known, they first shifted it upward to to mean "genus", and then eventually "family", and sometimes higher.   If they retreat a little farther, we won't have anything to argue about.

6 hours ago, Sparks said:

and shows an increase in genetic information

No.   it can often result in a loss of genetic information.   For example, primates lack a functional gene for vitamin C.    Other mammals have it, but we lost it.   We still have the wreckage of that gene, but it no longer works.    Perhaps you don't know how "information" is calculated in genetics.   Can you tell how you think it's done?

Would you like to see a simple example of the way every new mutation increases information in a population?