Evolution: The Deal Breaker

by Hadriel 150 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • cofty
    cofty
    Millions of people reject all the nonsense you spew out for good reason - The "Liberator"

    Millions of Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims and fundy christians reject the fact of evolution for exactly the same reason. They all value superstition more than evidence.

    Reality does require your approval.

  • cofty
    cofty

    Hadriel I am really struggling to understand your objection.

    It sounds as if you are looking for any excuse to justify ignoring the evidence for evolution.

    Put aside the origin of life for one post and let me ask you a simple question to see where we have common ground.

    Do you accept that every species on earth, including humans, evolved from a common ancestor by a process of evolution over millions of years?

  • Hadriel
    Hadriel
    @cofty I believe that the evidence supports that genetically speaking even some of the simplest of organisms share a commonality, yes.
  • cofty
    cofty
    genetically speaking even some of the simplest of organisms share a commonality

    I don't know what that means.

    Is that a yes?

    If we traced the ancestry of every mammal, human, bird, bug, fish and oak tree back far enough they actually descend from LUCA 3.8 billion years ago.

    Or are you being evasive with words like "commonality"?

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    The evidence for evolution is overwhelming, there is no point in discussing this with someone who chooses to be ignorant at this point in time.

    A scientific theory does mean we have a very good understanding of the subject, it's no longer a hypothesis. The theory of Newtonian gravity holds in most places as does the theory of Darwinian evolution.

    We know there are some issues and false generalizations at the edges of either of those theories (like quantum physics or the cosmic distances that require Einstein's equations) but for every day descriptions of biology and physics, they are facts.

    There are some hypothesis as for the genesis of life and those have been pretty much fleshed out for the last half century, the only problem being that it's darn difficult to reproduce an event caused by physical, planetary-sized forces that left no measurable trace... in a 10x10ft lab. But we have gotten very close, we can already reproduce things that self-replicate in the lab (it's very close to "alive") and we are also fairly close to simulating and creating artificial life forms. But even then, once we can create life, it does not mean that is actually the exact way it happened.

    Let's put forth the (very simplistic) hypothesis that it requires a lightning bolt to a primordial lake to start off the first. In our labs we do not have the space for a lake nor is anyone in the world capable of generating full-force lightning (we don't even fully understand the phenomenon). That is the difficulty right now in evolutionary theory - we have all the pieces and the puzzle is almost complete, but it's missing some things in the middle, namely, the absolute certainty of the genesis of life (we have an idea of where to look) as well as (on the other end) how to shape our future evolution (although we've been doing that inadvertently for the last 10,000 years or so).

  • Hadriel
    Hadriel

    In what way does common ancestry say that it was the definitive result of happenstance rather than an intelligent catalyst?

    Are you saying that an intelligent source couldn't or would not create the same resulting evidence? If yes what's the proof of that?

    I don't see where it can be proved one way or the other since we can't define the initial driver that started it all.

  • cofty
    cofty

    Hadriel please one thing at a time!

    Not one of the three sentences in your previous post make any sense at all.

    You are still evading my question.

    Patience running out rapidly

  • cofty
    cofty
    1 - In what way does common ancestry say that it was the definitive result of happenstance rather than an intelligent catalyst? - Hadriel

    I didn't ask you about catalysts. I asked you about the evolution of species.

    What has "happenstance" got to do with it?

    What is an "intelligent catalyst"?

    Are you confusing Intelligent Design with Theistic Evolution? Do you understand the crucial difference?

    Did you check out Kenneth Miller?

    2 - Are you saying that an intelligent source couldn't or would not create the same resulting evidence? If yes what's the proof of that?

    What do you mean by "create evidence"? Evidence of what?

    3 - I don't see where it can be proved one way or the other since we can't define the initial driver that started it all.

    What is an "initial driver"?

    Lots of people have explained lots of times that the fact of evolution does not depend in any way on the answer to abiogenesis.

    I asked you whether you accept that every living thing evolved from a common ancestor over millions of years. You provided and evasive answer. Why?

  • Hadriel
    Hadriel

    Lots of people conveniently want to exclude the initial catalyst.

    I'm more than happy to admit that there is evidence of evolution.

    You are unwilling to admit that intelligence could have kicked off the whole thing.

    Just because not knowing this initial driver doesn't fit your narrative doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

    It's like taking any animate object and saying well it's chemical makeup proves no on had a hand in making it. You simply can't make that claim without proving that it's makeup can come about by happenstance.

    We need to know the catalyst to rule out that intelligence was not involved.

    That's how I see it. I don't see how this is unreasonable.

  • Island Man
    Island Man

    Hadriel, read and understand the following statement:

    So by attempting to suggest that a lack of explanation of the origin of DNA is somehow a "deal breaker" for evolution, you're actually revealing that you have not yet come to understand and appreciate the difference between evolution and abiogenesis and the total irrelevance of the mysteries of abiogenesis to the proven reality of evolution. Your whole line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed because it is premised on a lack of acceptance and understanding that evolution by natural selection has already been shown definitively to be the case. Whether life was initially designed in such a way that it would evolve by natural selection; or whether this happens naturally without any deliberate intelligent purpose, does not change the reality that life is evolving by natural selection.

    Let me illustrate it this way Hadriel: Imagine two primitive cave men are arguing over why a child is dying. The more intelligent cave man is saying that the child is dying of poisoning. He cites evidence of the child having very recently been in an area where a certain plant grows which has in the past caused the deaths of animals that ate it. He cites the child's face being dirty with the juice of the fruit of that very plant. He cites evidence of the seeds of the fruit of that very plant being seen in the liquid vomited up by the child.

    The other cave man writes on the wall of the cave: "Poisoning: the deal breaker". Then he starts telling the other one that maybe he should not be so quick to say that it's poisoning. What if a another cave person force fed the child the fruit? If the child was force-fed the fruit then that would be a whole different matter, because you see the child would be dying of murder and not poisoning, because there would be an initial, separate intelligent force or being driving the child's action of eating that fruit. So until we can determine exactly how that fruit got into the child's system we need to keep an open mind to the possibility that the child was murdered and is not just dying from having eaten a poisonous fruit.

    Do you see what I'm trying to say Hadriel?

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