EQV - Please provide a link to your quote. Who said that and what is the context?
Evolution is a Fact #1 - Protein Functional Redundancy
by cofty 291 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
Hooby - I promised to respond to your post.
It's such a shambolic word salad where to begin?
How about you explain to us how 'lateral transposition' has anything to do with a discussion about a protein in eukaryotic species - or are you just paraphrasing something you read and didn't understand?
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pale.emperor
A perfect fit for a Noah's ark scenario. Bravo!
You lost me there.
Noah's ark? Seriously? Well, with that the intelligent conversation ends.
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blownaway
Evolution is a fact its been observed, but for me to say that life came from nothing or the primordial soup, does not cut it. I don't believe in the Bible or any religion but I can not believe the mutations and natural selection created the diverse complex life we see on earth. The odds of this happening can not even be calculated. So how did we get here? I have no freeking idea. But because I can not explain it does not default to the bible being correct.
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cofty
for me to say that life came from nothing or the primordial soup, does not cut it. - blownaway
Firstly well done for drawing a distinction between the origin of life and evolution. So many creationists conflate the two - the Watchtower are notorious for doing this.
The origin of life is a field of study called abiogenesis. There have been many exciting developments in recent years. Nobody has thought in terms of 'primordial soup' for many decades. The most promising research is being done by scientists working in the field of bioenergetics. The key question is not building the components of life but how life could be sustained - life is not a thing, a force or an immaterial energy, it a process. In the words of a Russian scientist it is an electron looking for a place to rest. The evidence that life arose in Alkaline vents under the ocean is very compelling. If you are interested in knowing more I recommend 'The Vital Question' by Nick Lane.
You are correct in saying that evolution is a fact. Every extant species descended from a common ancestor over millions of years by a process of unguided evolution. The complexity and 'design' of living things is a result of natural selection. This much is a fact beyond sensible dispute.
If you want to grasp how amazingly complex organisms can arise from simpler forms see 'The Blind Watchmaker' by Dawkins. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
There are forty threads in this series that survey some of the evidence.
Edited to add - you might enjoy this presentation...
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cofty
Perry it occurred to me today what a spectacular own-goal you scored yesterday.
The research that you drew attention to destroys the fundie xtian concept of animal 'kinds'. The central point of the paper was the profoundly significant differences between species at the level of mitochondrial DNA.
That removes the usual lame apologetic waffle about Noah taking 'kinds' of animals on the Ark as representative of multiple species. Instead it would be necessary for Noah to take two (or five) of every one of the 8.7 million species on the Ark. It also provided powerful evidence that our 8.7 million extant species emerged from earlier ancestors 200,000 years ago.
Your only get-out of your risible flood myth has just been demolished by a study that you drew our attention to because your wrongly thought it undermined evolution.
I think that is called being 'hoisted by your own petard'.
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hooberus
Quote Anders Anderson
“That's the goal of all scientists in any field of science.”
Wrong. Archaeologists and geologists don’t limit themselves to strictly “naturalistic” explanations for things like the pyramids in Egypt. They don’t insist that only “natural” processes such as ‘wind’ and ‘earthquakes’ can be invoked for such complex sandstone structures.
The discoverer of genetics Mendel did not insist that only “naturalistic explanations” for the origins be considered. He was a creationist.
Likewise the founder of modern classification Linnaeus did not insist that the origins of the animals that he was classifying be limited to only “naturalistic explanations” He was a creationist.
Qutote Anders Anderson
“Nature is what we can perceive, measure, detect, and try to understand.”
Yes we can perceive, measure, detect, and try to understand things found in nature. However that does not mean that we must limit ourselves to only “naturalistic explanations” for the origins of the universe and things found in it.
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hooberus
Quote Anders Anderson
“Anything supernatural is beyond investigation, and thus useless as a means to try and understand nature.”
Things found in nature can point to a cause outside of nature. Even if you can’t directly study the agent directly, you can infer the necessity of their being an intelligent outside cause.
Science should not be defined to exclude non natural causes from consideration for the origin of things found in nature.
Such a “definition” was not held by the founders of the modern fields of science, nor by many scientists today.
The word science comes from a word meaning ‘knowledge’ not ‘naturalistic’.
The fact that evolutionists want to define ‘science’ itself so as to exclude creation shows that they are hardy “unbiased” as they present themselves.
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hooberus
“Thor makes fire go”
Just because you don’t define science to exclude non naturalistic causes does not therefore mean that all non naturalistic statements must be considered as science.
In the same way defining science to not exclude naturalistic causes does not therefore mean that all naturalistic statements must be considered as science. For example : “Humans were formed from sea weed by unguided erosion over billions of years”.
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cofty
Hooby - Did you understand my answer about the difference between ontological and methodological naturalism?
This is the key to your misunderstanding.
Hundreds of years ago EVERYBODY was a creationist. Despite their tendency to take refuge in supernatural answers whenever they got stuck progress was made.
Newton made some brilliant advances in understanding physics but because he couldn't work out why all the planets move on the same plane he declared it was the miraculous work of god. Now we know how planets are formed his supernatural answer is believed by nobody because it is no longer necessary.
What you are advocating is a god-of-the-gaps. He is not needed in any way to explain the complexity and diversity of living things.
