posted
You're right, though, Ecthalion. They arent' mutually exclusive.
I mean, I believe in the Christian God, and I can accept the truth of evolution. (It may still be incomplete, like Newton's theories were, but any new theory will have to encompass evolutionary theory the way Einstein's theories encompassed Newton's.)
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Alright. First off, by Droll, I could have meant quaint, or oldfasioned. Yeah. That's right. As it so happens, I used it because it rhymes with 'dull'. Sort of. I think there's a little assonance, isn't there.
Okay. People, you could convince me that evolution is 'possible' rather than 'inspires some skeptism' (BTW, I'll be checking that book out from the library next chance I get. To whoever posted with the link to the book... Or is it whomever posted witht he link to the book... I'm pretty sure it's whoever... Is this the nominative case?).
Be warned: The topic is no longer about a museum.
These are four major things that make me really, really doubt evolution. There are more, but let's start with these.
1. I have trouble believing about millions of years passing... Or rather, that there would have been a window of time that lasted for millions of years in order for organisms to actually live, and be able to evolve. The reason why is, stars give energy by feeding on their mass... Millions of years ago, the Sun would be a lot bigger, right? And wouldn't this size increasment increase gravity, thus causing the Earth to plummet to its doom? Or, even if the Earth stayed in the same orbit, wouldn't the Sun's outgoing energy increase exponentially as it's size was bigger, thus effectively turning all 'life' at the time into tar?
2. Second LAW of thermodynamics says that Entropy is always increasing, and getting worse. (Excuse my blatent paraphrase.). How does any theory of Evolution address this? "Um, actually, the universe started with entropy, and then all the latent energy caused mutations and evolution, and now we're back to entropy again"?.
3. Why are there still monkeys? Did they just not make it past the hump? Why is it that evolution stopped taking place the minute that man could make a record of it? I know God has a sense of humor, but this is streching it a little. Would he really be that ironic?
4. When has there *ever* been a 'good' mutation? It could be my limited scope that has effectively hidden any and all evidence to the contrary, but every mutation I've heard about ends up in some sort of horrible handicap.
Okay. I know all of these arguments are very elementary, but therein lies the beauty, I think.
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1. I have trouble believing about millions of years passing... Or rather, that there would have been a window of time that lasted for millions of years in order for organisms to actually live, and be able to evolve. The reason why is, stars give energy by feeding on their mass... Millions of years ago, the Sun would be a lot bigger, right? And wouldn't this size increasment increase gravity, thus causing the Earth to plummet to its doom? Or, even if the Earth stayed in the same orbit, wouldn't the Sun's outgoing energy increase exponentially as it's size was bigger, thus effectively turning all 'life' at the time into tar?
2. Second LAW of thermodynamics says that Entropy is always increasing, and getting worse. (Excuse my blatent paraphrase.). How does any theory of Evolution address this? "Um, actually, the universe started with entropy, and then all the latent energy caused mutations and evolution, and now we're back to entropy again"?.
3. Why are there still monkeys? Did they just not make it past the hump? Why is it that evolution stopped taking place the minute that man could make a record of it? I know God has a sense of humor, but this is streching it a little. Would he really be that ironic?
4. When has there *ever* been a 'good' mutation? It could be my limited scope that has effectively hidden any and all evidence to the contrary, but every mutation I've heard about ends up in some sort of horrible handicap.
Okay. I know all of these arguments are very elementary, but therein lies the beauty, I think.
I'm not the best writer to explain it all myself, but I'm pretty sure all my high school science courses covered all of those concerns.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I'll give these a shot, even though others will answer much better, I am sure.
quote:1. I have trouble believing about millions of years passing... Or rather, that there would have been a window of time that lasted for millions of years in order for organisms to actually live, and be able to evolve. The reason why is, stars give energy by feeding on their mass... Millions of years ago, the Sun would be a lot bigger, right? And wouldn't this size increasment increase gravity, thus causing the Earth to plummet to its doom? Or, even if the Earth stayed in the same orbit, wouldn't the Sun's outgoing energy increase exponentially as it's size was bigger, thus effectively turning all 'life' at the time into tar?
Gravity works from mass, not size.
And anyway, you've got star progression backwards. They start off small and yellow/white, they end up large and red (before going back to small and white).
quote:2. Second LAW of thermodynamics says that Entropy is always increasing, and getting worse. (Excuse my blatent paraphrase.). How does any theory of Evolution address this? "Um, actually, the universe started with entropy, and then all the latent energy caused mutations and evolution, and now we're back to entropy again"?.
The Second law of thermodynamics is such: "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."
The earth is NOT an isolated system. There is a big ball of energy constantly bombarding the system. It is called "the Sun".
quote:3. Why are there still monkeys? Did they just not make it past the hump? Why is it that evolution stopped taking place the minute that man could make a record of it? I know God has a sense of humor, but this is streching it a little. Would he really be that ironic?
This is a classic misconception about evolution. First of all, we didn't evolved from modern monkeys. Modern monkeys and us both evolved from a common ancestor. We are not "more evolved" than monkeys. We simply evolved in different directions. Think of it as two different branches of the same tree.
Until fairly recently (biologically speaking), monkeys were far more numerous and "successful" as species than humans were. There's nothing which says that intelligence is the end goal of evolution. The only "end goal" is to produce more offspring. Every development also brings drawbacks, and intelligence has numerous drawbacks (such as large heads, and delaying development until much later in life than most organisms).
Evolutions has NOT stopped. Recorded human history is 10,000 years long, which is biologically insignificant. Even so, new species are evolving, and old species are going extinct.
quote:4. When has there *ever* been a 'good' mutation? It could be my limited scope that has effectively hidden any and all evidence to the contrary, but every mutation I've heard about ends up in some sort of horrible handicap.
That's because the vast majority of them do. But since you accept that mutations do happen, how hard is it for you to think of one which would be useful? There are thousands of mutations in any given generation of organism in a species. Times that over hundreds of thousands of generations, and of course some of them are going to be beneficial.
Your concerns are ones which have been addressed time and time again in science. The answers are out there, you just have to look for them. I'm sure others will give much better answers than mine. I apologize if I have any details wrong.
posted
I'll have to get back to you on #1, as I don't have the answer off the top of my head. I suspect that the mass of the sun is so great that even the passing of millions of years is not sufficient to drastically change it. But I honestly don't know so I won't pretend to. If someone else hasn't already answered before I've got some more time on my hands, I'll work on the answer.
quote:2. f Second LAW of thermodynamics says that Entropy is always increasing, and getting worse. (Excuse my blatent paraphrase.). How does any theory of Evolution address this? "Um, actually, the universe started with entropy, and then all the latent energy caused mutations and evolution, and now we're back to entropy again"?.
The second law of tehrmodynamics applies to a closed system. This would only apply if there was no external source of energy to "power" evolutionary processes on earth. Can you think of any incredibly massive sources of energy that might be driving things?
quote:Why are there still monkeys? Did they just not make it past the hump? Why is it that evolution stopped taking place the minute that man could make a record of it? I know God has a sense of humor, but this is streching it a little. Would he really be that ironic?
We didn't come from monkeys. Monkeys and humans came from a common ancestor. Evolution creates a big branching tree of species, each suited best to their environment. The species of ancient apes that ended up being monkeys was not exposed to the same environmental pressures that the species that ended up being humans was so they ended up as monkeys and we ended up as us.
quote:When has there *ever* been a 'good' mutation? It could be my limited scope that has effectively hidden any and all evidence to the contrary, but every mutation I've heard about ends up in some sort of horrible handicap.
Most mutations are neutral, occurring in non-coding "junk" DNA. Those that occur elsewhere may be harmful or beneficial, depending on the environment. For instance, the sickle-cell mutation is generally considered harmful by people in most of the modern world, but it's actually a useful adaptation in parts of the world where malaria is present as people with sickle cell are highly resistant to malaria. Many other beneficial mutations have been observed in the lab and in the wild. A "mutation" is a tiny change in the DNA. It doesn't always mean growing an extra arm or being born without skin. Those sort of mutations can happen, but most mutations go unnoticed. Evolution only requires a helpful mutation now and then over the course of the millions of years available.
posted
1. Not necessarily. You just saying so doesn't make it so. I can't answer it right now, but you could surely read up on stellar formation and physics. Also, at one point it was quite likely that the sun made most things tar on earth... But a couple(?) billion years after it was created, it appears it "cooled off" enough to provide enough energy to develop life, without also destroying it. And then there were still billions of years from then until now.
2. is not specifically about evolution. It's more a question about cosmology (and thermodynamics). The second law is only strictly true in what is called a "closed system"; that is, a system where energy is contained without any input of energy. However, it doesn't disallow temporary concentrations of more organized energy, just that over time this will lessen. Hence the hypothesis that the universe will end in "heat death", essentially all the energy will be more or less evenly distributed across the universe without any real order.
In any event, concerning Earth and evolution, the Earth is NOT a closed system. It is constantly getting energy from the sun in various forms. As such it is quite possible for complex order to arise. If the sun suddenly went out, we would have to see if order rather quickly degenerated, as the law suggests. Oh, by the way, "Law" in science is not the common definition, it is rather out of vogue the last 100-200 years... After all, Newton's LAWS of Gravity are, in fact wrong (they incorrectly predict or cannot account for all sorts of things, including Mercury's orbit, for instance).
3. Evolution occurred over billions of years. Man has been recording things for thousands of years. That's order's of magnitude difference. Of course, this is also somewhat moot, since we have seen evolution (of the macro kind) in experiments with fruitflies, for instance.
4. Read up on why sickle-cell anemia may persist, for one. Our opposable thumbs are another beneficial mutation. Of course evolution doesn't claim any moral judgment. It doesn't know anything about good or bad. However, if a mutation allows an organism to better reproduce, then that mutation will continue on... Until the environment changes and it becomes a liability for reproduction. A mutation could start as beneficial and then become neutral, and still hang around. Also, a beneficial mutation in one time and place may be certain death in other conditions.
Also, you have an human-centric POV concerning good/bad. After all, while bad for us, those organisms with resistances to antibiotics that allows them to continue to reproduce is certainly good for them.
EDIT: Or what everyone else said.
Posts: 7021 | Registered: Nov 1999
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1. We're taking about a fusion reaction that turns hydrogen to helium, with only a tiny fraction of the mass being turned to energy. The nice thing about E=mc^2 is that a really small amount of mass yields a HUGE amount of energy. So while the sun would have been larger, the difference would be very small.
2. I've never understood why people think the second law has anything to say about evolution. The sun pumps energy into the system (the earth) -- it is an external energy source. And if you look as the sun and earth together as the system, certainly entropy is increasing. Eventually our sun will run out of hydrogen to turn into helium. (I tend not to worry much about things that will happen that far in the future. )
3. First, monkeys did not become humans; apes and humans had a common ancestor. Different evolutionary pressures (different environments, different predators/competitors, etc.) pushed different branches of the family tree down different paths. In a family with ten children, you don't as why each child in not identical, do you?
And evolution has certainly not "stopped." Haven't you ever heard about the pepper moth? And in that great lecture by Ken Howard (the one the ID thread is about), which I strongly advise you to watch, he points out several other very recent evolutionary changes.
4. You read too much SF. Mutations can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral. It's mostly the beneficial ones that get passed on, because they give some kind of advantage, and make the organism with them more likely to reproduce and have more offspring.
Watch the Ken Miller video. I think you will find it very enlightening. And he's funny, too. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:For instance, the sickle-cell mutation is generally considered harmful by people in most of the modern world, but it's actually a useful adaptation in parts of the world where malaria is present as people with sickle cell are highly resistant to malaria.
Not quite. Having one copy of the sickle-cell gene is beneficial, malaria-wise. Having TWO copies is bad enough that any benefit against malaria is outweighed by the problems with sickle-cell. So when the mutation is rare, it's beneficial. When it spreads throughout a population, it starts to become a big problem.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: The entire premise of the article is invalid. Few people say that creationists cannot be scientists. Creationists hold views that are not compatible with certain areas of science because their religious beliefs cause them to presuppose the answers to questions asked by science and those answers tend to not agree with the available evidence.
The problem with assuming one knows the answers without examining the evidence is that when one already thinks they know the answer, they tend to not look very hard for/at the evidence. Think Catholic Church vs heliocentrism. At least the religious zealots in western society don't demand death for heretics any more, but they still won't be very good, say, geologists, if the science tends to disagree with their belief in a 6,000-year-old earth and they are unable to adjust their beliefs to accommodate the evidence.
Outside these areas where such individuals let their theology trump empiricism there is a plenty of room for them to be productive scientists.
My only gripe with this statement is that you cited heliocentrism and executing heretics when neither idea has justification in the scriptures. There is no flat earth support in the scriptures either(another commonly cited claim.)
But in regards to the earth only being 6000 years old, I'll agree there are passages that can reasonably be interpreted as giving that message.
But remember that Christians and heck every religion are constantly striving to understand their theology and develop better ways of understanding the universe we live in.
I won't bring up spontaneous generation if you don't bring up the inquisition.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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No, the sun wasn't a lot bigger. We know a decent bit about the cycles of stars, and our sun is a main sequence star. It keeps going about the same until it runs out of core fuel (hydrogen), then it transforms into a red giant (which, as the name suggests, is when it becomes really big). The mass of the hydrogen isn't disappearing during this process, of course, its being turned into helium.
The rate of burn isn't determined by the amount of fuel, its determined by the mass, which doesn't change significantly over the sun's lifetime. The form of the mass changes, but not the quantity (for the most part).
Also, in the lifetime of the sun, life on earth has been a fairly small blip (at least evidence suggests). The timescales of the universe dominate the timescales of the galaxy dominate the timescales of the solar system dominate the timescales of the earth.
The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy increases in a closed system. In an open system, entropy can go any which way. In fact, it is extremely common for local entropy to increase at the expense of global entropy -- you might be familiar with such rare examples as "ice", "geodes", "soap bubbles", and "life of any kind". The earth is a very open system; we gain huge amounts of organized energy from another place -- the sun -- where energy is rapidly becoming more disorganized. Entropy increases, net, but on earth it decreases.
There is no hump. Evolution is not a directed process. Monkeys are also not what we evolved from, they evolved from a common ancestor that humans share (which doesn't seem to be around still, though that also happens). Monkeys are still around because they are well-adapted for their environment, which is also why we are still around. This is also why cockroaches are still around and mostly unchanged, as far as we can tell, from what they were like far in the past. They are very well adapted to what they do.
Also, frequently environment only changes locally. For instance, Darwin noticed that finches, which had slowly spread from island to island, were isolated enough from each other and under different conditions that the finch populations were diverging. One island might have retained basically the same species. The finches on another, very different island might eventually become different enough to be considered another species (which is an arbitrary distinction anyways, and one reason the microevolution/macroevolution distinction creationists keep trying to bring up is silly. There is no difference but scale, we've just chosen to mentally group some variants together under collective labels we call species).
Evolution hasn't stopped taking place, we've observed numerous instances of speciation (and we're talking multicellular species; include bacteria and we've observed millions to billions of instances of speciation at varying resolutions). If anything, the number of speciation events we've observed is surprising, since the length of time humans have known enough science to see evolution happening is so miniscule as to be a rounding error at the umpteenth decimal place in the length of time species have been evolving.
There are tons of good mutations. Mutations cause things like disease resistance all the time, or improve metabolic pathways. Mutations are often mixed bags, too. You're familiar with sickle cell anemia? Well, if you're in a region with a lot of malaria, the mutation that causes sickle cell anemia greatly increases your survival chances if you only have one of it.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html has a big old list of mutations, often major ones, we've observed in a wide variety of species. Things like being able to survive on a whole new type of food.
I'm not surprised evolutionary theory seems dubious to you. For whatever reason, you are not familiar with basic biology, basic astrophysics, the laws of thermodynamics, or even what basically evolutionary theory says. Most of the things I mention are taught in high school, though that definitely varies by location, and of course retaining the information can be difficult. However, I suggest that in the future when you see what seem to you to be really obvious problems that numerous scientists aren't seeing, you try going to someplace that explains such things (google can help you find them: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=second+law+thermodynamics+evolution&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 or http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=beneficial+mutations&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 , say) and see if someone has an explanation that makes sense and deals with your doubt.
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Nathan, I mean this as gently as possible: I knew the answers to all of your "problems" by the end of my freshman year in high school.
You may find, when your objections to something that a lot of smart people have a great deal of confidence in are very simplistic and elementary, that the problem is very likely in your lack of (often basic) information.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Not being an astronomer, I'll leave point 1 to someone else who can address it better.
quote:Originally posted by Nathan2006: 2. Second LAW of thermodynamics says that Entropy is always increasing, and getting worse. (Excuse my blatent paraphrase.). How does any theory of Evolution address this? "Um, actually, the universe started with entropy, and then all the latent energy caused mutations and evolution, and now we're back to entropy again"?
You have a flawed understanding of entropy. The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of closed system (like, say, the universe) is always increasing. An open system (that is, one that receives and/or emits energy from the outside) can, in fact, decrease in local entropy so long as there is an external energy source. The Earth is one such open system, and our energy source is that mass of incandescent gas known as the Sun.
quote:3. Why are there still monkeys? Did they just not make it past the hump? Why is it that evolution stopped taking place the minute that man could make a record of it? I know God has a sense of humor, but this is streching it a little. Would he really be that ironic?
Again, your understanding is flawed. Evolution is not linear, nor is it directed. It's more like a tree... we are one branch, and monkeys are another. We both came from a common ancestor, which was most certainly not identical to any extant monkey today, and we have both evolved since that divergence point. Monkeys are very well-fit to their particular habitats and lifestyles, and will survive so long as something doesn't actually wipe them out. Now, humans are actually doing a pretty damn good job these days of driving many other primates towards extinction, but that's an entirely different issue.
quote:4. When has there *ever* been a 'good' mutation? It could be my limited scope that has effectively hidden any and all evidence to the contrary, but every mutation I've heard about ends up in some sort of horrible handicap.
Emphasis mine. Mutations can have all sorts of effects, ranging from negative to neutral (which the vast majority of mutations effectively are) to positive. How about an example of the latter in humans? Many of the peoples who live in the Andeans, at altitudes that would leave most of us gasping for air, actually express higher levels of hemoglobin, and as a result, their blood can carry higher concentrations of oxygen. Change in expression level of a given gene can be the result of single point mutations in the gene's various regulatory sequences, which subtly affect how the gene interacts with the various other genes that regulate it. Because the genome is such a complex system, even tiny changes can have enormous phenotypic effects (though, as mentioned above, they just as often do not).
Another example is the case of sickle-cell anemia. The Wikipedia link goes into more detail, but in a nutshell, sickle-cell anemia is a rare genetic disorder caused by a single nucleotide substitution, in which red blood cells bend out of their usual rounded shape into "sickle" forms, which results in a number of nasty symptoms. As a result (and just as evolutionary theory predicts), individuals with sickle-cell anemia are selected against and are very rare. In fact, they almost exclusively live in areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria is prevalent. Why? Because sickle-cell anemia just so happens to provide the sufferer with enhanced resistance to malaria! This is a perfect example of natural selection in action- in normal populations, the sickle-cell allele has a purely negative effect, and is thus weeded out. But in populations that have to deal with malaria, the benefit of the allele actually outweighs its cost, resulting in the reproductive success of carriers and spread of the allele.
quote:Okay. I know all of these arguments are very elementary, but therein lies the beauty, I think. [/QB]
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the ignorant are blind.
Edit: Dang, gotten beaten to it by, like, the entire forum. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
I am very amused by the similarity of all of our answers!
(and very glad that I was first!)
I guess the American education system isn't so bad, huh?
Perhaps this will underscore the fact that all of the answers to these "objections" are rather common knowledge.
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quote:After all, Newton's LAWS of Gravity are, in fact wrong (they incorrectly predict or cannot account for all sorts of things, including Mercury's orbit, for instance).
"Sure they do." - The last astronomer searching for the planet Vulcan.
Also, "directed evolution" is an old idea that it took a lot of people a lot of trouble getting over the fact that it didn't exist. Humans may be the most intelligent- in the sense we measure it- creature on Earth, but we're not the most "highly evolved".
Although, arguably that phrase is often used to mean the most aware, critically thinking, pre-frontal-lobe-ish occupants of a planet. It's just a little wonky when applied in that way.
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posted
Btw, if another of your possible objections includes something about genetic information never increasing, I increased the genetic information in bacteria in AP Biology, using only naturally occuring enzymes in the way they occur naturally, but with more of them being used in rapid succession.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yep. I increase the net information of bacteria and yeast all the time in lab. It's pretty boring, mundane work, actually. My mentor gets to do all the fun stuff, like increasing the net information of human and fruit fly cells. And he gets to watch them glow!
Yeah, okay, we biologists lead bizarre existences. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:I won't bring up spontaneous generation if you don't bring up the inquisition.
BB, How may times do you need a particular thing to be discredited before you stop pushing it? Your reference to spontaneous generation is irelevant for the reasons I told you the last three times you brought it up - in brief because of the epistemological changes and difference between being a "scientist" and a "natural philosopher" or just "smart guy". I think you've moved from the grounds of willful ignorance to outright dishonesty on this one.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Continuing from my previous post, I find that a lot of the arguments raised by creationists, or points that confuse them, are generally problems raised or considered a hundred or more years ago.
An example of this is the watch analogy that someone mentioned previously. The concept world as a clockwork watch, and all the assumptions that follows, was invented over 200 years ago. Scientists and philosophers at the time actually found it a useful analogy because it did lead to the idea that the Earth is a complete system with parts that work together. However, it also led to other assumptions, such as the requirement of a builder (the watchmaker), the need to be wound periodically (by God). These ideas were gradually eroded as more advanced scientific ideas developed.
"Directed evolution" was another. Stemming from the basic assumption that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that Humans were the chosen creatures (and, in some cases, a certain race or people the chosen of Humans), scientists such as Lemarck (18th cent.) assumed that Humans were the most highly evolved of a single path of creatures which all had a similar beginning and would have a similar end-point but were merely in different stages.
This concept was also eventually challenged and replaced.
EDIT: So-called "Spontaneous Generation" is another of these old ideas.
Old ideas are not necessarily wrong, and may have been very important (and innovative) in their day, but they have been replaced for a reason: usually because they have been found wanting. This is why I think the history of science is important to teach because instead of starting 'at the end' it teaches how these ideas were developed and eradicates the need to tread the same path over and over.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:My only gripe with this statement is that you cited heliocentrism and executing heretics when neither idea has justification in the scriptures. There is no flat earth support in the scriptures either(another commonly cited claim.)
My concern is the preference of religious dogma over empiricism. Whether the dogma comes from a direct reading of an ancient text or the teachings of a learned theologian does not matter.
quote:But remember that Christians and heck every religion are constantly striving to understand their theology and develop better ways of understanding the universe we live in.
Some are. Creationists, not so much. See, they believe they already know the facts. All they are doing now is trying to find ways to fit the available evidence to those facts.
quote:I won't bring up spontaneous generation if you don't bring up the inquisition.
Have scientists hypothesizing about the origin of life murdered millions of dissenters? What parallel are you going for?
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quote:I won't bring up spontaneous generation if you don't bring up the inquisition.
BB, How may times do you need a particular thing to be discredited before you stop pushing it? Your reference to spontaneous generation is irelevant for the reasons I told you the last three times you brought it up - in brief because of the epistemological changes and difference between being a "scientist" and a "natural philosopher" or just "smart guy". I think you've moved from the grounds of willful ignorance to outright dishonesty on this one.
What are you even talking about? I'm merely pointing out that religion does not own the tradmark on the mindset that MattP seemed to be describing.
Ill thank you for not calling my integrity into question so lightly. Your memory is perhaps better then mine but I cannot recall us having a significant exchange on the topic of spontaneous generation where you could reasonably say a point was proven thus making me bring it up in this thread dishonest.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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MattP: I completely agree with you in terms of dogmas that are held sternly in the face of well outlined fact.
My complaint was that you used to instances heliocentrism and burning heretics, when neither idea had any sort of basis in science or religion.
Unless we grant that because some Catholic leaders jumped on the "earth as the center of the universe" bandwagon and since they called it God's truth therefore it becomes religiously sanctioned. Even though they could not provide any sort of scriptural support of such a belief.
Look I was not trying to start an arguement, just point out that there are better examples of what you are talking about.
And make mention of the fact that religion is a developing field. It does not remain stagnent and try to pretend it has all the answers right now and here for anyone to read and understand.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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BB, Looking back, I was mistaken. I've only addressed you directly twice on this. Do a search for spontaneous generation and you'll see them too.
However, I realize now that I mistook you for BaoQingTian, whom I addressed this issue in much greater depth.
Perhaps my characterization was incorrect. Could you explain why you think spontaneous generation is relevant here?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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BB, If you are taling about the religious support for geocentrism, which is what Matt was talking about, then there is, in fact, scriptural support for it. Here's a brief sample, which, incidentally, the Church leaders did refer to when trying to refute heliocentrism.
quote:Ecclesiastes 1:4and 5: One generation goeth, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to its place where it ariseth. Psalms 92: "He has made the world firm, not to be moved." Psalms 103: "You fixed the earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever." And how about in Joshua 10:12: "Then spake Joshua to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon."
There was significant religious support for the burning of heretics as well, even if there was no direct scriptural support.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Mr S: I have never seen those scriptures used to demonstrate the stationary and central position of the earth. But your point is taken, I can see how if those scriptures could be used to describe a universe with the earth at the center.
quote:THere was significant religious support for the burning of heretics as well, even if there was no direct scriptural support.
That is honestly like saying "There was tremendous popular support for the idea but no peer reviewed studies on that topic."
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How so? That would suggest to me that the religions involved considered only scripture as the basis for religious doctrine, which is clearly not true.
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edit:
quote:I have never seen those scriptures used to demonstrate the stationary and central position of the earth.
How much looking did you do? They're not, in my opinion, difficult to find.
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Ummm... About this last post... With the scriptures... All of the references were from books of poetry, except the one from Joshua, which was when God made the day last twice as long so Joshua and his army could kill all the Amorites... I don't know if this affects (Edited. I said 'effects'. Kill me. I can't believe I did that. This is a new low.) anything, since I have not a clue what you're discussing. Thus, my point is moot. But the scripture from Joshua was definently taken out of context, and the poetry books are just that -- Poetry. You don't have to take them literally. I believe your hermeneutics are flawed. Even if I can't spell hermeneutics correctly.
Thanks for taking the time everybody to answer. Those answers were very helpful.
Okay.
1. I totally forgot the whole E=mc2 thing. Now I feel silly. That makes a lot of sense.
2. The whole closed system thing is new to me, but I'll buy it. It makes a lot more sense that way.
3. I didn't know that at all! That was the fundemental thing that I hated about evolution. The idea that it was so linear. Evolution seems a whole lot more probable now.
4. Just another question... What exactly is the difference between a 'mutation', and adaptation. Is does the thoery about the giraffe feeling the 'need' to have a longer neck play into this at all... I think it was called Gregorism or something. The offspring of the giraffe felt the need to have a longer neck, so they were born with one?
As for the person who made the ignorance is blind comment, I have to give you kudos for that. That was exceedingly clever. I wish I'd thought of it. :~) Well, not for now, since I'd be discrediting myself, but it would be nice to pull it out of my pocket sometime in another discussion. <Sigh> Now if I use it, people will say "You stole that from that guy off the creationist museum thread!".
Once again, thanks everybody for taking the time to answer these questions.
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quote:Originally posted by Nathan2006: Thanks for taking the time everybody to answer. Those answers were very helpful.
Our pleasure. I'm very glad you're being open-minded about this.
quote:3. I didn't know that at all! That was the fundemental thing that I hated about evolution. The idea that it was so linear. Evolution seems a whole lot more probable now.
It's a common misconception. Don't worry about it.
quote:4. Just another question... What exactly is the difference between a 'mutation', and adaptation. Is does the thoery about the giraffe feeling the 'need' to have a longer neck play into this at all... I think it was called Gregorism or something. The offspring of the giraffe felt the need to have a longer neck, so they were born with one?
You're thinking of Lamarckian evolution, which posited that giraffes' necks got longer over time because they stretched them to reach leaves on tall trees. This theory has been discredited because we now know that only genotype (that is, an individual's genetic makeup) is passed from generation to generation. Changes in an individual's phenotype (that is, its expressed characteristics) that have no genetic basis, like stretched out necks or bulkier muscles from weight-lifting, are not passed on.
As for your first question... A "mutation" is a change in the gene sequence of an organism. There are many different types of mutations, such as "point mutations" (changes in a single nucleotide base pair) and "frameshift mutations" (additions or deletions of base pairs in numbers that aren't a multiple of three). Mutations therefore occur at the genotypic level.
Adaptations occur at the level of phenotype, and are any changes that promote the "fitness" of an individual. "Fitness" is defined as the success of the individual in passing on its genotype, and encompasses a number of factors, including survival rate, fecundity, reproductive lifespan, etc. Therefore, a mutation can, but does not necessarily, result in an adaptation. Going back to the giraffe example, this means that a mutation that slightly increases the length of an individual giraffe's neck might improve its ability to feed, since it can reach leaves that other giraffes can't. This adaptation means it needs to spend less time and energy foraging, and thus improves its chances of surviving until reproducing. Its offspring also carry the "slightly longer neck" gene, and pass it on even further. Further mutations that increase the length of the neck even more will result in similar reproductive success. Eventually, the long neck variation spreads throughout the population and you end up with all long-necked giraffes.
quote:As for the person who made the ignorance is blind comment, I have to give you kudos for that. That was exceedingly clever. I wish I'd thought of it. :~) Well, not for now, since I'd be discrediting myself, but it would be nice to pull it out of my pocket sometime in another discussion. <Sigh> Now if I use it, people will say "You stole that from that guy off the creationist museum thread!".
You're welcome to use it all you like. Though you'll owe me a royalty... something reasonable, like, oh, five bucks per usage. Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:And make mention of the fact that religion is a developing field. It does not remain stagnent and try to pretend it has all the answers right now and here for anyone to read and understand.
That's not particularly true. Religion is not a developing field. Some religions are developing. Others are fighting pretty hard to remain static. Some make the very claim that you deny in your second sentence.
Also, many religious changes have been driven from external forces. In large part, Western Enlightenment civilization has domesticated (or at least semi-domesticated) the religions in it through direct and indirect opposition to many of the things they used to practice/believe.
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There was no "felt need" (or at least I've never heard of that theory before). A theory that is more likely to be accepted is that certain pre-giraffes had longer necks than others. These longer necked ancestors were able to feed on better foods in trees in whatever the current environment was. This allowed them to be stronger than their shorter necked brethren, allowing them to fight off competitors for reproductive mates, more easily run away from predators.
Alternatively, perhaps it wasn't that the food in the trees was "better", but there was a time of drought where the low lying plant species all but died away, causing huge competitive pressures for all the creatures that fed on them. All this competition was bound to cause a lot of losers in all the fighting. Those that had other means, since their necks were long enough to reach them, thus had less competition and could most easily remain healthy and thus more able to compete for mates.
And realize when I mean drought conditions, it could have been 10 years, 100 years or even 1000 or more years of the conditions.
quote:4. Just another question... What exactly is the difference between a 'mutation', and adaptation. Is does the thoery about the giraffe feeling the 'need' to have a longer neck play into this at all... I think it was called Gregorism or something. The offspring of the giraffe felt the need to have a longer neck, so they were born with one?
A mutation is a change in the genotype of an organism. It is generally understood to lead to a different phenotype, but this is not necessarily a requirement.
Adaption is a process by which organisms with genetic changes fill niches in their environment. An example would be the giraffe thing. A horse-type necked creature could only reach up to a certain height for tree food, so is more likely to look for food on the ground or on bushes. If they have mutations that lead to them having a longer neck phenotype, they can get food from trees. They adapt from being a ground/bush eater to a ground/bush/tree eater.
What you are describing is what people are saying is directed evolution, which doesn't seem to have support for it. Giraffe's didn't evolve because there was a need for long necks. Rather, there were countless mutations, including various things that resulted in long necks. Nearly all of these mutations didn't confer increased fit to the environment, so they wren't passed along. The longer necks, however, did increase the giraffe's ability to find food, a significant advantage, and so longer necked creatures prospered and thus had more successful children, and so on, and so on.
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edit: I actually know almost nothing about the real specifics of giraffe evolution, so that's just a possible explanation more or less consistent with the principles involved, not necessarily what actually happened.
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Right... I probably should have distinguished between "adaptation" as a beneficial phenotypic change and "the process of adaptation," which is what Squick describes.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: How so? That would suggest to me that the religions involved considered only scripture as the basis for religious doctrine, which is clearly not true.
When you say religions involved I don't think you are considering Christianity on its own.
quote:How much looking did you do? They're not, in my opinion, difficult to find.
Remind me to not concede a point to you in the future, you come across as one of those people who takes that as weakness and punishes people for it.
I'm reasonably confident in my own grasp of Christian holy texts. After thinking about it I decided there were no scriptures I could think of that support an earth centered universe. I was impressed that you found several that taken together make a compelling arguement in your favor. Forgive me but my ability to research while at work is a mite low.
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quote:And make mention of the fact that religion is a developing field. It does not remain stagnent and try to pretend it has all the answers right now and here for anyone to read and understand.
That's not particularly true. Religion is not a developing field. Some religions are developing. Others are fighting pretty hard to remain static. Some make the very claim that you deny in your second sentence.
Also, many religious changes have been driven from external forces. In large part, Western Enlightenment civilization has domesticated (or at least semi-domesticated) the religions in it through direct and indirect opposition to many of the things they used to practice/believe.
And I am sure there were phrenologists, astrologers, and alchemists who maintained the truthfulness of their professions to the grave. The enlightenment did not domesticate anything, unless you call Christianity running off into the forest during the dark ages and coming home again after the enlightenment a redomestication.
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quote:When you say religions involved I don't think you are considering Christianity on its own.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Could you rephrase?
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If you had said that you couldn't think of any scripture that supported geocentrism, I'd have been perfectly fine with that. But that's not what you said. What you said was:
quote:Unless we grant that because some Catholic leaders jumped on the "earth as the center of the universe" bandwagon and since they called it God's truth therefore it becomes religiously sanctioned. Even though they could not provide any sort of scriptural support of such a belief.
This is false. They did provide those scriptures (and others) as support for their position. This is easily seen by looking at their statements on this position.
In my opinion, it is irresponsible to make definitive statements (especially false ones) about topics you know very little about. If you don't know much about how the Church leaders held their belief in geocentrism, I don't think you should think it is okay to make definitive statements about it.
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quote:And I am sure there were phrenologists, astrologers, and alchemists who maintained the truthfulness of their professions to the grave.
Ok? What is your point?
quote:The enlightenment did not domesticate anything, unless you call Christianity running off into the forest during the dark ages and coming home again after the enlightenment a redomestication.
I don't know what you mean by this. Could you rephrase it?
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As a materialist historian I have a problem with Enlightenment domestication of religion. If such a thing occurred, it did so with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Watch those definitive statements. Posts: 675 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Could you explain why you think that orlox? I think we may be looking at very different things in regards to domesticating religion.
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I suspect the problem comes with dating the Enlightenment which is an 18th century phenomenon but popular conceptions roll it all the way back to the Renaissance.
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I understand what the Enlightment is. I also understand what the Peace of Westphalia is and what its results were. I don't need you to explain these things to me.
What I'm asking is for you to explain why you think that domestication of religion occurred with the Peace of Westphalia.
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Also, for my purposes here, I'm using the wider conception of the Enlightenment, which would include the Age of Reason.
posted
Well, after all the reprobative warfare of the Thirty Years War, minority religious rights were guaranteed by Westphalia as well as recognizing the 'established' religion of each state.
But if your Age of Enlightenment subsumes the Age of Reason it becomes a less useful descriptive.
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quote:I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Could you rephrase?
You are right not every religion bases its ideas in scripture. But when it comes to Christianity every single idea should have SOME basis in scripture if you are going to say God supports it.
quote: Ok? What is your point?
Those are all professions that claimed, and some in fact still claim to have basis in science. Science is not some amazing self governing vehicle that never crashes or even makes a turn without signalling.
quote: I don't know what you mean by this. Could you rephrase it?
You said the enlightenment domesticated Christianity, made it more liberal and accepting of science rather then superstition. Or am I wrong in this assesment? I do not believe this is the case. I believe Christianity at the time of the apostles and Jesus would have been happy to accept heliocentrism and burning heretics at the stake would have been rightfully shunned. It became bastardized about 100-300 years after its creation by its acceptance of gnostic beliefs and Neoplatonism. Its ability to think critically and rationally was stripped and ruined and it was not until the great reformation that steps in right direction were taken again, (I mean no offense to catholics, greek orthodox, or eastern orthodox Christians.)
The Enlightenment simply began to restore Christianity to its true form that it was originally intended to be when Jesus created it.
In regards to our discussion about the Bible and heliocentrism, it seems I was under the likely mistaken belief that the church took an opposing stance on heliocentrism and did not provide scripture to support that stance. The general populace at the time did not have access to the Bible so there was no need to demonstrate its' stance on the topic, nor did anybody think to question the pope at this period in time.
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Westphalia is considered the emergence of the system of nation states. Minority religions were tolerated as long as they pledged allegiance to the state. Those denominations that still refused to pledge first allegiance to the crown were ejected from European society. Mostly coming here, of course.
This would be considered the established POV which revisionist historians challenge in various ways. I have my own problems with it, but Westphalia does end the seemingly intractable religious warfare in Europe.
I think it is incumbent on you to justify the use of Enlightenment outside the 18th century. Or else to detail exactly how, where and when religion was 'domesticated' if it was not to the state as set out by Westphalia. (The British, as always, are excepted: Are we to consider Henry VIII as part of the Age of Enlightenment?)
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Touching entropy, an important point is that entropy really is increasing, and that life really does decrease entropy. The point is that there is no rule saying the increase in entropy has to be uniform. The decrease in entropy on Earth, due to the formation of life, is balanced, and more than balanced, by a much larger increase within the Sun.
Then, touching the decrease in mass: It's true that the Sun's mass was larger in the past. Let's leave to one side, for the moment, the question of whether the difference is 0.0001%, 10%, or 100%, which others have addressed, and instead ask how this would affect the Earth's orbit. When you increase the Sun's gravity, the Earth is more strongly attracted, so far so good. But when you begin to use the phrase "plummet to its doom", you should stop and ask yourself, what prevents this with the current gravity? And the answer is, the Earth's sidewise speed, which causes it to miss.
Now, if you increase the gravitational pull, you increase the speed needed to maintain the current orbit. But there's an orbit further in which is perfectly stable with the Earth's current speed. The formula is
a = omega^2 / r,
where a is the acceleration due to the Sun's gravity, omega is the angular orbital speed of the Earth (we can consider this constant) and r is the orbital radius. So, if you double the mass, and hence the acceleration due to gravity, then the radius drops by 50%. This would put the Earth somewhat inside the orbit of Venus, which admittedly would be bad; but then you have to consider that the effect is nowhere near so large. If the Sun has lost as much as 10% of its initial mass, I'd be vastly surprised.
[ June 06, 2007, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
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Wah! I respond to the astrophysics stuff, I leave my post for half an hour, and suddenly it's all nation-states! Don't do that!
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I know. I missed all of this because I was sleeping. I got no chance to answer all the cool questions.
I need to get back to answering that article. It's really hard to feel enthusiastic when you did it once before and lost it, you know?
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quote:I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Could you rephrase?
You are right not every religion bases its ideas in scripture. But when it comes to Christianity every single idea should have SOME basis in scripture if you are going to say God supports it.
I would disagree with you here.
quote:
You said the enlightenment domesticated Christianity, made it more liberal and accepting of science rather then superstition. Or am I wrong in this assesment? I do not believe this is the case. I believe Christianity at the time of the apostles and Jesus would have been happy to accept heliocentrism and burning heretics at the stake would have been rightfully shunned. It became bastardized about 100-300 years after its creation by its acceptance of gnostic beliefs and Neoplatonism. Its ability to think critically and rationally was stripped and ruined and it was not until the great reformation that steps in right direction were taken again, (I mean no offense to catholics, greek orthodox, or eastern orthodox Christians.)
Yikes! And here. The Apostles had no more idea that the earth revolved around the sun than anyone else. Constantine did a lot of things that I wish he hadn't and I agree that the "establishment" of Christianity as a state religion saddled us with a slow to change beurocrisy, but it didn't wave a stupid stick over everyone. People could still reason and think - we just had to do it as a group which takes a long time when it's a big group.
quote:
The Enlightenment simply began to restore Christianity to its true form that it was originally intended to be when Jesus created it.
In regards to our discussion about the Bible and heliocentrism, it seems I was under the likely mistaken belief that the church took an opposing stance on heliocentrism and did not provide scripture to support that stance. The general populace at the time did not have access to the Bible so there was no need to demonstrate its' stance on the topic, nor did anybody think to question the pope at this period in time.
People questioned the Pope all the time. The idea of the earth-centered universe hardly originated with the Church. It was pretty much assumed for millenia. Yes, the Church is reluctant to change especially when dealing with ideas that challenge a whole worldview.
In general I think that the forces of reason vs religion is a false way to understand history. Religion is as much a product of its particular time and culture as anything else. It is acted upon as well as acting. Often religion was a reasonable and civilizig factor. Humanity has grown in wisdom (we hope) with many factors shaping that growth.
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I guessed that this would be the case, you are welcome to your opinion.
quote: Yikes! And here. The Apostles had no more idea that the earth revolved around the sun than anyone else. Constantine did a lot of things that I wish he hadn't and I agree that the "establishment" of Christianity as a state religion saddled us with a slow to change beurocrisy, but it didn't wave a stupid stick over everyone. People could still reason and think - we just had to do it as a group which takes a long time when it's a big group.
I never said they did, but I am quite certain they would not have had the same stance as the catholic church had when heliocentrism was first introduced. I am absolutely sure that Jesus would not have acted that way as well. I am skeptical as to how many prayers were directed to God on that matter before policies were formed on how to respond to these scientists with their new idea.
I think Constantine did in fact wave a "stupid stick" on people. He redefined core ideas at the heart of Christianity, among which were the rightful governing of the Christian church. You do not vote on truth, you do not establish God's opinion by a popular majority. You may of course disagree but that is exactly where I think Constantine and the Councel at Nicea screwed up. People should have prayed in unison and received the same answer from the same God.
But I need to stop as I am violating the terms of these forums right now, and for that I apologize.
quote: People questioned the Pope all the time. The idea of the earth-centered universe hardly originated with the Church. It was pretty much assumed for millenia. Yes, the Church is reluctant to change especially when dealing with ideas that challenge a whole worldview.
Again I did not say it did. But the church certainly decided to bless that particular view point one day and persecute those who did not believe it.
quote: In general I think that the forces of reason vs religion is a false way to understand history. Religion is as much a product of its particular time and culture as anything else. It is acted upon as well as acting. Often religion was a reasonable and civilizig factor. Humanity has grown in wisdom (we hope) with many factors shaping that growth.
I can agree with all of this.
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