By Popular Demand! The God and/or Evolution Poll!!!

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This poll contains 1 question(s). 65 user(s) have voted.
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Poll Results: The God and/or Evolution Poll!!! (65 votes.)

The God and/or Evolution Poll!!! (Choose 1)
* 1) Mankind evolves; 2) Mankind creates God(s). - 60% (39)
* 1) God creates evolution; 2) Mankind evolves. - 23% (15)
* "Ah do believe, this Scopes fellow is goin' straight to hell..." - 6% (4)
* 1) Don't know/care; 2) XTC is in communion with God. - 11% (7)

The only problem I see with the theory of evolution is that it's philosophically vacuous, scientifically unprovable, retroactively self-justifying, definitionally circular, morally empty, void of beauty or purpose, and completely foreign to our day-to-day interaction with nature and human innovation.

But any theory that brings us social darwinism can't be all bad!

If you intend to keep polls in AoDA, you'll have to invest some more effort in them. Moving to Whatnots.

The only problem I see with the theory of evolution is that it's philosophically vacuous, scientifically unprovable, retroactively self-justifying, definitionally circular, morally empty, void of beauty or purpose, and completely foreign to our day-to-day interaction with nature and human innovation.
It's also for guys who can't cut it with the chicks ;) .

But, the idea of God creating everything is an even worse scientific theory

There is, however, plenty of evidence for evolution, so if you want to be scientific about things evolution wins hands down

@Taluntain- The intent of this poll was merely to provide a forum for the continuation of a discussion begun in the "God- Man or Woman" thread in AoDA, which, as Beren pointed out, strayed from the topic as originally defined in the thread. In moving from the question of whether God is/was male or female to the question of whether God or evolution or some combination of the two is responsible for the human species, a move with which I had nothing to do, the thread began to generate some interesting discussion, and discussion which remains relevant in the US at least, where there continue to be attacks on the teaching of evolution in public schools. While I admit that the poll was written in such a way as to elicit a response, and was written as well with several attempts at humor, each of these little jokes, such as the XTC reference, was tied directly to the discussion on the prior thread, and thus represented an attempt to continue the character of the prior discussion in the new, correctly labelled thread. As to your decision to move this poll to Whatnots from AoDA, presumably on account of its lack of seriousness, I would ask you to explain to me in what way a poll on God's gender is more serious than a poll that attempts to get at a very contemporary conflict between certain religious and scientific worldviews, that plays itself out not only with respect to evolution and creation, but also with respect to stem cell research, etc. And if it is simply a matter of the wording of the questions, please let me know, so that I can rewrite the questions and re-post the poll in AoDA.

philosophically vacuous Huh?

scientifically unprovable 1. Archaeopteryx , Volvox, the black & white variants of a certain English insect (can't recall the name) and many other similar findings and observations, specifically transitional forms.

2. Comparable organic structures, e.g. homologue ones like arms and wings.

3. Comparable behaviours, e.g. dogs and wolves howl.

4. The stages foetuses go through: evolution in fast-forward.

5. Comparable genomes.


These things give indications that hold some weight, to say the least.

definitionally circular Elaborate.

retroactively self-justifying The fact that we are able to discuss it sort of speaks for itself.

morally empty WTH do morals have to do with evolution?

void of beauty or purpose Err...beauty? The thing in the eye of the beholder?

As for purpose - beyond giving benefits to certain lucky individuals - there is none, as far as we know. It is random. But how does that disprove it? Try widening your perspective.

completely foreign to our day-to-day interaction with nature and human innovation On the first point, I'd say the opposite. But human innovation? Again, WTH?

the black and white english insect I believe you are referring to Biston betularia: the peppered moth.
I quite agree that evolution has provided plenty of evidence. The problem is any devout believer in God can dismiss it by saying that He planted it there. People will always see what they want to, not necessarily what's the truth. That goes for myself. Since I haven't seen a big face in the sky or a burning bush, I don't believe in God. But maybe I'm looking for the wrong things. Evolution is plain to see, if you are prepared to accept it. And belief in God is easy, as long as you are prepared to try.

First, belief in God doesn't exclude evolution, and the other way round.

Second, most "theories" on evolution are hypotheses.

Third, those hypotheses typically require as much faith as an organised religion.

Fourth, I want real proof and not speculations. Especially not those looking like "Goes doesn't exist, THEREFORE... THEREFORE God doesn't it".

But there are things I would like to hear from the religious wing, too.

OK, I'll elaborate. But I'd rather play ToEE!

philosophically vacuous...

Evolution is fundamentally a question of engineering - HOW does the world work? Philosophy answers the question of WHY. Evolution, as a theory, can't explain a host of whys - why are we here? why is life important? why is entropy being trumped by evolution? why should we care about evolution? etc.

scientifically unprovable...

Comparable organic structures, behaviors, and genomes are not good examples. It assumes that because two objects are similar, they must somehow be connected. But this is ain't a new idea. For thousands of years, people have made superstitious associations based on surface similarities. It was common in the medieval and classical eras, for instance, to prescribe plants that looked similar to the affliction - e.g., liver-colored plants for liver problems, etc. I worry that later centuries will look back at us and wonder how we could have been so "superstitious"!

And it's too easy to pick only some similarities while ignoring others. Dogs and wolves howl, yes - but humans and whales sing, hummingbirds and bees hover, and worms and snakes slither. That doesn't make them connected.

Per genome similarity - all words use the same basic letters, all computer programs are built from the same 1s and 0s, and the BG and IWD games use the same basic engine. But spoken and programmed languages (and BIS games) are examples of conscious design across accumulated innovations.

definitionally circular...

Evolution defines its means as its end. It's a description of a process: Given time plus chance, the strong push out the weak. But how do we measure strength? Sheer breedability? Then viruses are the height of the evolutionary ladder. Survivability? Then cockroaches are the strongest. Complexity? Then the optimum situation would be a lifeless world with an undying supercomputer. Diversity? Maybe - but that's both unmeasurable and contextual. A combination of these factors? Probably - but, then we conclude (logically) that whatever is must be that perfect combination. A better combination, presumably, would (over time and chance) win out over the weaker combination.

Which means: whatever is, at any given moment, is not only the best that evolution has to offer at that moment, but also the best proof that evolution is true. Whatever was before, must have been weaker then its successor; and because it was superceded, it proves that evolution is true. Whatever is to come, must be stronger that its predecessors; and because it succeeds, it proves that evolution is true. So whatever is, is best; whatever was, was best then but is no longer best; and whatever will be, will be best and supercede what is today.

So basically, evolution boils down to the fact that all life is a product of evolution and all life therefore proves the theory by dint of its existence. Which is not much different from the religious claim that life was created by God and that life proves God's existence.

retroactively self-justifying...

Whatever is, is the best that historical evolution has to offer. Since the stronger survive over time, what we have today must be the strongest. But how do we know that it's the strongest? Well...it's here today, so it must be. So we redefine what we mean by "strongest" by whatever traits the survivors happen to exhibit.

Take two animals - the jackal and the poodle. Clearly the jackal has been favored by evolution in certain respects - sharp teeth, pack mentality, fast speed, etc. But the poodle has also been favored - its insipid snuggliness and vulnerability make it ridiculously popular with humans, which protect and breed it. So globally, today there are more poodles than jackals. But whatever is, must be the best for the given place and moment. So we measure strength for one environment as sharp teeth (the Congo), and redefine strength as snuggliness for another environment (urban New York).

In which case, evolution loses most of its explanatory power. What does evolution add to our understanding if all it can do is bless whatever happens to exist at the moment? But it also loses vulnerability to challenge. There's no way to disprove evolution in terms of measuring strength if whatever is must be, definitionally, the strongest.

Nor, incidentally, does evolution answer the question of why - if the whole point of evolution is to reward survivors and breeders - life remains (after billions of years) so short and fragile. Or why we, as humans, should be so concerned about our lives (and the environment) being fragile.

morally empty...

No, you're right, evolution has nothing to do with morals. So evolution has no explanatory power for why human beings have a sense of morality. In that regard, it is quite unrealistic - even unreal.

void of beauty or purpose...

Like you said, with evolution, there is no beauty or purpose. But that doesn't match our perceptions of reality. We instinctively recognize beauty and purpose, and we have to convince ourselves - over many long, caffeinated afternoons at the local Parisian cafe - that life truly is meaningless.

In a sense, evolution is dodging humanity's most critical questions. It claims to explain why dogs are like wolves. But it can't explain why we feel sad when our dog is hit by a car, or why we play pointless games of fetch with them. Evolution sweats the small stuff and then dismisses the real questions with, as you write:

As for purpose - beyond giving benefits to certain lucky individuals - there is none, as far as we know. It is random. But how does that disprove it? Try widening your perspective.Maybe evolutionists should consider widening their perspective to look at how the theory has such discord with actual human experience. Which brings us to...

completely foreign to our day-to-day interaction with nature and human innovation...

Day-to-day, we interact with design and purpose. Each day I go to work in an office with other co-workers - the company was created by conscious intent, the employees were hired deliberately, and each worker comes in for specific reasons. Every time I load up a CRPG, it's because I'm purposing to play a game which a company has designed. Etc., etc. Now, granted, these may not be good designs or purposes, but they are certainly not random. Those places where we most closely confront the spectre of randomness are in the urban wastelands, where individualized, nihilistic people thrive on destruction and decay - the very opposite of strength and growth.

To sum up: Evolution neither accords with day-to-day human experience, nor with the perception that nature (like human innovation) evidences design. It also cannot be disproved because everything in reality fits the theory. That's not to say that evolution isn't true, but only that it takes a HUGE leap of faith to accept it in the teeth of common experience. That may explain why it's so widespread among scientists and intellectuals, who may be the only ones brave enough to make that leap.

Anyway, that's my take. Not too heated for What-Nots, I hope!

You've only got to look at the variety that can seen amongst different breeds of dog to see that genetic variation can be a massively powerful force. All modern dog breeds date back to a common ancestor only a few thousand years ago. And now some breeds are so different that they almost can't mate together. Granted, this variation has been helped by human intervention, but over millions of years, natural forces could have the same impact.

Nor, incidentally, does evolution answer the question of why Why does it have to answer the question 'why'? It's just a natural mechanism that people like me believe happens. I don't see what the question 'why' has to do with anything. I believe in the force of gravity but I don't really mind 'why' it exists.

"Why" is the area of religion, as there is no satisfactory answer to the "why" question and we as humans find that highly disconcerting we have since the dawn of time made up all manners of answers to "why" to comfort ourselves. Another word for those made up answers is religion. One of my major beefes with religion is that the "why" question is very important for me and that I find the frivoulos and simple answers which have with a 99.99999% probability just been made up by some fella supplied by religion to be insulting to the severity of the question and my own intelligence. Religion for me is like if you ask for directions from someone and that person doesnt know but gives you some directions anyway to make you happy. You might be satisfied in the short run but you might not be as satisfied when you find out that those directions were false and you are driving through a rather unsavory neighbourhood with your new mercedes.

hmmm... don't feel like a serious answer so:
definitly XTC :D !

I keep telling myself that arguing with creationists is a complete waste of time, but I just can´t resist answering.

philosophically vacuous...

"Evolution is fundamentally a question of engineering - HOW does the world work? Philosophy answers the question of WHY."

As far as I know, evolution has never intended to be a philosophical question. It does not seem valid to me to attack something for not being something it has never intended to be. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehention that evolution is somehow attempting to compete with religion at its own level. It is not.

scientifically unprovable...

"Comparable organic structures, behaviors, and genomes are not good examples. It assumes that because two objects are similar, they must somehow be connected."

Your attack on the comparison of similarities between organic structures seems overly simplistic and makes me think you don´t actually know how the science of evolution actually treats these comparisons, and their actual relevance. It makes me think you are formulating your criticism from a position of ignorance.

"And it's too easy to pick only some similarities while ignoring others. Dogs and wolves howl, yes - but humans and whales sing, hummingbirds and bees hover, and worms and snakes slither. That doesn't make them connected."

Are you sure whales sing? Do they know that is what they are doing? Has anyone asked them?

Again, this seems overly simplistic.

"Per genome similarity - all words use the same basic letters, all computer programs are built from the same 1s and 0s, and the BG and IWD games use the same basic engine. But spoken and programmed languages (and BIS games) are examples of conscious design across accumulated innovations."

Your point being?

definitionally circular...


"So basically, evolution boils down to the fact that all life is a product of evolution and all life therefore proves the theory by dint of its existence. Which is not much different from the religious claim that life was created by God and that life proves God's existence."

To the best of my knowledge, evolutionists have never claimed that evolution is the origin of the universe. As far as I know, evolution tries to explain the process by which animal species change over time and adapt to the environment. The species that adapt better have better chances of surviving The "how" as you yourself said before. It´s not the same thing. This argument is often used by creationists when they attempt to call evolution a religion (as opposed to when they try to make creationism a science).

retroactively self-justifying...

"Whatever is, is the best that historical evolution has to offer. Since the stronger survive over time, what we have today must be the strongest. But how do we know that it's the strongest? Well...it's here today, so it must be. So we redefine what we mean by "strongest" by whatever traits the survivors happen to exhibit.

Take two animals - the jackal and the poodle. Clearly the jackal has been favored by evolution in certain respects - sharp teeth, pack mentality, fast speed, etc. But the poodle has also been favored - its insipid snuggliness and vulnerability make it ridiculously popular with humans, which protect and breed it. So globally, today there are more poodles than jackals. But whatever is, must be the best for the given place and moment. So we measure strength for one environment as sharp teeth (the Congo), and redefine strength as snuggliness for another environment (urban New York).

In which case, evolution loses most of its explanatory power. What does evolution add to our understanding if all it can do is bless whatever happens to exist at the moment? But it also loses vulnerability to challenge. There's no way to disprove evolution in terms of measuring strength if whatever is must be, definitionally, the strongest."

Not quite. Change is a constant. Whatever is, at the moment, is also changing. Life forms are reacting to factors like environmental changes, constantly, everywhere. Some will adapt better than others.

"Nor, incidentally, does evolution answer the question of why - if the whole point of evolution is to reward survivors and breeders - life remains (after billions of years) so short and fragile. Or why we, as humans, should be so concerned about our lives (and the environment) being fragile."

I´m honestly not sure I understand what you mean by this. If the question is why life is short, well, that´s probably quite complex. You don´t think adaptability should be exponential or anything, do you?

morally empty...

"No, you're right, evolution has nothing to do with morals. So evolution has no explanatory power for why human beings have a sense of morality. In that regard, it is quite unrealistic - even unreal."

I´m sorry, but I just don´t get your point. Why should evolution, a scientific discipline, try to answer philosophical questions? Why do you call evolution "unreal" for not being able to explain human morality, when it has never, in fact, been its purpose to try and explain it? Again, as far as I know, evolution is about biological change and adaptability, not morality. Evolution is not philosophy.

void of beauty or purpose...

"Like you said, with evolution, there is no beauty or purpose. But that doesn't match our perceptions of reality. We instinctively recognize beauty and purpose"

Not quite. Culturally, human beings learn to recognize beauty and purpose, according to the societies and cultures we grow up and live in. Beauty is not the same to an American as it is to an African, and neither is what we understand as purpose the same to a Christian as it is to a Hindu or Muslim. You seem to think that abstract concepts like "beauty" and "purpose" are somehow innate to human beings (that we were created with them, perhaps). I do not think that this is so, but then again, abstract concepts such as these have nothing to do with evolution.

"In a sense, evolution is dodging humanity's most critical questions. It claims to explain why dogs are like wolves. But it can't explain why we feel sad when our dog is hit by a car, or why we play pointless games of fetch with them."

In every sense, it has never been the object of evolution to answer these questions. These are philosophical questions, not scientific ones.

No, we are not, in fact, trying to invade your territory.

"Evolution sweats the small stuff and then dismisses the real questions"

Sure, if you think biology is small stuff.

"Maybe evolutionists should consider widening their perspective to look at how the theory has such discord with actual human experience. Which brings us to..."

Maybe you don´t actually know what evolution is really about.

completely foreign to our day-to-day interaction with nature and human innovation...

"Day-to-day, we interact with design and purpose. Each day I go to work in an office with other co-workers - the company was created by conscious intent, the employees were hired deliberately, and each worker comes in for specific reasons. Every time I load up a CRPG, it's because I'm purposing to play a game which a company has designed. Etc., etc. Now, granted, these may not be good designs or purposes, but they are certainly not random. Those places where we most closely confront the spectre of randomness are in the urban wastelands, where individualized, nihilistic people thrive on destruction and decay - the very opposite of strength and growth."

I´m sorry, but personally, I don´t find that applying what we as humans do, as purposeful creatures, to a universal level, is a valid argument in favor of the design and creation of the universe by an intelligent entity, but that´s just me. I´m not here to try and convince you of anything. My point is that you´re slamming evolution for not doing things it´s not even supposed to do, and I honestly think you don´t really know what it´s about. My impression, and I´m sorry if I´m mistaken, is that your experience with evolution is second-hand. That you know what you´ve been told about it, but have never actually bothered to read about for yourself.

Anyway, that´s my take. You´ll excuse me if I don´t continue this argument, but like I said earlier, I honestly think it´s a waste of time. I have better things to do than argue about evolution on an rpg forum. I should know better than to even read these posts when I come to the site for the news. They get the better of me and I end up answering anyway.

[ April 21, 2004, 18:27: Message edited by: hermit09 ]

I'm with Evolution on this one. The Bible has explained nothing about dinosaurs and other fossils of the times before man.

The bible may not explain them but I've met a few religeous prople who can. They say that God put the fossils there. Pretty conveniant answer with no thought behind it really.

I go to a christian school and after many years I still enjoy contridicting things the teacher teaches us about Creation etc. The more they try to explain it, the more I know it cannot possibly be true. They try to tell me that the 'Big Bang' never occured, nor can they explain why the universe is expanding very rapidly.

The subject of religion is a very touchy one and has been the subject of wars for many years... According the the christians, anyone who doesnt believe in God goes to hell when they die. Does this mean that every single still-born baby goes to hell? That all the Muslims, Sikhs etc will go to hell? How can that many billion people all be completely wrong? And what about all the people before Christ was born? Did they all go to hell too? This seems to me like a very large amount of people and that hell must be able to accomodate lots of people. My religious studies teacher has kicked me out of class on more than one occasion for bringing this up. There is absoloutly no hard proof that Jesus did come to earth and come back to life, but there is at least some evidence that evolution did/does occur. Perhaps it can be contridicted and proven wrong, but there is stuff to go on. The only evidence of Creation is the Bible - a book written many thousands of years ago. It has been re-written and copied countless times and has probably undergone numerous changes to make it seem more interesting and readable.

It saddens me that so many people are intent on defending their beliefs rather than feeding starving children and providing homes for those without them.

The best thing about my current religion teacher is: He acknowledges that the Bible is largely full of crap - that there have been numerous mistranslations and it is largely metaphorical. All other RE teachers have tried to tell us that there was this bloke and this chick in this garden with a tree and a snake...

i really cant be bothered explaining a heap about evolution and why i think that is the 'better' theory, but i could sit here and argue about it for days and write a 200000 word thesis on it if i really wanted to, but it's not going to get anywhere, so ill make this short and sweet:

i think evolution is the better reason for although the little proof we have, we still have more proof than the god theory. (and also im kind of skeptical and against religion :D ) but never mind about that

Note: there are plenty of other reasons i could include but my fingers are not up to the typing

It gets a lot easier to reconcile religion and evolution if you move away from things like the Christian insistence that the Bible is entirely a factual document, and start looking at it from the perspective that there is some history there, but that much of it is bunch of parables.

Just because there are flaws in basis of all religions doesn't exclude there from being a god, or a central intelligence that has powers (technological or metaphysical) beyond our understanding. Perhaps this entity is able/chooses to nudge evolution in certain directions.

I personally like the belief that there really is no single God, that we are all part of god. When we die our energies diffuse out and rejoin a greater conciseness that is beyond our comprehension. What you do with this life is what you take back to the "god mind".

Of course that flies in the face of the beliefs of heaven and hell, and that the following the word of some divine being the only means by which to ascend to heaven. I have my own theories on these prophets and saviors, which I choose not to share today. I will just leave it at this: I believe that certain historical figures rose to a level of conciseness that the rest of us have not been able to attain. What they were able to do in reality, and what their stories grew into are, to me, 2 separate things that are inexorably intertwined by time and legend.

Boy have I opened myself up to some serious flames.

*Sigh*. Now look what you've done. I'm forced to move this badly created poll back to AoDA because it actually managed to spark philosophical debate. Will wonders never cease...

A few words about contradictions:

Contradiction is when a claim contains parts that are mutually exclusive on a dead-serious and ice cold logical basis:

0 != 1

And that's it.

That you can't understand how A gets along with B, still doesn't mean there's a contradiction there.

But please go on, folks.

Well, Evolution explains it all too clearly in my opinion. Creation as it is promoted by the Bible or other relg. texts surely doesnt.
However, there is a nagging doubt in the back of my mind who/what started it. And why.
These thoughts make my head spin. :)

Perhaps there is a guiding, propelling force behind it all, but I dont buy the 6-days-plus-the-7th-for-resting story... and that our world is only a few thousand years old. No offense intended!

Hermit explained this pretty well, but I'd like to add a few things. First of all, it is incorrect to say that whatever exists now is "the best". For starters, evolution doesn't create something that is best, it creates somethign that works. By works I mean succeeds in the environment at that time. If you look at the environment as the rules life plays by, the reason that evolution occurs is that the rules are always changing. Furthermore, just because something went extinct doesn't mean in couldn't survive today, or that things today are obviously better than things past.

How about a few examples here. Could dinosaurs live on the earth today, given it's current environment? Probably. At least in the more tropical areas. The problem was that they went extinct because the environment changed globally during the Cretaceous extinction that made it impossible for them to survive.

Similarly, if humans lived around the time of the Permian extinction, we probably wouldn't be here today either, even though we could obviously survive the current conditions.

And that's why evolution doesn't go for the best solution. If it did, then logically dinosaurs should have re-evolved in tropical areas. Evolution is random, fueled by genetic mutations. Most of the time the mutation is bad an creates an unfit organism. But when you don't strive for something perfect, only something acceptable, it is completely reasonable to expect that once a species goes extinct its chance of re-emergence are negligible. Evolution doesn't have a goal or purpose is the bottom line here.

It gets a lot easier to reconcile religion and evolution if you move away from things like the Christian insistence that the Bible is entirely a factual document, and start looking at it from the perspective that there is some history there, but that much of it is bunch of parables.
Why do people say "parable" instead of "fiction"?


Just because there are flaws in basis of all religions doesn't exclude there from being a god, or a central intelligence that has powers (technological or metaphysical) beyond our understanding. Perhaps this entity is able/chooses to nudge evolution in certain directions.
Religion and one's notion of God may not be mutually exclusive, but one seldom has anything to do with the other and the existance of the former in no way proves the existence of the later.
In the great unlikliness there is such an entity as God or cosmic intelligence or whatever name you apply, its seems evident to me that this entity is entirely oblivious to mankind. To suggest otherwise is almost the pinnacle of vanity.


I personally like the belief that there really is no single God, that we are all part of god. When we die our energies diffuse out and rejoin a greater conciseness that is beyond our comprehension. What you do with this life is what you take back to the "god mind".
Just goes to show you what a wonderful thing is the mind of man, able to conceive of the incomprehensible.


Of course that flies in the face of the beliefs of heaven and hell, and that the following the word of some divine being the only means by which to ascend to heaven. I have my own theories on these prophets and saviors, which I choose not to share today. I will just leave it at this: I believe that certain historical figures rose to a level of conciseness that the rest of us have not been able to attain. What they were able to do in reality, and what their stories grew into are, to me, 2 separate things that are inexorably intertwined by time and legend.
This is what is known as myth. Very apt description.


As for me:

Seek where you will, but you will find the answers to your questions and the solutions to your problems within yourself or you will find them not.

If it makes one feel better about the unfairness of mortality to espouse the existance of an entity greater than oneself who bestows immortality after one's life is ended, then jolly good; but burden me not with the inspid justifications presented in self delusion.

Why do people say "parable" instead of "fiction"?Because a parable is meant to teach something about moral/religious values through illustration. Not all fiction does.

@Tal- glad you came around! and I'll be much more careful in writing my next AoDA poll (tentatively titled "When did you stop stealing from your grandmother?") ;)

Actually, the question of whether something is "true" or not isn't that straightforward. In science, whether something meets the criteria of "true" or not tends to depend on the theoretical framework one uses; one of the jobs a theory does is to set forth the criteria for "truth." For logical positivists, for example, truth by definition can only happen within a theoretical framework; events can happen outside that framework, to be sure, but they are meaningless without a theory to make sense of them. For Karl Popper, there's an inherent self-reinforcing bias to looking for "truth," so that it is better science to instead proceed through deductive falsification. How one moves from one theoretical framework to another becomes an interesting problem, which Thomas Kuhn famously dealt with with the notion of the paradigm shift...

Just to add to what BTA said...yes, a parable is a teaching tool to illustrates morals and values, but it is also a kind of "secret code". Most of Jesus' parables dealt with farming (sowing, reaping, pruning, etc.), as a result, they were understood by the simple people...the farmers and workers, because they could relate to the illustration given. The wealthy and religious did not. As a result, most of Christ's followers were "simple" people, the salt of the Earth.

Unfortunately, his Apostles had a particularly hard time with his "farm" parables...because they were mostly fishermen! ;)

My, we have a lot of cranky atheists on these boards of late...it's almost as if you felt your position was being threatened.

Oh, also a parable is a recognized literary form by critics and publishers.

[edit] would someone please remind Bion to post in English?

Gott in Himmel! Der Hacken Slash hat damit gerechnet, dass ich die ganze Zeit nicht auf English geschrieben habe! Affentittengeil, Alter!

come now Hacken Slash, you never even owned up to the "salvation by grace" issue in the "God - Man or Woman?" thread. i kinda think i had you there... even got to pull out some Dante (tho that's not english either, right?)

I had not originally intended to return to this thread. I may have mentioned this before: I hate arguments. I no longer have the patience for them, especially arguments regarding religion, and consider them a complete waste of time. Yet, I tend to get easily sucked into them. I have finally decided to come back, not to continue the argument, but because I think I need to ammend some of the things I said in my earlier post.

After having made my post, overhwelmed by the feeling of frustration I often get from things like these, I wrote an e-mail to the editor of Positive Atheism magazine, Mr. Cliff Walker, and mentioned some of Grey Magistrate´s arguments against evolution in my letter.

It turns out I was wrong: evolution apparently *does* have something to do with human morality. Mr. Walker was kind enough to send me a copy of an article entitled "Of Altruism Heroism and Evolution´s Gifts", by Natalie Angier. I do not feel at liberty to reproduce the article in its entirety, but I do believe I may make some quotes:

"There´s a general trend in evolutionary biology toward recognizing that often the best way to compete is to cooperate", said Dr. Barbara Smuts, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, who has published papers on the evolution of altruism."

"Most biologists concur that the human capacity for language and memory allows altruistic behavior"

"The question of altruism was at least partly solved when British evolutionary theorist William Hamilton formulated the idea of inclusive fitness: the notion that individuals can enhance their reproductive success not merely by having young of their own, but by caring for their genetic relatives as well"

"Yet, as biologists are learning, there is more to cooperation and generosity than an investment in one´s own nepotistic patch of DNA. Lately, they have accrued evidence that something like group selection encourages the evolution of traits beneficial to a group, even when members of the group are not related".

"These models showed that under a wide range of simulated environmental conditions you could get selection for prudent, cooperative behavior (...) if you happened by chance to get good guys together, they remained together because they created a mutually beneficial environment"

So it appears that evolution does have something to do with the development of human morality. I stand corrected.

More on the subject may be found on Michael Shermer´s work, specifically his book "Why People Cheat,Gossip, Share, Care, and Follow the Golden Rule.", which was also recommended to me by Mr. Walker.

Those interested in learning more may want to visit Mr. Walker site, positiveatheism.org; or Mr. Shermer´s site, skeptic.com. I hope this is not viewed as spamming, as that is not my intention.

On the subject of supposed evidence of intelligent design, Mr. Walker directed me to Dr. Victor Stenger´s book "Has Science Found God?". More information on it may be found here: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/god.html
along with excerpts from the book. More to the point, the chapter "Absence of Evidence", which is reproduced in its entirety.

It is not my intention to spam the forum, and neither is it to get into any arguments with anybody, or try to convince anybody of anything. I am merely posting these links for the benefit of whomever may be interested in the subject, so that they may read about it and make up their own minds.

You have good taste. Cliff(of Positive atheism) is one of the sharpest minds on the net. Read the PA letters section sometime! It almost makes you feel BAD for the theists!

Stenger is great too! I have some articles and things he wrote around here on teh subject. Very good stuff.

@Bion

I must have missed your last post to me in the man or woman thread...wasn't trying to dodge anything. I'll go back and read it and reply either here or there, whichever seems more active at the time.

Proceed with caution...whipping out your "Dante" is a crime in 48 States.

You know, when I said to speak in English, it was actually a backhanded compliment. You don't need to cuss me out in Watusi.

[edit] should I claim that you are dodging me in the "Surgical Castration" thread?

[ April 23, 2004, 08:59: Message edited by: Hacken Slash ]

Excellent post, Hermit. There are plenty of ways to explain the evolution of morality, such as mutualism, reciprocal altruism, and kin selection (and a few others). That was just one of the many perplexing oversights in Gray's post. It's as if he is talking about evolutionary theory and animal behavior without even understanding the most basic tenets and ideas dealing with the subjects.

Here is perhaps the most bizarre paragraph:

Evolution defines its means as its end. It's a description of a process: Given time plus chance, the strong push out the weak.Ok, we already have problems with the first sentence. Strong? Weak? No. The terms you are searching for are "fit" and "unfit." Organisms that are better adapted to their environment leave more offspring, on average, than their conspecifics. Therefore, they send more of their alleles into the next generation, thereby generating evolution which is defined as a change in allele frequencies over time.

But how do we measure strength? Sheer breedability? Then viruses are the height of the evolutionary ladder. Survivability? Then cockroaches are the strongest.We measure "survivability" (of conglomerates of genes, not species) as a function of fitness (reproductive success). Just because viruses have reproductive capacities beyond other organisms (let's just assume viruses are organisms) doesn't mean anything. Can a virus exploit every ecological niche available? No. The great diversity of life is a result of the exploitation of a great diversity of ecological niches. That is (usually) how new species diverge from common ancestors: one fragment of a population is exposed to a new environment.

Complexity? Then the optimum situation would be a lifeless world with an undying supercomputer. Diversity? Maybe - but that's both unmeasurable and contextual. A combination of these factors? Probably - but, then we conclude (logically) that whatever is must be that perfect combination.The emergence of complexity in organisms is a *passive* trend in macroevolution and the relevance of complexity on fitness completely depends on the ecological situation and phylogenetic history of the organism. In fact, many organisms have *simplified* over evolutionary time because it was advantageous for exploiting a niche (this is commonly seen in organisms who become parasites, where complexitity is pointless and unnecessary, or even a hinderance).

A better combination, presumably, would (over time and chance) win out over the weaker combination. DNA does not code for the perfect organism. Just as an engineer does not create a machine that can microwave, do the dishes, create music, tell time, send men to the moon, run PET scans, dispense toliet paper, and serve every other conceivable function, DNA won't and can't create an organism outcompete all others in every ecological niche. (BTW, you seem to view evolution at "the species level", this is a common mistake. You should try to view evolution taking place *within* a species with conspecifics competing with each other in order to maximize their reproductive success). Because of the nature of evolution and DNA there are both *proximate* and *phylogenetic* constraints on every living organism.

Take two animals - the jackal and the poodle. Clearly the jackal has been favored by evolution in certain respects - sharp teeth, pack mentality, fast speed, etc. But the poodle has also been favored - its insipid snuggliness and vulnerability make it ridiculously popular with humans, which protect and breed it. So globally, today there are more poodles than jackals. But whatever is, must be the best for the given place and moment. So we measure strength for one environment as sharp teeth (the Congo), and redefine strength as snuggliness for another environment (urban New York). By Jove, you almost explained it to yourself! That's why strength is such a terrible term. Fitness, my man. As situations change, the fitness effects produced by various alleles change in value. As wolves were brought into domestication, alleles coding for "cuteness" were favored by breeders, thereby increasing the fitness of "cuter" wolves. It's analogous to a adaptive radiation (which I talked about above) where when exposed to a new environment, allele frequencies will change across generations to best exploit that environment.

In which case, evolution loses most of its explanatory power. No! As the environment changes, so do the demands on the organism. Just because there is no constant unchanging gauge of fitness, does NOT mean that evolution loses its explanatory power.

Nor, incidentally, does evolution answer the question of why - if the whole point of evolution is to reward survivors and breeders - life remains (after billions of years) so short and fragile.Proximate constraints of DNA. Architects and engineers can spend eons designing new forms of airplanes, but there will come a point where can't make a faster plane. The proximate constraints of physics won't allow them to make the plane go any faster no matter what.

And lets be very clear, who is to say that life is short and fragile? That's your opinion. I find life to be incredibly robust. Millions of years of evolutionary arms races have allowed our bodies to compete with disease and injury.

im a former christian (no religion now) the reason i no longer beleive is that if greek mythology and all these other religions are wrong why does that make 1 right

@Bion

I was wrong.

I've gone back and re-read your posts that dealt with basic Christian Theology, and I can find no major areas to dispute what you have said.

I only read your post in a very perfuntory way the first time through, and responded to what I thought you had said. The debate was raging fast and furious, and I failed to really read what you were saying.

As for my standing as being competent in my understanding of Christian Theology as it pertains to Grace, evil, sin and the fallen state of man...I've written extensively on those topics in other threads in the past (the "How could a loving God and evil co-exist" thread comes to mind).

No point in doing it all again just to prove to you that I have an understanding of my faith...look them up if you care to.

I apologize for responding to you based on what I thought you had said, rather than carefully reading the post.

I don't particularly care for the works of Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer, and St. Augustine is far more enlightened after his conversion. Try Sts. Aquinas, Theresa of Avilla, de Monforte or Therese of Lisieux.

@All members and admins

I would have normally responded to Bion via a pm, but since I spoke against him in a public way, I felt it appropriate to say I was wrong in a public way.

I am a creationist that studied Evolution.

Someone earlier mentioned 'Peppered Moth' as a 'tranisitionary example.' Before I can agree we have to 'agree' on what a 'transitionary example actually is.

In Evolution there is 'Micro-evolution' and 'Macro-evolution.' Creationists will agree that Microevolution exists. Subtle changes can occur over time among a species.

What Creationists disagree with is that they do not believe Macroevolution exists.

Macroevolution are changes that occur that produce a new species. A species splits into 2 species or what have you.

Species is simply defined by whether or not 2 groups are 'capable' not merely 'willing' to breed with eachother. A poodle may not be willing to breed with a Greyhound, but they are capable of it.

BACK TO: Pepppered Moth:

Black Moth, White Moth, Peppered Moth? Macro-Evolution? Nope!

http://www.utm.edu/~rirwin/moth.htm

From my link above you can see that the new groups of insects are capable of breeding and therefore no new species is created.

Someone once said that DOGS are becoming less likely to breed with eachother as cross breeding continues. That doesn't matter. It is about whether or not they are 'capable' of breeding, not merely willing. As of TODAY, all dogs belong to the same species. As of TODAY, no new species of Fruit Flys has been bred.

Creationists do have a Scientific Theory which is the Hydroplate Theory. That the Earth suffered a great flood many years ago. This was taken out of the Bible's Great Flood with Noah. To date: No one has found Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat but there are still several people conducting expeditions. Only time will tell on that issue.

http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html


scroll down to CB600 for refutations of the specific peppered moth claims of creationists.


Also from Talkorgins:


Response:
New species have arisen in historical times. Just a few of them are listed here.

Helacyton gartleri is the HeLa cell culture, which evolved from a human cervical carcinoma in 1951. The culture grows indefinitely and has become widespread. [Van Valen and Maiorana 1991]

A new species of mosquito, Culex molestus, isolated in London's underground, has speciated from Culex pipiens. [London Times 1998; ASTMH 1998]

Drosophila melanogaster populations evolved reproductive isolation as a result of contrasting microenvironments within a canyon. [Korol et al. 2000]

A lineage of 13-year cicadas is reproductively isolated from the 17-year cicada it derived from by reproductive timing, and it is genetically distinct also from another 13-year cicada in the same region. [Chin 2000]
Incipient speciation, where two subspecies interbreed rarely or with only little success, is common. Here are just a few examples:

Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly, is undergoing sympatric speciation. Its native host in North America is Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), but in the mid-1800's, a new population formed on introduced domestic apples (Malus pumila). The two races are kept partially isolated by natural selection. [Filchak et al. 2000]
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae shows incipient speciation between its populations in northwestern and southeastern Africa [Lehmann et al. 2003; Fanello et al. 2003].
Silverside fish show incipient speciation between marine and estuarine populations [Beheregaray and Sunnucks 2001].
Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more-or-less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.)

Examples of ring species are:
the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the USA. They form a ring around California's Central Valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi don't interbreed. [Brown n.d.; Wake 1997]
the greenish warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but don't interbreed in that part of their range. [Whitehouse 2001; Irwin et al. 2001]
the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over 50 subspecies in North America.
The gull Larus argentus [Mayr 1942]
Parus major and P. minor [Mayr 1942]
Halcyon chloris [Mayr 1942]
Zosterops [Mayr 1942]
Lalage [Mayr 1942]
Eupetes caerulescens and E. nigricrissis [Mayr 1942]
Phylloscopus troicholides [Mayr 1942]
the American bee Holitis (Alcidamea) producta. [Mayr 1963, 292f]
the subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi [Nevo 2000]
Evidence of speciation occurs in the form of organisms which exist only in environments that didn't exist a few hundreds or thousands of years ago.
In several Canadian lakes, which originated in the last 10,000 years since the last ice age, stickleback fish have diversified into separate species for shallow and deep water [Schilthuizen 2001, 146-151]
Cichlids in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have diversified into hundreds of species. Lake Malawi in particular originated in the 19th century and has about 200 cichlid species [Schilthuizen 2001, 166-176].
A Mimulus species adapted for soils high in copper exists only on the tailings of a copper mine that did not exist before 1859 [Macnair 1989].
Some young-earth creationists claim that speciation is essential to explain Noah's Ark. The ark was not roomy enough to carry and care for all species, so speciation is invoked to explain how the much fewer "kinds" aboard the ark became the diversity we see today. Also, some species have special needs that could not have been met during the flood (e.g. fish requiring fresh water). Creationists assume that they evolved from other, more tolerant organisms since the Flood. [Woodmorappe 1996]So much for that.


Now, i fully anticipate the "You just posted info from another site instead of posting your own argument(i.e. the same damned info in my own clumsy words)" bit. let me remind you: If you can refute the INFORMATION please do so. if you CANNOT then spare me the excuses for why you cannot. I do not have time right now to write a book containing information presented elsewhere.

I would love to refute all that as 'Microevolution' and not 'Macroevolution' simply by showing that they breed or that the person was absolutely mistaken about the parent producing the child.

But that would take an awful lot of time that I do not have given the sheer volume of mis-guided examples.

@Hacken Slash- thanks for the gracious reply, no harm done of course!

In my point of view, God created a world and imprinted evolution in the minds of all living things. I took the first answer but my sentiments are between the first 2 answers. I can't possibly explain it all, and certainly not in English, but hell, you know what I mean. Mankind created a god image, but this is solely for determining scientifically unexplainable things. Not for explaining evolution.

It doesn't matter what I think. Just live and be done with it.

And btw that was not naive by any means.