Why Evolution is True

[MystyrMystyry]

I'm with you Kiki.

You want to know where, why and how God was created?

Well You're in luck that MystyrMystyry the Poet had emerged.


God was created in the Human Heart.

A long time ago when there were many unexplained phenomena ruling our lives and fates, storms brought fear, chill winds passed through you like spirits of the dead. Earthquakes rocked the world. Volcanoes erupted without warning. Crops failed. hunting became scarce.

These though were extraneous phenomena. There was another far more powerful force in the Universe than these demonstrations of nature. It came from the essential need of humans for companionship. Since the dawn of time we have lived, loved and died.

And that's what God is.

A metaphor for LOVE.

So we stylise the process of companionship and relationship, we religionise to expediate the process of courtship and marriage, to give our loving blessing to the offspring of the lovers, so that we all grow old together.

To this is the guarantee that the youth will return the love and not kick us out of the tribe when we are too old to fend for ourselves - but not purely, in turn we derive enjoyment in our winter years of youth reminding us of our summers.

What sane person wants to grow old and die alone?

But Love exists - it may be a fiction or a friction for an unfortunate few but for those of in the Know we wouldn't haven't any other way.

You may anthropomorphise God, that's your prerogative. I'm not telling you not to enjoy the things you derive pleasure from - far from it.

I just didn't really understand what you meant. I thought you were referring to the crazy arbitrarily vengeful nutjob of the Old Testament.

But you meant the God of LOVE of the New Testament...

And I love you

[Alexander III]

I think that to eaither strongly believe that there is a god, or that there is no god; is naive. Quite frankly there could be a god just as likley as there could be no god. And then the irony is that that god, if he does exists, will be so different to our notions of god that we would be unable of realizing that it was a god, god may seem more like no-god than our imaginations on the nature of god.

And I think we often forget the limitations of science. Science is a human product and thus its limitation is mankind, it can go only so far as man can take it. And if we consider how small and short lived we are compared to the universe and existence which is infinite and eternal, well then a prokaryotic cell is just as likely to understand Human society as we are to understand the true and essential nature of the universe, reality and god.


* My entire post is made with the sentiments that God and Religion are two separate entities which should not be confused.

[k.brignell]

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, my recanting the christian faith does not mean that I have no belief in a god/ deity/ supernatural existence... It is just that the Genesis account of creation seems written to be taken seriously, not as a metaphor or as symbolism. It appears that the whole of the Bible, new and old testament, rests on a literal translation of the creation as told in the first book of the bible. Jesus often quoted from the old testament which would mean that he accepted its authority, thus we cannot dismiss the old testament and yet believe in the new testament. Accepting the christian faith and Jesus as the son of God surely means accepting the WHOLE bible as the divine inspired word of God? And as I read it the literal biblical account of Genesis does not allow for evolution? However, I am a lover of truth and open to listening and thinking seriously about anyone who feels /thinks that they know the truth...

[Gladys]

It is just that the Genesis account of creation seems written to be taken seriously, not as a metaphor or as symbolism.

The Genesis account was certainly written to be taken seriously. But do you really imagine that either the writers of Genesis or its erudite readers, men deeply committed to serious enquiry a millennium before Christ, would yearn first and foremost for scientific edification?

[kiki1982]

I think that to eaither strongly believe that there is a god, or that there is no god; is naive. Quite frankly there could be a god just as likley as there could be no god. And then the irony is that that god, if he does exists, will be so different to our notions of god that we would be unable of realizing that it was a god, god may seem more like no-god than our imaginations on the nature of god.

And I think we often forget the limitations of science. Science is a human product and thus its limitation is mankind, it can go only so far as man can take it. And if we consider how small and short lived we are compared to the universe and existence which is infinite and eternal, well then a prokaryotic cell is just as likely to understand Human society as we are to understand the true and essential nature of the universe, reality and god.


* My entire post is made with the sentiments that God and Religion are two separate entities which should not be confused.

I think that's a very intelligent statement.

I also think, extrapolating on that, that in order to at least make the impression to understand, people project their finite conception on It (let's call it It). As in the Jewish faith, the Islamic faith, the Christian, the Hindu... To list the most known and practiced.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, my recanting the christian faith does not mean that I have no belief in a god/ deity/ supernatural existence... It is just that the Genesis account of creation seems written to be taken seriously, not as a metaphor or as symbolism. It appears that the whole of the Bible, new and old testament, rests on a literal translation of the creation as told in the first book of the bible. Jesus often quoted from the old testament which would mean that he accepted its authority, thus we cannot dismiss the old testament and yet believe in the new testament. Accepting the christian faith and Jesus as the son of God surely means accepting the WHOLE bible as the divine inspired word of God? And as I read it the literal biblical account of Genesis does not allow for evolution? However, I am a lover of truth and open to listening and thinking seriously about anyone who feels /thinks that they know the truth...

I tend to disagree. I find that, sorry for the expression, fundamentalist, wanting to believe that God created the universe in seven days, exactly, and that He created man the way it says in the story. Six days though to be precise and the seventh was for rest. I mean, a day can be taken in a number of different ways:

1. Literal day like we know it now, 24 hours long. As I said that's totally out of the question for a scientific person.
2. The length of a 'day', through the history of our earth, has fluctuated tremendously according to the speed our earth took to spin round its own axis. At any rate, what is a 'day' in terms of the universe? Which star and which planet will we take as a measure? Hold on, a day is only identified as the amount of time it takes a place on a planet to have first light and then go through the night to first light again (=24 hours for earth but other planets have different timing). That is of no concequence to other solar systems though. There are millions of them, which one defines the 'day' in the story of Creation? And was the initial day before the existence of light a day at all or not? And what with the time before the creation of the earth? Maybe earth wasn't the last to be created, but nor was it the first in all probability. No day without light, or a very long one indeed. Or is there a day in space at all, though, as the sun and other stars go through atomic fusion constantly. So are we then stuck in a permanent day, or a permanent night?
3. One can see the 'day' as a metaphorical time period of no real limited duration. Let's say, the phases of creation. And that does add up.

In any case, the seven days was probably introduced later, when the thing was written down. It is likely (to me) that there was a totally different amount of days in the very first Creation stories as people did not have an organised way of living. As symbolic rites took over, the last day of the week, the sabbath (talking Jewish here), was a day of rest and thus God rested on the seventh day.
God gave man the world to cultivate it or keep it thriving. If that is so, then, my scientific mind says that at the dawning of man (Neanderthals and his earlier versions, even homo erectus, why not even the very ape himself?), God left the world up to evolution to thrive and man to cultivate it. So yes, in my opinion Genesis definitely allows for evolution if one does not take the words in the story too literally and if one thinks a little further. There is, by the way, to my knowledge, never ever anyting that says that God thought that phase of His creation was perfect. Only that it was good. That can be at any stage, even the most primitive, can't it?

Then to Jesus. Naturally he quoted from the Old Testament as he was a Jew and had been raised a Jew, though he said he came to complete the Jewish religion (introducing the God of love instead the God of fear or whatever you can call it). Obviously not everyone believed that. I am with Saramago (cfr The Gospel according to Jesus Christ) in the fact that Jesus could be seen as sent by God, that is what we still believe, but that he was really a human being. A bit like sect leaders now, I imagine, whitout wanting to commit sacrilege. The New Testament is still a human production and was not, to my knowledge, dictated to the evangelists by God Himself. It was inspired by great faith in tumultuous times, but made a lot more magical or 'truer' than the original gospels were in medieval times. Arabic translations that were stuck in the Islamic world for a long time have shown that the original texts were much much more human on the Jesus front than the gospel we read now.
So I prefer to see the miracles (Lazarus, the blind, the lame, the lepres) as metaphors for being stuck in a faith which kills, blinds, mames, makes ill, not as literal miracles. The people featured probably existd, but Lazarus was probably seemingly dead (which an happen) and there will be explanations for the blind, lame etc. Though the same metaphores are still used in literature now for being reborn or reconsidering one's ways.

But I concede, there are a lot of people about who would prefer to believe the simple way and one should find the community that suits one, not suit one's faith to one's community.

This my conception of it though, not the truth, as that is something really absolute.

[YesNo]

Evolution makes NO claims about how life began in the first place.

I agree with you about evolution and creationism. Evolution describes how some changes occur in the system and the creationists are wrong.

Creationists use Genesis as an axiom system rather than the collection of stories that it is.

So let's forget about the creationists. The question science needs to answer is how something new enters the system. That's why I quoted the sentence you posted above. To say this all happened "by accident" is fundamentally no different than to say "God did it". It basically says that we don't know yet.

[OrphanPip]

So let's forget about the creationists. The question science needs to answer is how something new enters the system. That's why I quoted the sentence you posted above. To say this all happened "by accident" is fundamentally no different than to say "God did it". It basically says that we don't know yet.

Well scientist don't say that it happened by accident. However, there is something scientist won't do that creationist are quite happy to do, which is say with authority that we know what occurred. There are numerous reasonable hypotheses of abiogenesis, which we test as best as we can through the creation of experiments. We can never say with certain what the early Earth was like, but we can develop a reasonable idea that is based on evidence. We have evidence that suggest the early Earth was a reducing atmosphere, so complex molecules could have built up naturally. We have evidence that asteroids and comets contain many of the necessary building blocks for life, so they could have accumulated in the oceans of the early Earth. We know certain conditions could have acted as catalyst. We know from the Urey-Miller experiments that all the necessary amino acids can be generated spontaneously in reducing environments.

I favour explanations with some logical reasoning rather than just-so stories that have no evidential support at all.

[MystyrMystyry]

Think about the DNA molecule (which reproduces itself imperfectly - there's a really good animated video of this somewhere but I don't have a link). It's reproducing itself not in a little pond but rather a large lake. Don't think about a few of them spontaneously forming a cell shortly after the first one appeared, think of the permutations millions, billions, even zillions of DNA molecules all reproducing themselves imperfectly floating around this lake unhindered not in danger of predators or anything.

To make imagining easier some are green with a red tip, some are blue with a yellow tip, some are black with a purple tip etc


Well it's out of these zillions that a few found themselves perfectly suited to form a cell - zillions I say.


It may have taken a year - a hundred years -to get that many, it may have taken a thousand years. A million years.

But the odds of a tiny few forming a cell (being attracted to each other and being able to function efficiently) aren't actually that remote considering how many there were all in essentially the same place with all the time in the world to get it together.

You just have to get used to thinking in big numbers.

[MystyrMystyry]

Yeah, I know, double post, and you all think I love the sound of my own voice anyway

Well I just thought of a really good example of how our perceptions are skewed.

Think of The Beatles - you hear the name and you hear the tunes and see what they look like, and remember the songs, but it's all a sort of a general jumble.

Please Please Me mixes up with Hard Day's Night and I Am The Walrus and The Long And Winding Road - because there's so many memorable songs and you want to hear them all (if you're human)

Well, the thing is historically when they wrote She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah
they didn't know that in ten years time they would be writing Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road or Magical Mystery Tour.

We think of them all as happening back then and clump them together as all good - which they were. But we largely neglect thinking of them individually in a cohesive time-line.

We grow up in villages, towns and cities that have already been built and have been in place for a long time before we were born, so we don't tend to think of what's wrong with them - just that they're home, therefore there's nothing wrong them.

We don't tend to wonder what the forest they chopped down to make room for the town might've been like, how many different sorts of trees and animals lived there, and quite possibly nowhere else (because it's not part of our experience so it may as well never have existed.

In fact we don't often think about what our Great Grandparents lives may've been like, let alone our Great Great Grandparents.

Everyone on this forum was born into a world that was already suffering from the strain of overpopulation, but we are all used to it. If the news came over that the last hippopotamus or giraffe has died because starving tribesman ate them for survival, should we really be surprised?

It's a possibility that that news will come over in our lifetimes...

Anyway you know that the Beatles broke up in 1970, so what? But if you were there at the time, you would probably be like WHAT! NO!

[YesNo]

I favour explanations with some logical reasoning rather than just-so stories that have no evidential support at all.

I just wanted to say that I agree.

[kiki1982]

I also.

[MystyrMystyry]

A long time ago, insects evolved from trilobyte-like crustaceans. It's in the fossil record.

A suborder of these insects developed flight. Some became social bees, some became social wasps, some became butterflies, and others moths.

Being a bee or wasp is dangerous with birds of prey around as they can zero in on steady movement from miles away and swoop down for liunch. Some of these developed stripes which also indicated their poisonous nature - and they also became the dominant types, as the others were gobbled up. To a bird they probably taste awful anyway, but birds are immune to certain poisons that can kill other animals.

But butterflies developed a different system which was to flutter erraticly all over the place. For a straight aiming bird this is very frustrating and virtually impossible snack (unless they get very lucky - apparently butterflies are yummy).

Moths developed the ability to camouflage themselves by landing on similarly coloured and textured bark and rock, and fly semi-erraticly - but also at night
when most birds don't fly.

But unfortunatly for some there is a moth eating mammal that also flies at night and has developed semi-erratic flight and sonar detection and hunts in packs - bats!

The moths response was to to increase its egg laying capacity and ultimitely outnumber their daytime cousins by 99 - 1.

Incidentally, the reason moths fly into candles is because they have simple compound eyes that are really good at high contrast nightvision. The effect of a bright light source to one side of therir head makes the other side seem extremely black. They are actually trying to fly into the darkest area, but as they fly away from the flame the contrast diminishes, and no longer seems the darkest area, so they return to increase the contrast and unfortunately too often fly too close.

See, candles are a fairly recent development, and the poor moth hasn't had time to evolve a proper solution to them.

Sweeping changes in evolution take a really long long time. Minor changes happen all the time from mother to child, or egg, or joey.

[Dodo25]

I forgot about this thread.

I really needed to read this so thank you ever so much for taking the time and energy to write it. I have recently abandoned the christian faith due to its seeming contradictions with basic truths and have been told that I haven't enough faith by some and that I shall burn in hell by others, and so it is refreshing to read an article that is not only intellectually satisfying but confirms and comforts the decision I have made. So again, Dodo25, my most sincere gratitude. Yours K.B

You're very welcome! 'Intellectually satisfying is exactly why I'm so fascinated by it.

I never understood why religion and evolution cannot coexists. Cannot god be the answer to why, and evolution to how?

There's a reason why creationists fight it so stubbornly. There's also a reason why among all scientists, biologists tend to be the most atheistic.

While it's of course possible (as demonstrated by scientists like Francis Collins or Kennet Miller), the two just don't work well together. Evolution shows an intellectually fulfilling world view where no creator is needed. The creator becomes obsolete, he has about as much reason being there as unicorns or leprechauns. Or actually even less if one considers the complexity argument (which has been alluded to with meta-God and hyper God and all these).

And you did well to not capitalize the word 'god' in your post. While I can understand deists, I don't really understand why people call themselves Christians if they accept evolution. I mean, a lot of these believers are so moderate they don't even believe that Jesus was divine, so why call yourself Christian? And if they do believe it, why completely ignore scripture one time, while blindly following it another time? It's either ignorance (lots of Christian have no clue what the Bible OR evolution is all about), or utter hypocrisy. That's how I see it, though I'm afraid this might be counter-productive to the aim of this thread..

I think that to eaither strongly believe that there is a god, or that there is no god; is naive. Quite frankly there could be a god just as likley as there could be no god.

So just because there are two alternatives means that odds are 1 in 2? By that logic, odds are that out of 'unicorns, leprechauns, spaghetti monster and Peter Pan', two of them exist. Clearly, something is missing, namely an estimate of probability. Things for which there is no evidence have an vanishingly small probability. Furthermore, complex things have a smaller probability than simpler things. God is both unfounded in evidence and complex (that because he's 'does' lots of things). So it doesn't really look good.

And I think we often forget the limitations of science. Science is a human product and thus its limitation is mankind, it can go only so far as man can take it. And if we consider how small and short lived we are compared to the universe and existence which is infinite and eternal, well then a prokaryotic cell is just as likely to understand Human society as we are to understand the true and essential nature of the universe, reality and god.

Seems rather pessimistic. I think Emily Dickinson was right about 'The Brain is Wider than the Sky'. Science is effective, and it has an impressive track record. Neither is the case about religion (nvm you're not advocating religion anyway, only 'god'). Our senses are limited because we evolved to reproduce and survive, not to ponder questions about the universe. Yet still, the logic and methology behind science enables us to learn from mistakes and confirm new knowledge through extensive testing. With technology, we can quantify reality instead of only being able to make quality guesses.

I tend to disagree. I find that, sorry for the expression, fundamentalist, wanting to believe that God created the universe in seven days, exactly, and that He created man the way it says in the story. Six days though to be precise and the seventh was for rest. I mean, a day can be taken in a number of different ways:

The day issue is not even half the problem. Yet even then, you're letting the moderates off the hook too easily. Days are days. Why suddenly interpret it another way? Why is the time period split anyway? There certainly wasn't one seventh of time without evolution after the appearance of man. Actually, our species exists for less than a hundred thousandth of time!

Furthermore, the order in which things appear in the Genesis account is seriously wrong. Not to mention that there are two contradicting versions of it in the Bible anyway. And since it's "and in his own image He created them.", are we to assume that god had ape ancestors as well?

2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"

This means 'Be consistent and do not cherry-pick.'

So let's forget about the creationists. The question science needs to answer is how something new enters the system. That's why I quoted the sentence you posted above. To say this all happened "by accident" is fundamentally no different than to say "God did it". It basically says that we don't know yet.

As OrphanPip said, scientists don't assume it was by accident. Of course, at the ultimate level, it's either accident or directed, but they don't mean that whole cells or DNA jumped into existence in one step. It's thought to have started with smaller steps, where each step represented improvement over the previous one. And yeah, in the very beginning, somehow there must have formed a self-replicating molecule or molecule cycle. There are more than a hundred billion planets in this galaxy, and about a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. There's also plenty of time to work with. It doesn't seem too outlandish that some improbable configuration of atoms might stabilize itself if the sample in question is so very vast. Still, science admits it doesn't know, it only makes smart guesses.

And anyway, how is 'God just did it' gonna help here? At least admit it if you don't know the answer. And who just did God anyway? (Hmm that sounded wrong.)

[MystyrMystyry]

Quite. Actually I envy non-biologists - they can just say 'God did it' and be satisfied.

I have to think how bees became social and developed the specialist heirarchy of Queen, drone, worker, some to feed honey to others who vibtate their wing muscles to bring the hive warmth up to 42 degrees.

How did they collectively decide on one Queen and one spare?

How did they arrive at the honeycomb shape? Did they try square and thought 'Not nice enough!'

How did they become exclusively pollen munchers and where did those satchels on their sides come from? Did they eat something else before?

Keep you awake at night, bees

[YesNo]

I think the following YouTube video illustrates something that goes beyond the evolution/creationist debate. It is about orchids, as a group, tricking wasps into helping them get pollinated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h8I3cqpgnA

So, if you watched it, here are some questions:

1) How does the orchid know what the wasp looks like? It doesn't have any eyes.

2) Assuming it does have eyes or some other form of consciousness, how does the orchid know what will sexually interest the wasp? I've got eyes, and I wouldn't know what that is.

3) How did the orchids as group coordinate this magnificent scheme?

Edit:

Thanks to MystyrMystyry for mentioning "bees" which reminded me of this one.