Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sir Percival]

I finished reading The Blind Watchmaker, by Dawkins, recently. I enjoyed it, as he is a good writer, I like his British style, and it was mentally stimulating. However, I don't think he succeeded in proving what the subtitle says: show that the evidence favors a world without design. He did explain evolution well, making it sound a little more reasonable than I had seen it.

I still think it improbable though; while natural selection can do a lot if it has something to work with, actual progressive evolution relies on mutations more than evolutions like to emphasize. Not just one mutation for each change either. Every beneficial addition, the eye for instance, take a three way coincidence: the feature, the brain ability to use it, and the environment to favor it. You can start with a simple eye, it doesn't have to pop into existence fully formed, but it does have to be something that is useful in the environment, and the brain needs to interpret the signals it gives, something it didn't ever do before. That's pretty improbable, especially with the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations (has any ever been seen to produce a distinctly new feature on any animal?), and with the great variety of features there are, even several forms for the same function in different animals.

Anyway, even if it was proved that evolution could have happened, that doesn't mean it did. God could have created creatures with such an ability to adapt (which is a good design) that they could evolve quite a lot.

Dawkins really doesn't deal with the possibility of creation, he dismisses it with a fallacy:

"The creationist...simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it!"

Pp.316
The real reason people don't postulate life as we know it (to have always existed) is because that is logically impossible, with the facts we have about life. It is following a one-direction process, that had to have a beginning and will have an end. If it were logically defensible that things had always existed as they are, I suspect most people would believe that. God, on the other hand, as an eternally unchanged, powerful being, could have always existed, and thus is a logically possible origin of life.

[Cronos988]

I still think it improbable though; while natural selection can do a lot if it has something to work with, actual progressive evolution relies on mutations more than evolutions like to emphasize. Not just one mutation for each change either. Every beneficial addition, the eye for instance, take a three way coincidence: the feature, the brain ability to use it, and the environment to favor it. You can start with a simple eye, it doesn't have to pop into existence fully formed, but it does have to be something that is useful in the environment, and the brain needs to interpret the signals it gives, something it didn't ever do before. That's pretty improbable, especially with the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations (has any ever been seen to produce a distinctly new feature on any animal?), and with the great variety of features there are, even several forms for the same function in different animals.

Still it is a proof of concept. And modern science proposes that evolution does in fact happen much faster than Dawkins could have imagined, because we do actually change our Genome actively while we life. That is of itself an ability that has to have evolved, though.

Anyway, even if it was proved that evolution could have happened, that doesn't mean it did. God could have created creatures with such an ability to adapt (which is a good design) that they could evolve quite a lot.

Dawkins really doesn't deal with the possibility of creation, he dismisses it with a fallacy:

Its not so much a fallacy as a burden of proof argument. Evolution can explain how our species came to pass and can support that theory with observations, e.g. fossils.

Creationism, on the other hand, offers no observations for it's theory. In fact, the existance of fossils is an observation that cannot be explained by Creationism, but can be explained by Evolution. Creationism can therefore be considered as falsified.

The real reason people don't postulate life as we know it (to have always existed) is because that is logically impossible, with the facts we have about life. It is following a one-direction process, that had to have a beginning and will have an end. If it were logically defensible that things had always existed as they are, I suspect most people would believe that. God, on the other hand, as an eternally unchanged, powerful being, could have always existed, and thus is a logically possible origin of life.

I don't quite see what you mean by following a "one-direction process". Evolution has no goal, and it is entirely possible that all complex beings die out and we are back to the life as it was billions of years ago.
God may be a logically possible origin of life, the problem is you do not have any observations that would explain just how he created life. On the other hand, you have many observations that explain just how evolution happened.

If you propose that God has just created the earliest form of life and then have it evolve, that is of course a possible theory. But again you have not defined how exactly God creates life. Also are you proposing that God is still controlling how life changes? Because if not, the existance of god has no effect whatsoever on evolution and whether or not you presume his existence is entirely irrelevant.

[Belinda]

Life is a one direction process because life is highly structured. Structure is a state of being that opposes the second law of thermodynamics which wins in the end. To say that there is no telos is not to say that there is no end but that there is no structured end.

[Sir Percival]

Its not so much a fallacy as a burden of proof argument. Evolution can explain how our species came to pass and can support that theory with observations, e.g. fossils.

Creationism, on the other hand, offers no observations for it's theory. In fact, the existance of fossils is an observation that cannot be explained by Creationism, but can be explained by Evolution.

Burden of proof is way over-used in this debate. God and millions of years of evolution are both unobserved (well, actually I think there have been lots of observations of the supernatural, but I'm talking about scientists viewpoint), two theories to account for our existence.

The fossil record does not actually support evolution compared to creation, as it fits best with what the Flood would do: sort creatures according to density, speed, and intelligence. Fish fossils on mountains, fossilized trees, sometimes even upside down, going through several layers of sediment, and fossil graveyards where many species are jumbled together are all problems for evolution.

[Cronos988]

Burden of proof is way over-used in this debate. God and millions of years of evolution are both unobserved (well, actually I think there have been lots of observations of the supernatural, but I'm talking about scientists viewpoint), two theories to account for our existence.

I have not claimed that I have observed evolution. Evolution is a theroy and cannot be observed. Only facts can be observed. An idea incorporating observations and explaining them is a theory.

The fossil record does not actually support evolution compared to creation, as it fits best with what the Flood would do: sort creatures according to density, speed, and intelligence. Fish fossils on mountains, fossilized trees, sometimes even upside down, going through several layers of sediment, and fossil graveyards where many species are jumbled together are all problems for evolution.

I am sorry, but if you think "fish fossils on mountains" are a problem for the theory of evolution, you know very little about the world we live in. Mountains are created when continental plates collide, folding up the originally flat terrain. That happens to Oceans, too, which is why you would actually expect to find fish fossils on mountains. And how, exactly, would a flood have killed marine reptiles such aus plesiosaurs, Nothosaurs etc.?

Why is it a problem if many species are jumbled together? Do you have only one species of animal in your garden? Would you not indeed find many species jumbled together should a random area of forest be fossilized? And what is so special about a tree upside down? It is no less likely that a tree gets fossilized upside down than one getting fossilized standing straight up.

By the way we can also date fossils, so it seems really odd that they died millions of years apart, no? Why are some fossils buried miles deep, while others are just at the surface? Should they not be all at the same depth? Why is it possible to sort the species into orders by their genome? Why are there no earlier fossils of the species we know today if they existed all along?

Sorry, but Evolution explains all observations we are currently able to make, while creationism does not. From a scientific perspective, Evolution is clearly superior.

[Sir Percival]

I'm ok with calling evolution a theory. I just don't think it should be called a fact, and believe a different theory.
Apparently you agree that fossils are formed by catastrophes rather than gradual processes. They explain the trees and fossil graveyards. Yes, mountains can be pushed up, once again, we agree on the event, just not on when and how.
There are fossils of creatures that exist today; I even remember Dawkins mentioning how some animals stay the same a long time, which he must have based on fossil evidence. Anyway, creatures were created with a strong ability to adapt, so there would be some change. Many kinds have gone extinct too.
Picture the Flood as massive earthquakes and tidal waves that laid down layers of sediment, not a gradual rise in worldwide water level. Thus it would kill many marine creatures, though not all of them.
Dating is based rates of decay from one element to another, and uses some assumptions; how much of each element there was originally, whether decay rates have always been the same, and whether there were any other influences that could have added or taken away certain elements. Those could be wrong, especially the first.

[Cronos988]

I'm ok with calling evolution a theory. I just don't think it should be called a fact, and believe a different theory.

Thanks for agreeing on the Terminology, but I still think there is a fallacy here: One does not "believe" in theories. Theories are not subject to belief. A theory is either founded in fact or it is not. "blief" has no place in science apart from "believing" someone's observations.

Apparently you agree that fossils are formed by catastrophes rather than gradual processes. They explain the trees and fossil graveyards. Yes, mountains can be pushed up, once again, we agree on the event, just not on when and how.

Well, most fossils are formed by events that are somewhat catastrophical, in the sense that in most fossils have been rapidly killed and buried, otherwise they would not be preserved. That does not mean global catastrophes though. A marsh were a lot of animals drowned can be great source of fossils.

It is irrelevant what you think mountains are formed by. The point is that fossils on mountains are perfectly in accordance with the theory of evolution.

There are fossils of creatures that exist today; I even remember Dawkins mentioning how some animals stay the same a long time, which he must have based on fossil evidence.

There are fossils of creatures like the animals we have today, just not the same ones.

Anyway, creatures were created with a strong ability to adapt, so there would be some change. Many kinds have gone extinct too.

I agree, but what is your point? That change does not as of itself disprove any form of creationism? True, but there are other factors.

Picture the Flood as massive earthquakes and tidal waves that laid down layers of sediment, not a gradual rise in worldwide water level. Thus it would kill many marine creatures, though not all of them.

When has that catastrophe supposedly happened and where is the evidence of it happening? Such an event would surely leave traces in both the sediment as well as the fossil record.

Dating is based rates of decay from one element to another, and uses some assumptions; how much of each element there was originally, whether decay rates have always been the same, and whether there were any other influences that could have added or taken away certain elements. Those could be wrong, especially the first.

They could be wrong, but we have no reason to assume they are. A lot of fossils have been dated, and there is nothing to support the assumption that every single dating to date has been wrong. They are not necessarily accurate, but give or take a few thousand years we still have a fossil record ranging across millions of years.

[Sir Percival]

Theories are not subject to belief.

Don't people always think about how likely anything they hear is to be true? Theories are something we hear, and decide whether we think they are probably accurate. If so, we may say that we believe them.

Well, most fossils are formed by events that are somewhat catastrophical,

And we can get an idea of the size of the event by how far the strata in which the fossils are buried extends.

The main thing I want to argue against is that creationism should be dismissed without consideration, as Dawkins does in the quote earlier. Both creationism and evolution are theories that we don't have direct scientific observation of, and both are logically possible, so neither has the burden of proof. Once that is agreed, it is possible to look and see which theory better explains what we see today. If that evidence favored evolution, I would think about changing my position (though there are many more factors to that), but so far I haven't seen that it does. Both sides often have lots of motivation to keep their beliefs, so that affects things, but in a fairly equal fashion.

[Cronos988]

The main thing I want to argue against is that creationism should be dismissed without consideration, as Dawkins does in the quote earlier. Both creationism and evolution are theories that we don't have direct scientific observation of, and both are logically possible, so neither has the burden of proof. Once that is agreed, it is possible to look and see which theory better explains what we see today. If that evidence favored evolution, I would think about changing my position (though there are many more factors to that), but so far I haven't seen that it does. Both sides often have lots of motivation to keep their beliefs, so that affects things, but in a fairly equal fashion.

The Problem with that approach is that anything is logically possible, and if I say that pigs will sprout wings tomorrow and fly that too, is logically possible.

You have quite accurately identified the problem as being what theory has the most evidence. That we have no direct observation of the origin of the species is true, but we do have indirect observation, and there is indeed direct observation of all the necessary mechanisms (mutation, genetic inheritance etc.). I for one have not heard of any direct observation of the interaction of God with the world that you call creation.

The reason why I pointed out that theories are not subject to belief (even though that in some sense, they are), is that in science, you are not free to decide to "believe" something. It is either founded by the facts, or it is not. A Theory is valid until falsified, and whether or not you "believe" that it is true is not at issue. Whatever is the currently unfalsified theory must be regarded as true, regardless of whether you believe that such is the case or not.

I have not seen a single shred of evidence that would falsify evolution, so it is valid. On the other hand, Creationism comes in many forms, most of which are clearly falsified. For example, the "belief" that the world is only 6000 years old is clearly falsified by observations in radiometric dating. Therefore, as long as we stay in a scientific contest, saying you "believe" the world is 6000 years old does not change the fact that it is not. And as long as radiometric dating is not falsified, you cannot, no matter what your beliefs are, state that the world is only 6000 years old.

You are free to "believe" whatever you like, and I am surely not telling you what to believe. But you cannot argue with beliefs if you are talking about scientific theories. If you want to disregard scientific theory, that is your decision. But don't go around claiming your belief equals a scientific theory, because it doesn't.

If your interpretation of Creationism is in accordance with all the evidence and all unfalsified theories currently available, then it is valid as a scientific theory and you are free to claim your view is as valid as evolution.
So you would have to define what exactly you belief in. Till now you have only stated you believe in some kind of intelligent design, and some kind of catastrophic event that wiped out a lot of species. Intelligent design is surely not invalid per se, but would have to involve that evolution is existant, but controlled, by a deity. Claims that no evolution occurs are not in accordance with our observations.

If you tell me the Flood is what happened 65 Million years ago and was at least partly caused by a meteorite crashing onto the earth then ok, I can accept you calling it a "flood" even though I dislike the term. If you tell me a flood happened a couple thousand years ago, then I say there is no trace of such an event, and you claim is therefore falsified.

[Algol]

Ever hear of the 'irreducible complexity' theory? It states that an apparatus cannot not exist and function if the sum of its whole is not fully met. Evolution doesn't define how something complex, such as an eye, can exist without first existing as a complete organ. This isn't to say that an eye can't develop a lens, pupil, and interact with a retina through evolution. Rather, it contest whether a light sensitive spot which recieves notable stimulus by an animal can evolve into being. How did the sense of sight begin in the first place if it wasn't created by an intellegent design of some sort?
When we see something, a certain protein travels through our nerve system to our brains and allows us to percieve its existence. Therefore, an eye of the simplest form could not evolove seperately because multible mutations would have to occur in different areas of a creature in order for an eye to exist. Darwin states himself that, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, succesive, slight modifications, (his)my theory would absolutely break down."
I took this from the first 40 pages of a book called 'Darwin's Black Box' by Michael Behe, so if you thought my definition sucked, check out his book. He has some crazy ideas of how life started on earth near the books end, like aliens may have sent the necessary protiens to earth for evolution to take place. But he says he doesn't know how the aliens came into being.

[Sir Percival]

Whatever is the currently unfalsified theory must be regarded as true, regardless of whether you believe that such is the case or not.

There can easily be more than one unfalsified theory. Also, to regard as true is to believe; maybe you define it differently, but that is how I use it.

There are plenty of problems for evolution; more than for creation. Irreducible complexity is a definite one, and I mentioned a form of it earlier in this discussion. Dating is used as a support for evolution, but I have shown that there are assumptions to it that can't be proved. Also, there are other dating methods that disagree: Helium escapes quickly, yet there is too much left in certain rocks for them to be that old. There is not enough salt in the sea or sediment on its floor with the rate it is increasing. DNA in certain bones of extinct animals is not broken down enough. It is because of evolutionary assumptions that the dating methods that give the oldest dates are the ones accepted. Check out the website of the Institute for Creation Research for more info.

[Cronos988]

There can easily be more than one unfalsified theory. Also, to regard as true is to believe; maybe you define it differently, but that is how I use it.

The Problem I have with the word "belief" is that it implies that a conviction, however unfounded by evidence it may be, can be regarded equal to a scientific theory. That is a major fallacy that is all too often used to discard scientific theories. Calling an unfalsified theory a belief blurs the line between scientific method and convictions, and is, I think, not appropriate for a discussion about scientific theories.

You can call it whatever you like as long as you agree that by talking about the evolutionary theory, we are in the field of science, where Theories are not valid simply because they cannot be disproven.

There are plenty of problems for evolution; more than for creation. Irreducible complexity is a definite one, and I mentioned a form of it earlier in this discussion. Dating is used as a support for evolution, but I have shown that there are assumptions to it that can't be proved. Also, there are other dating methods that disagree: Helium escapes quickly, yet there is too much left in certain rocks for them to be that old. There is not enough salt in the sea or sediment on its floor with the rate it is increasing. DNA in certain bones of extinct animals is not broken down enough. It is because of evolutionary assumptions that the dating methods that give the oldest dates are the ones accepted. Check out the website of the Institute for Creation Research for more info.

I think it would be really helpfull for this discussion if you could elaborate on what form of Creationism exactly you believe in.
The problem is, you can poke holes into a theory as long as you want, but unless you can formulate a theory of your own that has less holes in it, the discussion in pointless. We can only talk about theories by comparing them, and you do not give me an awful lot to compare to currently.

I know Irreductible complexity is a problem. To be honest, I do not believe that complex organs can be explained by random mutations alone. And this is a belief, because I am not aware of any theory on that specific problem. However, Creation as proposed in the bible does not offer a credible counter theory.

Dating is indeed still a major argument, and all arguments I hear against it are utterly unfounded. Lets take the list of a pro-creation page on the internet:
- Each system has to be a closed system: This is only true if we wanted to eliminate possibel errors within one specimen. If multiple specimens, subjected to different circumstances, yield the same result, the circumstances have obviously not influenced the tests.
- Each system must initially have contained none of its daughter products: That is an entirely reasonable conclusion given that the daughter products do not appear in newly formed matter of the same kind
- The process rate must always have been the same. The decay rate must never have changed: Half-Lifes of radioactive isotopes do not change easily. Creationism does not offer any evidence of a time at which the earth was subjected to extreme cosmic radioation or that there was radioactive radioation EVERYWHERE!
- If at some earlier time this blanket of air was more heavily water-saturated, it would produce a major change—from the present rate,—in the atomic clocks within radioactive minerals: I don't know the scientific proof for that, but from the numbers it would seem that for that to have an effect, the atmosphere would have to have turned into an ocean.
- Creation hat created the isotopes as we see them today: Yes, except there is no evidence for an act of creation actually ever occuring, and you can't prove something with itself.

The main problem with doubting the dating method is that they consistently, across many, many samples show that the earth is Millions of years old. It is simply impossible that factors like cosmic radioation have been so uniformly applied to every sample ever tested that the results would be so coherent.

So Apparently, there is too much Helium in one (!) sample of rocks found. First of all, the IRC failed to examine whether the same was true for samples from other areas as well. Secondly, they allege "period of rapid decay", the existance of which they postulate, but do not explain. Neither do they say how this happened, nor where the evidence for that period is. And lastly, the stones had "up to" (What is the average?) 58% of Helium left. So, according to these results, it would take 1,5 Billion years for 100% of the Helium to diffuse, but only 6 thousand years for 42% of it? That seems rather odd.

Also I cannnot fail to notice that alls studies pointed out are from the same institute.

The Institute for creation research tells me the Swiss Alps uplifted 2 Million years ago. Yet according to Wikipedia, the lift started 25 Million years ago and ended aboput 5 Million years ago. And Is it not funny how the IRC claims that the mountains are about 5 Million years old when at the same time, they say the Earth is only 6 thousand years old?

[Keen]

First of all a scientific theory requires falsifiability. That means that given a theory it must be complex enough so that an experiment could prove it invalid. Creationism as far as I know is a belief that life has been created by some supernatural entity. Supernatural i.e above the nature it cannot be reduced to a set of empirical statements that could be invalidated. Now Dawkins is a scientist, therefore he treats scientific theories only. Now why evolution is a scientific theory? Well the thing is it gets invalidated every day. Biologists have to update their trees that model how life has evolved so that they can fit more the facts that are observed. I cannot tell you more as I am no biologist myself and I lack the necessary knowledge.

Concerning the irreducible complexity argument. Well certainly you couldn't have an organism with an eye and no brain. It probably began with cells transfering electric signals. Then some of these cells could detect light and perform an action according to their reaction. Then as the organisms became more and more complicated and required more and more movements and reactions, the cells began to specialise and then after a long time first eyes could come to existence, when they could finaly be beneficial to some complex organism.

Anyway, even if it was proved that evolution could have happened, that doesn't mean it did. God could have created creatures with such an ability to adapt (which is a good design) that they could evolve quite a lot.

Of course it doesn't prove it happened. Nevertheless the best scientific theory is the one that has not been invalidated that is to say proven wrong and yet explains most of the observed facts and that is probably the case of evolution as the biologists tend to use it.

[Sir Percival]

Whether evolution of the life we know can happen is scientifically testable. Whether it did happen is a different question, one that science cannot directly measure. One can falsify it only by proving that it couldn't happen, and that probably wouldn't work either in the case of evolutionists who attribute it to aliens.

I agree that if there is no positive evidence for an idea it should not be accepted if there is an alternate workable theory. If there is any, or if the other theory is too improbable, though, I don't think that burden of proof belongs in the discussion. Then the evidence for each theory, and how well the theory fits what we observe, needs to be examined and compared. In this post I've been arguing creationism in general, but each specific creation theory will be more specific and therefore falsifiable by seeing if it is consistent with the scientific facts.

[Cronos988]

Whether evolution of the life we know can happen is scientifically testable. Whether it did happen is a different question, one that science cannot directly measure. One can falsify it only by proving that it couldn't happen, and that probably wouldn't work either in the case of evolutionists who attribute it to aliens.

That is certainly not true. It would be easy to falsify evolution. If, for example, all fossils would show roughly the same animals that live today, evolution would be falsified. SImilariy, if dating methods would show the world is only 6000 years old, or if there was evidence for the great flood, that would all serve to falsify evolution.

You are interpreting falsifying as proving a negative, which it is not.

I agree that if there is no positive evidence for an idea it should not be accepted if there is an alternate workable theory. If there is any, or if the other theory is too improbable, though, I don't think that burden of proof belongs in the discussion. Then the evidence for each theory, and how well the theory fits what we observe, needs to be examined and compared. In this post I've been arguing creationism in general, but each specific creation theory will be more specific and therefore falsifiable by seeing if it is consistent with the scientific facts.

Well we are doing what you state, we are comparing the evidence. So I do not really know how this statement is supposed to advance the decision. You are arguing Creationism in general, what does that mean? That you take the Creationistic theory that remains after all the others have been falsified? As I have stated in another post, arguing "Creationism in general" without putting up a testable hypothesis, is a useless exercise.

If you cannot put up a testable hypothesis for your theory, it obviously has no effects on the state of things, and can therefore be disregarded entirely. Such would be the case if you define Creationism in such a way that it is basically evolution, influenced in a non-observable way by some higher force. It would be indistinguishable from evolution and therefore non-existant.

Your posts give the expression that you are arguing biblical creationism. We have put up a number of arguments against that. As I said, you are free to disregard the evidence and believe whatever you want, but I think after all the arguments, biblical creationism cannot be regarded as a scientific theory. And since you have offered no alternative definition of Creationism, that statement necessarily extends to creationism in general.