Evolution is a Scientific Fact: A Proposition

18 Replies to “Evolution is a Scientific Fact: A Proposition”

1. 1
   bornagain says:

   December 19, 2015 at 4:14 pm

   as to:

   Evolution is a Scientific Fact: A Proposition – Cornelius Hunter – December 19, 2015
   Excerpt: To be sure evolution is often proved to be a fact, but in every case metaphysical premises are involved. If god wouldn’t have created the mosquito then yes, evolution in one form or another must be a fact. But such theological musings (yes, evolutionists really do assert this very premise) fall far outside of the objectivity criterion.
   http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....ition.html

   It is funny that the seemingly strongest ‘proofs’ for evolution are the very ones that presuppose the existence of God.

   “The strength of materialism is that it obviates the problem of evil altogether. God need not be reconciled with evil, because neither exists. Therefore the problem of evil is no problem at all.,,, And of course since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil-the very thing the materialist seems to deny. The argument (from Theodicy) that led to materialism is exhausted just when it is needed most. In other words, the problem of evil is only generated by the prior claims that evil exists. One cannot then conclude, with Dawkins, that there is ‘no evil and no good’ in the universe.,,,
   The fact that evolution’s acceptance hinges on a theological position would, for many, be enough to expel it from science. But evolution’s reliance on metaphysics is not its worst failing. Evolution’s real problem is not its metaphysics but its denial of its metaphysics.,,,
   Cornelius Hunter – Darwin’s God – pg. 154 & 159

   The reason why this would be so, i.e. why presupposing God as true would generate the seemingly strongest proofs for a theory, is because without God it is impossible to ‘prove’ anything.

   The Great Debate: Does God Exist? – Justin Holcomb – audio of the 1985 Greg Bahnsen debate available at the bottom of the site
   Excerpt: The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,,
   http://justinholcomb.com/2012/.....god-exist/

   “virtually all of science proceeds as if ID is true – it seeks elegant and efficient models; it reverse engineers biological systems; it describes evolution in teleological terms; it refers to natural forces and laws as if there is some kind of prescriptive agency guiding matter and energy; it assumes that the nature of the universe and human comprehensive capacity have some sort of truthful, factual correspondence.”
   William J Murray

   God, Science, and Atheism
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y2ICUYwp4E
2. 2
   Robert Byers says:

   December 19, 2015 at 6:10 pm

   Evolution is not true. So not a fact. So it could be a scientific theory is it used scientific methodology for its conclusions and still standing.
   I say it doesn’t because it doesn’y use biological evidence. Just other stuff. Science is therefore not reached because its not using the very subject evidence it needs to be a theory of the subject.
   Geology evidence is not biology evidence. Evolutionism is about fossils greatly which is about geology. no geology then no biology evidence comes from fossils.
3. 3
   Jack Jones says:

   December 19, 2015 at 6:55 pm

   @1 Born

   I watched some of that video you linked to before and have posted again.

   Here is another good video, You might have seen.

   How atheists steal science from God. Frank Turek

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gurMfV5Pmus
4. 4
   bornagain says:

   December 19, 2015 at 7:26 pm

   Jack Jones, thanks Jack. think I might take a look.
5. 5
   bornagain says:

   December 19, 2015 at 9:43 pm

   Thanks, Jack. Just finished watching the video. Adding it to my presuppositional apologetics notes.

   I really enjoyed the last part where he talked a little about embryo development.,,, The father sent 300 million soldiers to fertilize the egg! 🙂 Too funny.

   Turek mentioned ‘goal directed embryogenesis’ and also mentioned the scripture that tells us that God ‘formed’ each of us in the womb.

   “Form” is not even on the radar map of plausible Darwinian mechanisms:

   For brief example:

   Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism – Jonathan Wells – February 23, 2015
   Excerpt: humans have a “few thousand” different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,,
   The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It’s called genomic mosaicism.
   In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,,
   ,,,(then) “genomic equivalence” — the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA — became the accepted view.
   I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common.
   I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It’s the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism.
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....93851.html

   HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE – Stephen L. Talbott – May 2012
   Excerpt: “If you think air traffic controllers have a tough job guiding planes into major airports or across a crowded continental airspace, consider the challenge facing a human cell trying to position its proteins”. A given cell, he notes, may make more than 10,000 different proteins, and typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. “Somehow a cell must get all its proteins to their correct destinations — and equally important, keep these molecules out of the wrong places”. And further: “It’s almost as if every mRNA [an intermediate between a gene and a corresponding protein] coming out of the nucleus knows where it’s going” (Travis 2011),,,
   Further, the billion protein molecules in a cell are virtually all capable of interacting with each other to one degree or another; they are subject to getting misfolded or “all balled up with one another”; they are critically modified through the attachment or detachment of molecular subunits, often in rapid order and with immediate implications for changing function; they can wind up inside large-capacity “transport vehicles” headed in any number of directions; they can be sidetracked by diverse processes of degradation and recycling… and so on without end. Yet the coherence of the whole is maintained.
   The question is indeed, then, “How does the organism meaningfully dispose of all its molecules, getting them to the right places and into the right interactions?”
   The same sort of question can be asked of cells, for example in the growing embryo, where literal streams of cells are flowing to their appointed places, differentiating themselves into different types as they go, and adjusting themselves to all sorts of unpredictable perturbations — even to the degree of responding appropriately when a lab technician excises a clump of them from one location in a young embryo and puts them in another, where they may proceed to adapt themselves in an entirely different and proper way to the new environment. It is hard to quibble with the immediate impression that form (which is more idea-like than thing-like) is primary, and the material particulars subsidiary.
   Two systems biologists, one from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany and one from Harvard Medical School, frame one part of the problem this way:
   “The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. (Loewer and Lahav 2011)”,,,
   And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,,
   http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2
6. 6
   Dionisio says:

   December 20, 2015 at 6:28 am

   Evolution is a Scientific Fact.
   Yes, it happens many times every day.
   But no one understands it well.
   Here it is:
   The amazing development from zygote to birth.
   That’s it.
   Can anyone deny it?

   That complex information-processing choreography orchestrated within the biological systems is a class in itself far above anything we arrogant humans could ever dream of.
7. 7
   Zachriel says:

   December 20, 2015 at 7:19 am

   Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould
   http://www.stephenjaygould.org.....heory.html
8. 8
   bornagain says:

   December 20, 2015 at 7:41 am

   OT:

   Ten Myths About Dover: #1, “Judge Jones Addressed the Actual Theory of Intelligent Design, Not a Straw Man” – December 20, 2015 (links to Myths 2-10 on site)
   Excerpt: The theory of ID, meanwhile, is doing just fine. It flourishes because the scientific evidence continues to accumulate — unveiling information throughout nature that we recognize, from our positive experience, comes only from intelligence.
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....01781.html
9. 9
   jerry says:

   December 20, 2015 at 3:36 pm

   I think Cornelius is desperate for something to publish. Of course evolution is a fact. It is just how it happened is at issue. No one has a clue how it happened naturally.

   Of course there is wide spread understanding on how populations can change over time but this is only a small part of evolution and it is not the evolution one really cares about? Medical science, animal husbandry and farming cares but does evolutionary biology?

   Cornelius is deliberately confusing the word evolution with the mechanism for evolution. He switches back and forth in his OP.
10. 10
    Virgil Cain says:

    December 20, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    jerry- When Cornelius says “evolution” he is talking about the untestable concept of universal common descent from some simple replicators to the diversity of life via natural selection, drift and neutral construction. He is not talking about a mere change in allele frequency. He also understands that evos use a change in allele frequency over time to be capable of the feat.
11. 11
    Virgil Cain says:

    December 20, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Zachriel:

    Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould

    What is this alleged theory? Remember, science requires quantification- see Einstein’s and Newton’s work on gravity, ie a scientific theory.
12. 12
    jerry says:

    December 20, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    When Cornelius says “evolution” he is talking about the untestable concept of universal common descent

    I don’t think Cornelius is saying this though he is not precise. In one spot, he does seem to define evolution as happening naturally but in other places is less clear about his “fact” comment. He should start off with the distinction of changes just appearing over time versus that these changes happened naturally.

    In his answers to comments from others he dismisses common descent as necessarily part of evolution.

    So concepts are

    Evolution 1 – things have changed over time and no one knows how this happened, Only logical conclusion from data.

    Evolution 2 – things have changed over time and are due to natural processes. No one knows what these natural processes are. A philosophical proposition with no proof. It is begging the question.

    Evolution 2a – the processes were Darwinian. Definitely not true.

    Evolution 3 – things have changed over time and all life descended naturally from one original species which appeared due to natural processes from non living materials. A philosophical proposition with no proof. More begging the question.

    (I guess this chemical process could have led to separate organisms and which case the original entity was a non-living entity and a mixture of molecules.) Like 2 there could be a 3a version.

    All of this is old but it sure gets some knee jerked responses. I thought Matzke’s response was especially childish.
13. 13
    jw777 says:

    December 21, 2015 at 4:37 am

    Where evolution is a fact:
    Wherever its definition ceases to mean anything substantive and helpful for understanding the universe. For example, things change over time. Incontestable.

    Where evolution is not even a theory:
    Everywhere it has been attempted to use it to predict future outcomes. It has a 100% fail rate at predicting anything useful, including the following year’s flu strain. We can’t use it to predict and create a flu shot that is effective in the short term (a few months). And wherever it has abjectly categorically failed with historical, archaeological and paleontological predictions, dogmatic evolution priests rejigger the “prediction” post facto post facto (not a typing error – dont forget that we were ALREADY post facto whenever historical “predictions” are made). Outside of wishful thinking and hopeful interpretation, we have no evidence of abiogenesis or trans-genus/order/phylum evolution, th very pillars of evolutionary “fact.”

    That’s not to say that the standard idea of Evolution is not potentially true. Potentially, it is true. But there is nothing fixing it as a fact outside of a priori rejection of and total aversion toward design, a designer, and the concept of humility where you realize you simply don’t and cannot know that materialism is true or fully explanatory.

    Taking one possibility (evolution) as Fact, as a result of the aforementioned rejection of essential human humility, is not a scientific or philosophical proposition. It is a psychopathic character flaw. I recognize the possibility that evolution in some mutated recontextualized format may end up being partially right. Some days I feel more confident about it than others. But in the end, because I’m open to the design inference and I’m a non-psychopathic human, I cannot cast my lot to the evolution-is-fact meme. People who have zero introspection and insist on hating the idea of design have nowhere else to go. They must become evangelists for evolution-is-fact.

    When we are humble, the distant, the past, the future and the minute are unknowable. Only the immediate, measurable, proximal and repeatedly testable are knowable as fact. Other things we have a sense of possibility and probability. Only when our ego becomes a god do we start making proclamations about certain possibilities being impossible and other possibilities unquestionable.
14. 14
    Jack Jones says:

    December 21, 2015 at 8:20 am

    Jack “I think Cornelius is desperate for something to publish”

    Key words “I think”

    So you admit that you are not identical with your brain then?
15. 15
    Zachriel says:

    December 21, 2015 at 8:40 am

    jerry: Evolution 1 – things have changed over time and no one knows how this happened, Only logical conclusion from data.

    Well, that’s not accurate. The most important mechanism is common descent.

    jerry: Evolution 2a – the processes were Darwinian. Definitely not true.

    Some processes were almost certainly Darwinian.

    jerry: Evolution 3 – things have changed over time and all life descended naturally from one original species which appeared due to natural processes from non living materials. A philosophical proposition with no proof. More begging the question.

    Neither of those statements are philosophical, but historical. The second claim is not accounted by the Theory of Evolution.

    jw777: Everywhere it has been attempted to use it to predict future outcomes. It has a 100% fail rate at predicting anything useful, including the following year’s flu strain.

    That’s silly. It’s like saying because we can’t predict the exact traits of a baby, our scientific understanding of how babies are made is “not even a theory”.
16. 16
    jerry says:

    December 21, 2015 at 9:36 am

    The most important mechanism is common descent

    First, common descent is not a mechanism. At best it is an observation which has never been shown. Intelligent design could just as likely be the mechanism for the appearance of new life forms. It is more likely now that we cannot conceive of any natural process that could do produce novelties.

    Second, it is begging the question just as all your other comments are except the comment that some of the processes were almost certainly Darwinian but these instances were all trivial.
17. 17
    Zachriel says:

    December 21, 2015 at 10:07 am

    jerry: First, common descent is not a mechanism.

    The branching process is an explanatory mechanism.

    jerry: At best it is an observation which has never been shown.

    Common descent is a fact and a theory. The observations are the fossil succession, the nested hierarchy, and direct observations of common descent over short time scales. The strongly supported theory is that all life has a common origin. The historical claim is that branching descent is the primary mechanism after the origin of the primary domains.

    jerry: Second, it is begging the question just as all your other comments are except the comment that some of the processes were almost certainly Darwinian but these instances were all trivial.

    Perhaps trivial to you, human, but non-trivial to the organisms involved.
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    Virgil Cain says:

    December 21, 2015 at 2:36 pm

    Zachriel is a cowardly equivocator and an insipid troll. The fossil succession shows fish-> tetrapods-> fish-a-pods, whereas common descent expects fish-> fish-a-pods-> tetrapods. And common descent does not expect a nested hierarchy. Nested hierarchies require distinct categories and transitional forms means there shouldn’t be any. Common descent expects transitional forms.

    That means Zachriel is either a liar or willfully ignorant. Either way it isn’t worth the bandwidth it wastes here.

    Cheers,
    Virgil Cain