Thanks for many nice comments to my little article.
Marvin,
When we discuss these issues, if we want to have a rational approach to understand reality, we have to start with the known facts and build theories that explain these facts.
It is a fact that all species on a planet has a common origin, that is, all organisms have a common ancestor some time into the past.
The genetic evidence do not, as you claim, lend itself to the conclusion that species were built separately from common building blocks. If that were the case, there is no reason that fossil evidence, reasoning based on similarities in phenotypes, etc, should point to the same conclusions as the genetic evidence. For example, through analyzing mitochondria (which is inherited through female ancestry only) it is possible to measure how far apart genetically two species are. Since mutations occur in a more or less uniform rate (in large timescales), it is possible, based on similarities and differences in mDNA sequences, to find out when two living species shared a common ancestor. If your "theory" was correct, there is no reason whatsoever to expect any correlation between mDNA dates and fossil dating. But there is an amazing correlation between the two. In some cases, it also corresponds with geological chronology; species separated when a continent was split in two and 'sailed' apart. A match here is another amazing confirmation of both dating techniques and the soundness of mDNA analyses.
As I said, this is only a tiny part of the evidence for evolution. Special creation, the assertion that we do not share common ancestry with other species, is a totally discredited idea that cannot be defended in the face of evidence. If you are a xtian, you just have to deal with this, even if it is an inconvenient fact.
Marvin, I don't know how you got from evolution to Big Bang cosmology, but it is disingenious to the extreme to assert that ignorance about the first milliseconds of our universe's history somehow means that scientists take the whole theoretical structure "on faith." Scientists accepts that the evidence overwhelmingly supports Big Bang cosmology, and ignorance about details do not change this evidence. There are surely blanks that need to be filled in, and blanks that will probably never be filled in, but we can still accept evidence for what we do know. Like many creationists, you confuse "what" and "how". We know pretty well what happened. If we don't know the "how" (or, even, the "why") that doesn't change anything.
If you find a human body, it is a fact that a person has died, and is dead. It remains a fact even if you are never able to find out why or how he or she died.
D w,
But reproduction how did that ever come about?
Let's say some amino acids by random chance form some type of organized system that we could call Life.
What would be the reason that it would develope the ability to replicate itself as an almost perfect copy by means of DNA.
Something that does not reproduce is not life. Of course nothing remotely as complex as the DNA originated by chance. What did originate by "chance" was some primitive form of replicator; that is a molecule that is able to use material from its environment to create copies of itself. Once a replicator exists, life has begun, and it can end anywhere.
Naturally, the most primitive "organism" left little to help us know exactly what it looked like. DNA came much, much later. It has been argued that the amino acid form of life was a quite late stage in evolution, even though it is the only extant life form today. Perhaps the earliest replicators were crystaline structures.
Some argued that unless we can create life in a laboratory, we have not "proven" that life originated naturalistically. In fact, even if we did create life in a lab, that would not at all confirm abiogenesis (we would at best demonstrate what could have happened). Those who require "lab proof" are confusing the general work in science -- to find general laws of nature -- with trying to pinpoint exact historical events.
Historical events leave traces, and we have to make theories based on the clues we find. In the case of something happening 3 billion or so years ago, such clues are pretty non existant. That life did originate, is demonstrated by the fact that life exists today, and have for a long time. How it developed is much open to debate, and will probably never be fully resolved.
Biology is probably the only science that is being chastised for not accepting supernatural 'explanations' for its findings. Otherwise, people understand the perfectly reasonable naturalistic assumptions underlying all of science.
People do accept that when electricity is pretty well explained, that does away with the idea that lightning is the result of the anger of the gods. If we had people today who believed in Zevs instead of a slightly modified Yahweh, I suspect it would be otherwise. Be that as it may, I fear many will try to find tiny holes in the knowledge of naturalistic science where they can push their god, which is getting tinier and tinier every year.
So, yes, atheism/agnosticism/non-theism is a philosophical position not a scientific one. One can perfectly well believe in God and evolution (most christians are, after all, evolutionists). It gets very problematic if you want to argue that God 'directed' evolution, since that would conflict with natural selection, which is a very well-established theory indeed. Ardent theists who are opposed to evolution is so for a good reason, obviously, since god is left with very little to do. But honesty demands that we start with facts (of which evolution is one!) and go from there. If you are still able to support theism, as some are, that is all good and well for you. However, it is certainly true that while evolution do not necessarily lead to atheism, it certainly makes any Deity whose main function is to be a Creator a rather obscure being indeed.
Re. references: All my books are still in boxes; I only have my online material available here now.
You can find information about throwbacks (e.g. birds with teeth) here: Robert T. Bakker: The Dinosaur Heresies, pp. 314-316, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986.
A general overview of genetic evidence for evolution (with references) can be found in this article on the Talk Origins site: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html I recommend looking at a number of other TO articles on this subject, saying much more than I have done above, and probably with more references than you can read in a lifetime. The archive there is easy to search and browse.
- Jan
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"Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets
