Creationist Evolution

by GapingMouth 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Dogpatch

  In my opinion, Doug said it very well:

  "Creationists have no demonstrable evidences that enable their ideas to reach the status of a Theory. At best it can be called a hypothesis. Their’s is a negative campaign that is predetermined by their concerns at the conclusions that would be reached. Their prior concern with the end-point affects their reasoning.
  
  "Rather than attack the evidence that provides the facts of Evolution, the Creationists need to provide sufficient evidence to produce a Theory, not just a preconceived hypothesis.
  
  "It is not up to us to tell God how he has to work. If evolution does not fit our preconceptions, then it is we who must accept that God works according to his own ways, not ours.
  
  "A key feature that makes humankind very different from others is our preoccupation with our death and the afterlife."

  This is precisely what we attack as dishonest in the Watchtower... the examination of certain evidences leads one to completely different, more provable version of history. Just like the Watchtower's version of the histories and doctrines of ther early Christians is necessarily revised to fit their worldview, so is often with the creations. All the Watchtower's nonsense on the Trinity, the cross, holidays, blood, the soul, etc. has been accomplished by lying about or bending the evidence to make their whole "theory" work.

  It's like starting backwards from a belief that must be considered "core," or "true," then looking at all the evidence through those glasses and reinterpreting it. But Occam's Razor kills it dead:

  In the scientific method, Occam's razor, or parsimony, is an epistemological, metaphysical, or heuristic preference, not an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result. [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] As a logical principle, Occam's razor would demand that scientists accept the simplest possible theoretical explanation for existing data. However, science has shown repeatedly that future data often supports more complex theories than existing data. Science tends to prefer the simplest explanation that is consistent with the data available at a given time, but history shows that these simplest explanations often yield to complexities as new data becomes available. [ 5 ] [ 15 ]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsimony

  Randy
• 

  villabolo

  An excellent book on the subject of evolution versus creationism is Science and Earth History by Arthur Strahler. Its 500 oversize, fine print pages cover every angle of the debate. Highly recommended for any serious student of the controversy.

  villabolo
• 

  inkling

  Inkling, not being interested in learning about something is just ignorant. I left the witnesses at a young age because my questioning of of things was slowly becoming that of "disfellowship material".

  Ok, glad to hear it. I didn't mean to sound insulting,
  it's just I hadn't heard enough from you to know what kind
  of poster you were... and we get all types here.
  
  I am also not claiming to be any sort of deep wellspring
  of knowledge, but I have done a lot of reading on the subject
  since my "inactivity" began several years ago.
  
  Mostly books by Dawkins, who IS a wellspring of knowledge
  on the subject, and has helped me clear up a much fuzzy
  thinking I had about the idea of evolution.
  
  
  I have never read into evolution fully, I just always imagined that we were made to adapt and change to our surroundings. Our environment and a need will dictate how life will respond.

  This is broadly true. The problem is who we are talking about when
  we say "we" adapt over time. Obviously my personal body changes
  over time, based on my environment and choices. The problem is any
  "improvement" (or damage) that happens to my body is not heritible.
  
  Your improved cinder block bashing hands will not be passed onto your
  kids. If they want to smash cinder blocks, they have to start from square
  one, just like you did.
  
  These sort of changes, good or bad, are lost when you die, because the
  only thing that survives to live on in your kid are your genes. Your DNA.
  Your environment and choices cannot rewrite your DNA.
  
  Note that it was once thought that this DID happen. This is known
  as Lamarckism theory, and turned out to be false, at least regarding
  the sort of physical attributes we have been talking about.
  
  So, what Darwin (and all modern evolutionary biologists) are talking
  about when they say "we" change over time, is us as a species.
  Let's take your cinder block idea and turn it into actual evolution:
  
  Imagine a world where a particular animal lives that, due to some
  natural disaster, lost all of its food sources except the nuts from
  a particular kind of tree, having a very hard outer shell. Of all the
  current generation of animals living in the area, there would be
  natural variation in say, hardness of teeth and strength of jaw.
  The members of the species who happened to be born with genes
  for especially hard teeth and strong jaws would get more food than
  thier brothers and sisters, live more energetic lives, and be more
  likely to have and raise healthy offspring.
  
  As the generations go by, we would start to see, on average, an
  "improvement" in natural inborn nut cracking ability. This type of
  physical improvement is NOT lost when an animal dies, because it
  is hardwired encoded in their DNA, which survives to be passed on
  to its offspring.
  
  When this happens repeatedly over thousands of generations, the
  change we see is called evolution.
  
  
  Or that is, at least, the way I understand it.
  
  
  [inkling]
• 

  villabolo

  Evololution's first step is: "Survival of the most reproductive in a given environment"

  Its second step is: "Repeat the first step"

  villabolo
• 

  inkling

  As the generations go by, we would start to see, on average, an
  "improvement" in natural inborn nut cracking ability.

  Now, imagine what would happen if some of these animals had teeth/jaws
  strong enough to crack the nuts, and a few others had CLAWS sharp/strong
  enough to crack the nuts.

  There would then be two groups that would survive into the next generation:
  The jaw-crackers and the claw-crackers. As the generations went by, these
  two groups would become better and better at opening nuts in thier particular
  way, and would also become increasingly DIFFERENT from each other as a group.

  If they become different enough, they become "incompatible", and only mate
  with each other.

  Hence from one species, two are formed.
  The Origin of Species.

  [inkling]
• 

  Dogpatch

  Thanks Inkling.

  In addition, much of evolution favoring one trait (for survival) only comes at the cost of losing another trait. NatGeo has had some real good series on the dinosaurs and how their variations cost them one thing and gained them another, as with mammals, etc. We can now see how tiny birds and huge dinosaurs come from the basic same sequences with very few alterations, except appearance. A few little switches in genetic sequences gave a WHOLE different appearance and function. Yet we as humans still share the same basic skeleton with practically all other animals and even fish.

  Reminds me of the wide range of visual appearance in humans all over the earth, yet we are all so really much the same genetically, save for tiny variations in code.

  Many of the changes in ancient creatures we now know happened much quicker than we thought 10 years or even 5 years ago, by simple DNA alteration in a few generations. Many of the variations even existed side-by-side, not needing "millions of years" of accidental mutations, as some assume that evolutionary scientists still believe. This episode on NatGeo is real good:

  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/dinosaurs-decoded-3944/Overview

  Yet other creatures showed little signs of change over very long periods of time.

  Once you drop the fear that your faith in God will be destroyed and your life will morally fall apart, these are fascinating finds. Fear of losing out on eternal life and the "paradise earth" causes JWs to be blind to the real facts about their organization. I have always believed in dinosaurs, evolution, and millions of years to do it. Yet even as a Witness I never feared that God would destroy me for honest learning and applying my God-given sense of personal honesty and justice. How ironic that a Creator should be seen as such a deceitful charletan.

  We don't have to know all the answers! After I left the Witnesses and buried myself in Biblical studies for over a decade, even being a Foursquare pastor for several years afterwards, as well as rubbing shoulders with many apologists and theologians, it was only whern I realized that I was better off NOT having to have all the answers and just deal with the basics of what you know and see and feel in real life (your only NATURAL way to understand the world around you) that I could really be happy. The moment you try and make it all "fit" in a wonderful fantasy, you start denying very obvious things around you. All because you personally NEED TO KNOW to feel comfortable. Spend a month in the wilderness alone and it will adjust your head to reality. :-))

  Randy
• 

  inkling

  In addition, much of evolution favoring one trait (for survival) only comes at the cost of losing another trait.

  Ahh, right. Good point.

  Body parts are expensive. Costly to build, costly to maintain.
  If a species can live without something, it will lose it if at all possible.
  (blind almost-eyeless cave salamanders come to mind.)
  
  Before they found themselves living in a nut-only world, my theoretical
  animals would have no need to especially strong jaws/teeth, and so
  growing them would be wasteful, and hence "penalized" by natural
  selection.

  Once you drop the fear that your faith in God will be destroyed and your life will morally fall apart, these are fascinating finds.

  Hear hear.

  Learning about the history of the sculpting of life on this planet is one
  of my most treasured rewards for finally having the courage to think
  outside my faith.

  [inkling]
• 

  Dogpatch

  villalobo got it right:

  Evololution's first step is: "Survival of the most reproductive in a given environment"
  
  Its second step is: "Repeat the first step"

  inkling said most profoundly:

  Learning about the history of the sculpting of life on this planet is one
  of my most treasured rewards for finally having the courage to think
  outside my faith.

  R
• 

  Dogpatch

  When I was a kid dinosaurs were seen much differently than we do today. This is classic evolution of "evolution" due to more fossil and genetic evidence. Really good little show:

  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/12/bizarre-dinosaurs/holtz-dinosaur-photography

  Randy
• 

  trueblue

  Evolution I do not know enough to agree or disagree with. I do beleive that there must be a higher power that is doing the creations and what ever this higher power is called or how ever this power does it I don't know either.

  Funny thing though that the bible does not mention dinosaurs, and the time frame that the bible gives for when the earth was created does not go back far enough for when the dinosaurs were created. According to science and the bible does not match on time frames.

  I hope I made some sense in what I just said...