by Perry 71 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
"God does not play dice with the universe" - Einstein
What does this quote have to do with the topic at hand? Einstein was expressing his dislike for the uncertainty in quantum mechanics.
If you think Einstein believed in any sort of personal/Christian God, you are sorely mistaken.
Perry:
Obviously, this is a heated and controversial topic for which I don’t expect any significant, let alone workable conclusions on either side to prove or disprove anything. However, I’d like to offer some comments regarding your often-stated question of “How do you know Creationism is wrong?” This is like asking: “How do you know that an invisible man isn’t there?” Think about it. Wait, wait… Think about it. If you were to chose between two things for which you don’t find sufficient justification, you are either likely to not make a decision about either (because they are unsupported) or be inclined (with caution) to say that “it is likely that this one (or that one) is true” due to some evidence. That is called inductive reasoning, not deductive because the premises (whether missing, untrue or improvable) don’tforce you to make an inevitable conclusion. In other words, Creationism is an alternative explanation of things, but certainly not one you “prove”. Among others, I have examined one attempt to “prove” Creationism (principally the disputes on irreducible complexity, which includes all that stuff about the cell you brought up) and it fails primarily due to an exception in what it tries to prove. So how can it be possible to disprove something that is questionable in the first place (which is the point of your question)?
While I agree that Creationism is an alternate explanation for life and the universe, it is incompatible with evidence that exists about our universe, and the progression of life on Earth in terms of fossil evidence and dates. I know there are people who will contest that, so let me be clearer: In the absence of any other source for an account or explanation for the rise of life on Earth, many creationists have to abide by the one of the most popular accounts for such an event, which is the Bible, and many assume that the Universe was created in 6 literal days of 24 hours. Not all of them believe that, but some do. Others may accept that the Universe is approximately 13.4 billion years old or so, but that God actually “pushed it along” by kicking off the process that eventually caused some species to evolve”. That eliminates a Universe where God is inconceivable and explains the complexity in it that many people can’t comprehend would have arisen on its own. The problem with the last example is that if we’re going to accept some scientific discoveries about our universe (that are not in the Bible), we can’t just pick and chose those that support our position. We should accept that which is likely, even if it presents a contradiction. What conclusion we make is something else.
In keeping with that reasoning, equally objectionable statements could be made against Evolutionary Theory. In order to demonstrate one, we need to make one thing clear: [Please bear with me on this subtle point and note that it does not include the theory of biopoesis or Abiogeneis, which attempts to explain how life began in the first place] It appears to me that creationists attribute to evolutionists the belief that Evolution is the result of thousands and thousands of random mutations due to some large statistical probability over millions of millions of years from which the “chance” (or chances) happened to give rise to complex life. On the other hand [and here is the subtle difference], my understanding of what evolutionists think is that Evolution is the accumulation of tiny statistically improbable (not impossible) events (mutations, genetic changes) to an unstated but apparently sufficient degree (thousands, millions?) over millions and millions of years that eliminated the “chance” factor to a snowballing inevitable effect for change to a higher degree of complexity. The key here is the idea that the uncountable iterations of change eliminated the “chance” factor that eventually led to complexity.
Having said all of that, I must express that Evolutionary theory enjoys a very unique place in the realm of Natural Sciences in the sense that it doesn’t require the same burden of proof as other Natural Sciences (Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science and Physics). While they follow a good rule in Bacon’s “Scientific Method”, Evolution (a subset of Biology) is more derivational because many of its premises cannot be experimented upon. For example, we cannot yet create an experiment that would “accelerate” the evolutionary process (meaning a bunch of mutations, lots and lots of mutations) that would result in a new trait or collection of beneficial changes. This would definitely support the idea of natural selection being a force responsible for the change of species from less to more complex. In other words, we could actually replicate and document the method by which Natural Selection happened. At this point we can only say that it must have happened because we are here. That makes me intellectually uncomfortable. That is not the same thing as saying that Natural Selection is not another viable explanation for the existence of life as we know it. A number of other problems exist with Evolutionary theory. For example: The morphological studies of animals (the studies of the progressive anatomical changes and body function) that lead evolutionists to believe an animal evolved from one stage to a more advanced state are sometimes contradicted by molecular biologists’ discoveries that an animal thought to be at a particular (morphological) place in the evolutionary chain actually has a different place (perhaps an earlier simpler genetic one) in its complexity. And yes, there might be a misunderstanding about what “Natural Selection” means in the case of the Peppered Moth changes (since it was mentioned on this thread). Although decidedly a Lepidoptera, it was not a butterfly. The controversy is that the moth did not actually mutated or developed new genes to adapt its color but that it simply manifested a differential genetic shift from light to dark based on genotypic inheritance, which already existed (before the soot covered the trees, there already existed light and dark months).
Do you see the difficulties on either side? Nevertheless, I respect more the scientific insinuations than the creationist ones because there’s more reasonable evidence to support a theory there than for things that are improvable, like the universe coming into existence in several days or even that God kicked off the evolutionary process. For me, any conclusion or none in that area is no reason to exclude the idea of God, even if I can’t prove whether s/he exists or not. Mentioning some of the giants of science (Newton, Faraday, etc) does not advance your cause, since one exception in their achievements can bring down your whole argument. For example: Newton discovered a lot of great things. However, he was wrong about one or two in a way that had huge implications, mainly about time and space. The bottom line is that his assumptions influenced him to picture the universe as a ginormous clock or machine, which fitted with the order and predictability of his God. He felt that was the natural conclusion. Alas, he would have been completely disconcerted to learn that there’s no such thing as instantaneity, that time is relative and varies in rate due to gravity or acceleration or may not even exist (yes, there’s some evidence for that) and that space is not uniform. I know it’s an uncomfortable place to be in, not being able to come up with answers. But at least, you can avoid taking in the wrong answers.
Etude.
