Creationists respond to Dawkins

by hooberus 17 Replies latest jw friends

proplog2

The only reason there is a discussion of this sort is due to the fact that the originator of language and communication apparently plays games by remaining mute.
Perhaps the God of the creationists is in the bathroom and taking a 10,000 year crap.
seattleniceguy

greendawn,
The issue of intermediary fossils has already been dealt with adequately by the posters above, but I wanted to say something about evidence and lack thereof.
It is important to realize that lack of evidence for one possibility never becomes evidence for another. Evolution and creation are perceived as two competing theories. However, if you find the evidence for evolution lacking, that does not amount to evidence for creation. The actual explanation could be something totally different from either possibility. Only positive evidence weighs toward any particular explanation.
Consider another scenario. Let's say a murder is being investigated. The police believe that the killer used either a knife or a gun to do his dastardly deed. However, no shell casing has been found. Does that amount to evidence for the knife theory? No. It simply means that the gun theory has a problem. The knife theory does not get any stronger by this lack of evidence on the other side. Why? Because an explanation is strong only when it has evidence weighing directly in support of it, not when its neighbors experience a lack of evidence. In the case of the murder, the actual weapon might be a pipe or a rope or a pair of hands.
In the case of evolution, sometimes a perceived lack of evidence is actually just a lack of knowledge of the evidence. If you haven't yet had the chance, I would heartily recommend the above-mentioned talkorigins.org site. Their FAQ is a great place to start.
Hope that helps!
SNG
P.S. Leolaia, thanks for the enthralling parallel in language! -S
tetrapod.sapien
The world is still waiting to see those intermediate species fossils why are they not showing anywhere? In their absence is it not logical to assume that there are no intermediate forms? How long do we have to wait for them to appear?

greendawn, it would be interesting to know exactly what you are talking about, in a specific sort of way. do you have an example of these missing transitions? what do you say about the documentation Leolaia pointed you to? i would also point out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. and if you say that they are "not showing anywhere", then it is safe to say that you simply have not looked. and so again, let's have an example of what you speak of. hooberus, sorry, was i supposed to click on those links and go read those articles myself? would you care to provide us with any highlights? to help pass the time, here are some entertaining ones i liked: from par. 1 in the first link:
This is the latest in a series of books by Richard Dawkins designed to show that it’s possible to be an ‘intellectually fulfilled atheist’.1 Computer mogul Charles Simonyi recently endowed Dawkins with a post as ‘Chair of Public Understanding of Science’ at Oxford University, but the British author Paul Johnson called it ‘Oxford’s first Chair of Atheism.
from par.1 in the second link:
In 1995, Charles Simonyi of Microsoft endowed a new professorship of Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, and zoologist Richard Dawkins became its first holder, as Simonyi intended. It has been observed that this chair should be renamed for Public Indoctrination in Atheistic Evolutionism.
that's my Dawkins! do i see a common theme here in his introductions? call him an atheist in the first paragraph, and all the christian readers will be ready to swallow whatever else the author has to say about this infidel. well, that's a swell scholarly thang to do, ain't it?
But true (operational) science involves repeatable, observable experimentation in the present, which includes physics, chemistry, experimental biology and geology, etc.
LOL, unlike Creationism & ID Inc.
But despite Dawkins’ hero-worship of Darwin, Solomon had written, ‘ there is nothing new under the sun ’ (Ecc. 1:9). The philosopher and priest G.H. Duggan, in reviewing a Dawkins book, pointed out that a form of Darwinism had been proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles.3 The underlying philosophy of evolution is that man can determine truth apart from God, and this philosophy started in Eden.
well, if the bible says so, then it must be! note to all you who are leaning toward evolution because the evidence is overwhelming: satan is behind it all!
This is partly due to man’s rejection of God, and Dawkins tickles their ears the way they want. However, his message is anything but inspiring—we are robots programmed by DNA to replicate more copies of that DNA.
and the problem with this is that creationists ears are not tickled by it? well then, it must be from da debil satan. but you know, in all fairness, this outlook of DNA robots (a strawman of course!) really does underline that we are not "special", or a "pinnacle of creation", or made in Dog's image. but it is the outlook that the data points to as being the most realistic of them all. i like this Carl Sagan quote in this regard:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
...
Mutations produce gradual improvements, and natural selection means that organisms which have them are slightly more likely to leave offspring.
the writer leaves out that not all mutations result in "improvements", as if we were all being improved to some goal in the future. but this is typical misrepresentation of the theory they like to shoot their pellet guns at.
Indeed, the origin of the first self-reproducing system is recognized by many scientists as an unsolved problem for evolution, and thus evidence for a Creator.6 There is good reason for this: even the simplest self-reproducing organism contains vast quantities of complex, specific information. Mycoplasma genitalium has the smallest known genome of any free-living organism, containing 482 genes comprising 580,000 bases.7 Of course, these genes are only functional with pre-existing translational and replicating machinery, a cell membrane, etc. But Mycoplasma can only survive by parasitizing more complex organisms, which provide many of the nutrients it cannot manufacture for itself. So evolutionists must posit a more complex first living organism with even more genes.
wha? apart from the fallacy Leolaia points out, they leave out the fact that:
they don't understand that the theory of evolution, and origins (abiogenesis for example) are two totally different areas of research. so it is not a problem for "evolution", since evolution does not deal with origins, but rather biological diversity.

they obviously have not read the book they are critiquing.

Nanoarchaeum equitans is the simplest living organism known

no scientists actually posit that the original self replicators were anywhere even close to what they describe here, and so they mislead the reader into thinking that not only scientists assert this, but that they are also on top of things. lol.

their daddy in the sky is way more complicated than any modern organism, let alone mycoplasma, and yet somehow manufactured himself.
In fact, Dawkins admits: ‘[T]he original replicator probably was not DNA. We don’t know what it was’ (p. 261).

and this admission is somehow helping your argument how again? this cracks me up. what a blow to evolution!!
Dawkins also cannot stomach such a conclusion. He makes the childish objection, similar to one he made in The Blind Watchmaker:
[I]f we postulate him as our cosmic designer we are in exactly the same position as we started. Any designer capable of designing the dazzling array of living things would have to be intelligent and supremely complicated beyond all imagining. And complicated is just another word for improbable —and therefore demanding an explanation. (p.68)
Several things are wrong with this argument:
God is perfectly ‘simple’—in theology, this means God, who is spirit (John 4:24), is not composed of parts, unlike organisms.19 It is almost amusing to see Dawkins musing on the alleged limitations of such a being, based on a complete misunderstanding.
It is only things which have a beginning which require a cause; God has no beginning so requires no cause.20
i like how they say several things, and then only list two. LOL.
anyhoob,
i love all the unadressed implicit assertions in this article.
who said god is perfectly simple? the bible? -- the who? the what? wow, so now you guys know what spirits are made of? nothing and something all at once? perfectly simple? how simple, again? i think dawkins is not misunderstanding anything. it belabours credulity to think that you guys even think this stuff, and believe it.
god has no begining and so has no cause. - this is a conveeeeenient tautalogy, isn't it? and we know that god has no begining, because he says so in the bible, and the bible was inspired by him. whoopie! it's like a marry-go-round!
truly i tell you today, if richard dawkins objections to this stuff is "chidish", then perhaps it's because the objectionable is infantile.
One major criticism of Dawkins’ scenarios is that they presuppose an enormous level of complexity to start with. Indeed, Dawkins is repeating the error of Darwin—as Behe shows, Darwin was ignorant of the complexity of even the simplest cell that modern biochemistry has discovered.
and Behe is obviously ignorant of the fact that the first cell was nothing like modern cells. this guy reeks of ulterior motive.
anyone can take some modern complex biological system like a cell, and do the math on what it would take for it to come into existence from nothing. does that mean it's even close to what the original biological systems where like? no. does it make it one, huge, book-length non sequitur? yes. goodness gracious. this is a real con job. or should i say, neo-con job? ar ar ar.
Mutation rate is very low—10 –9 –10 –10 per nucleotide per generation.
well done! a nice example of natural gradualism over billions of years. thanks!
J.B.S. Haldane, one of the world’s leading evolutionists (and a Stalin-supporting communist for a while).
and this has to do with what? LOL evil atheists: all commies! watchout! we're coming to get ya!
(This should be a warning to theistic evolutionists: death is called ‘the last enemy’ (1 Cor. 15:26), so how could God use all these deaths as a means to achieve a ‘very good’ creation (Gen. 1:31)?).
wow! well, that's a didley!
how do you like that veiled threat, all you god fearing and evidence following folks? answers in genesis say you ganna die!
My guess is that both bats and birds evolved flight by gliding downwards from the trees. Their ancestors might have looked a little like colugos. Birds could be another matter.... Here’s one guess as to how flying got started in birds.... Perhaps birds began by leaping off the ground while bats began gliding out of trees. Or perhaps birds too began by gliding out of trees. (pp. 113–4, emphases added)
nice misquote. brilliant actually.
hell, i'm glad he didn't say that he actually knew. you might actually have something on him if he did. jeez.
Creationists can explain the origin of fully functioning sexual reproduction from the start in an optimal and genetically diverse population.
yes, it's called "god did it!".
only problem, is there is no evidence for the existence of this dude, god, so it's like saying the invisible pink unicorn did it, hey? that's a fun game! can we play it on your marry-go-round?
the Apostle of Atheism has a long way to go to make a convincing case for his faith.
especially when no matter what evidence you see, if it steps on gods toes you would prefer to plug your ears and wail bloody murder instead.
anyroad, have you made a convincing case for your faith? and, based on the definition of faith, is faith something that a convincing case can even be made for? would it still be called faith?
DannyBloem

Some of the subjects are dealt with already, but I want to address the Weasel program. The article proves that the program is deterministic.
What I think is that Dawkins just gave a example of how randomness can lead to something. Deing deterministic or not.It is a very simple program however, just to illustrate the tings.
Actually the aproch of random mutations to solve some problems are well known. It is used in some programs, as a way to find solutions to some problems. Some also where there solution found is not to be calculated, not deterministic.
This does of course not prove evolution. What it proves is that the process of random mutations can results in certain solutions and that random mutations can lead to some form of a more ordened, better state.
But I thing even creationist agree that random mutations in nature can improve the species. Only they say within the 'kind' only.
So the conclusion can only be that this is a none issue. Then why is it so misleadingly used by creationists?
They just try to attack everthing, even the person in many times, to avoid talking about the ral facts.
Danny
seattleniceguy

Ay yai yai, the terrible intellectual mire in which the creationists slog about!
Nice comments, tetra. To anyone who skipped it because it was so long, it's definitely worth a read.
SNG
stillajwexelder

P.S. Leolaia, thanks for the enthralling parallel in language! -S
May I second that
Nice comments, tetra. To anyone who skipped it because it was so long, it's definitely worth a read.
and second that also
greendawn

I am still not getting your point.To go up along the species "tree" from a bacterium to man and find species connecting with previous ones through evolutionary development is something of a very tall order how for example go from lobsters or whatever exoskeleton bearing crustacean to fish which is a chordate? How did the plant species branch off with their cellulose cell walls and chloroplasts? And doesn't the fossil record always show more developped species appearing suddenly?

Ok we shouldn't expect transitional forms for everything that lived but there should be some in the fossil record since millions have been found.
tetrapod.sapien

greendawn,
i am seeing several questions/points here.
To go up along the species "tree" from a bacterium to man and find species connecting with previous ones through evolutionary development is something of a very tall order how for example go from lobsters or whatever exoskeleton bearing crustacean to fish which is a chordate?
it's not a tall order when one considers the mechanism of natural selection, and study's the different disciplines that make evolutionary theory. and it is by no means linear ("from bacterium to man").
also, chordates (or organisms from the lower cambrian with at least a notochord or cephalachord) and exoskeletal organisms are not mutually exclusive. there have been many examples of exoskeletal vertebrates, so i am not sure what your point is. they obviously existed, and were transitional relative to whatever was previous and post to them in multi-dimensional genetic space.
How did the plant species branch off with their cellulose cell walls and chloroplasts?
are you asking how? or are you asking for fossils?
And doesn't the fossil record always show more developped species appearing suddenly?
mostly only in hindsight. we find the fossils that we can. at some sites they seem to congregate all in certain strata. at other sites, there are congregations of fossils in yet other strata, while the former is much less populated. when taken as a whole, the fossil record is remarkably in line with gradualism. if there are a lot of mammal fossils from the tertiary period, it would be because that is the most recent period, and there were many hard bodied organisms running around. so in some cases it is a combination of biological life coming to the fore filling niches left behind by an extinction, and the fact that the organisms were hard bodied.
however, there were also some periods in the fossil record that truly did have an explosion of biological organisms, such as the cambrian. but the creation of many phyla's in that period could also be significant of the fact that there were more hard bodied organisms swimming around in the upper cambrian than in the lower. but they are not necessarily "more developed", as per our vantage point, or theirs. but rather, they are what they were, based on the period to which they belong. the mammals of the tertiary are not that much "more developed" than the dinosaurs that preceded them, paleontologically speaking.
Ok we shouldn't expect transitional forms for everything that lived but there should be some in the fossil record since millions have been found.
yes, and as has already been pointed out to you, there are many "transitional" forms. you make it sound as though you want to see a half fish- half mouse fossil, but of course, this is not how nature works. but there are many visually interesting transitional sequences of "normal" looking forms, if that's what you mean.
think of it this way: every single fossil ever found is an example of a transitional form, relative to the genome of it's parents, and the mutations of it's children.
and every single living thing today is a "transitional form" in the same way. just remember, evolution is not going anywhere, so don't think in linear terms here. it will never stop. there is no pinnacle. think in terms of multi-dimensional genetic space where every organism is but one mutation away from it's neighbor.

Creationists respond to Dawkins

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