Evolution: Not a Fact, a Changing Theory.

[Old Things]

Please watch the whole thing before commenting.


I will try to summarize...

The video first talks about how you have competing theories on the manifestation of life we see on Earth. One view is that we all descended from a single cell (tree of life). The other is that there have always been differences between life that cannot be reduced to a single-celled origin (forest of life).

Secondly, he talks about the criteria for high-confidence evidence. These criteria are:
1) Repeatable
2) Directly Measurable
3) Prospective Study
4) Avoid Bias
5) Avoid Assumptions
6) Make Reasonable Claims

He also says that confidence in a scientific finding is a sliding scale, and different scientific experiments will have more or less confidence based on those six criteria.

In support of the Tree of Life model, we have this evidence:
1) Fossile Records
2) Geographic Distribution
3) Vestigial Organs
4) Comparison of Life Forms

Richard Dawkins thinks the comparison of life forms is the best evidence we have. Unfortunately, comparison of life forms does not meet any of the criteria for a strong standard of evidence.

Then he goes on to talk about high-confidence evidence for evolution. He mentions a study done that caused E. Coli to eat citrate. However, this did not actually add any information to the E. coli. Rather, all it did was copy and paste a gene and get rid of another one. Then, another study was conducted with E. coli again, and this time, the hypothesis was, "If genes that produce this enzyme are damaged, can evolution repair them to produce tryptophan again?" In the experiment, they changed a letter of the DNA code, and the enzyme functioned poorly. After 100 million e. coli growth, the mutation was repaired. Then they changed another gene, and this caused the e. coli to not produce any tryptophan, but the result was the same after about 100 million e. coli growths the gene repaired. Thirdly, they damaged both genes, and the E. coli never was able to make tryptophan again. Conclusion: evolution is very limited in what it can do and how it can change genes. The enzyme was 99.9% complete, but it could not repair itself. The E. coli could not evolve to produce its own tryptophan.

Then he talks about how humans have been experimenting with rats for 95 years, and we know enough that you either have a rat or you have something dead. He also mentions a 10-year study done on Daphnia pulex, and the result was natural selection had an average effect of of about zero.

Then, he talks about humans and chimps having a common ancestor. The evidence shows through DNA that when people used to say that humans and chimps are 98% the same, this only took into account our genes and not all our DNA. The evidence shows that humans have over 6% of all genes that don't have orthologs in the chimp genome. And they further argue that there are more orphan genes than there are shared genes. It used to be thought that there was a ton of junk DNA, but now scientists know that junk DNA is actually a regulatory function that directs what will be turned on and off in the genome.

That should be fine for an overview.

 

[Hadoblado]

Bro it's 80 minutes long and you haven't commented.

This is part of what I mean when I say this place has devolved to propaganda. You share content without comment, criticism, how it affected you... anything. You're just regurgitating media that affirms your view from your feed onto ours. "Regurgitation" is actually too charitable, because that at least implies that you in some way processed it.

 

[Old Things]

You're just regurgitating media that affirms your view from your feed onto ours.

It's a discussion between two very established scientists (a person who has many medical patents and one who has a triple Ph. D in chemistry), but go off, king. I'll put a summary in the OP.

 

[Hadoblado]

What do you think about it? Who do you think was right? Why? I'm not here to listen to your playlist I'm here to talk to you!

 

[Old Things]

What do you think about it? Who do you think was right? Why? I'm not here to listen to your playlist I'm here to talk to you!

I think if you can get behind the biologist's idea of what is considered high-confidence evidence, it shows that evolution, as it is taught in textbooks, is not really scientific at all.

 

[Cognisant]

I see no conflict between evolution and creation, if God knows everything and is all powerful than God created humanity when he created the universe, even if it took a while for things to play out prior to our arrival.

So we have a shared ancestory with Chimps, so what? If anything that proves there's something fundamentally different about us, that we're not just animals, because no other animal has even come close to what we have achieved.

Old Things I find your faith lacking if it is troubled by such a trifling matter of whether or not you might be a monkey's great great great great (etc) uncle.

 

[Old Things]

Old Things I find your faith lacking if it is troubled by such a trifling matter of whether or not you might be a monkey's great great great great (etc) uncle.

My faith is not threatened by evolution. There are many good Christian people who believe in it. Evolution is not a salvific issue, so that is not the reason I have this contention. I have this contention because I don't believe we all originated from a lightning strike in a pond somewhere, and the first cell was made because of it, which is absurd, and no one should take that kind of idea seriously. Further, watch the video, and you will understand why I think evolution is not scientifically viable.

 

[Cognisant]

Why? Ok so God sculpted man out of clay and gave him life and in that moment his body of clay turned into flesh and blood, meaning the molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons spontaneously rearranged and transmuted themselves by God's will.

You believe that, but a lightning strike is too... what? Too pagan?

Moreover Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, when they were cast out of the garden of Eden they had only sons, so who did their sons have children with?
Think really hard about it.

It's implied that Adam and Eve entered a world that already contained humans or at least something close enough to breed with, their descendants interacted with human civilizations and they were clearly different to normal people.

If everyone is a descendant of Adam and Eve why trace the lineage of a few individuals? Because they, and only they, were the descendants of Adam and Eve, everyone else was just a regular human with no divine lineage.

This is the conceit of Judaism, that you are either one of God's people or you're not, that you're either a descendant of Adam and Eve or you're not, it's only after the sacrifice of Jesus that anyone can become one of God's people through baptism.

 

[Old Things]

I am not even talking about religion here. But if YOU want to bring religion into it, that's fine...

IRT life on earth before humans is something that has been hotly debated in Christian circles lately (primarily by Young Earth Creationists, who everyone else thinks are crazy). But I believe that animal death and other humans existed before Adan and Eve existed. This is attested to prominent Christian thinkers centuries before science was even a thing by the minds of Augustine of Hippo, etc. However, I believe that Adam and Eve are the parents of all humans on earth. There's nothing contradictory about that. It's completely scientifically viable to believe this (see "The Genealogical Adam and Eve" by Dr. Josh Swamidas for more). Even Theistic Evolutionists who are Christians but believe in evolution can still say there very much existed an Adam and Eve from whence all other humans come (see "In Quest of the Historical Adam" by Dr. William Lane Craig).

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God. However, the problem is that none of these ideas actually work in reality. They are nice to think about how we don't need a creator telling us we owe Him our lives, but beyond that, these men's theories don't provide a whole lot of concrete data to uphold their ideas.

So, at root, I contend that Christianity makes much more sense based on the evidence we do have rather than what the Bible calls "vain philosophies," which are simply navel-gazing as collective humanity by throwing whatever we can at the wall to see what sticks trying to show we have no need for a creator.

 

[Cognisant]

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God.

Well it doesn't, God isn't credited with creating life, God created the universe so even if life is an emergent property of the universe that doesn't mean God didn't create it.

That's like saying someone didn't bake a cake, they merely mixed the ingredients in the right ratios and heated them for the right amount of time and in those circumstances the cake created itself.

Like, yeah, sure, if you want to be a pedantic ass about it I didn't literally assemble the protein and sugar based crumb structure by manually moving molecules around, but I still baked the fucking cake ya dickhead.

 

[Old Things]

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God.

Well it doesn't, God isn't credited with creating life, God created the universe so even if life is an emergent property of the universe that doesn't mean God didn't create it.

That's like saying someone didn't bake a cake, they merely mixed the ingredients in the right ratios and heated them for the right amount of time and in those circumstances the cake created itself.

Like, yeah, sure, if you want to be a pedantic ass about it I didn't literally assemble the protein and sugar based crumb structure by manually moving molecules around, but I still baked the fucking cake ya dickhead.

Do tell how life came to be on this planet...

The prevailing theory in textbooks today is something stranger than fiction, with zero evidence for it whatsoever.

So, please, tell me the evidence you have for that first life form coming into being... Maybe it was deep within the ocean, or maybe it was a lightning strike in a pond, or maybe it fell from an asteroid in the sky. Tell me, how did life begin on this planet? Surely you know...

Sorry, I'm being facetious.

I do believe that God created all life on this planet, and each produce after its own kind. That's what the Bible says, and that is what the evidence shows. There is no "origin of species." It's a myth. It's a cleverly devised plot to get us to think the universe runs completely deterministically. Except the universe is far from being deterministic. Science helps us understand what is repeatable, observable, and predictable, but most of reality doesn't fit into those categories. So, something else must be going on besides materialistic determinism.

 

[Cognisant]

Tell me, how did life begin on this planet? Surely you know...

Don't know, don't care, doesn't matter.

We know that life did begin somewhere, somehow, but until somebody invents a time machine and goes back to check, it's impossible to know.

 

[Old Things]

We know that life did begin somewhere, somehow, but until somebody invents a time machine and goes back to check, it's impossible to know.

Information requires a mind to create it. This is pretty standard.

If I go outside and I see cigarette butts arrayed out to spell "I refuse to throw these out," I assume there is a mind behind it. I assume it happened because someone with a mind arranged the butts to spell that out. That's about as simple and complex as it needs to be irt the origin of life.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Aliens, Pleadians, asteroids, stardust, life from other planets that seeded here. Clay, minerals, air, sunlight, temperature and water have a role in it. Personally, I think to have all those elements in one place, is a combination of both science AND wonderment and miracles. What if its all of the above?

 

[Old Things]

What if its all of the above?

We have no evidence for half of those, and the other half cannot produce life independently.

 

[birdsnestfern]

They found life on other planets. Life could have been seeded from another planet.

 

[Old Things]

They found life on other planets. Life could have been seeded from another planet.

No, they have not found life on other planets.

 

[birdsnestfern]

I saw this, its life supporting elements. I don't think its so far fetched to think minerals, elements being spread around all help to create the ideal mix for life to start. BUT, I also don't think its materials only, ie, I think you have to have everything just right. I do not know, we just have to guess here. https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exopl...hane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18-b/

 

[Old Things]

I saw this, its life supporting elements. I don't think its so far fetched to think minerals, elements being spread around all help to create the ideal mix for life to start. BUT, I also don't think its materials only, ie, I think you have to have everything just right. I do not know, we just have to guess here. https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exopl...hane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18-b/

That doesn't in any way say we found life on another planet... It's guessing.

 

[Puffy]

I don’t think theology and science are necessarily at odds really, they’re studies of different questions. Broadly theology tries to answer why questions (“why are we here”) and science tries to answer how questions. Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

 

[Old Things]

Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

It's not, though.

It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

It does if you listen to the people who are in the Origin of Life research.

 

[Puffy]

Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

It's not, though.

It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

It does if you listen to the people who are in the Origin of Life research.

Sorry to elaborate evolution explains how life developed once it was created/came to be. I don’t think there is a demonstratable hypothesis of the origin of life in modern science as I understand it.