The arguement that recently convinced me of god's existence

[NotReady]

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Evolution revolves around one basic principle, as I see it:

Genetics data is prone to mutation. Accordingly, slight mutations within the parents' offspring will often occur.


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I don't think ID'ers would disagree with this. The real issue concerning the fossil record is whether is fulfils the Darwinist predictions. The larger issue is how it happened, even if Darwinism is true. The HAT is to be used should it be proved there wasn't enough time between the beginning of earth about 4.5 bya and the first evidence of life. I think that time is fairly short, in the millions of years, which could be a major problem for abiogenesis, neatly solved by HAT.

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Assuming that this is true, the rest of the theory follows logically: some mutations make survival more likely than others. Those with advantageous mutations are more likely to pass on their genes, and natural selection takes place.


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Again no one doubts mutations occur. And theoretically advantageous mutations would increase the organism's likelihood of survival. But from that to one common ancestor, or even ape to man, is a huge and unproven step.

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Disprove mutation, and you disprove evolution. Would you agree with this statement?


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Sure, but mutation isn't disputed as far as I know. Would you agree the fossil record for human evolution doesn't pass the prediction test?

[Rduke55]

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I'm going to pass on the DNA stuff for now.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
You can't have a debate on this without considering the "DNA stuff"

[NotReady]

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Seriously, I'm intriqued. It makes me think I might've missed something.


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I don't classify myself as a fundamentalist though I have much in common with them. The closest is probably Calvinistic evangelical. But it's just a label. You are making the common error of thinking someone can't be intelligent and believe the Bible. Historically this is easily shown to be false. There are also many scientists and other intelligent people today who believe in creation. The real difficulty isn't intellectual. The problem with believing in a Creator is it means humans are created and there is an AUTHORITY over us. That's the kicker. By nature we don't anyone telling us what to do and we sure don't want someone who has the right to tell us what to do.

[NotReady]

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There are billions of missing links. Every organism that reproduces is a link in the chain


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No,no, no. A missing link isn't a single individual, it's a type, species, kind, whatever. Therefore there are only millions, not billions.

[NotReady]

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That's scary. (emphasis mine)


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I also disagree with much he says. We're both Christians and believe alike concerning the major Scriptural doctrines. We part company on many of the details.

[NotReady]

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Both sides agree that the raw data seems to confirm the absense of Gods hand in the process of our creation.


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This centers on the main problem. How is the question whether or not God is involved in biological processes a scientific question? Yet you seem to think the absence of God is taught in public school. Christians agree with you and think that if atheists are allowed to teach atheism ID should be allowed to teach design.

[NotReady]

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However I assert 1. That if there was a designer to life - that designer must have made mistakes


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The difficulty and suffering of this life are not design mistakes. The Bible says that death entered this world because of sin. It also says the whole creation suffers because of sin. It is the rebellion of man that causes the difficulty, not a design flaw.

[NotReady]

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You can't have a debate on this without considering the "DNA stuff"


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In this thread the issue was the human fossil record. I'm going to limit it to that for now. Maurile is free to start any number of threads he wants, I just want to focus on this one issue in this thread.

[hmkpoker]

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Sure, but mutation isn't disputed as far as I know. Would you agree the fossil record for human evolution doesn't pass the prediction test?

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Here's where, due to a lack of knowledge, I can't debate the issue. I haven't studied anthropology and my background in biology is cursory at best. I don't know enough about fossil-ology to be able to say whether the evidence effectively argues against evolution, whether it helps confirms it, or whether it is inconclusive, or whether our current measuring tools are insufficient.

What I know is this: when a mammal dies, it deteriorates. The bones/fossils, if they continue to exist at all (which they rarely do), are very mangled and warped from their original form. I could understand if this produces insufficent evidence, and the ID'er asking us to find fossils that provide evidence to their satisfaction may be a much more difficult task than they realize. I believe that it is POSSIBLE that our current measuring tools could be misled by the gross warpings that a fossil undergoes, but I don't know. I'm not a fossil-ologist, and neither are you.

At this point is sounds like I'm making an argument that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," which, coming from an atheist, would sound pretty weak and evasive. However, I'm not. I believe that there is other evidence for evolution which is fairly conclusive. I do not believe that we need a perfect fossil record to decide with reasonable confidence that humans and apes have a similar genetic origin.

To be fair, the only reason I think that we have to believe that humans are special and come from some special lineage is purely religious...or ignorant...in nature.

[hmkpoker]

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There are billions of missing links. Every organism that reproduces is a link in the chain


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No,no, no. A missing link isn't a single individual, it's a type, species, kind, whatever. Therefore there are only millions, not billions.

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You do realize that these "types, species and kinds" are just labels that we make up, right? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] If we say "type B evolved from type A," and were somehow to investigate the lineage from A to B ancestor by ancestor, we wouldn't view the chain as "A, A, A, A, B, B, B, B." We'd view it as "A, A, A,...~A, ~A,...~AB, ~AB, ~AB,....~B, ~B, ~B,...B, B, B" There would be millions of links, and lots of variance. The changes from one to the next are subtle; species A does not suddenly give birth to something with differences so great that we can universally agree to differentiate them as "species B."

We use these terms because they are useful, but we must recognise them for what they are; human labels. (This is why that whole "Well...if people evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?" argument is poorly founded.