Evolutionary idiocy (More or less standard dogma)?

Hello there chemscience, Huntard is right, they don't. It doesn't. Cosmology and evolution are separate fields of study, one studied by cosmologists, the other by biologists. You are seeking to conflate to separate arguments. Not necessarily. What if God were not the creator of the universe, but merely its most powerful inhabitant? He might have been born (or whatever you would call it) after the existence of the universe, only to create life at a later date. None of this is relevant to evolution. It's just not. Cosmology and biology are not the same and there is no need to drag your problems with cosmology into a discussion about biology.Let's take another hypothetical...Let us assume that God did make the universe. He set off the Big Bang, doing so in such a way that galaxies, stars planets etc, would form.That still leaves us with the fact of evolution. Species still change over time. Individuals still struggle to survive, with the fittest passing on their genes. Allele frequencies still change within populations over time.There is no need within evolutionary theory for a godless beginning to the universe. It just doesn't matter. Evolution can work just as well in a God-created universe as it can in a godless one. Indeed, with such overwhelming evidence behind it, one is forced to conclude that if God created life, then evolution is the method he chose to accomplish it. The same argument applies here. It doesn't matter whether life formed through an unguided chemical process or whether God magicked life into existence; evolution still holds true.Once life had come about, by whatever means, it started to evolve. It has continued to do so to this day.Questions about the first origins of life properly belong in the field of abiogenesis. It is a separate, albeit related, field of study from evolutionary biology. It is a fledgling science and, sadly, it has very few answers to offer us (as yet). There are many hypotheses, but none is close to providing definitive answers.Is that a problem? Should we be expected to have all the answers? Of course not. All that can be done is to study and seek and enquire in an effort to find those answers. In the mean time we should admit our ignorance of the details of life's origin, rather than rush to insert a supernatural explanation that cannot be researched, tested or evidenced.Oh, one small point; Well far be it from me to contradict so illustrious a scientist, but this assumption is not absolutely necessary for evolution to be true. You will probably find that most biologists believe in an abiogenetic origin for life, but, as I have shown already, divinely created life would be just as capable of evolving.To sum up, if you want to talk evolution, stick to the latter points on your list. They may be familiar creationist talking points, but at least points 16 to 19 on your list are remotely linked to evolution (even if they do represent an argument from personal incredulity). If you would like to discuss them further, I would be happy to oblige, but all cosmology and abiogenesis are just distractions. Much better to discuss them in other threads.having said that... I can't resist. I'd be very interested to see your evidence.By the way,

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quotes are easy

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(Cheers RAZD!)If you want to know more about formatting messages, take a look here;http://EvC Forum: Posting Tips -->EvC Forum: Posting Tipsor click on the dBCodes(help) link that appears on the left hand side of the reply screen. You can also see how other members have formatted their messages by hitting the "peek" button that appears in the bottom left corner of every post. This will let you see all the coding.Mutate and Survive.Edited by Granny Magda, : Darn. Typo.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Psalm 83:18

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That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

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So...You claim that the god of the Bible is the creator of all things.How do you back up this claim?It says so in the Bible.Well gosh, so it does! Do you know what circular reasoning is?Mutate and Survive.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Hi chemscience,You provided a long list of objections, the majority of which are relevant to evolution (thanks for that!). Instead of trying to answer all of it at once, I'm just going to flag one point. As something of a keen birder, I wondered what it was about this that you feel contradicts evolution. What is your objection? Are you referring to the terns here, or to the monarch butterflies you mentioned?Mutate and Survive.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Okay, thanks for your answer chemscience. I'm going to side-step the bt about monarch butterflies if you don't mind and go straight onto the terns. 1) They don't cross the open ocean. They follow the coastlines, especially the coast of Africa. Terns don't go very far out to sea, preferring to stay within striking distance of land.2) If they miss their target, they need not die. Arctic terns spend the Northern Hemisphere's summer spread out, all over the Arctic. They could quite easily miss their mark only to find themselves in a different area that is still capable of supporting terns. As has been pointed out, they feed as they travel. Going off course is not as disastrous for Arctic terns as it might be for some species. Migrants often go way off course. We call them "vagrants". Some vagrants doom themselves by their mistake. Others simply sit tight and try again next year.3) They don't need to be taught where Antarctica is. They rely on instinct. Do you dispute the existence of instinct? Their instinctive behaviour probably operates using very simple rules (fly south, keep Africa to your left, that sort of thing). This is enough to get them there. After the first time, they will have learned their way. Like many behaviours, it is a mixture of instinct and learning.4) One generation of drowned terns would indeed end the species (apart from a few stranded terns that never managed to migrate at all. You often get a few stragglers with migrants). It's not very likely though is it? What would cause such a disaster? Terns are very good at making a living. They're not going to all just get lost and die. This is because evolution has honed them to be effective exploiters of their environment.Let me ask you a question; if terns were created, how do they respond to changing weather patterns that affect their migration? Does God come back and fine tune them now and then? Or did he simply create them with the ability to adapt to a changing environment? If the latter, it sounds very much like evolution to me. No-one is suggesting any such thing. There were no birds on Gondwanaland. There's no need to look so far back.Migrations such as the tern's would have evolved far more recently than that. The migratory behaviour is not surprising in terns. They cover large distances in the course of seeking good fishing grounds, so it seems a simple matter for the birds who travelled furthest to pass on this advantageous behaviour to their offspring. As far as I can tell, you still haven't explained why this is contrary to evolution. What aspect of evolutionary theory is being challenged here?Terns may seem fragile to you, but they are superbly adapted to their environment and lifestyle, just as evolutionary theory would predict. Arctic terns are part of a much larger group of terns, some more closely related than others, with all of them showing differing degrees of similarity in both physiology and behaviour, just as evolutionary theory would predict. Simple; the migratory behaviour developed from the existing behaviour of itinerant sea birds, most of which move around a lot within their range anyway. Those migratory behaviours that were advantageous were passed on. Over time the migration spread further afield, until Arctic terns were migrating from pole to pole. Here is a rather nice description of how migration can evolve;

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The general model for the evolution of migratory behavior considers a permanent resident that expands its range due to intraspecific competition into an area that is seasonally variable, providing greater resources for reproduction but harsher climactic stress and reduced food availability in the non-breeding season. Individuals breeding in these new regions at the fringe of the species' distribution are more productive, but in order to increase non-breeding survival they return to the ancestral range. This results, however, in even greater intraspecific competition because of their higher productivity, so that survival is enhanced for individuals that winter in areas not inhabited by the resident population. The Common Yellowthroat of the Atlantic coast is a good example. Birds occupying the most southern part of the species' range in Florida are largely nonmigratory, whereas populations that breed as far north as Newfoundland migrate to the West Indies in the winter, well removed from the resident population in Florida. Because a migrant population gains an advantage on both its breeding and wintering range, it becomes more abundant, while the resident, non-migratory population becomes proportionately smaller and smaller in numbers. If changing environmental conditions become increasingly disadvantageous for the resident population or interspecific competition becomes more severe, the resident population could eventually disappear, leaving the migrant population as characteristic of the species. These stages in the evolution of migration are represented today by permanent resident populations, partial migrants, and fully migratory species. As for all adaptations, natural selection continues to mold and modify the migratory behavior of birds as environmental conditions perpetually change and species expand or retract their geographic ranges. Hence, the migratory patterns that we observe today will not be the migratory patterns of the future.

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From here.To be honest, I'm still not sure what your objection is. Migration is not particularly difficult for the ToE to explain. It does not require a God-based explanation. We already have an explanation. What's more, there are far more extreme and improbable life-forms out there than terns. You are only scratching the surface of nature's weirdness. Mutate and Survive.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade