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inge1990 Guest |
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Author | Topic: Evolution guided by god? Or a natural process? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
inge1990 Guest |
Hello!
I have no idea if it is allowed to ask questions with regard to an assignment for school on this forum,but I have a topic for a presentation in which I will try to convince people that God created the universe and organisms, but that God also guides the process of evolution. Now I was wondering if there are "arguments" (not scientifically proven) to support the statement that Evolution is guided by God, and that is not just a natural process occuring after the creation. Are there any suggestions on this?
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AdminNosy Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
We don't usually encourage cheating on your homework here. But if you want to engage in a discussion you are welcome. I have prematurely moved this to a discussion forum for you to get it started. However, you should start by supplying what arguments you have so far. You have picked a tough one, you know. There are no arguments that stand up to scrutiny -- none. And we've had lots of people try before. Edited by AdminNosy, : No reason given.
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5528 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
inge1990, maybe this quote has legs for your assignment:
There is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. Charles Darwin, 1859 (the last sentence of The Origins of Species). I can see Lower Slobovia from my house.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Now I was wondering if there are "arguments" (not scientifically proven) to support the statement that Evolution is guided by God and that is not just a natural process occuring after the creation. I guess there are lots of arguments that are not scientifically proven. And, indeed, dumber than a bag of hammers. They tend to take this form:
We can see that evolution happened. But I don't understand how such-and-such a thing evolved. So God must have intervened to make it evolve. Logically, such arguments are puerile; biologically, they tend to be flawed in detail. And theologically, they seem to be flawed as well. If evolution was God's idea, presumably he'd set it up so that it worked. By analogy, if I write a computer program to perform some calculation, I don't write it so that every now and then I have to stop the program and rewrite the code in order to get it to do what I want. I'd be a pretty lame programmer if I did. Instead I write it so that I press the start button and the program does the rest.
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Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 7.4 |
Hello! I have no idea if it is allowed to ask questions with regard to an assignment for school on this forum,but I have a topic for a presentation in which I will try to convince people that God created the universe and organisms, but that God also guides the process of evolution. Now I was wondering if there are "arguments" (not scientifically proven) to support the statement that Evolution is guided by God, and that is not just a natural process occuring after the creation. Are there any suggestions on this? Evolution is driven by mutation and genetic drift guided by natural selection. When you look at the process itself, it's quite apparent that the process itself is inevitable - no guidance would be necessary, any more than a dropped ball requires guidance to fall to the ground. The copying process for DNA replication is imperfect, and so inevitably minor copying errors are made now and again when organisms reproduce. Since these changes are made to the genetic code of an organism, occasionally some of those changes will be expressed as an altered trait compared to the new organism's ancestor. Some of these altered traits will be beneficial in the organisms environment, or a disaster can alter the environment and allow previously neutral or even detrimental mutations to be beneficial. Those individuals in the population who are slightly better adapted to their current environment will tend to reproduce more, and those beneficial mutations will gradually spread to the majority of the population over several generations. Given a system where resources are limited and reproduction is slightly imperfect, species changing over time is inevitable jsut as that ball falling to the ground is given a Universe that includes gravity. Your argument will likely need to be focused around the random aspects of mutation. Bear in mind that mutations are not compeltely random - they still need to obey the laws of chemistry, and so while mutations can be extremely varied and over time produce enormous variety through cumulative small changes, the "whirlwind in a scrapyard" argument is inappropriate. You could argue that a deity directly "nudges" chance now and again to ensure the inevitable process of evolution leads to the deity's goal. Counter-arguments will typically revolve around vestigial organs and other such "design flaws" - if a deity is guiding the process, it would appear that the deity is extremely bad at designing organisms. Even the extensive variety of life on Earth points to the conclusion that there is no "goal" or intent behind evolution, and that life simply "goes with whatever works" at the time. Attempting to argue that the variety "demonstrates the grandness of God" is simply an argument from personal incredulity, a logical fallacy. A better argument might be that, if a deity Created the Universe, that deity defined the behaviors and properties of the Universe (which we try to describe through scientific laws and theories) in such a way that evolution would happen - a sort of divine clockmaker who designed the process of evolution itself rather than designing organisms directly. This bypasses the "poor design" counter. Because all action on the deity's part would occur at the creation of the Universe, no evidence of his direct hand in events would be found. Whatever argument you use, however, is going to run into problems. Essencially, none of the arguments are based on fact and evidence - they're bare speculation. That's basically the entire issue with Creationism/Intelligent Design/etc - they all involve unfoudned and unsupported conclusions that are not based in objective fact, but rather on speculation and unfalsifiable assertions. I know that this is what you've asked for, but such "arguments" are extremely weak because they don't have anything of real substance to back them up. One might as well claim that an invisible pink unicorn is standing next to you - I have no evidence to support such a claim, but neither can you falsify it because the unicorn is supposed to be invisible. I can "argue" that the unicorn affects your daily life by say, preventing lethal wyvern attacks, but when it comes down to it we're really pulling assertions from thin air. Real arguments must be backed up with objective fact and evidence, else there is literally nothing distinguishing your claims from figments of your imagination. I currently know of no arguments supporting the existing of a deity (let alone said deity "guiding" evolution) that are based on objective fact and evidence. They are all arguments from faith, which by definition is a belief not based on objective evidence. Oh...and welcome to EvC, and good luck on your assignment!
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2505 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
inge1990 writes: Now I was wondering if there are "arguments" (not scientifically proven) to support the statement that Evolution is guided by God, I've never heard any arguments along those lines that I consider any good, but that's just me! However, maybe I can point to some of the better attempts. Try John Polkinghorne for some theology from someone who is a respected scientist in his own right, and an Anglican Bishop. One of his ideas is that evolution is God's way of giving us free will, which may interest you as a Christian. And Simon Conway Morris, a respected paleontologist, and a Christian who thinks that convergence that we see in evolution is an indication of direction, and relates this to his religious beliefs. Both, in perhaps different ways, also seem to imply that the human mind contains something beyond what evolution might produce. But both are certainly believers in evolution and common descent. If you google those two names, you should find some material from them somewhere related to evolution.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
It is a minor point, but for accuracy it should be be pointed out that the quote you gave is not from 1859, but from 1860 (ie., the second edition). The 1859 quote is
quote: But I'm not sure an argument that it is a grand view is too compelling. I'd go for a much stronger argument:
quote: Which is of course, the great Paley - the last respectable ID theorist Though it is an old argument, Aquinas writes:
quote: Or going further back to Cicero
quote: So what if its a two thousand year old argument? It remains the best there is.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2505 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Modulous writes: Or going further back to Cicero... Thanks for that last one, fellow barbarian, as I don't remember reading it before. The Blind Horologe-Maker, eh?
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
A better argument might be that, if a deity Created the Universe, that deity defined the behaviors and properties of the Universe (which we try to describe through scientific laws and theories) in such a way that evolution would happen - a sort of divine clockmaker who designed the process of evolution itself rather than designing organisms directly. This bypasses the "poor design" counter. Because all action on the deity's part would occur at the creation of the Universe, no evidence of his direct hand in events would be found. Whatever argument you use, however, is going to run into problems. Essencially, none of the arguments are based on fact and evidence - they're bare speculation. Now consider the ones that are not contradicted by fact and evidence ... In other words they are inherently bad speculations because you can't prove or disprove them, while the equally bare speculation that there are no gods is a good speculation that does not "run into problems" because it is not based on fact and evidence ... Thanks. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4022 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Hi, inge1990. Be sure to mention the vast numbers of bacteria God created to keep his Prime Creation not only alive, but under constant attack. And how they are evolving.
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Huntard Member (Idle past 2323 days) Posts: 2870 From: Limburg, The Netherlands Joined: |
inge1990 writes:
Well, I can think of "God is omnipotent, so he can guide evolution without anyone noticing". Now I was wondering if there are "arguments" (not scientifically proven) to support the statement that Evolution is guided by God, and that is not just a natural process occuring after the creation. The problem with these arguments, as others have pointed out, is precisely that there is absolutely no evidence for them. So while they might be true, there's no way to tell. In fact, the same argument given above, can be used to say that the invisible pink unicorn is driving evolution, or the flying spaghetti monster, or whatever. And basically, so can any other argument you use. So, while there are arguments to use that god is guiding evolution, they're pretty much worthless, precisely because there is no evidence for them and they can be used for any imaginary deity. BTW, are you Dutch (or Belgian)? I hunt for the truth
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inge1990 Guest |
Indeed, I am Dutch
Thank you for all your reactions! It really helped me!And I'm sure I will visit this forum more often, I am really interested in those things. (I noticed this during the last few weeks, when I was working on my assignment , I had to choose a topic related to Darwin, and since I believe in the evolution theory, but also believe in God, my main focus is theistic evolution). I already had one "argument" which is maybe more or less related to Rahvin's reply: "It is argued that evolution would require some kind of guidance to guarantee that random variation combined with undirected selection would produce any particular creature. There are simply too many accidents involved without guidance." (I have this from another site) Another argument I have (maybe not directly related to guidance by god, but to faith/belief), is a question James and Clifford ever proposed:Must ALL your beliefs be dictated by the evidence you have and by nothing else? Further I also talk about some "gaps" in the Big Bang theory,the first organisms and the origin of DNA (to support creation by God). The evidence for the evolution theory (to support that evolution is true), but after that I want to convince people that evolution should be guided by god (The only thing I still need to work on). The presentation and essay don't have to prove that the story of God is true, but it has to be persuasive, So I hope I am! By the way ... I will go to a lecture from Cees Dekker (see wikipedia for information about him ), and if he has some interesting things to say (I'm sure about that) I will definitelylet you know! (if I get his permission)
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I had to choose a topic related to Darwin, and since I believe in the evolution theory, but also believe in God, my main focus is theistic evolution). But it's a strange leap from belief in God to arguing that he guides evolution as a primary cause. It's as though someone were to say; "I believe that the planets travel in ellipses; but because I believe in God, I want to prove that God, not the law of gravity and the laws of motion, causes them do so." As I have pointed out, this is theologically dubious. If God created the Universe and its laws, surely it would be smarter of him to create it with laws that achieve his purpose, rather than laws that thwart his purpose and that he needs to overcome with a series of miracles.
The evidence for the evolution theory (to support that evolution is true), but after that I want to convince people that evolution should be guided by god (The only thing I still need to work on). Your terminology is wrong. The theory of evolution is the explanation of how evolution works: mutation, recombination, natural selection, genetic drift, and so forth. What you believe in is the fact of evolution; you are trying to argue against the theory of evolution.
It is argued that evolution would require some kind of guidance to guarantee that random variation combined with undirected selection would produce any particular creature. There are simply too many accidents involved without guidance. "Too many"? Oh, but I forgot, you didn't require that the arguments should be scientific, or you'd need some sort of numbers in it.
Another argument I have (maybe not directly related to guidance by god, but to faith/belief), is a question James and Clifford ever proposed: Must ALL your beliefs be dictated by the evidence you have and by nothing else? Imagine if you were sitting on a jury and the counsel for the defense addressed that argument to you. Wouldn't you start to think that he must have an incredibly weak case? --- Here's an argument against God acting as the primary cause of evolution. (Yes, I know it's not what you asked for, but it's what I've got.) The history of evolution is littered with failures and dead-ends. We can point to species that didn't make it ... and genera ... and families ... and orders ... and classes ... and phyla. At the lowest level, we see lots of failed mutations that will never make it: mutations that lead to death or severe handicap or sterility. Does this look like the product of a perfect, all-knowing God, or of the hit-and-miss processes described by the theory of evolution?
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Fosdick  Suspended Member (Idle past 5528 days) Posts: 1793 From: Upper Slobovia Joined: |
"Modulous" writes:
You are correct in the sequence of editions of The Origin of Species, wherein "the Creator" was left out of the first edition but included in the second. The question is: Why? It is a minor point, but for accuracy it should be be pointed out that the quote you gave is not from 1859, but from 1860 (ie., the second edition). The 1859 quote is
quote: I think the answer is revealing: In the beginning there was no Creator, but he had to be retro-fitted to the job to sell more books. I can see Lower Slobovia from my house.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You are correct in the sequence of editions of The Origin of Species, wherein "the Creator" was left out of the first edition but included in the second. The question is: Why? I think the answer is revealing: In the beginning there was no Creator, but he had to be retro-fitted to the job to sell more books. Well - given that every single copy of the first edition sold out so a second edition was put out within a few months, I don't think selling more was necessarily the agenda in question. Besides the first edition was not without mention of a Creator:
quote: quote: quote: All taken from the first edition.
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