What we must accept if we accept evolution

Disagreed. Lets see...Materialism: Everything that actually exists is material, or physical.A: Why has population x changed over time?
B: Because of variations in heriditable features (occuring at the genetic level) with a selection process such as natural selection leads to said changes.
A: So you don't accept that your house has a Domovoi?
B: Erm, sorry, how can you reach that conclusion?Non sequitur.determinism: The philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs.A: Why has population x changed over time?
B: Because of variations in heriditable features (occuring at the genetic level) with a selection process such as natural selection leads to said changes.
A: So you don't accept quantum indeterminacy?
B: Erm, sorry, how can you reach that conclusion?Non sequitur.atheism: Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.A: Why has population x changed over time?
B: Because of variations in heriditable features (occuring at the genetic level) with a selection process such as natural selection leads to said changes.
A: So you don't accept that Eos has rosy fingers?
B: Erm, sorry, how can you reach that conclusion?Non sequitur.nihilism: Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.A: Why has population x changed over time?
B: Because of variations in heriditable features (occuring at the genetic level) with a selection process such as natural selection leads to said changes.
A: So you don't think that there is value in existence, and that morality is thus meaningless?
B: Erm, sorry, how can you reach that conclusion?Non sequitur.

Domovoi are not material entities...I provided a link for you to help. No, I am saying that someone can conceivably accept both ToE and quantum indeterminacy. I provided a link for you. Eos is a goddess. Thanks for your opinion, but that wasn't the point I was making. Simply accepting ToE does not mean one accepts nihilism...none of your conclusions logically follow.

My point is that upon learning that somebody accepts that the Theory of Evolution is useful explanatory framework for explaining why populations change (ie they accept the ToE), can you make the deduction that they do not believe in slavic house spirits?My point is that you have not shown how such a deduction is possible. Your logic does not follow. This is why I said 'non sequitur'. Does that clarify things for you?

Germ theory supercedes the supernatural explanation that God made you ill, the devil made you sick, or evil spirits possessed your body. Germ theory rejects the supernatural explanation. To paraphrase robinrohan:

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My view would be that Germ Theory logically excludes the supernatural, or at any rate it excludes the idea of God in the conventional sense.

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Yet you have failed to actually show that using any logical construction. You've just asserted it. You are telling me that I can not logically believe that populations change due to variations in heredity and a selection process AND that I should pay homage to the Leszi when I visit his grove?How on earth does what your saying make any kind of logical sense?The only supernatural entity that is being rejected is a 'spirit of population change'. In fact, one can accept the spirit of population change, and believe that it causes that which we term 'random mutations'.What you are saying is effectively to accept the ToE one must be a naturalist, rejecting the supernatural, otherwise you are being logically inconsistent. You have not shown how or why this is the case.

Neither does ToE. Careful. ToE is not about the origins of human life. ToE is an explanatory framework for understanding why populations change. It doesn't explain where humans come from unless you start from the well tested hypothesis of common descent, and then we have one common population which has changed over time. The ToE is very good at explaining why populations change so it can be applied. If common descent is not true, we are plugging erroneous information into ToE. The theory of evolution explains in physical observable terms how populations change. How their allele frequencies can vary over time and what physcial parameters we know that cause this change. It is nothing to do with the purpose of life. I wish it were, but it has as much to say with the purpose of life as does Germ Theory. Precisely nothing.Let's see if you can spot the purported meaning of life in this summary of ToEThe theory of evolution explains how a population's allele frequencies have changed over the course of several generations. It states that heriditable traits, such as DNA, vary slightly from generation to generation, these variations are then acted upon by a selective pressure, so that certain variations are statistically more likely to have higher reproductive success than others. Thus certain variations will become less frequent, others moreso.ToE has no comment on the purpose of life, it just helps explain what all life seems to do:- Reproduce and change generation after generation.

15 billion years ago there was energy. That energy formed "minds". Those "minds" could influence energy, and they formed matter. This matter formed into the universe as we see it today.The "minds" tweaked matter to form self replicating nucleotides, and helped these replicators along slightly in their quest.A billion years later the "minds" saw that this 'life' was still running and they had an idea, "what if we had 'life'? Wouldn't that be fabulous?" They tweaked again and multicelularity was born. Millions of years of playing and one design was proving succesful, Dinosaurs. "Perhaps we can be dinosaurs!" Several "minds" inhabited these creatures but the experiment was cut short by rogue cadre of "minds" who one morning threw a gigantic asteroid at earth. This 'morning star' wiped out the dinosaurs in one swoop, and the head "mind" behind the attack was dubbed the light bringer. He was very adversarial, but he was eventually banished in realm of energy maintained by It that is, the great "evermind".Meanwhile, the mammal experiment was doing wonders, and a bit of tweaking led to primates, and finally to humans. About 2 million years ago these "minds" started to inhabit these humans, and devised a channel system whereby new "minds" are automatically injected into fetuses as part of the normal reproductive event...so called 'sexual energy'. Thus, the purpose of "life" is to give every mind a "go" at experiencing this rollercoaster ride of physicality.

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There you go, one could easily accept the theory of evolution, but reject materialism and naturalism AND have a purpose in life to boot. If one rejects pure naturalism one can easily reject the Natural History of life, and instead employ the theory of evolution to generate a supernatural history of life.As they say in the IT world, Garbage In, Garbage Out.Some people believe that supernaturalism is Garbage, so they would say that any history of life that you concoct using the ToE that includes supernaturalism will be garbage.Some people believe that pure naturalism is garbage. Trying to concoct a History of life with the ToE only using naturalism is going to produce garbage.Edited a typo and a confused sentence.This message has been edited by Modulous, Sun, 22-January-2006 05:20 PM

Of course it isn't, however it isn't at odds with the theory of evolution in any way. One could accept both as true with no logical inconsistency. The purpose of the scenario was to show:

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one could easily accept the theory of evolution, but reject materialism and naturalism AND have a purpose in life to boot.

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without any logical inconsistencies. Agreed - as are all scientific theories, pretty much by definition. If we accept a certain physical explanation for a certain physical phenomenon does that mean we logically cannot accept a certain supernatural explanation of an entirely different physical (or indeed a non-physical) phenomenon? I wouldn't say that the theory of evolution is evidence of (say) my magical story. I would simply say that my story could be true and the theory of evolution could be true at the same time with no logical inconsistency. It is not necessary to be a materialist to be logically consistant whilst accepting the ToE.

The ToE says that populations change due to variations in heriditable features which are acted upon by a selection process. The variations part is usually in reference to random mutations of the genome during replication. The ToE is perfectly fine with other types of mutations leading to change, such as directed mutations (for example humans genitiically modifying crops changes the allelle frequencies of those populations). Natural selection is the only observed form of selection outside of human artificial selection, though the latter is not verboten to ToE, if evidence of such selection came to light. But natural selection can exist as well as supernatural selection. It wouldn't falsify ToE, it would just mean that ToE as it stands is an incomplete theory...and given the tentative nature of scientific conclusions is a perfectly 'natural' state of affairs. No you can accept ToE because ToE DOES explain how populations change. That there might be other things that cause the heriditable variations is not anathema to ToE, neither does the possibility of other selection media such as our artificial selection (or selective breeding) jeopardise the ToE at all.

No it doesn't. I've said this before. The Theory of Evolution simply provides an explanation for how populations change over time. Populations *do* change over time, the ToE puts together an explanation regarding the causes of this change.If we say, humans were created by God. We can then say, 'how has our population of humans changed since Adam and Eve' and the response would be 'The allele frequency variations were caused by variations in the genome coupled with a selection process'.If we say, all organisms share a common ancestral population. We can then say 'how has our original population changed into the diversity we see today?' and the answer would be 'The allele frequency variations were caused by variations in the genome coupled with a selection process'.The same explanation with two different origins.If you define the 'mind' as a non-physical entity, then ToE certainly makes no attempt to explain its origins. If you define the 'mind' as a physical construct of the brain, then yes the ToE can attempt to explain its origins (though it would need a lot more data than is available to succeed in its explanation). ToE does not tell us that mind came from the physical, there could be somewhere else for it to come from. A naturalist would tell you that the mind stems from the physical, but a supernaturalist might not. If the mind does not come from the physical then the ToE has no comment on it or how it came about (the ToE is about physical properties, heriditable features varying etc. If the mind is not a heriditable feature that can vary then the ToE is not a tool that can be used to explain it). That is an opinion though, and a philosophical one at that. What if thoughts aren't really something physical? If thoughts and mind aren't physical I'm sure they aren't heriditable features that can vary.

Science = tentative. What I am saying is the ToE explains how populations change over time. The ToE is a science theory so it puts forward the natural explanations for a thing. If a supernatural entity was involved then science would be unable to explain it. However, a supernatural entity could exist that is entirely uninvolved with the process of evolution. The ToE simply says, here is a how species evolve, here are the mechanisms we have so far discovered that lead to this population change over generations (epigenitics, mutation (random or deliberate) selection (natural or artificial)- however there may be other mechanisms we have not yet explored. The ToE makes no comment on whether or not we are the only species (or entity) to practice deliberate mutations and artificial selection - that is one for the natural historians. If our 'minds' practiced the tweaking I discussed earlier, then the ToE would stand perfectly as it is with no change necessary.Despite the fact that there is purpose to life, supernatural things and immaterial entities.If you had quoted me a little more you would have seen I am basically repeating myself:

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The ToE is perfectly fine with other types of mutations leading to change, such as directed mutations (for example humans genitiically modifying crops changes the allelle frequencies of those populations). Natural selection is the only observed form of selection outside of human artificial selection, though the latter is not verboten to ToE, if evidence of such selection came to light.

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ToE would not change if historical selection came to light. Population changes would occur in exactly the same way it describes now.Hence why I said:

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But natural selection can exist as well as supernatural selection. It wouldn't falsify ToE, it would just mean that ToE as it stands is an incomplete theory...and given the tentative nature of scientific conclusions is a perfectly 'natural' state of affairs.

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and the other thing:

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That there might be other things that cause the heriditable variations is not anathema to ToE, neither does the possibility of other selection media such as our artificial selection (or selective breeding) jeopardise the ToE at all.

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So to repeat myself yet again:The ToE doesn't say that it happened naturally at all, and you are going to need to actually show how it unequivically states this to move forward here.The ToE says that populations change through variations heriditable features and a selection medium. The variations can happen naturally (eg random mutation), or they can happen deliberately (genetic modification). The selection can be natural, or it can be artificial (Breeding). These are all ways in which populations change, and they are all within the paradigm of ToE.There is only ONE thing which states the ToE must have happened naturally....naturalism. However one doesn't have to be a naturalist to logically accept ToE. One does not become a naturalist if one accepts one natural explanation for an observed phenomenon. In order to be a naturalist one must believe that all phenomenon have natural explanations.You are simply getting the two ideas mixed up. You think the ToE is special because it describes our origins, when it doesn't. Even if it did explain our origins that would only exclude certain supernatural things, not ALL supernatural things. Even if ToE explicitly excludes the Abrahamic God from existence, that doesn't exclude Domovoi, Leszi, Eos, telepathy etc.You are conflating:
ToE with naturalism.
ToE with natural history and common descent
Supernaturalism with Abrahamic monotheismThese are all massively contested positions, and you are going to have to show them to be true or accept they are not. Otherwise I am just going to continue repeating to you that the ToE is an explanatory framework to explain the causes of population allele frequency change over a number of generations and not a statement of origins or doctrine of naturalism.

You are getting confused between the Theory and conclusions that can be drawn using that theory and other evidences. They are two different things. Not quite. Its the application of the theory that leads us to these issues. Science is generally has consensus that we all were once part of the same population...if that is the case the ToE explains how that population has diverged to such an extent. The problem is that the ToE is so perfectly consistent with the idea of common descent and all the evidence is self confirming that people conflate this tremendous conclusion with the theory itself. I assure you it is the ToEs conclusions that get people worked up.This is irrelevant though - your OP was not about rejecting supernatural origins it was about rejecting all supernatural things and only accepting that which is material and natural and an existence devoid of meaning. Maybe you misunderstand? If the supernatural exists then science is ill equipped to form explanatory frameworks for those things. I don't know where you got this from. Science is tentative so we must always be aware that our conclusions are not hard fact and can always be challenged with superior information. We can make statements such as 'The theory of evolution is the best explanatory framework detailing population changes over generations, it has utility and as such we will employ that utility'. What would 'supernatural' evidence look like? We might find something supernatural, it might be considered evidence, but science wouldn't be able to explain anything about it. Well its just a convenient way of saying that the ToE can employed to come to conclusions about previous generations and develop (along with physical evidence) conclusions about the origins of the current taxa. The ToE can be employed to do that, though conclusions are tentative they are based on good solid logically consistent science. There is so much evidence that it would be absolutely astonishing if it turned out to not be a valid conclusion that most or all contempory organisms were ancestrly part of a common population. Possibly. Assuming that all these other creatures and the one celled bacteria shared a common ancestrial population then we can use the ToE to explain how they diverged and changed. We would need to examine some physical evidence (testing) to confirm whether the conclusions we reach using the ToE are falsified or not. I covered this already in Message 148:

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If we say, humans were created by God. We can then say, 'how has our population of humans changed since Adam and Eve' and the response would be 'The allele frequency variations were caused by variations in the genome coupled with a selection process'.

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If we say, all organisms share a common ancestral population. We can then say 'how has our original population changed into the diversity we see today?' and the answer would be 'The allele frequency variations were caused by variations in the genome coupled with a selection process'.

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It doesn't matter where humans came from when applying the theory, whatever your population change is, you can try applying the theory and seeing if the result makes any sense.

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Sarcasm rarely leads to civilised debate. Fortunately I'm able to ignore the goading tone, but somebody else might rise to it and devolve this topic into something stupid and pointless for the next 10 pages.

I do get annoyed by equivications. I have a whole thread dedicated to something very similar that being discussed here...if you want to discuss equivications pop on over there.There is a big difference between a theory and conclusions drawn from that theory. Are you telling me that there is no distinction between theory and practice?Another way of looking at it is fact vs theory. There is a phenomenon and a theory to explain that. One could say the phenomenon is common descent, the ToE explains that phenomenon. As one Douglas J. Futuyma put it:

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A few words need to be said about the "theory of evolution," which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, "theory" often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, "theory" means "a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed." as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved "facthood" as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled "New evidence for evolution;" it simply has not been an issue for a century.

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One of the big cheeses of evolutionary biology explicitly stating that the idea that ToE is the proposition regarding common ancestors is a common misconceptin and that the ToE is a body of interconnected statements about the things that cause population changes.On its own, the Theory says nothing whatsoever about what happened 10 million years ago. We actually need to plug data into the theory to reach conclusions. Data such as genetic similarity, fossil morphology, current morphology, etc etc. We can then see if a hypothesis about common ancestors can be falsified, or strengthened...using the theory.I am not suggesting there is evidence for the theory but no evidence for its conclusions. Actually quite the contrary. The conclusions are based on combining physical evidence with the ToE.As I have said, whether or not ToE deals with origins is entirely irrelevant. That seems to be your only reason for thinking that acceptance of ToE means rejection of the supernatural. Your two lines of post in reply to me does not tackle the 'even if you're right about ToE, it still doesn't lead to rejection of the supernatural' comment I made:

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your OP was not about rejecting supernatural origins it was about rejecting all supernatural things and only accepting that which is material and natural and an existence devoid of meaning.

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So let me reiterate my central position: Even if accepting ToE somehow means rejecting a supernatural creator it does not mean rejecting all other supernatural entities and explanations.

We must accept athiesm if we accept ToE.
We must accept materialism if we accept ToESo sayeth RR. RR claims that ToE is different from all other theories because other theories: (Message 74)Trying to point out that there is a difference between common ancestry and the ToE got me nowhere, coming to a conclusion with RR getting rather, I don't know the word but 'emotional' seems to fit, in Message 161 followed by the final post complaining of equivocation in Message 164.I have even pointed out that the distinction between the ToE and common ancestry is, without equivocation, held to exist by evo-biologists such as Futuyma in Message 170, but silence followed.I have attempted to as often as possible have a paragraph in each post which basically says "even if you are right about ToE, or even if you changed what your OP, replacing ToE with 'common ancestry', you'd still be wrong about logical philosophical conclusions".You see, the big difference between common ancestry and Germ Theory is that it deals with 'origins'. This makes no difference. At the very worst it dictates the methodology that a creator might have used...however not all gods are creator gods. Many gods are irrelevant to human origins and the purpose of life. Why do we need to stop accepting these gods because we reject some other gods?We don't. Therefore we don't need to be atheists to accept the ToE.RR claims that ToE claims the mind is only physical, and if it is only physical it must be deterministic.RR has been unable to substantiate that the ToE says this. Actually despite my numerous definitions of the ToE, RR hasn't actually put one forward. Above this there has been no acceptance that quantum indeterminancy might reject the determinist idea.To conclude, one can accept the ToE and believe in Eos. Theism with no logical inconsistency.One can accept the ToE and believe that mind is not subject to evolution and comes from elsewhere. Not materialism.One can accept the ToE and believe that the mind is purely physical and not deterministic.

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Not actually looking for a reply. I just like to sum things up for the lurkers and myself so the debate has a sense of closure.

Creationists would tell you its all about interpretation. They accept the collection of explanations that is the ToE, (ie they accept microevolution) but they reject massive population change (macroevolution). In essence you are discussing common ancestry rather than ToE. It might seem pedantic, but I think its important. I've mentioned three types of supernatural entity: Eos (Goddess of Dawn), Domovoi (house spirit) and Leszi (Woodland spirit). No worries - its a busy thread with lots of different directions, perfectly understandable, sorry about my impatience.