THE EVOLUTIONISTS' GUIDE TO PROPER CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOUR

Someone else also said this in another thread, or maybe it was you, I don't remember. Anyway, I think it's been explained that there is only one definition of the ToE: descent with modification through natural selection.Different people here will use different words to describe the ToE (the above words happen to be Darwin's), but they are all describing the same theory.--Percy

I'd just be guessing what this means. If you want to be clearer or more specific I'd be glad to respond.In the meantime, I think you may be going beyond the scope of what I was saying. Satcomm said there are many definitions of the ToE, and I was only pointing out that no matter what words are used to describe the ToE, there is only one ToE. As Shraf has already observed, this is the God of the Gaps fallacy. The fallacy is obvious if you reflect a bit on the history of science. You can pick any point in the development of scientific knowledge, point to knowledge gaps that existed at that time, and declaim, "Here be God!"A good example of the God of the Gaps fallacy is the motion of the planets around the sun. At one time science had no explanation for this, and it was believed the planets were propelled by the wind from the beating of angel's wings. Today we know that the planets are merely following the laws of physics.Given the large number of phenomena once attributed to God that now have natural scientific explanations, what gives you any confidence that those things you attribute to God today won't be explained by science tomorrow?YECs take an interesting approach to this problem. They take phenomena that science explained yesterday and attribute them to God anyway.--Percy

Schraf was using an analogy to explain why requiring evolution to explain abiogenesis makes no sense, saying: Perhaps her point becomes more clear if you replace the word "wind" with "air". A similar analogy would be to ask, "Do you likewise criticize chemistry because it does not explain where elements came from?"Evolution is a theory of how species change over time into new species. It is not a theory of where the first species came from.--Percy

Make your case, then, for how it is unconvincing. You can walk from New York to San Francisco one little step at a time. You can wear down a mountain to a plain a grain of sand at a time. Small changes gradually accumulate into large changes. Why do you think this isn't true for evolution? You're just restating your initial premise, and my reply is the same. Given the large number of phenomena once attributed to God that now have natural scientific explanations, what gives you any confidence that those things you attribute to God today won't be explained by science tomorrow? I'm a theist.--Percy

Hmmmm, good point! Perhaps we could consider the current diversion as an example for Jet of how it is possible to disagree yet still be civil. I think you'll find that this definition places you on a slippery slope because of the ambiguous definnition of "directly". If an experimenter who takes a reading off a gauge wears eyeglasses, is that directly or indirectly? Directly, right? Few would assert that use of eyeglasses makes an observation indirect.But what about the gauge itself. Let's say the gauge is attached directly to the pipe whose pressure it measures. Is that directly? Even though we're using a gauge to detect the pressure rather than our own senses? Most people would probably believe this is directly. What if the gauge is part of an instrument panel with wires connected to a sensor in a pipe out in the industrial plant? Is that direct or indirect? What if it's radio telemetry to a satellite - direct or indirect?And what of things that are impossible to directly observe, such as electrons and quarks, or the interiors of the earth and sun? Is science to be cut off from studying them because they are not directly observable?The key requirement for science is not direct observation, but evidence. And the key requirement for gathering evidence is establishing a chain of causation from the event itself to the human observable expression of that event.A simple example of this is the filming of a bullet hitting a lightbulb. It happens too fast for the human eye to perceive, but high speed photography can stop the bullet and provide a record of events that we could never directly observe.--Percy

Perhaps you could provide an example of one of the gaps you have in mind. Whose interpretation of the Bible? I'm certainly aligned with some very large Christian denominations in not making a literal interpretation of the Bible, such as the Methodists and the Catholics, and they're theistic religions. You listed a bunch of things in an earlier post, a couple of which you include here, but we didn't discuss it, and to be honest, I don't know what they are. You'll have to be more specific.--Percy

Actually, the points were brought up to illustrate why attempting to draw a line between direct and indirect observation is the wrong approach. As you noted in an earlier post, where you draw that line is inherently ambiguous, and that's why the approach you suggest would not be very effective in a process which works through consensus.It is not direct vs. indirect that is key, but whether there is an established chain of causation from the event itself to the human observable expression of that event. I gave the example a bullet passing through a light bulb, an unobservable event, and here's another example. The mass and charge of the electron were determined without any direct observation of electrons. The charge was determined by the Milliken oil drop experiment, and once the charge was known the mass was determined by measuring the deflection of the electron in a magnetic field as recorded on a photographic plate.All these things are not directly observable, but you probably accept them. That is why your direct vs. indirect criteria isn't workable.--Percy[Fix typo. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percipient, 02-04-2003]

Okay, it's up to you. I thought focusing on a single "gap" might make clear the fallacy under which you're operating. Since you don't want to choose one, I will. How about the one about the theoretical constants of our universe being just right for life? Change any one of them by the scantest amount and life couldn't exist.How is this an argument against evolution? It isn't even biology, it's physics. And it applies equally to all sciences. Change any of these constants and physics and chemistry would no longer work, and our universe as we know couldn't even exist.So why don't we focus on something closer to the Creation/Evolution discussion? It really isn't possible to argue against your general assertion of "the gaps invalidate the mega-ToE model". Pick a gap related to evolution so we can understand what you're getting at.--Percy

Actually I've been getting the feeling that we have different conceptions of what constitutes a "gap", and I was hoping for clarification by way of example. I don't, so it sounds like we agree. I was just offering one item from the list you provided in Message 22 in the Exactly 'HOW' intelligent must a Designer be ? thread. As I suspected, we're talking about different types of gaps. The type of gap you mention here is without significance relative to the validity of evolutionary theory. It's a scientific/historical issue whose answer is a function of availability of evidence, of which there is very little.Questioning evolutionary theory because we're unable to piece together the evolutionary history of the arch of the foot would be like questioning the laws of physics because we can't figure out the origin of a newly discovered comet. Both of these questions are unanswerable due to lack of information about very specific situations, and not to any theoretical lack.--Percy