Quetzal, here's why I believe in God.

TJ:Wow! I want to apologize profusely for missing these posts when they were first published. They must have occurred during one of my not-infrequent absences from the board due to work, and then gotten buried under the usual avalanche of other posts. I'll need some time to read through them, so I can't promise an immediate reply. I literally had no idea you had continued this discussion until Schraf resurrected the thread.Later.

The only presuppositions of evolutionary science are the same as those of any other scientific endeavor: the regularity of natural law and the assumption that the workings of the universe are ultimately ascertainable by human senses. Beyond that, it (and I) has no presuppositions. The accusation of bias is both insulting and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of science and the way science functions. Science is an attempt to derive and understand the fundamental principles that govern the way the world works. It offers principles that are supposedly universal and constantly advances claims about things and phenomena that can’t be directly observed. To do this, scientists look for things that CAN be seen, things they feel are evidence — clues — for those things they can’t see. This evidence, these observations and clues, are then used to answer questions about what can’t be directly observed. EVERY science does this. It’s called methodological naturalism, and the evidence is what is found in nature (or in the lab). Scientific theories — every single one of them — rest on the shaky foundation of indirect arguments from direct observations. Even the most respected scientific theory can be revised or even discarded when new observations or new discoveries contradict the old theory. In the 18th Century scientists, smart men all, with quite reasonable evidence on their side, concluded that heat was a fluid. In the 19th Century other scientists, again with what seemed excellent evidence at the time, were convinced that continents were fixed and unmoving. The difference between science and religion, for example, is that the history of science is littered with the discarded bodies of theories which didn’t or couldn’t stand the light of new discovery. Sometimes, the old theory is incorporated into the new — Newtonian mechanics wasn’t destroyed by Einsteinian relativity — it was subsumed by it when new observations showed that strict Newtonianism (great word, eh?) was shown to be unable to account for new observations — just as Einsteinian relativity is being subsumed by quantum theory. Darwin’s and Mendel’s original theories were subsumed by the new synthesis of genetics and natural history. Heck, Darwin was completely wrong about the mechanism of inheritance — a critical element in the modern theory of evolution! And every single time, the change was based on evidence — when the old theory was unable to explain a new observation. It has absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with worldview. Anybody, regardless of their philosophical underpinnings, who desires to overthrow or modify an existing scientific theory, merely has to produce observations that are inconsistent with the theory. That’s it. This is the true strength of science. And the true strength of evolutionary theory is that in spite of 150 years of continual research, the core of the theory — natural selection and descent with modification - remains very much as Darwin first published it. No one, in all that time, has come up with an observation that significantly calls it into question.Wishing a theory away by proclaiming bias or declaring it contains untenable suppositions is the worst form of intellectual laziness. IF the theory is wrong — show me an observation that conflicts with it. Not some vague feeling or subjective experience, but a concrete observation that contradicts any key element of evolution. If you can do that, I’ll not only carry your bags, but pay to have all your friends and neighbors accompany you to Stockholm to watch you claim your prize. In the first place, you seem to be showing a lack of familiarity with both evolution and science in general. Riddle me this: how many times have physicists actually observed electrons? And yet, you accept their existence (electrons, not physicists). Why? How many times have you personally observed gravity? And yet we both agree that if I drop my coffee cup on my lap I’m going to get burned (well, in this particular case, just wet, since my current cup has gone cold). Why again? In both cases, we are inferring the existence of something that has never been directly observed, electrons and gravity. We can get away with this because science has developed ways of providing inference to the best explanation. In the case of electrons, science has been able to state, IF X exists, and IF X has the following properties, then we should be able to manipulate it to produce phenomenon Y. Ta Da! Electric lights and computers. In the case of gravity, we can make an observation along the lines of, since phenomenon Y exists, there must be an X that has properties that allow X to create phenomenon Y given specific starting conditions. Ta Da! My cup falls and we send landers to explore other worlds. The inferences in both cases have been tested, and found to be reasonable explanations.Evolutionary biology does the same thing. Let’s take a quick look at one of my all-time favorite examples: the tenrecs of Madagascar. The tenrecs (family Tenrecidae) are a group of some 25 distinct species divided into seven genera. They’re small insectivores with a number of features that make them appear fairly primitive in comparison to most other mammals (poor vision, a cloaca, male testes carried within the body, poor thermoregulation compared with other mammals, etc). Even in a YEC context, Noah would have had to have a pair of tenrecs on the Ark because they are so unrelated and different from any other living mammalian insectivores. Here’s the rub, direct observation in the field shows that these 25 species demonstrate a tremendous variety of lifestyles and phenotypes: from a semi-aquatic tenrec that feeds on crustaceans to ground dwelling burrower with forelegs like a mole to a ground dweller with quills like a hedgehog to a shrub-dwelling runner that’s a poor climber to a tree-dwelling climber that’s a poor runner and poor jumper to a tree-dwelling climber that can’t run but can whiz between trees like a furry superball. There are even a couple that have developed a trick using quills and vocalizations as a form of echolocation!So, what’s the explanation? Why are these little fuzzballs, in all their wondrous variety, located only here, on this one flyspeck and nowhere else?A creationist explanation would go something like this:
Hypothesis: God loves variety and beauty. For some ineffable reason of His own, He decided to create tenrecs on Madagascar. Man was not meant to know why.Follow-up: None. We’re done. We no longer have any reason to ask any questions, since God’s mystery is the answer.Evolutionary biology goes about it a bit differently, by proposing an evolutionary history, then going out and seeing if there is any evidence to support it in the form of If A, then B:Hypothesis (hereafter, H): Tenrecs are a primitive animal of which a small population became isolated on Madagascar at some time in the past, and thereafter diversified into the forms we see today.Follow-up: If H is true, since there is no way to replicate the entire natural history of this animal, what other clues would indicate that our hypothesis was reasonable (note: not confirmed or proven, but only a reasonable inference)?1. If these animals are descended from a small, isolated population, then all tenrecs should be more closely related to each other, in spite of their obvious differences in lifestyle and gross morphology, than they are to any other living organism.
Test: DNA testing of tenrecs shows that indeed they are closely related. However, that’s only half the story. We still need to find some critter on the nearest continent (Africa), that we can use as a cross-check to see if they ARE different. Voila, enter the otter shrew (Potomogale and Micropotomogale spp.) of west-central Africa. These little critters, not much resembling tenrecs outwardly, turn out to be the closest living relatives of our Malagasy furballs. DNA comparison between a selection of tenrecs and the Potomogalinae show exactly what we predicted: they’re related, but only distantly, and the Malagasy groups are more closely related to each other in general than to their continental (distant) cousins. Their cousins are close enough, however, that the whole crowd is placed in the superfamily Tenrecomorpha (which is a silly name meaning, roughly, looks like a tenrec — showing even taxonomists have a sense of humor).2. If we’re right, and the tenrecs were isolated from competition with other African organisms, there must have been something that allowed THEM to get to Madagascar, but nobody else.Test: To this we have to turn to geology rather than biology for a completely independent set of theories. These are the ones dealing with the geology of Madagascar and plate tectonics, among others. Back in the late Mesozoic or early Cenozoic, the Mozambique channel between Africa and the mainland was much narrower than today. The breakup of Gondwanaland — especially the extension of the Somali Basin that actually formed the channel — started the process. Eventually, due to plate tectonics, the island now stands some 600 km from the African mainland.3. If H is true, there will be fossil evidence of a primitive tenrec.Test: Paleontologists have identified several small insectivore fossils from Miocene Africa which share characteristics of Geogale species of tenrecs (believed, for various skeletal and other reasons to be the most primitive living tenrec) AND some features of Micropotomogale from Africa. If correct, somewhere around the Miocene the tenrec ancestor dispersed to Madagascar. There are no fossil tenrecs on Madagascar before this period. There are fossils, and subfossil remains, in various strata deposited since that time on Madagascar that show continuous occupation of the island.4. If H is true, there will be some way for tenrecs to have reached the island that would not be able to be utilized by larger, more derived mammals.Test: From ecology, there are documented cases — direct observations - where over-water dispersal of smaller mammals was possible (via rafting) that would be impossible for larger animals due to distance. Although it isn’t possible to say that this IS what happened, since we have seen it occur elsewhere, there’s nothing to preclude the same happening with the ancestor of the tenrecs. It does not falsify the hypothesis, and is a plausible mechanism. In addition, the rafting hypothesis ALSO explains the lack of representatives from any of the African megafauna on the island.5. If H is true, there must be some mechanism whereby a pair of proto-tenrecs could diversify into the multiple species alive today.Test: From ecology and biogeography, we can adopt well-understood mechanisms such as the founder effect and ecological release to explain the diversity. In addition, novel selection pressures (such as endemic predators like Cryptoprocta) and more importantly the lack of competitors in the shrew, mole, etc niche, permits animals to take advantage of new niches — and diversify. Tenrecs show exactly the type of variety expected in this kind of case.As you can see, evolutionary biology DOES make testable predictions. There IS empirical evidence that can be collected. And it does have repeatable observations that can be made regardless of worldview. Could it be falsified? Certainly. Any one of those five — and innumerable others - could have been wrong, which would have at least forced a modification of the hypothesis. As it is — even if no scientist will say that it is proven — the hypothesis offers a reasonable inference to the best explanation: tenrecs evolved on Madagascar — which is why they’re found there and nowhere else. I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood something. In the first place, methodological naturalism doesn’t make any statement equivalent to there is no Creator. The point you miss is that science makes no statement one way or the other. After all, it would be utterly futile to argue that God (or gods) doesn’t (don’t) exist, at least in a scientific context. The reason being there can be no conceivable evidence to prove this negative. To quote another common aphorism, Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. If I make the claim that there’s an invisible floating red dragon in my garage, there is literally no way you can disprove this claim. It is, by definition, an invulnerable claim. The invulnerable claim has no place in science since it can neither be tested nor falsified — two of the key provisos of scientific enquiry. Hence science doesn’t address the issue at all — it can’t.Science does not, as I’ve tried to point out with my lengthy (and yet at the same time superficial) Malagasy example above, start with any a priori assumptions about the supernatural. Does a plumber start with the assumption that a clogged drain is caused by demons? Does an agronomist tell a farmer that his crops are failing because it is God’s will? NO! Emphatically no. In both cases the starting assumption is that there is a natural cause for natural phenomena. This is precisely what evolutionary biologists, chemists, physicists, cosmologists and every other scientist on the planet does: seek natural explanations for natural phenomena. If you are to discard the methodology of one science — since all sciences use the exact same methodology — then you are forced to discard all science. I’m sure not even you are advocating this. That being the case, you are in the position of demonstrating that the claims of evolutionary biology are either erroneous or invulnerable — i.e., not scientific. Good luck.I made the statement that all organisms alive today are interrelated because that is a demonstrable fact. It isn’t an inference. It’s an observation. From the molecular level to the ecosystem/community level, and quite possibly the biosphere as a whole, every single organism alive on this planet IS related. They all receive energy ultimately from the same source, share the same basic biochemistry, and compete with each other for resources. This is one of the foundational pillars of conservation ecology, for instance. Without that understanding, there could be no possible way of preserving vanishing biodiversity among other things. I agree, there is no room for the supernatural in natural science. The reason is that if the supernatural existed, we would be unable to expect consistent results from the scientific process, as these entities would theoretically be able to change the laws governing the universe — or even simply my lab experiment — at a whim. There would be no regularity — or at least no consistent regularity — upon which we can base any scientific idea. If I would presuppose supernatural entities to exist and impact the world, I would never be able to assume that my microscope would work the same way today as it did yesterday — some entity might have simply modified the laws of optics. No scientific progress would ever be possible, in any field. Hence the search for natural causes of natural phenomena DOES exclude the supernatural. Once the gate is open, then science becomes impossible and we can never understand anything about the world around us — because it might change the next moment.

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I don’t argue quotations, especially from unverifiable sources without historical and textual context. I will say that I am willing to discuss the Sagan reference if you want to open a new thread. I have that book on my shelves, and although my version is a different edition, I was able to locate both the place where he discusses Haeckel, and where he discusses abortion. Your source has seriously distorted both cases. My philosophy has sod all to do with whether or not I can observe evidence that leads to the inference that tenrecs evolved on Madagascar. It has sod all to do with whether evolutionary theory can solve real-world problems. It has sod all to do with the demonstrated emergence of resistant microbial strains due to the overuse of antibiotics. Etc. Perhaps you could document some of these unsubstantiated just so stories that you claim have influenced my acceptance of methodological naturalism as the best method for understanding the living world. I’d be fascinated to know where my understanding — quite a bit of it based on personal observation — conflicts with reality. No, creationists don’t interpret scientific evidence. They cherry-pick out-of-context bits and pieces, factoids, and knowledge gaps then chop, crush, mangle, bend, fold, spindle and otherwise mutilate them to shoehorn into their worldview. Perhaps you’d like to document ANY advance made by a creationist using supernatural suppositions? Not scientists who are also believers making a scientific advance using methodological naturalism — like, say, Newton — but using the supernatural assumption as a starting point. Go ahead — you’ll be the first ever.You may also wish to reconsider your good design argument. Darwin’s Terrier has an entire website dedicated to this good design found in nature. You might be surprised at how incompetent, sloppy and downright cruel your designer is.